AtLA fic: Airbender's Child: Fire 9/15
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 don't even know. This is a version of The Southern Raiders, leaving out the bulk of the episode for the usual reasons. That is, we all know what happened, and there wasn't any significant difference, so I'm just letting that all go. As always, I prefer bracketing with humour over with angst, so the whole killing the Fire Lord argument will happen, but not in this instalment. Having said all that, this feels a little schizophrenic to me, and I just hope the transitions and everything work for those of your reading.
Hakoda had cheerfully grilled Zuko within an inch of his life, leaving the prince sweating and on the verge of beating Sokka to a pulp just to stop him smirking. During a break in the process, Zuko had told Suki, "If you have anyone on Kyoshi who will do this to Sokka, I expect you to hand the details over now so I can make sure to get him for this."
Suki just snickered. "Lee, trust me when I tell you this is all your fault for bringing it up while your girlfriend's father is standing next to you."
"I'm damaged," Zuko protested. "Shouldn't my memory loss and trauma count for something, here?"
"Now you sound like Sokka," she told him. "Oh look, here comes Hakoda."
"See if I don't find some way to make him go after you," Zuko threatened her.
The evil woman just laughed at him.
Amazingly, Hakoda wasn't planning to grill him more. "What are we going to do with him?" he asked, jerking a thumb at the warden.
Zuko frowned for a moment, then an evil grin crossed his face. "Tell everyone to buckle on those straps," he said, pointing at them. "Just don't strap in the warden." He had already tied the man into the straps designed for a quick drop and safe release.
Hakoda shot him a stern look. "You are not going to kill-"
"No, I'm not going to kill Mai's uncle," Zuko snapped. "Trust me. Shuga knows what she's doing."
"Shuga?" Hakoda asked, but was distracted from closer questioning by the sight of his son hogging all the straps with a queasy look on his face.
Zuko climbed up to Shuga's head, twisted the straps around his waist and told her, "I need you to throw the warden off at the next village, okay?"
Shuga rumbled her understanding and turned into a steep dive. From behind him, Zuko heard the others suddenly make panicking sounds. As they hurtled towards the square, Shuga turned, flying sideways, did a little shimmy and sent the warden into a carefully calculated roll, his progress slowed and controlled. Zuko tugged the release and they all watched the warden hit the ground, rolling to a stop and start yelling his anger at the rough treatment.
They were already arcing around, dodging the enterprising couple of Fire Nation soldiers that tried to hit them, one with a thrown spear, the other with fireballs. Shuga whirled in the air, aiming a blast of air at the rest of the company and sending them flying before they could try more. Another barrel roll and they were on their way.
"Good girl," Zuko crooned to her, scratching at the top of her head in reward. "I owe you a basket of moon peaches."
He unhooked himself and tried not to smirk at the pale faces of the rest of Shuga's passengers.
"I hate you," Sokka told him conversationally as he undid his straps.
Zuko shrugged. "Shuga and I have always done stunt flying," he said. "It's not like I was able to use the gliders."
They were interrupted by Hakoda. "Interesting," was the only thing he said before he renewed his interrogation of Zuko on all matters Katara. Somehow, Zuko couldn't shake the feeling it had something to do with what he'd just put all the others through.
Landing at the temple sparked a tearful familial reunion, applause from the others for the surgical strike, and an irate Toph declaring that her potential future husband owed her food. "Stop calling me that," Zuko groused at her.
"You're the one who didn't actually say no when my parents tried to sell me off to you," Toph told him. "So that's what you are until I say otherwise. So if you're not giving me food," she said, twisting a foot and causing the earth under him to trip him, sending Zuko to his knees, "Then you will be my ostrich horse, Weepy."
Before he could say anything, she was clinging to his back like a leech. "Giddyup, Weepy."
"You're really pushing it, Flower Petal," Zuko groused as he tried to pry her off. He didn't have much luck. She had a grip like a Momo on something shiny. With a sigh, Zuko plodded off, heading straight for the baths where he could hopefully make Toph let go.
She may not have been able to see without her feet on the ground, but she had an impeccable sense of direction and knew the minute he'd made the turn. "You go back right now!" she yelled in his ear.
