Ok, this is my 1st Avatar fic, so if some of the details are a bit screwed up, tell me. This takes place after the episode 'Zuko alone'. This is mostly a Zuko fic,. and I don't think I'm going to add any other avatar characters.
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: Last Airbender yada yada. And I don't own the Earth, or do I?
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Zuko had been on his own for almost a week now, and already his trip was pretty sucky. The banished prince had headed off to the next earth village since the last one had looked upon him with disgust.
Zuko wiped his brow with his sleave. It didn't help much, the sweat was just replaced with sand. Zuko willed himself to open his eyes, immediately the light was over powering and he closed them again. He had been like this for about an hour now, using his ears to detect signs of a village near by, and feeling the constant movement of his ostrich-horse to measure time. Slowly drifting in and out of consciousness, it was getting hard for Zuko to tell what was real or a dream. So thirsty he thought, need water. Then the Prince heard it; the small trickle of a water fall. This time with a little more effort Zuko managed to peek out of his good eye, and sure enough ahead of him was a tiny oasis.
Zuko was so happy that he jumped off his ostrich-horse and ran to the river. Ok let me rephrase that: Zuko was sooooo trilled that he fell off his O-H and landed face first in the sand. Then, practically crawling, Zuko managed to make his was over to the petite amount of water that was snaking its way over to a sinkhole. There was barely enough room for Zuko to cup his hands under water, but he was able to do it with little struggle. Zuko gratefully gulped down the water, then used some to clean his face. After a few minutes of scrubbing, the Prince looked over to where his transportation was last, but his ostrich-horse wasn't there. His heart was starting to pound with worry, Zuko stood up and searched around him. The animal was nowhere to be found, of coarse you idiot! One of the first things you learn about travel it to tie up what you're riding! Still looking, Zuko took a few steps backward, into the sinkhole! "AAarrrrgg!" He yelled out of fury, "Let go of my foot!" Zuko's right foot was stuck in the quicksand, and sinking fast. Eagery the earth swallowed his ankle, then his leg, and soon the Prince was up to his hips in dirt. Zuko tried to grab hold of the one scrawny tree that had laid root, but his attempt failed, the tree was only four feet away but still out of reach. Zuko was now up to his chest, and with only fear in his thoughts, he cried out to the only person that truly cared for him; "UNCLE HELP! HELP ME PLEASE!" But the prince knew Iroh was miles away from him. Slowly but strongly the dirt pulled him farther and farther in the dark depths of below. Finally Zuko was submerged.
At first Zuko only felt a heavy liquid pushing into him from all sides, but then an odd thing happened: he felt a cool breeze! Not even second guessing the air, Zuko breathed in deeply. His head was swarmed with nauseous gasses, but the fire prince was able to keep consciousness. Soon the heavy pressure of the quicksand lessoned, and Zuko felt something hard beneath his feet. The air became more fluent, and less sickening. Zuko coughed trying to hack up the sand that had come down his throat. Zuko fell to his knees out of pure exhaustion, but kept coughing. He opened his eyes using the extra strength his adrenalin had given him, and saw a rigid black road.
"Whoa, where did that kid come from?" Some one shouted in the background.
Gradually regaining his hearing, Zuko could tell he was not alone. He heard a few more mumbled voices, then something hard hit his back. Zuko wanted to turn around and face his attacker, but the same hand hit his back again knocking the wind out of him, and all his hearing back in. There where loud explosions off in the distance, and many men cheering. Zuko also heard high-pitched squeals that ended abruptly, and women and children playing and giggling only a short distance away. It sounded like a party, one with load music. The music was like nothing Zuko had ever heard, it was really fast paced, and had an under beat to it that was making his insides vibrate. "Uhhh," he moaned after his fit of coughs had stopped.
"Ralph, get your fat ass up and throw me a water!" The man who had been hitting Zuko's back yelled. After catching something, the man shoved a clear bottle under the teen's nose, "Here kid, maybe this'll help ya."
Zuko eagerly took the water bottle from the man, and poured its entire contents down his thirsty throat.
"Is he alright?" A whiny female voice asked.
"Yeah Molly, he's fine. Probably just too much excitement for him." Zuko heard the man walk away. Slowly rising to his aching feet, Zuko looked at his new surroundings. It was night now, how long had I been in that sinkhole?, and instead of sand, an odd kind of black dirt covered the ground. The dirt was so hard that it was almost a single rock, but there were smaller rocks on top of it, about the same color. And an even stranger quality of the terrain was that yellow and white stripes were placed on the dirt in such a way that it looked like someone had painted them on. That's stupid, Zuko thought. No one paints dirt, it would just blow away. On top of the dirt were the strangest looking trees Zuko had ever seen. They were about 25-30 ft high, and rectangular, they were all made out of metal. Each tree split into two parts at the top, each part going at a 90 degree angle from the base, and a light coming from the end. Each of the trees were space an even distance from each other.
Placed around him, Zuko saw massive creatures, about as big as a rhino-horse. The creatures all had see-through sides and four wheels instead of legs. Most of these creature's back ends opened up, because Zuko saw people sitting inside of them watching the sky. Looking at the sky as well, he saw fireworks. Well, that explains the explosions, and screeching noises. I must be in some weird part of the fire nation. Zuko glance at the direction the man had left in. There he was, with his family sitting in the back of one of those animals. 'Molly' spotted the boy and waved, "Happy 4th of July!" She called in a high-pitched annoying voice.
Zuko nodded his head out of respect, then in a quick pace walked away from the people. He saw to his left was a large building with the characters: W A L M A R T written over the doors. Zuko, not being able to read English, had no idea to what these symbols meant. He kept walking until a girl leaning against one of the odd looking trees spoke to him; "Trying to start a new fashion?" She said, the sarcasm heavy in her voice.
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This was almost like what my 4th of July was like, just watching fireworks from a Wal-Mart parking lot, exciting huh? And for the slow people, black dirt – asphalt. The creatures with wheels – SUVs. And the weird trees – lamp posts. Hope it wasn't too confusing, and happy 4th to you!
