Fic: Airbender's Child: Water 7/12
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 . . . just love watching Zuko ninja, okay? This isn't really necessary, plotwise, so I did some character development, took a break before doing Zuko's next big thing, and ninja is so a verb. It is if I say it is. And I love watching Zuko ninja. If I were ten years younger . . . actually, it'd still be statutory, but it'd be less so. Now that I've said waaaaay to much, on with the show.
Zuko looked over to where Katara sat on Appa, next to her brother. Aang was poking around in the temple they'd taken shelter in, but he had a sinking feeling the Avatar wasn't going to find much to help with nursing Sokka.
It had been an eventful week. After helping the village rebuild their dam, the four friends had left, continuing their journey north. They'd passed by the massive canyon known as the Great Divide, stopping to help out two tribes of refugees get to the other side. That had been a headache, and Zuko considered that he might be very lucky to have been banished, since he'd never have to mediate between two feuding groups like that if he never became Fire Lord.
The day after that, they'd stopped in a small fishing village and Sokka had volunteered the two of them to work on a fishing boat in a storm. Whenever it was that Sokka was better, Zuko was going to beat his friend black and blue for making him go through that.
If Sokka got better.
The day before, his friend had just had a hacking cough, but overnight, it had turned first into a fever, then into a fitful, tossing, sleep. Now his best friend was lying in his sleeping bag, a fever so high, Zuko would have thought Sokka was a firebender if he wasn't so sick, and hallucinating. It was the hallucinations that gave Zuko the heart palpitations, because there was nothing anyone could do to ease them. Katara was constantly trying to cool Sokka down, because his fever was running so high, but there wasn't much she could do.
Zuko paced, feeling helpless. Shuga rumbled at him, something that was less comforting than usual because it sparked that frightening hysterical laughter from Sokka. Still, he went to his bison and leaned against her for comfort. He tried to ignore the exchange between Katara and Sokka.
Aang emerged from the back of the temple, asking, "How's Sokka doing?"
"Not so good. Being out in that storm really did a number on him," Katara said as she bended the damp cloth cool again. "We're just lucky it didn't do the same to Lee."
"Yeah," Zuko muttered. "Lucky."
"Stop it," Katara snapped at him. "It's not your fault Sokka's sick, and he told me about you saved him from falling in the water during the storm. So it's because of you Sokka's alive for us to worry about at all."
Aang looked between them, and decided to just continue. "I couldn't find any ginger root for the tea, but I found a map." He unrolled it on the floor, and Zuko leaned over his shoulder. It was a map of the island they were on. "There's an herbalist institute on the top of that mountain. We could probably find a cure for Sokka there," Aang said.
Katara mournfully told him, "Aang, he's in no condition to travel." Then she seemed to stiffen her spine, and told them, "Sokka just needs more rest. I'm sure he'll be better by tomorrow." And then she did something that made Zuko's heart sink. She started coughing.
"Not you too," Aang said, sounding a little exasperated and a lot worried. Zuko echoed the thought in his own mind.
Katara rolled her eyes. "Relax. It was just a little cough. I'm fine." She fixed them both with a look meant to drive home the point. It might have if she hadn't burst into deep hacking coughs and finished by looking like something had just sucked the energy right out of her. Aang flinched away and Zuko felt his hands flex as he desperately wanted to do something to help.
"That's how Sokka started yesterday," Aang told her. "Now look at him! He thinks he's an earthbender." Zuko flinched at the nonsense coming from Sokka's mouth. "Lee? Are you okay?" Aang asked.
He looked up and smiled, tightly. "I'm fine. I'm just . . . worried." Scared. Terrified.
Aang looked back at Katara and said, "A few more hours and you'll be talking nonsense too. I'm going to find some medicine." He was about to launch into the air on his glider, when the cloudy sky was split by lightening, followed by a crack of thunder. "Uh . . . maybe it'll be safer to go on foot," he said, closing up the glider and putting it aside. "Lee? You'll keep an eye on them, right?"
"Of course," Zuko told him. "Be careful. We're in Fire Nation territory, you know."