"What's wrong, Flower?" Zuko asked her, "You scared?"
"No. You're not tricking me into a bath!" she shouted. However, Zuko had broken into a run the moment she cottoned onto his trick, and he was able to take a shallow dive into the pool of water, sending it everywhere, and soaking them both in the process. "You'll pay for that!" she told him.
The fight was on, and Zuko grinned happily as he blasted the rocks and boulders she threw at him. Hopping into the air, he tried hitting the ground to disorient her and maybe keep her from knowing where he landed.
The fight was just getting good when suddenly they were both frozen solid in blocks of ice. "What am I going to do with you?" Katara asked, clearly annoyed.
"Lemme at 'im!" Toph told her. "He got me wet!"
Zuko snorted, even as he melted the ice around himself, then sent a sharply controlled lancet of fire at Toph's ice cage, cracking it around her and sending her to the ground with a bump. "You were getting kinda smelly anyhow-" he started to taunt her.
Katara interrupted before they could get going again. "What are you? Five?" She glared at them. "Sokka's more mature than this, and I can't believe I'm saying that about Sokka."
Zuko and Toph looked at each other, nodded, and then Katara was propelled into the air by a couple of the stones under her feet, and Zuko jumped, guiding his shrieking girlfriend into the water of the bathing pool. She retaliated for the dunking by waving her arms and using the pool water to sweep Toph in with them, and the same motion to knock Zuko over into the water again.
The next few minutes were filled with shouts and splashing. "I owe you for telling Dad about the tiger seal thing," Katara told him when they were finished and draped, panting, over the side of the pool.
"I'm sorry," Zuko said sincerely. "Sokka was making cracks about my sisters being in a fight and giving him good dreams and it just kind of came out." He sighed. "I just . . . I keep remembering things and then it just feels . . . normal to talk about them."
"Speaking of," Katara said with a smile. "I've been missing my tiger seal."
She looked beautiful, water dripping from her hair and down her face. Zuko felt almost like he was a passenger in his own body as he reached out a hand and cupped her face. The moment was shattered then. First by Toph, loudly saying, "I'm still here, you know," and by the sudden onset of memory.
"You looked really pretty. Like you were a real noblewoman. You wear it well, you know," he told her. "I just . . . it was like instinct, okay?"
"Oh," she said in a small voice. Then, "You thought I looked pretty? Like a noblewoman pretty?"
"You always look pretty," Zuko said, exasperated with the whole production now. "You don't look any less pretty than noblewomen do, you just dress differently." He sat up enough so that he could glare down at her. "Can we stop this so at least I can get some sleep?"
"You think I always look pretty?"
"One, I thought we went over this back at the Northern Temple. Yes, you're pretty. Two, I'm going to make you go away if you don't start with being quiet so I can sleep," Zuko told her.
She settled back down.
Although he could have sworn her heard her mumble, "You think I'm pretty."
"Are you okay?" Katara asked.
Zuko put a hand to his head, pressing against his temple there. "Sorry. Just . . . remembering." He essayed a smile. "You really do always look pretty."
Toph made a noise of disgust and said, "First you both trick me into a bath, then you ignore me. I'm gonna tell your Dad," she said to the waterbender.
"Toph!" Katara shrieked, and then she was chasing after the laughing earthbender as the pair ran down the hallway. Zuko shook his head, watching Toph run off cackling and Katara chase after her, shouting that she'd scrub the other girl's feet down daily if she didn't stop. He hauled himself out of the pool and steamed the water away, resigned to the fact that he was going to have to restart his bending lessons with Aang.
For a few days, everything was peaceful. Zuko trained Aang in firebending in the mornings, helped Katara with doing the washing afterwards, sparred with Sokka and Suki under Hakoda's watchful eye, bothered Shuga to keep her from letting Appa get fresh and when Toph was done training Aang, they'd get into a fight on some very thin pretext and Katara sigh in exasperation, stomping off to make dinner while the others placed bets.
