This empty heart you left me with
The ribbon on my parting gift
I'm falling hard for every yard
Of the dream you sold me
Dream you sold me

All your enemies
Smile when you fall
You take it cause you
Don't know what you want
You don't know what you want

—"Nova Baby" by The Black Keys


Zuko freezes, all the blood in his body turning icy with apprehension.

The great cat is watching him closely from barely a foot away, and Zuko cannot bring himself to move.

If being eaten by a cat is what takes him into the Spirit World, then he's not going to be happy.

"Don't move." Sokka is attempting to be stealthy by maneuvering around the cat with a knife raised high, as if he's going to surprise it with a stab in the back. By the way the cat's gaze flicks in Sokka's direction and then back to Zuko, the former Fire Prince knows that it's not nearly as stupid as the two young men would like to think.

"It knows you're there," Zuko says, not bothering to hush his voice.

The cat licks its lips and then sits on its haunches.

That's when Zuko decides to give it some of his jerky.

"Are you serious?!" Sokka exclaims, flinging his arms into the air. "You're going to feed the killer kitty?"

But Zuko says nothing; he watches as the cat gnaws on the dried meat happily and yet warily, its eyes never leaving Zuko's face.

It's like the cat knows that if anyone is the threat it's Zuko, not Sokka.

This makes Zuko like the cat a little bit more.

Stomping his feet and grumbling, Sokka marches back to his bedroll and proceeds to tuck his knife back into his boot. "Why don't I give him some of my fruit tarts, then? Or, better yet, why don't you share some of that whiskey that you have stashed in your bedroll? Unless you've already drank it all, of course. We can all just be the bestest of friends!"

"Shut the fuck up, Sokka. She's just hungry. You can see her ribs." Zuko tilts his head and studies the cat further. Nobility would sometimes keep cats like this as pets back home in the Fire Nation. This one isn't wild. Zuko can feel this in his bones.

He stands up and brushes some dirt off his pants. He pauses and keeps his eye on the cat as she backs a few steps away. Dark mud stains her tan fur and it does look skinny. Skinny enough to make Zuko pity it. But the eyes are golden and healthy and perceptive.

Once again, Zuko can't bring himself to kill her.

"Oh, so it's a lady cat now. Great."

The cat eyes Sokka disdainfully before slowly turning around and disappearing behind the same set of bushes it had escaped behind last night.

Zuko rolls up his bedroll, puts it away and then slips his pack around his shoulders. "Let's see if she follows us."

Sokka is shaking his head. "If it does then I'm naming it Cuddles. No exceptions."


It's been nearly five days. The sun is setting as Sokka and Zuko trudge through fields of thick, green grass. They left the sea behind them some time ago.

And the cat has followed them every step of the way. Sokka is almost more excited by this then Zuko is. Almost.

"I bet there's a butcher's shop in town," Sokka points out as twinkling village lights come into view ahead of them. "We could get Cuddles a nice slab of meat. Oh man, I bet that'll make her happy. Meat makes everyone happy. It's so delicious, juicy, flavorful—"

"We're not buying her meat," Zuko snaps, exasperated with his traveling partner. Sokka has been talking about nothing but meat for hours. Zuko knows it's to cover up the fact that neither of the young men have eaten anything since that morning, but still.

He didn't know that someone could love meat to quite this extent.

"And her name isn't Cuddles," the ex-prince adds as an afterthought.

"Well, I haven't heard you come up with anything acceptable," Sokka counters, pausing to cast Zuko an aggravated look over his shoulder.

"I'm still thinking," Zuko replies. In reality, he doesn't want to name it. Naming something signifies attachment, or the idea of attachment.

Zuko has lost too many things that he's grown attached to.

And names are always the hardest to erase.

"Whatever. I'll be right back." Sokka lets his pack drop to the floor before heading into a taller set of grass.

Zuko stands still, eyes flicking up toward the setting sun. There's a stirring in his chest and without really thinking he opens his palm. He watches his flame dance across the pale, calloused skin of his hand and he feels something warm and aged curl along the pits of his stomach.