Aang smiled and waved. "I will. See you soon." Then the boy leapt into the air, once, twice, then he was running, his airbending speeding him along, leaving a trail of dust behind him.
Katara started to say something, then began coughing again. Zuko hopped onto Appa and pulled down her sleeping bag. "Here," he told her. "Why don't you get settled now, before you start feeling too sick to move. I'll do whatever you need me to do, okay?"
"I'll be okay," she assured him, clearing her throat. "I'm sure Aang will be back soon with some icky tea for us to drink or something." Zuko just stood there, lips slightly pursed, staring at her. "I don't need to go to bed," she insisted. He kept staring. There was a long pause, and then she said, "Fine. But I'm only going because I'm not feeling well, not because you told me to."
"Fine," Zuko said agreeably. "So do you want me to get a fire started?"
Katara sighed from where she was getting herself settled in her sleeping bag. "That would be nice, thanks."
A few minutes later, Zuko was grumbling as he tried to get the spark rocks to work. He'd been avoiding this particular task the whole time he'd been travelling with the Avatar. He was a firebender, so he'd never had to learn how to start a fire without his bending. As long as the others were well, he'd been able to find any number of other things to do around the camp site.
Katara giggled, coughed and then giggled again. "I never thought I'd see this," she told him.
"See what?" he asked her sourly.
"See the so-competent Lee be unable to get a fire started," Katara told him smugly. "Do you need me to come out there and help?"
He glared over his shoulder at her, then turned so that she couldn't see the rocks, clacked them together one last time, then leaned forward pretending to blow gently on the supposedly alit tinder. A quick burst of flame from between his lips had the tinder actually alight and catching onto the branches he'd collected. "No, I don't need any help," he told her, showing her the now-lit fire.
Katara wriggled down a little further in her sleeping bag and said, "So you and Sokka have been spending an awful lot of time talking. What do you talk about with my brother? Meat? Girls?"
"A bit about both," Zuko admitted. "We talk about you and my sisters sometimes." He shot her a quick grin. "About how younger sisters can be a really big pain."
"Pfft. Like older brothers are so much better," Katara said.
Sokka spoke up, "Hah! Take that boulder firebender!" he flopped around in his sleeping bag a bit, then subsided. The moment took away all the ease Zuko had begun to feel and threw him right back into his fear of losing a friend.
"You're really worried about him," Katara observed.
"Why aren't you?" Zuko shot back. "He's so devoted to looking after you and you're just-"
Katara sat up, "Just hold on a minute. Who said I wasn't worried? I'm worried, but he and I have both had worse. When Sokka was six he got so sick one time that he pretty much just lay there, looking like he was dead for a week. He got better after that. I'm not as worried as I could be because I can put it all into perspective." She sent Zuko a firm look. "And as for looking after someone, ask him sometime who cooks for him and does his laundry and mends his clothes and makes sure he doesn't try to live off nothing but meat and makes sure he doesn't forget our spark rocks and-"
"Okay, okay!" Zuko said, holding up a hand and laughing a little. "You're right about that." He sighed and sat on the floor and leaned on Appa next to Katara. "I just . . . I never had a friend like him before. I don't want to lose that." Shuga rumbled from where she had been grooming Appa's neck fur.
Katara smiled. "Shuga seems to feel a little left out."
"Oh," Zuko shot his bison a look. "Like you even noticed what with all your flirting," he told her. She deliberately got up, turned her back on him and settled down again. He sighed, climbed up onto her back and sprawled out, using both hands to simultaneously scratch at the two spots over her shoulder blades that made her do the rumbling purr a bison did when it was particularly content. Moments after he started, she abruptly flopped down, spread-eagled, and Zuko murmured to her, "You know I love you, Shuga."
When his arms finally got tired, he crawled off her, hugged the part of her neck he could reach, and then let her lick him. He turned back to Katara, who had an odd look on her face. He raised an eyebrow at her, and at his wordless query, she smiled and said, "You're just so sweet."
"Sweet?" Zuko asked as he started getting all the bison spit off himself.
"Yes, sweet," she said definitely. "You're so stern and forbidding a lot of the time, and then you'll be such a . . . a goof with Sokka." Katara sent an affectionate look at her brother before turning back to him. "Then I see you with Shuga, and it's like you're this whole other person with her."