Much later in the evening, just at sunset, after Katara had trained Aang a little further in waterbending, would come one of Zuko's favourite parts of this idyllic period. He and Katara would spar together. She was just as distracting to fight as his sister, but for totally different reasons. He loved to watch the way her body swayed with the movement of the water she was bending, and that little smile she always had drove him absolutely wild.
Still, despite her earlier statement about him playing tiger seal, Katara went out of her way sometimes to avoid him, and Zuko caught her looking at him more than once with an odd expression on her face. Obviously, he concluded, she was still angry with him about his betrayal. He was just glad she was giving him a chance to prove himself.
The idyllic period was shattered when they were woken by an attack from a war balloon. An attack by Azula in a war balloon. Zuko didn't even have to think as he took up a position near the front of the temple. The others were all rushing to the tunnel Toph had pointed out for use as an escape route. "What are you doing?" demanded Aang as he pulled Appa towards the tunnel.
"I'll hold them off," Zuko told him grimly. It was his fault they were in this mess, and it was his sister that was trying to kill them. It was his responsibility. "Go on!" he shouted, racing toward the front of the temple.
As he skidded to a halt near the edge of the cliff, Azula's warship pulled level and he saw his sister. She was crying. It was enough to stop Zuko dead in his tracks. "Why?" she demanded. Imperious as ever, sternly, sharply, but with a sort of desperation underlying it. "Zuko please," she said - begged. "I want you to come home. We can talk about this . . . about your . . . your problems with how the war is being conducted. You can help me with how we'll make things better after we destroy the last of the resistance of the other nations."
"You still don't understand," Zuko snapped. "You lied to me. You've always lied to me. How could I trust anything you said, even if I agreed with what you and our father want to do?"
"I love you Zuko," she said. "And I'm so sorry I have to do this."
The battle was joined. Zuko fought, across the top of the warship, his red fire clashing with her blue. She was still better than he was. Azula was having to work for the victory, something he'd never felt like he was managing before, but she was still winning. Even with his cross-bending bag of tricks, he was barely holding his own. In desperation, he said, "It doesn't have to be this way, Azula. You could come with us, help us stop our father from killing hundreds of innocent people!"
"I will not stop the destiny of our family and the Fire Nation!" she shouted back. "Zuko, you are everything I could want for a brother, just let this ridiculous moralising go!"
He dove and rolled, coming up behind her, getting in a hit. "What about Aiko? What about our sister? She has a lover in the Earth Kingdom. Do you want to break her heart?" he demanded. It was a desperate ploy.
It failed. "If she would only admit how much like us she is," Azula told him, her words followed by a series of palm strikes that he could do nothing about but block defensively. "If she would just admit it, she could join us. Think of the firestorm we could create together." Her eyes were crazed.
"I'm sorry," Zuko honestly told her. "I can't let you do this."
"Neither can I."
The fire they sent at each other built and built in intensity, suddenly exploding and sending both of them flying backwards off the airship in opposite directions.
Then he was falling. He saw Appa coming closer, diving and trying to catch up to him, Katara reaching out of the saddle for his hand. Shuga came up out of nowhere, catching him on her back and spinning around in the air to aim an air slice with her tail at the ship before zipping past Appa with what sounded like a taunting rumble.
"Shuga, you are the best bison ever," Zuko told her sincerely. A few hours later they landed and Appa was on top of Shuga and grooming her in moments. Zuko sighed as he got off and unclipped her saddle. "I should take it back. Were you just showing off for Appa?"
She harrumphed at him and aimed big dewy bison eyes at Appa. Zuko stalked off in disgust to join the others. Aang was looking impressed. "I've never seen a bison do that," Aang told him.
Zuko smiled proudly despite his pique. "Shuga's the best acrobatic flyer in the herd," he said. "We used to practice together. She doesn't have the same endurance other bisons do, but I wouldn't want any other mount in a firefight."
"A firefight," Aang said, looking shocked. "Bisons are for travel and-"
Zuko shook his head. "Not anymore," he told Aang. "I may be only remembering bits and pieces, but I know that the Cheng Dhu enclave bred and trained ours for surviving burn-outs. That means speed and agility." Aang looked despondent.
