Fic: Airbender's Child: Water 8/12
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 live in fear of making Zuko or the others into a bunch of canon-Sues. Let me know if it happens, okay?
The past couple days had been positively insane. First there was the old guy who believed so much in a fortune-teller that he hadn't even flinched from a raging platypus bear. Then there was the entire village of people who based their whole lives on what that fortune-teller said. Sokka was the only person who had anything close to a rational perspective on things, and he'd been driven so crazy by all the irrational people in the village that the best conversationalist Zuko had for most of that time was Momo.
Katara had been particularly disturbing in her quest to badger exact details of her future out of Aunt Wu until the poor beleaguered crackpot had barricaded herself in her home to avoid the waterbender. Not that Zuko blamed the older woman - Katara had been downright frighteningly obsessed with her need to know who her future husband was.
He'd started avoiding her too, when she began asking him to help her figure out the powerful bender that she'd eventually marry.
Zuko was just grateful that 'Lee' was a terrible airbender. At least she wasn't going to attack him with the misplaced determination that he was her future husband.
After all the madness and the predictions, the town was about to get destroyed by a volcano because the people were so determined to believe in Aunt Wu that they weren't going to check the volcano. And if the ditch he'd been helping to dig worked, they'd probably put this down to Aunt Wu again, the way the crazy man with the bear had.
He heard Sokka shout suddenly, "Dig faster! Dig faster!" Glancing up, he saw that the volcano had erupted. Zuko redoubled his efforts, just trying to get a little more height on the far wall and a little more depth in the trench.
Aang's voice was raised suddenly over the din of furious digging and earthbending. "Everyone needs to evacuate! We'll come for you when it's safe!"
Sprinting for the wall, Zuko ran up it, managing to vault up to the top unassisted, and joined Katara, Sokka and Aang in watching the lava pour down the mountain, destroying everything in its path. For a moment, it seemed to be working. The molten rock stopped before it hit the village and started pouring off into the river, sending up enormous clouds of steam into the air. Everything smelled of ash and sulphur and the heat was incredible. In spite of the horror he was seeing, Zuko felt energised by the heat, just as he had under Roku's temple. He could feel the fire that was in the stone, which had melted it. Right now, it was just like when he infused air with his inner flame to let him fake his airbending.
Katara's voice pulled him from his musings. "It's too much! It's gonna overflow!" Sure enough, the lava was moving too fast and it wasn't diverting to the river quick enough. The level was rising to the edge of their dam fast.
An explosion rocked the countryside, and the volcano sent another surge of lava and a burst of pyroclastic debris into the air. A boulder landed in the lava and sent it flying. While Katara and Sokka turned to run, Zuko reached into himself and reacted force for force as he felt the wave of liquid fire pour toward him.
He'd been watching Katara and Aang waterbend for a while, now. He'd wondered before if he could bend lava like water. His stance shifted, he moved his arms and body in concert, not with the staccatto movements of firebending, but the smooth glide of waterbending, and bent the fire in the stone up into a wave.
The heat was incredible, but it only made him feel more like he was immersed in the fire that was the core of his self. A smooth whirling of his hands and it was being diverted, sped toward the river. It was the most amazing feeling he'd ever had - like he was immersed in the very essence of firebending.
Still, he was overheating. It was a risk a firebender took on when manipulating fire outside himself in large quantities. It was why no firebender would ever try to stop a forest fire. Their inner fire would rise to meet the outer one and burn the bender from the inside-out. In an effort to relieve the strain, Zuko tilted his head back and used that old trick his uncle had been nicknamed for, the breath of fire. He'd begged to be taught the trick as a child, and now, with his hands occupied and his inner fire rising to meet the lava flow he was directing, Zuko took a deep breath and as he exhaled, allowed the fire to pour out with his breath in a jet that was large enough to use as a signal fire.
Finally the flow slowed enough that he could let it go. The euphoria faded as his grasp on the fiery stone was released. He turned, and saw Aang staring at him. The look on the Avatar's face made Zuko's heart sink like a stone. When he saw Katara's face, that sinking feeling turned into a chill that drove off the last of the joy of his bending and left nothing but exhaustion and apprehension.
He looked over at Sokka and was a little relieved that Sokka didn't look at all foreboding, just kind of gobsmacked over the scale of what Zuko had just done.
"Lee?" Aang said, hesitantly.
Zuko turned back to him. "Yes, Aang?"
The younger boy looked at him, hard, and said, "You're not an airbender. Are you?"
"No," Zuko replied. "I'm not." What else was there to say?