He raised an eyebrow again. "In a good way?"
"In a good way," confirmed the waterbender. "I just sort of . . ." she flushed and trailed off.
"Sort of what?" Zuko asked, suspiciously. She was embarassed by something. She didn't have a crush on him did she?
Katara said it, almost defiantly. "When you get like that with Shuga, I just want to cuddle you."
He was about to reply, but then he said, "Clearly you're starting to have Sokka's delusions."
It was almost as though, now that the die was cast, she was going to see it through. "I mean, you just look like a little boy with his stuffed tiger-seal toy," she told him. "When you start in with Shuga like that, I can't help but want to pat you on the head and hug you."
Zuko looked at her in a sort of horror. "You sound like you want to mother me," he said, eyes wide.
"So what if I do?" Katara demanded. "You look like you need it, and I do it for Sokka and Aang all the time. Not to mention the kids in the tribe back home."
Clearly she was suffering some sort of illness-related loosening of the tongue, Zuko decided. He changed the subject rather sharply. "So I was thinking about the trouble you'd been having with getting the moves on the scroll," he said.
"Wha-?" Katara was caught unawares by the lightning-fast change of topic.
Zuko ignored her confusion and bulled on with the topic. "Maybe you need to try working on the moves first, just practicing them until they're second nature before trying to move the water. That way you're not concentrating on both the bending and being fluid, because you already have the body moves down."
"That's a good idea," Katara said, contemplatively. "I mean, when I was teaching myself, I was always just trying to get the water to do what I wanted it to. But it should do that better if I have the movements, so . . . next time I'm trying a new move I'll do that."
Sokka spoke up then. "Katara . . . please . . . water."
Katara held up the waterskin, and frowned. It was empty. "Here," Zuko told her. "I'll go see what I can find. If nothing else, it's raining out and I should be able to collect some."
"Thanks," Katara told him.
He went outside, musing to himself about Katara's apparent impulse to . . . cuddle . . . him. On the one hand, it was mortifying, since he was too old to want 'cuddling'. On the other hand, it was kind of gratifying to know that she felt the same affection for him as for Aang and Sokka. The thought of her hugging him wasn't unappealing either.
Back when his mother had still lived at the palace, one of the things he'd loved most had been when they'd be around servants or his uncle, and she'd pull him close, kiss the top of his head and let him hug her back. He'd often pretended in those moments that she cared about him as much as the older sister she so often compared him to. He'd just close his eyes and let himself think for a moment that someone other than Shuga loved him.
Zuko was so lost in contemplation, that when he got back from the well he'd found, full waterskin in hand, that he just stood there while Katara dribbled water into Sokka's mouth. So he was taken completely by surprise when she grabbed his arm, yanked hard, and sent him falling almost on top of her, where she'd crawled halfway out of her sleeping bag. "Katara? What are-?"
"Shush," she told him as she manoeuvred him until his head was tucked under her chin and he was sprawled half on and half off her. "I'm cuddling you."
"Katara-"
"Quiet. I want a stuffed tiger seal and you're my best option," she told him. "And since I know you want one too, we'll be each other's tiger seals."
"That is quite possibly the weirdest thing anyone has ever said to me," Zuko told her. "And I'm including Sokka's recent stint in that."
"The dancing meat hats need to be basted, your meatliness," Sokka put in.
Zuko blinked. "Okay, that was weirder."
"Hmph," Katara mumbled, and dragged Zuko's arms into place around her. It was oddly comfortable, and she was clearly not letting go, so Zuko stayed put. It was actually kind of like the time he'd skinned his knee and Lu Ten had found him and held him while it was getting cleaned and bandaged. Of course, Katara was a girl and didn't feel anything like Lu Ten, particularly where his head was resting, but that wasn't important.
What was important was that he felt content in a way he had never felt with anyone except when he was much younger and sleeping hidden in the abandoned stable near the palace where Shuga would sneak in to visit him. She'd been too small to carry him anywhere then, but she'd made an excellent bed for a lonely child. Using Katara as a combination of pillow and stuffed toy was having the same effect, and Zuko drifted off to sleep in spite of himself.
