Fic: Airbender's Child: Water 10/12
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story, in fact a lot of the dialogue will probably be cadged straight from the show itself, which means I own even less.
Author's Notes: I want to clarify something in advance. There are no smexytiems in this chapter. All snuggling is completely platonic, and due to Zuko's distinct lack of honest, human, physical affection as a child.
They had listened to the storyteller, then to the man's grandfather tell them about the 'airwalkers' he had seen only the week before. Aang had eagerly descended into chatter about seeing airbenders again, and since the Northern Temple, seemingly the place where they had settled, was mostly on the way, Sokka hadn't objected and Katara had happily agreed. Zuko had kept quiet about it all.
Before they went to bed that evening, he'd cornered Sokka. "I don't think these 'airwalkers' are airbenders. If they are, I have a very bad feeling about it."
"Why do you think so?" Sokka asked. "Does it have something to do with the way the enclaves are, or something?" His friend waved a hand in the air, vaguely.
"Something like that," Zuko agreed. "The reason the Air Nomads have continued to hide is that the Fire Nation still has an extermination policy."
"What?" Sokka asked, shocked. "What do you mean?"
Zuko sighed. "I mean, whenever a Nomad group is found, Fire Nation troops are sent to raze the site to the ground. The ground troops are generally told it's a stronghold of resistance, or that 'enemies of the Fire Nation' are using the civilians as cover." He shook his head sadly, and leaned against a tree trunk. "I've seen the policy being executed from the top."
Sokka stared, horrified. "They just . . . kill everyone?"
"You have to understand, Sokka," Zuko pleaded. "Most of the Fire Nation doesn't know what's going on outside the islands. The soldiers have been told the Earth Kingdom is full of savages who will try to take over the Islands if we don't strike preemptively. The people are told we're bringing civilised ways to the rest of the world."
"They believe that?" Sokka asked, stunned. "How . . .?"
Zuko shrugged. "They have no reason not to. The nobles know better, but then again, we're raised to believe that we are superior to all others. It's our divine right as proven by Sozin's successes at the beginning of the war."
The Water tribesman frowned as he worked through the information. "So you keep most people ignorant, and the nobles are a bunch of jerks."
"The ones with any influence, yes," Zuko said. "Either that, or they're keeping their real opinions quiet so the Fire Lord doesn't do something like this," he gestured at his scar, "to them."
Sokka was still frowning as he looked at Zuko. "You're worried they're Nomads who cut some kind of deal for Fire Nation protection."
Zuko nodded. "Exactly. Either that, or they're overconfident and about to bring down a burn-out."
"When was the last time the Fire Nation had a burn-out?" came Aang's voice from behind them.
Zuko whipped around. "Aang!"
Aang just looked sadly at him. "When, Lee?" Katara stood beside him, looking horrified.
Swallowing back a more biting comment, Zuko said, "About three years ago. Right after I was banished, the orders to check in Cheng Dhu that I was supposed to send astray went through." He closed his eyes. "They torched the whole area and blamed the Earth Kingdom and their Water Tribe allies for the destruction. No one who would be listened to got out."
"Their own people?" Sokka asked, aghast.
"I know, because my mother made sure to send me a letter, letting me know it was my fault she and my sister were on the run with the Nomads who made it out," Zuko said. His lips quirked with black humour. "The memory's a little vague. My father had just tossed me onto my uncle's ship for the start of my banishment." He shook his head a little to clear it. "I just wanted to be prepared for this to not be quite what you hoped, Aang."
Aang soberly nodded, heading for his bedroll, much more restrained than he had been before. Sokka and Katara followed his example. Zuko waffled for a moment or two, then suddenly made his choice.
"Katara?" He poked his head into her tent.
She took one look at him and moved over, making room for him. Zuko crawled in with his own sleeping bag, settled into it, and then curled into her. She wrapped her arms around him, and ruffled his hair. This was better than sleeping with Shuga. "Shh," she told him. "It'll be okay. Your mom and sister are fine."
"She hates me," Zuko mumbled into Katara's shoulder.
"I'm sure she doesn't," she objected.
Zuko shook his head. "As far as my mother's concerned, all firebenders are the same. Evil. I'm a firebender," he explained. Katara didn't let him finish.
"You're not evil," she told him sternly. "And you're never going to say anything like that again."
"Yes, Katara."
"I mean it."