Katara and Sokka were suddenly both up there, Katara demanding, "What was that? How did you do that? That wasn't airbending and you were breathing fire! Only a firebender could do that. How did you manage to bend air and fire and the lava? Aang's the Avatar! What-"
Sokka cut her off as Zuko suddenly wobbled. He'd bent a huge amount of what was, in effect, fire-infused rock. He was exhausted, and all the digging and the sleepless night and the worry that he was about to lost his place as a friend of the Avatar combined to make him feel rather faint. "Not now, Katara. Lee? Hang on, let's get you somewhere to lie down. That was some pretty powerful bending there." Sokka looped one of Zuko's arms over his shoulder and helped him down the path to Aunt Wu's house, where Zuko gratefully collapsed onto a pile of cushions.
"So . . ." Sokka said after a moment. "Not quite how I would have recommended you let Aang and Katara know about the firebending thing, but you don't really have the best track record of picking good times."
Zuko looked away. "I know, I know. I just . . . it never felt like the right time, and then I could feel the fire in the lava and I knew I could bend it . . ." he trailed off, shrugging.
"So that's how you did it," Aang's voice said from the doorway. They turned to see the other two members of their party had joined them. "You heated the air and put fire into it. You weren't airbending, you were bending fire in the air." He came over, and did that floating into a seat on the floor thing that still baffled Zuko. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"It's hard to explain-"
Katara cut him off, snapping. "You'd better try. We all trusted you, and you've been lying this whole time about being a firebender." Something occurred to her. "Why aren't you mad, Sokka?"
"Lee told me," he said, easily.
"And you didn't tell us?" Katara demanded incredulously. "And why Sokka?" she added.
Before Sokka could take any sort of fall on Zuko's behalf, Zuko put in, "No, I used a fire kick on Jet when I was fighting him, and I thought Sokka had seen. So I acted like he already knew, and told him by accident."
"That still doesn't explain why Sokka didn't tell us," she said.
Sokka shot his younger sister a look. "Because he asked me to let him tell you on his own. If I'd known he'd put it off until he did something stupid, I'd've told you."
Aang cut through the incipient fight, and asked, "Just . . . explain why you didn't just tell me you were a firebender to begin with," he said. "One of my best friends was a firebender." His expression got a little misty. "Kuzon and I, we got into so much trouble together."
"I didn't think you'd trust a firebender," Zuko admitted. "I mean, no one trusts firebenders except other people from the Fire Nation."
"With good reason," Katara grumbled.
"Very good reason," Zuko agreed. "The Fire Nation wiped out most of my mother's people and drove them all into hiding. Even now, there's a general policy so that most airbenders are taught to believe that their own enclave is the only one left. There are a few people higher up in an enclave that know otherwise - my mother was one of them, which is how I know - but the airbenders now all live in isolated pockets across the other three nations. I can find the signs that there's an enclave nearby, but I don't actually know where any of them are." He sighed. "But that's not the point. The point is, the Fire Nation has done everything it can to harass and destroy the other nations. I'm ashamed to be my father's son."
"But when we knew you better-" Aang started.
Zuko shook his head. "Look what just happened. Neither you or Katara trust me any more. And it's all because I didn't tell you the truth. When was I supposed to tell you?"
"Right after you told me?" Sokka asked dryly.
"I wasn't going to tell you either!" Zuko snapped. "I was going to let you all think I was an airbender so you'd all continue to trust me."
"Well, now we can't trust you at all, because you've been lying to us this whole time!" Katara shouted.
Zuko paled, and stepped back. "If that's how you really feel, I should go," he said softly. "I know better than to stay where I'm not wanted."
Sokka started to say something, but Zuko didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to hear anyone tell him that he was a horrible liar and deserved whatever he got. He didn't want to see the betrayed look in Katara's eyes or the confusion in Aang's. If he didn't stay for the rejection, he didn't have to feel the pain from it. So he was on his feet and out the door before anyone could say anything else. What was important now, was getting away from the others before he could hear someone reject him from their life again.
Ignoring Sokka's shouts to come back and talk to them, Zuko vaulted onto Shuga, tossing down the collection of Sokka and Katara's things that had taken up residence on her saddle and set her flying. She was in the air without resistance, and Zuko said, "It looks like I messed up again, Shuga. They'll never want me back. Not after I lied like that."
She rumbled questioningly at him.
"They found out I'm a firebender," he told her. "Katara was just so . . . angry."
Shuga flew away for hours, eventually landing at the seaside. Zuko had deliberately turned Shuga South so that Aang and the others would be forced to leave him behind. He didn't want to slow them down if they decided to go after him, and making sure that they wouldn't seemed the best choice.