He wasn't sure how much later it was that he woke, but his eyes snapped open with a sound that was familiar, but he couldn't immediately place. Then it sounded again, and Zuko disentangled himself from Katara, hastening to where they'd put their packs. "Lee?" he heard Katara's sleepy voice enquire.
The horns sounded again, this time, clearly moving along the relay. "You hear that?" he asked her.
"Yes," Katara said, yawning. "What are they?"
"Message horns," Zuko said tensely. "It means that something specific is being watched for, and someone saw it. It happens when . . . oh . . . there's an escaped prisoner," he explained. "There are sentries all over and they're provided with horns. If they see him, they're supposed to sound the horn to let people know the prisoner is nearby."
Katara frowned, but she seemed to catch on. "You're worried it's about Aang?"
"I don't want to go," Zuko said, "But I have to see what it's about. Is there anything I can get you before I go?"
Katara thought, quickly, and told him. "Just fill the waterskin back up, and stoke the fire a little. We'll be okay for a bit."
"I'll try to hurry back," Zuko told her as he hurried to do as she asked. "Just . . . if it is about Aang . . ." he trailed off, not sure what to say.
"Just go," Katara told him. "Hopefully this isn't anything important to us." She smiled a little wryly. "As soon as you come back, I expect my stuffed tiger seal back. You're better at it than Sokka and Aang."
In spite of his worry about everything, Aang, Sokka and Katara, Zuko chuckled. "I'll be your tiger seal any time you want," he said. Then violently blushed as he realised how that sounded. "I'm going before I say anything else stupid."
He'd spotted an outpost nearby, and with the rain was able to cover most of himself with a heavy hooded cloak without suspicion. It wasn't the most complicated plan he'd come up with to get information, but in this case, simple was probably best. He marched up to the door of the outpost and banged on it. "Hey! Can you give a traveller shelter for a bit?"
There was thumping and clattering inside before the door finally opened onto an incredibly poorly kept single-room outpost. The guards inside were ill-kempt, and Zuko could hardly blame their commanding officer for sticking them out in the backwoods of nowhere. It kept them out of sight and meant no one had to try overseeing slobs like this. "Whaddaya want?" the one at the door asked.
"Just to get out of the rain for a bit," Zuko told them. "Dry out my boots before I have to get going again."
The man looked down his nose at Zuko, then sighed and let him in. "Damn weather. Why things couldn't even out a little so we get this rain over the whole year instead of having monsoon season, I don't know." Zuko looked around, and noticed the hearth was practically a puddle, and the fire was out. The whole room was so damp it felt freezing cold. The soldier caught Zuko's look and said, "The storm came up so fast we didn't have a chance to close off the water trap in the chimney. None of us are firebenders, so we're just stuck until things dry out."
As a calculated risk, Zuko told him, "Then I guess you're in luck." Before they could ask why, he went to the fireplace, and with a few quick bursts of bending had the spot dried and a merry fire burning in the hearth. He turned around and saw something he hadn't even realised he'd missed until then. The smiling faces of people who appreciated his firebending.
"Spirits! You're a lucky break," the soldier who'd opened the door said with a sudden smile. "Take a seat. What were you doing out in all that anyhow?"
Zuko carefully settled onto a chest against the wall. "I'm from Rouzin, and my sister's wedding to that idiot merchant of hers is in a few days in Muqan," he said, naming two nearby towns.
"It'll take you a few days to get to Muqan," said the other soldier.
"I know," said the teen with a wry smile. "But this way I can avoid staying at her betrothed's house." He made a face. "He likes Noh operas."
"So?" asked the first one. "By the way, my name's Han, this is Rishu."
"Lee," Zuko said, nodding. "So, it's a problem because he likes to sing them. Especially the female parts." He gagged. "My sister thinks it's cute."
The two soldiers stared. "He does know those are for eunuchs, right?" Rishu inquired.
"I think there are things he's not telling her," Zuko said.
"Ah," the two men chorused, with understanding looks. The moment was interrupted by the horns sounding again, and Han grumpily got up, went to the door and blew two blasts of the horn out of it then tramped back to his chair. "Lousy Avatar," he muttered.
