You'll Always Be There to Protect Me, Huh?

Chapter One

I'm sitting in a prison cell on board a ship. I hear footsteps coming my way, so I stand up. When the person reaches my cell, I glare at him. His golden eyes are glaring right back.

"What the hell, Zuko! I thought we were friends!"

"Where is the Avatar?"

"I don't know."

"You're lying! You're friends with him, aren't you?"

"What's it to you?"

"You know very well why I'm searching for him."

That is true.

"So where is he?"

"Why?" My voice saddens. "Why are you doing this to me?" I whisper.

"Zuko?"

Uncle Iroh, oh thank God.

"What, Uncle?"

"I don't think now is the best time to be questioning her."

"And why is that?"

"Why don't you ask Miki?"

"Why won't you answer me?" Zuko directs that towards me.

"Zuko, I—I can't say."

"Why not?" His temper flares. "Why can't you?"

A silent tear rolls down my cheek. I couldn't tell him. If he still cares about me, it would hurt him. I just couldn't do that to him. "Zuko, please."

Zuko grunts in frustration and leaves.

"Give him some time."

"Uncle Iroh?"

He just smiles and follows Zuko.

"Zuko, what happened to you?" I whisper. More tears fall and I collapse to my knees.

An hour later, I try to fall asleep. But the thing is, it's so cold that I have goose bumps on my exposed skin. And, unfortunately, my skin is turning kind of bluish. I'm lying down on what they call a 'bed'. The bed is hard and I keep tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable. I feel a breeze pass by and I shiver. I don't have any blankets, and I only have one flat pillow.

I hear some footsteps. When the footsteps stop, I hear a sigh, then keys rattle. I open my eyes a little bit. The door swings open. Zuko? He walks over to me and cuts the rope that's binding my wrists.

"What are you doing?" I ask him in a low whisper.

He doesn't answer back. He just picks me up and carries me out of the cell. I snuggle against his chest, trying to get warmer.

Soon we reach a room. He sets me down on the bed and pulls the covers over me. I don't complain or ask why. He turns to leave but I grab his hand.

"Don't go."

He gives me a small smile and takes his armour off. He climbs onto the bed as I slide over. As soon as he wraps his arm around me, I fall asleep.

.:~:. .:~:. .:~:. .:~:. .:~:. .:~:. .:~:.

"MIKI!"

My eyes snap open and I gasp for air. What a nightmare.

"Miki?"

I look up and see Zuko hovering over me, panic written all over his face. "What?" I ask, a little out of breath.

"You—you stopped breathing."

I pause for a second. "Can I get some air? Fresh air?"

Zuko gets up. "Yeah, but wear this." He rummages through his drawers until he pulls out a black long-sleeved shirt.

I mumble, "Thanks," and head out the door, shirt in hand. I go straight for the deck. Once I get there, I put the shirt on. "Why do I have to do this?" I say to myself.

"I don't know. Why do you?"

I turn around. "Uncle Iroh!"

He walks up to me and looks out at the sea. "Why marry my brother?" he asks.

"You know?" I gulp. So if Iroh knows, does Zuko?

Iroh just nods.

I sigh and say, "I didn't really have a choice."

"Everyone has a choice."

I look at him, then back to the ocean. "Not unless it's a life or death situation."

"Could you please expand on that?"

I sigh again. I don't really want to tell anyone, but I think I can trust Iroh. After all, he treated me like one of his own. "My family and my village were planning to attack the Fire Lord. Seeing that my family was some of the strongest fire benders, the Fire Lord saw us as a threat. I received a letter from him. It said that I should convince my family and village to stop planning. The thing is, I have to marry him. I don't know why I have to marry him, but…" I trail off, thinking about that. My expression saddens as I remember. "I have to marry him so he won't kill my family." Tears start running down my face. "It wouldn't be fair. A whole army against a small village? They would all die!"

"Is that true?"

My eyes widen. It wasn't Uncle Iroh who spoke. I spin around. "Zuko…" I could see his anger boiling up inside of him. He starts punching fireballs all around like he's fighting an invisible opponent.

Fear becomes the dominant feeling. I run up to him and hug him from behind. "Please stop. Please stop."

Zuko takes a deep breath and pulls my arms off his waist. He glares at me over his shoulder and walks away.

I watch him leave. Uncle Iroh walks over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder. I look down. Why are things so complicated?

After what happened early this morning, Iroh invited me to have some tea with him. I smiled and said, "Yes." I'm usually a person who doesn't like tea, but I just wanted someone to talk to.

I'm back on deck, lingering on what Uncle Iroh had said.

"Just give it some time. Things will work out."

I look up to the sky at the sun. I'm guessing it's around noon. Something catches my eye. I glance at the control tower. Zuko is losing his temper again. How did he become like this?

Flashback

I was watching Zuko firebend. It was one of my daily activities. Whenever he learned something new, he would run over to my village to show me. The only problem was that we would meet secretly at night. My family didn't approve of me being friends with someone who was in the royal family.

"Did you see that, Miki?" and excited six year old Zuko asked.

"Sure did. That was awesome!"

End Flashback

Flashback

"Hey, Miki?"

"Yeah, Zuko?"

"How come you can't firebend?"

We were both nine and I hadn't shown any signs that I was a firebender. "I'm not quite sure really."

Zuko grinned. "Well I'll always be there to protect you."

"Really?"

He nodded and held out his pinky. "Pinky promise."

I smiled and locked my pinky with his. "Pinky promise."

End Flashback

Flashback

I stared in shock as Zuko's opponent turned around. He had to face his own father. He told me about what happened in the meeting, but we both weren't expecting to see his father.

I gasped when the Fire Lord attacked Zuko. His own son! "Zuko!" I cried out. I started to run towards him but someone had pulled me back. I struggled to get out of the person's grasp. "Zuko!"

"Don't, Miki. Or you'll regret it," someone whispered in my ear.

"Zuko…" I stopped moving as tears started falling down my face.

End Flashback

"Miki, why are you crying?"

I look at Uncle Iroh. I'm crying? I wipe my eyes and, sure enough, I'm crying. "It's nothing."

"It doesn't look like it's nothing."

I shake my head. "I don't want to talk about it."

Iroh nods his head in understanding. "Well, would you like to join me for tea?"

"Sure."

-:..,. -:..,. -:..,. -:..,. -:..,. -:..,. -:..,.

I scream. My eyes shoot open. It was just a dream. It was just a dream. I keep repeating that to myself.

A couple minutes later there's a knock on my door.

"Miki? Can I come in?"

I shakily get off the bed and stumble over to the door. I crack the door open a little bit to see who it is. "Iroh?"

"Miki, is everything okay?"

I open the door so Iroh could come in. After that, I walk to my bed. As I sit down, I fiddle with my fingers and say, "He died."

"Who died?"

"The stupid prince," I mutter.

"Literally or metaphorically speaking?"

I groan and fall back on the bed. "Iroh, it was a dream I had."

"Ah. I see. Is that why you screamed?"

"That was out loud?" I ask. I start panicking. Who else heard my scream?

"Yes."

"That was a rhetorical question."

I get back into a sitting position. I have this strange feeling that someone was listening in on our conversation.

"Would you like to tell me about your dream?"

I glance at the open door. I don't want to take any chances of someone else listening in, so I make my way towards the door and shut it.

"I didn't know I was dreaming," I begin. "I woke up inside my dream because I heard shouting from the deck."