"As you say, M'lady."
"You're making fun of me."
"Only a little."
"Stop it," she poked him.
Zuko just snuggled closer. "You're better for this than Shuga."
"Why?" Katara asked curiously.
"Well, I can actually get my arms around you, whereas I can only lie on top of her. Also, you don't smell like a bison. Most of the time."
"Thanks. Keep that up and you can go back to your own tent."
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
It was a very good thing that Sokka loved sleeping late, because it meant Zuko could sneak out of Katara's tent before her brother was up, and didn't have to deal with the fallout that would happen. It wasn't like they were doing anything but sleeping and talking, but Sokka wasn't likely to listen to that if he caught Zuko wrapped around Katara the way he had been that night.
In the end, it was neither incautious airbenders nor anyone faking airbending. It was an inventor with a small settlement that had made themselves a home in the temple. While Aang became angry over the changes that had been made to the temple and Katara stayed with him, Zuko stuck with Sokka. He'd missed his friend, and even though the inventions didn't particularly interest him, it was amusing to watch Sokka enthuse, and he was happy enough spending time with his friend.
It was when the Mechanist was revealed to have been making weapons for the Fire Nation that Zuko found himself again at odds with his friends. While they were making plans for the defense of the temple, Aang cornered Zuko. "Lee? I need to know something."
"What is it, Aang?" he asked, as he continued to rig more gliders to carry various weapons.
"Why weren't you angry that the Mechanist was working for the Fire Nation?" Aang asked.
Zuko shot him an annoyed look, then reined himself in. "You recall what the Southern Air Temple was like, right?"
Aang nodded sadly. "Yes. But what-"
"It has everything to do with it Aang," Zuko told him. "He loves his son, and he wants to protect his people. He's an inventor, not a warrior. Not everyone is able to fight back."
"But his weapons are killing people," Aang insisted.
"Answer this for me," Zuko said. "Who do you care about more? Katara and Sokka, or a bunch of faceless people you'll never meet or know? He knew, absolutely knew, that his son would die horribly if he didn't comply." Zuko added, "And not just his own son, but all the people here."
There was a long silence. "Katara doesn't think he should have compromised," Aang said.
"Katara holds other people to a very high standard," Zuko said dryly. "Not everyone is able, I mean, as a person, to meet those standards. That's why some people are sages, some are warriors and some are farmers.
"And sometimes," Zuko added, as he admiringly watched Katara and Sokka efficiently work together to raise morale and organise the resistance, "People need someone who can lead them." He turned to Aang. "The Mechanist would be a good peacetime leader or headman. He cares for his people and is willing to do a lot to protect them."
Aang slowly nodded in understanding. "That's why I'm here, isn't it? To do those things for people so they don't have to do things they're not meant to."
"A little, yeah," Zuko said. "I'm not an expert on the Avatar, though. You might have better luck with advice from a historian or a sage."
Zuko, with the agreement of his friends, stayed with the gliders. While he'd been mostly lucky thus far in not being recognised by Fire Nation soldiers, that luck couldn't hold forever, and it was better not to tempt fate. So, he bombarded his countrymen from the sky and tried not to feel too guilty about the fact that at least half of those soldiers probably thought they were stamping out traitors to the Fire Nation.
When Sokka and the Mechanist started falling, Zuko nearly had a heart attack. When Aang arrived on the terrace, he waited off to the side until Katara had finished hugging her brother, and everyone congratulated Sokka on his brilliant fix of the balloon. Eventually the party started to move indoors and Sokka approached Zuko. "Are you going to stay here and sulk? 'Cause there's some great food in there if my nose is any - awk!"
Zuko didn't even know what had possessed him, save that suddenly he was hugging Sokka, clinging to the other boy like his life depended on it. "Don't you ever . . . I can't lose anyone else . . . just like Lu Ten . . ." Zuko was barely aware of what he was saying, only that he was remembering his cousin's return from Ba Sing Se, not as a hero, but as a still body in a box. Lu Ten had died being thrown off the top of the outermost wall of the great city, and when he saw Sokka falling, it was like every nightmare of Lu Ten had been given life.
His cousin had been too old and too busy for the much younger Zuko, but he'd managed to make some time for the boy. The occasional sweet or toy had always meant a lot to Zuko, who'd wanted (when he didn't want to be an airbender), to be just like his affable cousin. Sokka, despite his strangeness, had that same affability.