"Avatar?" Zuko said, startled. He hadn't quite been expecting that.
"Yeah," said Han. He held out a sheet to Zuko. On it was a description of Aang, a statement that he was travelling with three companions, none of which was described, two sky bisons and a list of attributes Aang's airbending gave him. "Look at that," he said in disgust. "The Avatar can create tornados and run faster than the wind. That's silly Fire Lord propaganda."
Zuko shrugged. "Maybe they don't want people to underestimate him. So that's what everyone's relaying right now?"
"Orders from Commander Zhao," said Rishu glumly. "I heard he called in the Yu Yan archers."
Zuko's head snapped up. "Aren't they under General Shinu's authority?"
"They are," said Han. Then he paused. "How'd you know that?"
"I've got a cousin who was discharged for snooping in his commander's office," Zuko told them. "I think he was sent off somewhere in disgrace, but not before he told everything he'd found to anyone who'd listen. Mostly about how many turkey-ducks were distributed to each division. He'd been convinced his was getting shortchanged or something."
"Yeah, my brother did that once too," confided Han. "He didn't get caught, though."
Zuko was getting worried though, because the horns meant that warnings were out and people had spotted Aang. He was about to say his farewells, despite the rain, and run back to the temple to get Shuga and start looking. That was when the door banged open and two men, still wearing their face paint marched in with never a by-your-leave. "So," one said with a smirk. "Looks like the common man is pretty cozy."
Han, Rishu and Zuko exchanged looks. Yu Yan archers were the elite, and they had the pay and attitudes to prove it. But there was little that could be done, since they outranked the rank and file by a great deal. You certainly couldn't ask them to get their muddy feet off the table, or not offer them the only seats in the outpost. Zuko moved to the floor, allowing Han and Rishu to take the chest. They smiled at him, and Rishu asked casually, "What brings the great Yu Yan to our little outpost?"
"Ah!" said the first Yu Yan with a self-satisfied grin. "We're on our way to Rouzin. After all that time in the rain, slogging around, we finally captured the Avatar. Little bastard was fast, but not as fast as a Yu Yan arrow."
"You killed him?" Zuko asked, horrified.
"Nah," said the other, dismissively. "Just shot up those poofy clothes of his until he was pinned, then carted him off to Shinu's prison tower." He leaned back in the chair with a satisfied smile. "We didn't want to wait for the sake shipment that's due in a few hours and wind up drinking in that dismal place, so we're taking a little leave to see if there's some decent ale and pretty girls in town."
Zuko glanced outside, and seeing that the rain had cleared, told Han and Rishu, "Looks like it's cleared up enough for me to get going again. Thanks for the shelter."
The two soldiers smiled and followed him outside, "Thanks for the excuse not to be in there with those two for a few minutes," Rishu told him with a grin.
"Thanks for the fire," Han said, sincerely. "Good luck with your sister and all."
He nodded and waved and hurried off down the path that would take him toward the main road. A few minutes later, once he was sure he was out of sight, he broke into a run, hurrying to find a good clearing for what he needed to do. A few minutes of hasty bending and he had a large pile of charcoal. Carefully stripping out of his clothes, Zuko soaked them in a stream, using them to carry water back to the blackened leaves and sticks. It was the work of only a few minutes to make a black paste, drench his clothes thoroughly with it and then dry them out again.
Redressed in his now black clothing, Zuko hastily pasted the last of the charcoal and water onto his face, blacking it out and hopefully concealing his identity. Then he hurried out to hide and wait by the road for the sake shipment and his ticket into Shinu's prison fortress.
It was a very long wait, and Zuko was starting to think he should have gone back to see Katara before coming out. However, the longer he waited, the more likely it was the shipment would come by while he was gone. When it finally passed him, the sun was almost completely set, and the darkness hid Zuko's movements as he slipped quickly from the bushes by the roadside and got under the wagon, clinging to the crossbeams below.
