Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender or any of its copyrights, though Lin Zu is mine.
AN: Hi! This is my first foray into multi-chapter stories! I have no idea if this is going to go well, or crash and burn…
Anyway! Here's some stuff you might need to know: this is AU! Meaning not everything in this story will follow the canon storyline! Also, Lin Zu is my OC, she is between Zuko and Azula in age, so we assume that at the start of this, Zuko is fifteen, Lin Zu is fourteen, and Azula is thirteen, though she doesn't come into play for a while at least.
Oh, and no pairings as of yet. Though I will take suggestions in reviews… Um… I think that's it… oh, in case anyone was wondering, this posting is due to a lovely person on DeviantArt who saw a picture I drew of Lin Zu and said she would read the story, if any of you are interested, I have an account there (which you can reach from my profile), and you can see a picture of Lin Zu, though she will probably be revamped.
OK, I think I'm done now! Enjoy ^^
Prince Zuko was standing at the helm of the ship, staring out into the empty sea before him. He turned when he sensed someone come up behind him.
"Come now, Prince Zuko, it is time for your training." Uncle Iroh stood behind him, next to his sister, Lin Zu. Both Zuko and Iroh wore their armour, but Lin Zu was in a simple long red tunic and black leggings.
"Come on, Brother, time for me to beat your butt," Lin Zu said cheekily. This made Zuko smile a little; she was the only one who could really get him to smile these days, especially since their banishment.
"We'll see Lin Zu, we'll see," Zuko smirked and took up a fighting stance. Lin Zu followed suit, and it wasn't until Uncle said "Begin," that the sparring started.
Uncle Iroh stood to the side as Zuko and Lin Zu performed Firebending moves as well as close combat exercises. Uncle corrected them on their forms every once in a while, but other than that, the crisp morning,- or at least they thought it was morning- they were so far south that the sun ceased rising and setting- was completely quiet except for the sounds of the mock battle and water lapping against the metal hull.
"That was very good," Uncle Iroh said when they were finished.
"Thank you Uncle," brother and sister replies, bowing politely. Uncle Iroh then excused himself to retire to his room.
Lin Zu sighed and went to lean on the railing next to where Zuko stood; he barely glanced at her, used to her dramatics by now.
"Zuko," she all but whined, "I'm getting really sick of this boat. Is there any way I could convince you to let us go ashore somewhere for a while?"
"Lin Zu, we didn't come all this way just to turn around so that you could waste time on land," he said moodily.
"Well excuse me for wanting to get off this bloody ship once in a while! You hardly even let me off when we do make port- don't know why I listen to you anyway," she snapped.
"Once we find the Avatar, we'll be able to go home, I'll have my honor back, and you'll never have to even look at another ship again," Zuko said, trying to be placating, but his frustration was showing.
"Honestly, I don't want to go 'home.' I'd rather live anywhere else as long as I had you and Uncle. And besides, you don't need Dad to give you your honor back. And besides do you really think that Dad's just going to welcome us back with open arms, and he and Azula are just going to magically be… what, nice?
"The way I see it: if Dad really wanted us back, he, one, wouldn't have given you this completely impossible task of locating and capturing someone who no one has heard from in the last hundred years, and two, his parting words wouldn't have been 'and take this wretch with you; you're both completely spineless and maybe while at sea, neither of you will be able to bring more shame upon the Fire Nation than you already have.'"
Throughout her angry rant, she could see Zuko's anger growing; she could see steam literally billowing off of him from the heat growing inside him mixing with the cold air of the South Pole, but she ignored it, tired of how he refused to see what was right in front of him. It was times like these when she wondered who was really the older sibling in this relationship.
"I know Lin Zu, okay? Are you happy? I know!" he growled once she was done. He took a deep breath, let his shoulders sag, and turned away.
"I know this whole thing is pointless, I know Father will never feel for us the way he does Azula. I know that, but I need to hope. I can't give up, because if I do, then he's won, and I can't let that happen," he admitted to the ice burgs floating in the cold sea.
Lin Zu deflated a bit. "You know what else you can do to make sure Father doesn't win?" she asked, coming up and putting a hand on his shoulder.
"What?"
"You can be happy. If you can be happy outside of the stifling, cold environment he created for us in the palace of the Fire Nation, then I think that would be the ultimate way to get back at him: he wants to think we need him to survive, but we can show him that we don't. And it's like one of those proverbs Uncle likes to quote:" she took up a stance reminiscent of their Uncle, "'Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, but about learning to dance in the rain.'
"So what do you say? Can you give it a try? For me?"
He looked at her for a moment, his head turned slightly. At the angle she was standing at, she could only see the part of his face that was unburned. Then, his face broke out into a small smile, which she returned whole-heartedly.
"Yeah, I think I can do that for you Lin Zu," he said. She hugged him around the waist and snuggled against his chest.
"So does this mean we can forget about chasing the Avatar and maybe land somewhere where we can play in the snow?" she asked after a moment or two of silence.
Zuko laughed, finally, carefree and easy. "Sure I'll get the helmsman to stop somewhere, but I still want to find the Avatar. Maybe if we do, we can help him stop the war."
"Really, Zuko? Is that why we've really been searching so diligently all this time? You want to stop the war?" Lin Zu asked, daring to hope.
"Yes, at first it was for my honor and to be able to go home, but as we stopped in more and more places, we saw so much wrong with this war, families torn apart, innocent people killed, and not just Earth Kingdom, but Fire Nation as well. That was the final straw for the Fire Lord after all; my standing up for innocents being sent to die. I didn't want to say anything, because I thought that you might still want to go home," he confessed.
"Oh, Zuko, I am all for finding the Avatar to help him stop the war, but I thought that you were still bent on honor. We're both just silly aren't we?" Lin Zu said smiling.
Soon, Zuko was ordering the helmsman to make towards the nearest landmass. When the helmsman asked if he would be needing some soldiers to be ordered to prepare for landing, Zuko replied negatively and left the helmsman and Lieutenant Ji, who had been standing at attention just inside the door, looking quizzically at each other. Lieutenant Ji just shrugged once they were alone.
While, Zuko had been ordering the helmsman to find land, Lin Zu had been informing their uncle of their plans. For a moment, Iroh thought he was dreaming, but his niece's radiant smile and bone crushing hug convinced him that it was real. He smiled, laughed and hugged her back, promising that after he dressed, he would take his tea on deck.
However, little did the helmsman or any of the crew know, they were now heading to a spit of land near a Water Tribe settlement. The thick, billowing smoke sent up by the coal furnaces that powered the ship mixed with the falling snow, which is what alerted the Water Tribe to their presence.