"Everything's just so different," he said, sadly. "I'm glad you're okay, though, Zuko."
"It'll be okay, Aang," Zuko said, trying to be bracing. He knew he wasn't good at comfort. "It may not be the same, but I think we've gained some things as well as lost them."
Finally, the normally cheery and even-tempered boy snapped. "What do you know about it?" he demanded. "I get told I'm the Avatar, I leave just for a bit, and the next thing I know it's a hundred years later and no one even knows when the festival of the south winds is and how to make a good egg tart. All my friends are gone except Bumi and the Fire Nation is trying to kill everyone!" Aang was glaring at them all impartially by then. "And everyone thinks I should just get over the fact that everything I know is gone!"
"We don't think that," Zuko said, trying to calm the boy down. "It's just that you're having trouble accepting that things aren't the same-"
"What do you know about it!" Aang interrupted.
That just got Zuko's ire up. "What do you mean, Aang?" he sneered, unable to help himself. "What do I know about finding out that everything I thought was true was a lie? What do I know about not knowing what's happening and wanting things to be the way they were because at least then I knew where I stood and what was going on?" He stepped up to Aang, deliberately using his height to loom in a way that he hoped was intimidating. "It's not like I just found out that my sister took away my memories."
"Stop it!" Katara shouted. "Both of you!" She thrust herself between them. Then she turned to glare at Zuko. "You may not have had a good time, but Aang's lost his whole world.' She poked her finger into his chest on the last two words. "So just stop it."
"Katara," Sokka tried to pull her back. "Don't you think you're being a little unreasonable here?"
Katara made a sound that was half growl, half shriek of frustration, threw her hands in the air and stormed off. Zuko had a sinking feeling she wasn't over her anger at his betrayal yet, so he followed her, hoping to work things out. "Katara-"
"Just go away," she said. She was balled up near the end of the cliff, and she'd clearly been crying.
He knelt down, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "Is there anything I can do?" he asked.
"No," Katara snapped. She pulled away. Zuko tried not to let it show how much that hurt. "My dad's gone, thanks to the Fire Nation . . . thanks to your sister, and I don't even know if I'll ever see him again." She turned around and snarled, her eyes fiery, "Why do you people keep taking away my family. First my mother, now my dad, how long until it's Sokka?"
Zuko flinched away and practically fled. He thought he might have heard her calling after him, but he couldn't face her. Clearly she wasn't going to forgive him any time soon, and maybe she'd always thought he was as bad as the rest of them. It hurt a lot. Just like . . .
"Your father's bad blood comes out in you in so many ways. A little light teasing and you're screaming your head off."
"Mother-"
"What did I tell you about calling me that?"
"Lady Ursa. I-"
"Instead of three wonderful children, I get Aiko and a pair of firebenders."
"Even though you're a faithless firebender, I expect you to learn this one thing. The enclave is first in your regard. Always."
"He's not family," Ursa replied, honestly baffled. "He's a firebender."
With a muffled sob, Zuko felt his knees give out and he collapsed to the ground, vaguely grateful that, at least, no one was there to see his shameful display.
Even that was taken away a moment later when Toph rounded the bend, and promptly plopped down next to him. "Zuko? What happened? Did Sweetness-"
Desperately controlling the hitching of his breath, Zuko replied, "No. It's just . . . I just got the memories from my mother back," he told her, trying to keep his voice steady. "My head hurts a lot."
"I'm sorry," Toph told him, "Now what else? You're hiding something. And don't try to tell me you're not," she cut him off. "I'll know if you're lying."
Hoping she wouldn't push any more, Zuko said, "It . . . why wasn't I good enough for her?" he asked rhetorically. "I did everything she asked and it was never enough."
Toph sighed. "I don't know. Parents can be dumb," she told him. "I mean, I played the part of the little highbred princess, I did my lessons and everything, and they never even wanted to look at me."
Underneath her usual bravado, Zuko heard the same feelings he'd always had. Why wasn't their best enough? "I don't know, Toph. You're probably right that they're dumb." He pulled her against him, taking comfort in someone else who understood what it was like. After a few moments, he felt steady enough again to pull them back onto familiar ground. "So, Flower Petal, delicate little princess, huh? Bet you weren't as stinky back then."