A ride that felt very long later, so long his hands started to cramp, they were paused outside the gates. Zuko watched the feet of the guards and saw one, accompanied by torchlight, approach the wagon. He must have either been holding one or bending a fire from his hand. The man went to the back of the wagon and paused, clearly inspecting the shipment. Then he circled around the wagon, pausing at each side. He stopped, then the feet moved closer, and the firelight started to move lower. Zuko silently cursed in his head and scrambled for the far side of the wagon, praying the whole time that there was no one there to catch the black figure crawling under the tarp and into the wagon bed.
He got lucky. A moment later the soldier declared them clear for the last time and Zuko ducked low behind the barrels of sake to avoid detection. Peeking out from a rip in the canvas, he noted with some dismay that there were three curtain walls to get past on the way out.
Eventually the wagon rumbled to a halt, and Zuko was able to steal out of it, having untied the barrels, planning to use the rope that had lashed them into place in the escape. He quickly sprinted through the grates under the fortress, glad that the prisons tended to have the same layout one from another. He'd visited one once, when he was a child, and this was laid out fairly similarly.
In the background, he heard Zhao posturing. Going on about Sozin's comet, the honour of the Fire Nation and all the other propaganda Zuko had grown up with. The propaganda all those so-enthusiastic soldiers had grown up with. He could hear the cheers of the men, disciplined, as Fire Nation troops were trained to be, even in their enthusiasm. The roars of triumph made him feel cold as he thought of the people he'd met over the years in the Earth Kingdom, wiped out like the Nomads had been a century before. He shook his head, trying to focus. Now wasn't the time. What he was doing was part of preventing that fate.
Zuko went toward the high security cells, and lurked about in doorways and needed every bit of gymnastic skill and stealth he had to avoid detection. Finally, however, he was able to catch a conversation between off-duty guards. "Can you believe that? Four guards for one ten-year-old kid."
"Yeah," said the other. "I mean, sure, he's the Avatar, but they've got him tied up in there and why do we all need to be pulling double shifts just because of him?"
The two men continued down the hall, complaining about having to guard the Avatar, but it took Zuko a very short time to locate the only cell with four guards stationed in front of it. It was an even shorter time for him to take them out, one by one, until there was only the one guard left. He spun around the corner before the last guard could sound the alarm, throwing the knife he'd taken off the first guard to knock the alarm horn from the man's hand, and using the bucket of water left by a lazy caretaker to put out the last guard's attempted firebending, then spinning around, with the same motion used to bring the bucket around and knock him out.
Zuko absently noted the frogs crawling around on the floor, then put it down to some new game the soldiers had made up. Bored out of their skulls, Fire Nation soldiers had been known to race maggots, set up rat fighting rings, and he'd even once seen the men betting on who made the prettiest woman as they attempted to trick other units while cross-dressing. So seeing half-frozen frogs just meant someone had a new game lined up.
When he cracked open the door, Zuko saw Aang, tied up, his arms and legs spread so that even the most minimal bending was out of the question. He took his twinned blades out, twirling them a few times to warm up a little and get some momentum to make the cuts clean when he got Aang free.
Aang froze, his eyes wide, and then he clearly started panicking. A small, mischievous part of Zuko couldn't help himself. It was a stupid practical joke, but he couldn't think of any other time he was going to get to scare the living daylights out of the Avatar like this, and he did a modified kata all the way to where Aang was, trying not to snicker as the boy's eyes bulged and he screamed.
Two quick slashes and the ropes holding Aang's arms were cut, two more and his legs were free. Then he carefully judged his distances, and did away with the leather cuffs themselves.
"Who are you? What's going on? Are you here to rescue me?" Aang asked, in quick succession.
Zuko grinned at him under his charcoal. "Did you think Katara, Sokka and I would just leave you here?" he asked.
"Lee?"
"C'mon," said Zuko. One, two, three . . .
"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Aang muttered as he followed.
Zuko snickered. "You should have seen your face," he told Aang.
He'd started to lead the Avatar out of there, when suddenly Aang stopped and rushed off in another direction. What the hell? "My frogs! Come back! And stop thawing out!" Aang was scooping the half-thawed frogs up and trying to stuff them into his shirt.
"I really don't want to know," Zuko told him as he grabbed Aang by the scruff of the neck and started towing him away.