He misses his bending. He misses his home.

And to know that he can never go back to the way things were makes him ache, makes him long for the freedom of his childhood, where nothing could ever touch him. Not politics, or rivalries, or blood, or waterbenders.

He would change so many things if he could go back.

All the hair on the back of his neck stands up and he snaps his hand closed, fingers moving to his back to slide along the hilts of his daggers.

Someone is watching him.

He knows it's not the cat. Her eyes gleam out of the ever deepening shadows, watching him quietly and contently. No, this is someone else. Someone who is much more of a predator then this cat could ever hope to be.

Sokka comes stumbling out of the tall grass, sighing with relief and fidgeting with the waistband of his pants. "Right," he says tiredly, his noisiness breaking through the silent tension that had permeated the air just a moment before. "Ready?"

Zuko nods sharply, fingers falling away from his daggers. If Sokka notices the edginess to his walk then he doesn't comment on it.

As they make their way toward the village, Zuko keeps his wits about him.

Whoever is following them does not have the best intentions. They never do.


It takes Zuko a frustrating ten minutes to talk Sokka down from buying an entire hog carcass.

"But think," Sokka had begged, voice nearly a wail, "about how long that would give us meat! And meat is protein. We need protein!"

Zuko smacks Sokka upset the head and forces him along by putting the ball of his foot against the other man's lower back and shoving him forward. "We did not come here for meat. We came here for the brothel."

The butcher rolls her eyes and slams the door to her shop with a huff.

The sheer disappointment in Sokka's blue eyes is nearly comical. "But…but—"

"Is your sister less important than your stomach?" It's not a very nice thing to say; Zuko knows this before he even utters it, but the effect it has on the other man is precisely what he wanted.

Sokka straightens and fixes his tunic, glaring at Zuko the entire time. "Of course not."

"Then let's move along."

Sokka's gaze narrows but he complies, walking away from the butcher's shop without looking back.

They find the brothel easily. The red lanterns hanging outside of the building mark it for what it is, and Sokka's clenched fists and stubbornly set jaw give Zuko a clue on exactly what the Water Tribe man thinks of working girls.

"She might not be here," Zuko says. He knows she isn't, of course. He tries not to think of swords sinking through chests.

Yet he's still trying to comfort her brother, the only real thing he has left of her.

"I know," Sokka says, voice wavering. "But the man back in that seaside town said that lots of girls get sent here, especially orphans."

"The drunken man, you mean."

"Shut up. It's all I have to go on."

Zuko frowns but says nothing else.

And then there's that feeling again, like someone is examining his every move. He whirls around, golden eyes raking over every dark, unknown corner. This time he draws his daggers and moves into a defensive stance, head twisting about so that he won't be caught by surprise.

And then Sokka's face slips into his field of vision.

"Did you see a scary bug?" the other man asks dryly, eyebrow raised.

Zuko has to resist the urge to kick him. "No. Someone is following me."

Sokka blinks at him, unimpressed. "Could it potentially be Cuddles, the giant cat that's been following us for days on end?"

"No," Zuko ground out, irritated that Katara's brother is trying to make him feel stupid. "She wouldn't have followed us into the village. It would've been too dangerous for her, idiot."

Sokka rolls his eyes and shakes his head, looking completely put out. "Put your knives away. You'll scare the small children."

Zuko unhappily puts them away as requested, but the feeling of being watched still leaves him uneasy.

When they make it into the brothel he lets out a sigh of relief. And when that sigh is gone his eyes widen, because he hadn't been expecting the pleasure establishment to be anything like this.

The only other brothel he'd been to had been in the Fire Nation Capitol, and he'd been searching for someone back then as well.

But while that one had been loud and drunken and obnoxious, with men and women gambling and grouping each other in front of everyone else, this place was…practically the opposite.

A woman stands in the corner with a large book and quill sitting in front of her. She is looking at them expectantly and it takes Zuko a moment to realize that she's waiting for their names. A bookkeeper, he understands, and a sly part of him is amused. All the chairs and sofas are covered with worn velvet and the working women are dressed in fine silks.

