Is There a Place in Heaven?


Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender. This is a story inspired by the original made up for entertainment purposes only. - Krystal


Chapter 1: The Banished Prince


News of the Fire Nation prince being banished from his own nation were spread like a wild fire across the lands. It was hard to tell what the actual truth was and what was invented to spice the story up. Some said that he was no actually banished, that it was simply a front so that he could spy on the other nations. Others believed that he was indeed banished and that he was now going to lead a rebel army to fight against the Fire Nation. All the stories seemed as unrealistic as the next. She simply chose to ignore those stories and to focus on helping people.

She was now in the Earth Kingdom, on a small island just south of the great city of Ba Sing Se. Many fishermen came to the island to catch crabs and other crustaceans. The island had a large port for that very reason. It was a great location to receive news from the mainland and from different nations. It was also ran by Fire Nation as they had taken over the island a few years back for its location and water ways. The officials often mistreated the locals and the fishermen who weren't from the Fire Nation. Taxes were higher for them. There were fees imposed to them that weren't even lawful. Some of them would try to fight the Fire Nation. It often ended either in detention of the person who caused the riot or in the death of that same person. There was never a happy ending to it. She tried her best to give them a decent ending at the very least. Armed with only her sword and her mask, she would fight the officials in order to allow the person who called for justice to run. Officials didn't care who they were nor did they remember their victims. They only cared about the benefits. As long as they managed to run and hide for a few days, it would be over. They would manage to keep their lives and their liberty. The fishermen who got into trouble would simply never return again. They would rather struggle finding food and stock to sell than have to confront the Fire Nation over and over again.

She never feared getting caught. She knew that she played with life and death. She couldn't care less. She believed in a life worth living and not in surviving simply for the sake of surviving. Because of those reasons, she cared very little about her body and appearance. Her face was always behind a mask anyways. She couldn't let others identify her as Fire Nation nor for who she was. As long as she wanted to do what she had set out to do, it was best for her face to be unknown and, even, forgotten. Her body was full of scars. It wasn't one of a young aristocratic lady. She could have had the smoothest and fairest skin in the nation, but she chose the life that lead to her scarred body. She didn't hate them. The scars were a reminder that she was still human and that she was, indeed, doing something. It was just not pleasant to the eye.


An anchor was dropped heavily into the water that day as a warship arrived on the island. From afar, she watched the scene unfold itself. It was usually always bad news when warships made a stop on the island. Often, it meant that another village was going to be under attack soon. If it was the case, she often jumped aboard the ship and went to wherever they were going and tried to save as many innocent lives as possible. Unlike the other instances of warships anchoring to the island for a night or two, this one was by itself. It wasn't part of a fleet. The warship wasn't filled with men either. As they got off their ship, she could count only around 20 men. Their leader was seemingly a young man, not much older than her from what she could tell. He had a constant frown on his face. He had fire in his eyes. He looked angry despite his soft facial features. He walked with confidence, yet there was an air of insecurity about him as he tended to look around him quite often. Walking next to him was a plump old man who seemed to not care about anything in the world. His face was relaxed. He was the complete opposite of the younger man. He walked with light footsteps. He seemed happy and content with his life. He didn't look around nor did he care about the eyes that were now all on them. He simply minded his own business as he walked through the fish market of the port.

Slowly, they made their way closer to where she was. Then, they walked passed her. The old man seemed to have noticed her. He turned his head slightly and looked at her before continuing his way without further care given. The young man did not see her at all. He was the type who looked around but couldn't actually see what was going on around him. He only saw what he wanted to see. For some reason, she sensed that they would be trouble.

Their ship stayed at the harbor for the next few days, meaning they had all remained on the island during that time. She didn't run into them during that time. She heard a few things here and there as she walked around town and grabbed food, but she didn't know if any of those rumors were actually true.