Aang looked at him anxiously, "But the herbalist said Sokka and Katara need to suck on them!"
"The . . . I still don't want to know," Zuko informed him. "Look. We're escaping right now. We'll get more frogs on the way back. Do you really think those frogs will still be frozen by the time we get to Katara and Sokka again anyhow?"
"I . . . I guess not," Aang said. "But shouldn't we pick them up? I mean, won't people think it's weird?"
"This from the guy who just said his friends need to suck on frogs," Zuko muttered back as they slipped around corners and into the grated holding area for the dirty refuse water. "Anyhow, people will just think someone's thought up a new thing to bet on. Racing half-frozen frogs may become the new craze in the area." He pulled himself up to check on the surrounding area. "Okay, we need to head for that corner," he said, pointing. "We'll go up the rope. There are three curtain walls to get past before we're out, so be quiet and stealthy, okay?"
"Okay," Aang whispered back.
They hurried across the space and had almost scaled the wall when the alarm went up. The next few minutes were a crazy mess of fighting and airbending on Aang's part. They'd almost made it over the last wall, but Zuko just couldn't keep his grip, and they both fell back to the ground. Aang kept them both shielded from the collective fury of so many firebenders as they were cornered against the gate and ten benders fired on them at once.
Zhao's voice shot out over the din of the raging flames. "Hold your fire! The Avatar must be captured alive!"
Praying that no one could see his face behind the charcoal at this close range, Zuko reacted instantly, pulling Aang against him and sliding both swords under the boy's chin, positioned to slit his throat. "Pretend I'm actually threatening you," Zuko murmured, and glared at Zhao, letting his actions and silence to the Commander speak for him.
A moment later, Zhao was letting them out, clearly unwilling to risk the Avatar dying at the hands of whatever thug he believed Zuko to be. He was slowly backing them away, wanting to get out of range before turning to run. He'd forgotten the Yu Yan archers.
He woke up, some time later, his head aching, lying on his back somewhere in the woods. "You're awake!" Aang said, sounding relieved. "I was worried when that arrow hit you in the head."
Zuko slowly sat up, feeling the world spin a little, then settle back down. "Oh. How did I forget the Yu Yan?"
"The who?"
"The archers. They're the elite," he explained to Aang. Then he pulled himself up. "We'd better get going. You said the herbalist said Katara and Sokka need to suck on frogs?"
"Yeah," Aang told him as they started walking. "She said they secrete something that will make them better. After she finished feeding her stupid cat," groused Aang.
"Her cat?" Zuko asked, feeling bewildered.
Aang told him his story, which lasted all the way down to the swamp, where they collected the frogs. Then Zuko sent Aang on ahead. "I have to wash as much of this out as possible," he told the Avatar. "And I can't move fast enough to keep up with you while you get the frogs to the others before they thaw. Just . . . let me know how things go with the frogs?"
"You mean all the faces Sokka's going to make?" Aang asked.
"Exactly," Zuko smirked.
Aang shot him a look. "I'm going to get you for that stunt with the swords, you know," he told Zuko.
"Right," said Zuko, suddenly feeling a little worried. What could Aang think of for pranking revenge, especially with his bending? "Umm . . . I'm sorry?"
"You're not gonna see it coming," Aang promised, before zipping off with his frogs, leaving Zuko to get as much of the black out of his clothes as possible, and contemplating both avoiding the inevitable, and getting a good sneaky suit for if he had to do this again.
It took quite a while to get back, and by then, Shuga gave him very disapproving looks for having been gone so long, leaving her with two delusional teenagers, both of whom had spit frogs on her. Zuko sighed and resigned himself to an evening of lying splayed out on her back, scratching her shoulders.
It was all a very unsatisfactory end to the whole adventure, until Katara insisted on climbing up and joining him. She took the left shoulder and he took the right, while Sokka dozed, having been left where he was, and Aang sprawled out on Appa's tail, quickly falling asleep. When they were finished, the waterbender insisted that Zuko had to be her 'stuffed tiger seal' again, and burrowed into him.
Zuko decided it was quite satisfactory after all.
Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12
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