So yeah… there were a few hints in there with the play on words. I know guys the first chapter was kind of slow, but please, please, please bare with me. I've a newbee lmao. I promise this next chapters is better than the last (well in my opinion). And I know it took a while stuff happens u know. Seriously REVIEWS are ENCOURAGEMENT!! Let me know what can be done to make it better.
CHAPTER TWO:
Zuko walked through the camp to roars of triumph and laughs of pride. Men and women whistled here and there in support and talk was spreading fast through the camp of his great catch. And others made sour faces in Sokka's misfortune of having to do Zuko's undergarments for a month.
Zuko was floating high on sheer delight of the situation. He crossed over to an open jawed Sokka. Smiling like a fiend, Zuko moved the fish from over his shoulders and through them onto the crate that Sokka sat at. He could only look and stare with his mouth open at the one whopper that Zuko had caught. Taking one hand and closing Sokka's mouth, Zuko spoke. "1…2…3…4…5,"pointing at each of the fish with his index finger. "You'll have to cook them. I don't know how." He got up from his crouching position and started to walk off when he remembered something. "Oh Sokka, this shirt is dreanched," taking it off he through is at Sokka. "I need you to wring it out and hang it." Laughing like a hyena-badger, he walked off to his tent to change.
Sokka was completely stunned from his out grown ponytail to his long overdue unclipped toenails. Five fish where now sitting in front of him without so much as one burn mark. How could this have happened? Zuko couldn't fish. He could barely find bait, let alone know how to fish with it! And the fish where so tasty looking too. Salmon-bass was one of his favorites. Just thinking about it made his mouth water. Sokka quickly stood up and decided that eating this salmon was gonna be worth a month of stinky Zuko socks. So he picked up the fish, quickly de-scaled them, ripped out the bones, and seared them in the fire. "sweet meat." He said to himself.
When Zuko emerged from his tent, he was greeted by a few pats on the back by a few rouge troops who liked to stay up late. He caught a glimpse of Sokka by the enormous fire in the middle of the camp cooking the fishes for a few people, and decided to eat his dinner.
"hey. What you have there?"
"oh just some tasty fish. Want some"
"che- do I want some he says. Scoot over." Zuko plopped himself on the rotting tree trunk next to Sokka, grabbing one of the sticks that was cooking a fish on it. Soon others joined. Though it was almost midnight, the camp was still bustling with some late night excitement. Only a few yards away a few people where playing there instruments in fast sounds making it seem like someone was being chased. A particularly large man sat in across from him and Sokka, laughing like a mad man. Others followed to find out what it was about. Soon more than a dozen people we're gathered around the two mystified warriors.
"do you know anything about this" Zuko leaned in to ask Sokka. "not a clue." The both looked at the giant across from them and his laughing began to die down. "come now Zuko! Surely you couldn't have caught all those fish by yourself. Come tell us who helped you!" he called across the fire. Zuko only laughed. "if u must know It was a water bender." Sokka was now paying close attention but concentrating on his fish. "I knew it! You called for help from the southern troops to help." That Idea hadn't even crossed his mind until tonight. Katara and the others would be close by now. Wow. Its been two years already? Katara must be only miles away come to think of it. I wonder if she'll come before the battle?
"So Zuko, who is this water bender that helped?"
"Katara." Now Sokka looked.
"you saw Katara? in the woods? Why didn't she come?"
" well she wasn't really there," he voiced to Sokka and the crowd. "you see I was having trouble at the river and I decided to slow down. And then I started thinking about her and how she was just like the water and how she seems…I don't know really she just kind of flows."
"she must be someone special to you then." Said sokka with a half smile on his face that was increasingly harder to suppress. Zuko, with a half covered smile of his own, replied. "she… was friend to me, at a bad time in my life. But I haven't seen her in some time. I'm sure we have both changed a lot."
"what happened to her?!" called out a another young soldier from within the growing crowd.
Zuko stood now so that everyone could hear. "i have a surprise for you then. She will be meeting us in the surprise attack on the city." He laughed as roars of delight spilled out if the camp and into the moon lit shadows of the night.
"my lord! Tell us who she is this water tribe girl. Better yet, tell us a story."
Zuko's whiskey drowned eyes widened with an unknown thrill as he spoke to himself. "a story? About Katara?" his half smile turned now to a full blown grin of desire. "YOU ALL WANT TO HEAR A STORY ABOUT KATARA?" another roar of undistinguishable yeses greeted the forest.
"what can I say about Katara?"
"start with what she looks like!" laughs and snickers rolled out as Zuko tried to shush them.
"I suppose that would be a good place to start." Laughing, he began. " well she has long brown hair. The last I saw her she was about this tall," measuring with his hand to show. "oh and she's dark. Skin like a dark whisky. Umm, button nose. And her eyes. They're such a deep blue, no they're more like cobalt. Blue is just too ordinary a color. And if looks could kill, I would have been dead long ago. You see, when she's angry, no not angry, in such a rage she cries a little, and her eyes turn almost clear blue. She wouldn't need bending because her eyes are ice daggers all by themselves. One time she looked at me with them I swear my heart stopped." He shivered. "don't get caught by those eyes. They'll tear you and rip right through. They're strange. It's almost like a whole other kind of bending."
"how did you get caught in this death stare?!"