He slid off her, unclipped her saddle, and pulled out her brushes. As long as he kept moving, kept working and kept distracted he wouldn't have to think about the fact that he wasn't going to get more airbending lessons from Aang, he wasn't going to hang out with Sokka again and talk about how annoying little sisters are and he was never going to be Katara's stuffed tiger-seal again.
Instead, he focussed on brushing every bit of Shuga's fur until it was gleaming in the moonlight and pretended that he wasn't lonely. he set up camp, made a fire, put up a tent and laid out his bedroll. He did all the chores he could think of, but eventually there was nothing left to do. He sat beside the fire, staring blankly into the light, trying not to think of the looks on the others' faces. "At least they didn't say it," he said. "At least I . . ." he trailed off. He wasn't sure what would be worse. Knowing they'd been thinking he was a stinking liar and a firebender, but never hearing the words, or at least hearing the words so that he could accept it. Some small part of him kept insisting that they hadn't actually said it, which meant that maybe they didn't believe it.
Shuga had snuck up on him, and licked him. He turned and wrapped his arms around as much of her neck as he could, burying his head in her fur. It felt like he was eight years old again, and the other kids had been taunting him for being just barely a bender, only a million times worse. "At least you won't leave me," he said to his bison. He felt more than heard her reassuring rumble.
That night he didn't climb into his tent, preferring to sleep on Shuga's tail. That way she was right there, and he wasn't alone.
Zuko woke up that morning to a sharp snap of pain on his face, but other than his eyes snapping open, found himself unable to move an inch. He heard Shuga snarl and shift under him, but a couple of odd noises and she suddenly collapsed. "Wha-?" he mumbled, confused.
A woman with long black hair, dressed all in leather with spiral tattoos on her bare shoulders leaned over him. "Huh. Not much to look at, but I suppose a thief wouldn't want to be," she commented.
"What?" Zuko asked again. He hated that feeling when something was going on and he had no idea what.
The woman shrugged. "Some Fire Nation captain wanted you hunted down. Said you stole something from him. I don't know," she told him. "All I want is my bounty."
Footsteps crunched over the sand, and Zhao spoke, "I am quite impressed bounty hunter. Now," Zuko heard him approach, and suddenly Zhao's ugly mug was inches from his face. "Where is that Avatar Prince Zuko?"
"Wait, wait, wait," the woman said. "You said I was finding you a thief. Now you've said he's a prince. Which is it? Because my rates for finding lost royalty are a lot different that the ones for thieves." He voice became hard. "And you haven't even paid me for the first, either."
Enough movement had returned to Zuko's head that he was able to follow the arc as Zhao tossed the woman a bag of what looked like coins. She opened it, poured it out and tested each coin individually. "Not bad," she said.
"You have your money wench, now leave," Zhao demanded.
She smirked. "Tou-chy. Good luck with your prince then," she told him. "He looks pretty obstinate." Zuko was able to watch her as she vaulted onto the back of a strange furry creature with a weird tentacled pink nose, brown fur and big claws on its feet. She turned it around with a tug on its reins, cracked a whip and went galloping off.
"Now, your highness," sneered Commander Zhao, "Let's try this again. Where is the Avatar?"
"I don't know," Zuko told him. "We parted ways."
Zhao looked at him sceptically. "That I find difficult to believe unless . . ." He tapped a finger thoughtfully against his lips as he put on a patently false contemplative expression. "Unless your little friends found out who you are."
He wasn't quite able to hide the wince and cursed himself for it.
"So that's it. They found out who you are and they threw you away like trash." Zhao grinned at him. "So much for friendship," he told the teenager. "So since you've been betrayed by your little friends, how about you betray them back, now?"
Zuko glared. "Even if they did turn on me, I still wouldn't hand anyone over to you, Zhao," Zuko told him. "I wouldn't give you the satisfaction. Then again, I wouldn't hand anyone over to an elephant rat like you, in any event."
The man's face darkened in anger, and his fist lashed out and backhanded Zuko. Without any control of his muscles, Zuko couldn't brace himself for the hit or anything else. He felt his lip split open and his head rang with the force of the blow. Then Zhao seemed to get ahold of himself. "Take him and the animal onto the ship," he ordered someone standing outside of Zuko's limited sightlines.
In response to the command, several soldiers came along and picked Zuko up, and roped Shuga up, dragging her across the sand. They pulled both onto the vessel by sheer brute force, then tied Shuga down onto the deck. Zuko was dragged inside and down to a cell in the hold. He managed to start getting the feeling back just in time for them to toss him in, careless of where and how he landed. He hissed in pain as he felt the sharp edge of the metal pallet on the wall cut into his shoulder, and felt the gentle slip of blood starting to make its way down his back.