That morning, she was washing her hair by the water when she heard screaming coming from a nearby house and the breaking of dishes on the ground. She quickly grabbed her mask and tightened it around her head. She ran as fast as she could in direction of the sound. There was a few a soldiers on site as she arrived, threatening a poor old woman to burn down her house if she didn't pay rent immediately. The landlord was also present and had a disgusting smirk on his face. He couldn't care less if the property was burnt down. It cost nothing for a house to be built on the island. She rushed in between the woman and the soldiers and asked them to take pity on the poor lady. They shoved her aside and tried to continue bullying the defenseless human that was behind her. She didn't allow them to push her to the side just like that. As one of them had his hand on her, she grabbed his wrist and threw him over her shoulder, resulting in a cry of pain by the soldier. The remaining tried to come at her with their weapons pulled out. She readied herself for the fight as she glanced at the woman once again, instructing her through her eyes to take shelter back in the house. She was known on the island for coming to people's rescue. Although people had doubts as to who she was, they were still grateful someone came to their defense in times of need. However, that woman didn't know that this was probably the last time she would be able to protect them as this confrontation certainly would lead to her having to leave the island permanently. At the signal of their leader, the men charged towards her. They didn't put up much of a fight as she was able to disarm all of them quickly and push them out of the property's land as well. Some of them fell onto the ground as they were defeated. She put her weapon away and threw them the money that the lady owed the landlord for her rent. It wasn't her own. She actually stole it from their pouches as they were fighting. However, they did not have to know about it. They only had to feel like they were paid so that they would leave the poor woman alone, at least, for another month. The landlord quickly grabbed the money and left the scene as it was all that he wanted. The soldiers were still groaning and moaning of pain. As she took a step away, she was immediately stopped by a fireball that landed right at her feet. She looked a little further and recognized the fire bender as being the young man from the warship that had arrived a few days ago. She glared at him through the slits of her mask before choosing to ignore it and to keep on walking away. He stopped her once again.

"Capture her!" She heard some of the soldiers tell him.

She tried to make a run for it, but he had no problem catching up to her. She pulled out her sword and started fighting against him. It wasn't an easy deed as he was quite skilled both in fire bending and hand to hand combat. Although she had experience fighting here and there, she wasn't the best warrior out there. She knew that very well. She was actually fairly weak when it came to brute strength. She mostly relied on her agility and nimbleness to fight. She fought best in smaller spaces as her opponents usually had a harder time moving around. However, they were out in the open, on a beach. He easily overpowered her. As she tried to dodge his fireballs, one of them, unfortunately, grazed the side of her arm. She quickly removed her jacket as to avoid any further injury. The burn was superficial, but it still stung. As she threw her jacket away, her bare arms were revealed and the multiple scars that she bared were shown to the world. She was never bothered by them though. She didn't care much about her appearance. The young man, however, seemed shocked at the amount of scars she had. His stance changed as he was no longer in a threatening pose.

"Why did you attack those soldiers back there?" He asked, finally trying to understand what was actually going on.

"They were bullying and robbing from a poor old woman." She replied as she put her sword away, sensing he was no longer trying to catch her and turn her to the authorities.

"So you were being nosy." He said.

She didn't reply to that. Instead, she walked over to her burnt jacket that was now being pushed back to shore by the water it had landed in. She grabbed it and swung it over her shoulder, trying to cover up the scars as much as possible as she began feeling uncomfortable that he was staring so much.

"I'm still talking to you." He then added as his voice sounded a little annoyed.

She could tell he was quite short-tempered. He needed to feel respected, yet he was not the most polite person out there. However, she respected him for the fact that he seemed to be understanding why she had intervene and so was not going to let the authority get to her. She didn't really expect it from the Fire Nation.

"It's embarrassing, isn't it? Having such scars…" He said as he brought his hand to his face.

His face was marked by a burn scar. It looked like it was still fresh. She chuckled without much emotion in the sound of her laugh. Scars to her weren't embarrassing. They simply weren't nice to look at and they gave opportunity for people to ask questions. Otherwise, she didn't dislike them. She worn them like a badge of honor.

"How did you get those?" He then asked her.

"The same way I almost had another one while fighting you earlier." She replied.

It felt like it was the first conversation she had had in a long time. Usually, she barely responded to people. She would nod or simply ignore whoever was in front of her. Yet, he managed to make her talk through only a few questions.

"I got mine from my father." He told her.

He seemed desperate to share. Perhaps it was the reason why he asked her about her scars in the first place. She looked down to the ground. She actually thought someone was interested in her after all this time. She was wrong. She forgot how to read people. He was only seeking her attention. It became easy since they shared a common trait. It was only physical though. He felt differently about his scar. He was ashamed of it while she was proud of hers. She shook her head and walked away. Through that interaction, she also found out who he was. He had too much pride and ego, yet he was out there with only a few men in his crew. He was none other than Zuko, the banished prince.


End of Chapter 1


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xox

Krystal