"I betrayed her." Hushed whispers came now as Zuko let that last line hang thick in the air. "it was only a few years ago. Almost three years now. My sister was still alive. Before the comet and everything. It was a beautiful fight. Azula had taken power of Ba Sing Se, some of you might know, she captured me through me down into the crystallized old city. I was down there for what seemed like hours. I was about to escape when they had thrown Katara down there with me. Previous to that I had chased the avatar for the better part of a year. Katara and Sokka were with him. But things happened and well my uncle and I ended up chased ourselves and before I knew it I was just like them. I was tired of being on the run. I was tired of who I was, and I wanted to just be. Just be Zuko I wanted to be. Not the one others expected me to be.
"So I stopped took refuge in Ba Sing Se with my uncle in a tea shop. Well to make a long story shorter I didn't want the avatar anymore. Katara though, she wasn't there through that journey so she thought I was the same person. Oh she yelled and raved about the fire nation, I was spreading hate or something like that. In the cave though, we found it. The common ground that I was looking for. I sensed it too. She was looking at me in a new light. At the time though it didn't matter. The funny thing is that when your isolated. Your really the person your meant to be. When your isolated. There's no one there to expect anything of you. I think that's how she felt. I know that's how I felt. That's why I told her something about me and that's why she offered to heal me.
"but as she was about to do it my uncle blasted into the cavern with the avatar by his side. Irony wasn't taking a break that day. Well they went on their way but she looked back. Like she didn't want to leave. Well uncle and i were talking when azula showed up and told me all these things. How I would restore my honor if I helped her and when she left I was completely on my own. It was time that I guided myself. So I left. I ran after them all leaving my uncle trapped there. Like I said if was a beautiful fight. So much talent all in one room. I had to help azula though. And that's when It happened. The stare that almost killed me. I don't think she meant do it but she was so livid I thought it best to remain silent. We were fighting so hard and so passionately it seemed like it wasn't her. Like she was trying to kill me. But they were just two people, and Azula was cheating with the Dai Lee for back up.
"But I had to go through with the plan no matter how much I wanted to help. Katara couldn't know the plan. You see my uncle and I decided that the only way to defeat azula was to beat her at her own game. Use tricks and lies without mercy or conscience. So we fought. And while the avatar was in the avatar state, Azula killed him! She had gone too far at that point, and I was about to through the plan out the window when uncle came racing in shooting fire at me. I got the hint to I continued with the plan. I had to make her believe I was on her side, so I kept my cool for once. But Katara was devastated at that point. The look on her face and in her eyes was pure devastation.
So I did it. Without hesitation or remorse killed her simply for watching her putting that kind of devastation in someone. It's not right, killing for killings sake. Katara was confused, hurt. I can understand. She couldn't look me in the eye. The avatar asked us to travel with him. I thought during that time I would be able to find that common ground with her again. But in all of the six months of traveling and fighting she barely spoke a word to me. She looked at me with such and indifference I could barely stand it. After the fight for the comet, we headed back to ba sing se. we finally spoke there before we parted. I haven't seen her since. I wrote her a few letters at the beginning of the drive out, but all I got were letters about supplies and troops and nothing to touch on a friendship between us. It been that way since."
Afterwards that camp was quite with murmurs of Zuko's story. They had never heard that tale of the fight for ba sing se. they spoke with hushed excitement when a woman from behind the crowd called out in wolf calls "HE'S GOT IT BAAAAD!!" laughter overflowed out of campsite. Zuko didn't mean to talk so in depth about here but it was the only way to talk about her really.
"AND YOU'LL MEET KATARA'S DAGGER EYES IN BATTLE WHEN WE RID THE KILLERS OF OMASHU!!" Zuko pounded his fist in the air and roared with the rest of them.
"IF YOU KEEP SHOUTING LIKE THAT THE KILLERS OF OMASHU WILL FIND US AND THEN WHERE WILL WE BE?" A woman shouted above the crowed. Zuko looked as the crowed slowly died down as they looked for the party killer. And soon he saw her. Making her way from the opening of Sokka's tent the woman walked through the crowed with a smirk on her face and a wild, thrilling, craze in her eyes. People felt silent in her wake as she walked through the crowd.
Who is this? Zuko made his way to the through the crowd to meet the stranger. Let it be true. He thought. He turned to look at Sokka who was laughing like a wild man. What is going on? He turned back to the hooded smirking woman.
"What is your business here stranger?" Stopping only a foot away from each other, the woman was smaller than Zuko by a head. "Your voice is a little deeper since we last spoke Zuko." There was familiar laugh in her talk.
"Ka-Katara?" he whispered it like a prayer. He grabbed the hood on her head, and gently pulled It off. What was reviled was nothing short of magnificent. Her skin was darker and glowed. Katara's face was slimmer and wasn't hidden with youthful pudge. Zuko assumed that the rest of her tanned body had lost it too and had grown darker. Something hit Zuko straight in the stomach. The cobalt eyes, those eyes, where deeper than ever with shadowy sapphires in them. Katara slowly walked to him and took off the cloak that she was wrapped in revealing a sparkling jade colored tunic with matching slacks. Gold embroidery of vines circled around her. Sapphire and cobalt might be her stones, but emeralds make her sparkle.
"It-it is you! What are you doing here? Wait you heard? YOU HEARD WHAT I SAID." She only beamed as he took a step back every time she took a step to him, but he only beamed dreamily at her. Finally she stopped and back at the fire.
"It's good to see you Zuko. Wont you take a walk with me?"