"There, there," Sokka said, uncomfortably patting Zuko's back. "You're not going to start crying are you? 'Cause that's really unmanly."
The words pulled Zuko back to himself and he abruptly pulled away. "No. I'm sorry. I . . . I don't know what came over me."
"Hey, it's okay," Sokka said. "You were worried, and you've been spending too much time with Katara lately." He smiled gently. "We'll have to make sure to spend some time doing manly things."
Zuko smiled back shakily and replied, "Manly things? Does this mean I'll be trying to hunt while you scare away all the game? Also, I was just worried you'd leave me alone with your sister. The girl is crazy."
Sokka cheerfully took the cue that Zuko was no longer inches from a breakdown and the two wandered back into the temple for the post-fight party. Tomorrow they'd continue on towards the Northern Water Tribe. Tonight, Zuko was going to beat Sokka in a contest of how many leachy nuts he could fit into his mouth at once without chewing.
Katara watched as Aang, Sokka, Zuko and Teo all happily competed in the incredibly stupid contest and went huffing off to spend time with some girls her own age. Zuko rather suspected Katara was having yet another conversation about how stupid boys were with them.
Aang won in the end, which Teo cheerfully attributed to the boy having an unnaturally large mouth, and they settled by the fire. "So what's up with that Maya girl and you?" Sokka amiably inquired of Teo.
Teo shrugged. "She's got a crush on me, I think," he said. "At least, it's the only reason I can think of that she's always following me around looking like that." He shook his head. "I try to be nice to her, but I really wish she'd understand that I'm not interested."
Aang nodded sympathetically. "I know what you mean. When we stopped in this village a while back, there was this girl, Meng, who followed me everywhere."
Sokka sat up, frowning. "Wait . . . if the whole, 'How do I get a girl,' thing wasn't about her, then who?"
"Katara," Aang said as though it should have been obvious. Actually it really was, when Zuko thought about it.
Teo grinned. "Yeah, Katara's something else, isn't she?" he asked, looking a little dreamy.
Sokka looked like he'd swallowed a bug. "Katara? My sister?"
"Really," Zuko shook his head in dismay over the other two. "She's completely crazy."
"But she's gorgeous," Teo said, "And I think it's a crazy I like."
"Gorgeous? Katara?" Sokka gasped. "With her stupid hair loopies and silly parka embroidery?"
Aang grinned. "I like the hair loopies."
"They're exotic," agreed Teo.
Sokka made a face. "My grandmother wears her hair like that."
Zuko stayed silent for two reasons. First, he had to travel with both Aang and Sokka and didn't want to be in the middle of the debate either way. Second, he really didn't think of Katara as a gorgeous vixen, he thought of her as a sort of girl-shaped friend. Third, Teo and Aang's agreement on the matter of the hair loopies had him thinking. Her hairstyle and dark skin really were exotic and he was uncomfortably aware that he was now looking at his friend's younger sister like that. Glancing to where she sat with a group of chattering girls, she looked really pretty in the firelight, and he forced his attention back to the conversation.
It was later that evening, when they had all settled in to sleep, that Katara showed up at his tent. Without any sort of preamble, she said, "You know, a lot of the girls here think you and Sokka are really . . ." she trailed off for a moment, waving a hand as she searched for the word, and finally settled on, "Good-looking."
"Teo and Aang think you look 'exotic'," he replied. "It was kind of weird."
She smiled. "I know. Having all these people look at someone you've never even considered looking at that way, and say they're attractive. It just makes you . . . think," she said. "I mean, not that you're bad-looking or anything," she added hastily. "You're pretty good-looking actually, and . . . uh . . ." she blushed.
"Don't worry," Zuko told her. "I understand. You're very pretty," he told her, "I just . . . never thought about it with you, either."
There was a long silence, and then Katara seemed to decide something and dragged her sleeping bag in and settled in next to him. "I've never seen anything like that," she said. "The fight today, I mean. I'm just . . ." She wrapped herself around him. "I'm so glad everyone's okay."
"I know," Zuko told her and pulled her close. "I hugged Sokka, if you can believe it."
"He really was amazing," Katara said. "But I'm not telling him. His head's too big as it is."
Zuko chuckled, and tightened his arms briefly before relaxing again. "Fair enough."
"Good night."
"Good night."
Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 11 Part 12
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