"If you change your mind, let me know," Zhao called to him. "I'll be by . . . tomorrow perhaps, to check on you."
Zuko just lay there, trying to breathe through the pain. Finally, however, he was able to move again, and he quickly pushed away before the edge managed to saw its way through to the bone. For a while, he just focussed on pushing away the pain and trying to figure out what he was going to do. He had to get out of there, he had to get Shuga out of there. Whatever his former friends thought of him now, they might well come to rescue him out of a sense of duty. It was his duty to prevent that from happening.
So, he had to get the shackles off, get out of his cell, get to Shuga, cut her loose and then fly them both out of there.
Item the first then. The shackles. He couldn't burn them off. They were metal, and by the time he'd heated them enough to melt them off, he would have burned his own hands off. That was counterproductive. Maybe he could pick the locks? Not likely. There wasn't anything in the cell with him he could use for that.
His answer came as he twisted his hands around, trying to figure out if there were any weak points for him to exploit. There were two kinds of shackles used in the Fire Nation. The first were metal bands with a hinge that had a lock to hold them closed. They were much heavier than the second kind and much more expensive to make. They were also more secure, because the other kind had a flaw. The second kind were spring-locked. That is, the bands were like tense springs. They held themselves closed strongly enough that no human could pry them open with his bare hands. They were opened by a wedging mechanism that would pry them open just enough to work the hands out. The flaw was that anything sharp, a knife or other thin metal surface could be used to get them open. They were cheaper to make, however, so a lot of places simply took the risk since they'd never let their prisoners have access to knives anyhow.
It seemed Zhao had chosen the inexpensive route. He'd also left Zuko in a room with a sharp edge at an angle he might be able to use to get the bands off. Unable to stand because of how tightly his feet were bound as well, Zuko got to his knees and crawled to the same bunk that had cut his shoulder open. A few moments and momentary alarms as the guards outside shuffled about, worrying him that he was going to be caught, and Zuko's hands were free.
Getting his feet loose was a lot harder, but he managed in the end, and crept to the cell door, listening carefully. He was startled when he heard someone start to unlock the door, and scrambled back, quickly taking a position that hopefully looked like he was still restrained. The door opened wide, and Zuko saw a man carrying a tray of what looked like scummy water and moldy bread.
The exiled prince didn't think, he just acted. Lunging forward, he grabbed the metal tray and yanked it up, catching the man on the chin and sending the 'food' flying. He continued the motion, spinning the makeshift weapon around to get the man in the temple, knocking him out, and sending a flame fist at the other guard in the hall. For good measure, Zuko aimed a kick at the first man's head to make sure he stayed down, grabbed the other, still-stunned, guard and rammed his head into the wall twice and then tossed him into the cell with the first, shutting the door and them into the cell.
Then he took off down the hall. He didn't quite know which direction he should be taking, but he made an educated guess based on memory and hurried down the hall, repeatedly ducking into empty rooms and cells to avoid detection. He'd try to fight his way out if he had to, but he preferred to put that off as long as possible. One of his brief hiding spots made him send a rare thanks to whatever higher powers liked him. Zhao had tossed all of Zuko's things into the storeroom, and that included his dao blades. He didn't have the time or ability to carry too much, but his blades, his rucksack and some straps to secure himself to Shuga's back were simple enough to carry.
He slipped out again, hurrying down the hall, but this time his luck seemed to run out just as he got within sight of the door to the deck. "Zhao," he said, faced with the man who had rubbed him the wrong way ever since he'd first seen him as a child.
"Prince Zuko," the other replied. "I really must try not to underestimate you quite so much," he said with a condescending smile. "Why, you almost escaped." The man sent a wave of fire down the corridor. Zuko couldn't help but marvel at his ruthlessness. A move like that in such confined space was deadly to anyone who wasn't able to get completely out of the way or come up with some kind of block. Screams from Zhao's own men as their commander cooked them alive in his eagerness to deal with the prince rang in the enclosed space.
Zuko responded, not with fire, but with his false airbending. When the fire faded, Zhao was alone in the corridor, looking smug, everything between him and a small series of arcs etched into the floor, ceiling and walls was blackened. Zhao's smug look faded as he saw Zuko, completely unscathed still standing.
There was no better moment, and Zuko took advantage of Zhao's shock to run across the still-burning-hot floor, elbow the man aside and race up to the deck where Shuga was bellowing her anger at being tied down. Luckily for them both, there weren't chains long enough on the ship to tie her down, and Zuko was able to easily slice away the ropes, hop onto Shuga's head and fly off into the night.
Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12
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