She looked up at him with a combination of smirk and outrage. "I'll stinky you," she told him, and the fight was on.
When they came back into the camp a little while later, Sokka asked, "Do you two have to do that every time we leave you alone?"
Katara didn't say anything, and Zuko felt his good mood slip a little as he realised how much he'd been relying on everything going back to normal. She was avoiding looking at him, and all he could do was try to shrug off the hurt. They settled in for supper, and Zuko apologised to Aang, who apologised back and things seemed to be okay again in most corners.
Except for Katara.
Zuko thought about things, and realised there might well be only one way to get back into Katara's good graces. He made his way to Sokka's tent, and after having an odd conversation with Suki finally got in to see his friend.
To see far more of his friend than he wanted.
"Oh!" Zuko turned around and covered his eyes. "Sokka, really? Is Suki falling for that?"
There was a rustling, then Sokka's irritated voice said, "If you hadn't just waltzed in, you wouldn't have seen it." Zuko turned around as Sokka added, "What do you mean, is Suki falling for that?"
"The rose in the mouth thing," Zuko told him. "You did remember to cut the thorns off before you did that?"
"Huh," Sokka said, looking down at the flower. "So that's what that was."
Zuko made a sound of disgust.
"What do you want anyways?" asked Sokka. He peered at Zuko. "What's wrong now? I swear, you're like a girl."
"I need to ask you about . . . about how your mother died," Zuko told him, killing whatever lightness the moment had. What followed was a horrible story, and Zuko left afterwards, barely aware of Suki darting into the tent behind him. If there was anything he could do to prove to Katara he wasn't like the rest of them, that he was a good firebender, this would be it.
It didn't take long to convince her, to get them both packed up to leave and to start loading Shuga up to take them off to track down the Southern Raiders. In the argument with Aang that followed, Zuko kept a tight lid on what he said, because he knew that if he wasn't careful, he'd wind up letting on that he was trying to buy Katara's forgiveness with vengeance.
After Katara's act of mercy they simply didn't have enough time to get back to the others. They had to stop for the night. In silence, they set up camp. It was after they'd both laid out their sleeping rolls that Zuko couldn't stand it anymore. The question burst out of him. "Am I forgiven?"
"What?" Katara stared.
A dam burst. "For betraying you. For being the reason Aang nearly died, for . . . for leading my sister straight to us so that we had to run and your father-"
She looked at him, her face horrified. "Oh, Zuko!" she interrupted. "No. I didn't . . . you did this because of . . . I'm so sorry!" Katara finished, crying. She flung herself at him and hugged him. "I'm so sorry I took it out on you. I didn't mean it."
"What?" Zuko asked. Despite his shock, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She smelled good and felt right, pressed against him.
Katara spoke into his chest, her voice slightly muffled. "I felt so guilty," she explained. "I should have known that you'd never turn on us, and then I couldn't heal you and I shouldn't have said those things to you because you've been nothing but wonderful and I'm so sorry."
"You have no reason to feel guilty," Zuko told her.
"Neither do you," Katara replied pertly. Then she pulled away a little, and said, "So . . . would you like to take up tiger seal duty again tonight?"
Share a bedroll with his beautiful girlfriend with whom he'd finally resolved all their issues? "Absolutely."
Soon they were curled up together in Zuko's bedroll, and he finally had the chance to do what he'd been wanting to for days. He kissed her. There was the briefest pause, then Katara's arms slipped around his neck and Zuko sighed happily as the kiss deepened and intensified. A sudden rumbling from Shuga startled them both out of their amorous clinch. "Shuga?" Katara asked, sitting up to look at the bison.
Shuga groaned again and rolled onto her side. Zuko's eyes widened as he took in the slight bulge in her belly and the now-protruding teats on his bison. "Shuga!" he howled. "I told you and Appa, no calves!"
Katara giggled and patted him on the back in a way she probably intended to be comforting as he sputtered his indignation.
Prologue Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight Part Ten Part Eleven Part Twelve Part Thirteen Part Fourteen Part Fifteen
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