The establishment is classy.

Sokka is looking around stupidly from where he's standing next to him. "This isn't at all like brothels they describe in the scrolls."

The bookkeeper clears her throat, but Zuko ignores her. He makes his way into the large opening room and heads right toward the open bar. From the scent in the air, it smells as if this place serves dinner as well. Fascinating.

He taps the table top and catches a young women's attention. Her apron is stained with what looks to be beer and she shots him an irritated work before coming to stand in front of him and Sokka.

"What do you want?" she asks crisply, and before Zuko can order anything to drink Sokka smoothly cuts in.

"I was wondering if anyone used to…to work here by the name of Katara."

Zuko ducks his head and fights back the onslaught of memories.

The young woman gives Sokka a pinched look before shaking her head. "Doesn't ring a bell. Anything else?"

Zuko can see the utter desperation creeping onto Sokka's face. He's already losing his only lead on his long lost sister.

Zuko stares at the bottle of rum in the women's hand. Perhaps he can keep off his own hopelessness until the morning.

"Please, you have to know something—"

Sokka hushes when an older woman appears beside the young bartender. The older woman watches him with vague curiosity. Zuko doesn't have to make much of a guess in order to figure out who this woman is. She's clearly the Madame of this place, with her pretty charcoal lined green eyes and her long, gray braid that hands over one shoulder.

"What's the commotion?" she asks, voice soft but stern, and Zuko almost feels as if he's dealing with a grandmother.

It takes Sokka a moment to find his voice. "I'm looking for my sister. I was told that she might have come here, I mean, it would've been a few years ago, but—"

"What was her name?"

Sokka visibly swallows. "Uh, her name was Katara."

The Madame smiles and Zuko feels his heart speed up in anticipation.

"You must be her brother," she says, eyes tracing over him. "She talked about you quite a bit."

Sokka has suddenly gone very pale. "You knew, I mean, she was here?"

"Katara? Yes. She was young and hungry when she first came. We put her to work cleaning the bedrooms and doing the dishes. She never touched a man while she was here, which was unfortunate. All of the customers always asked how she got those unfortunate scars. She was mysterious, something men would pay—"

Sokka's eyes roll back into his head and he faints, head hitting the table top with a bang.

"Interesting," the Madame says, observing Sokka's now limp body. "We've had men faint here before, but from vastly different reasons."


Zuko is tipsy by the time Sokka wakes up.

They'd moved him over to a sofa, where the Madame and a couple of the girls were waiting for him to wake up—and perhaps to see if they could squeeze a few coins out of him for the evening.

Zuko didn't particularly care either way. Sokka could do whatever and whomever he wanted.

His body tingles with unnatural warmth and before any of the women on duty tonight can properly proposition him he stumbles his way out into the cool night air.

But before he can so much as clear his head he sees movement out of the corner of his eye. He turns, bolts forward, and hooks his foot around the other person's leg, effectively tripping them.

He hears a feminine squeak as his stalker goes hits the ground, and his heart leaps as he peers down. For a brief moment silly, ignorant hope embodies him and he thinks that blue eyes are going to stare back up at him. Blue eyes and a hopefully scarred face.

But the eyes that he sees are surrounded by smudged makeup, and they're narrowed with anger and determination.

Zuko shoves his muddy boot against Suki, the Kyoshi Warrior's throat. "Why have you been following me?" he growls, pressing down with his full weight.

Suki chokes and her eyes bulge and he eases up, having felt that he's threatened her properly.

She manages to get to her feet gracefully, face full of disdain. "Nice to see you again, Prince Zuko."

He stills, mind whirling, and furious that he hadn't kept her on the ground.

He is getting soft.

"You're insane."

She smirks. "Not really." She fumbles for something inside her robes before pulling out an old poster, his smiling face the main focus of the yellowing paper.

"You and your sister's posters were all I saw for days after the Fire Nation took over Kyoshi Island, my home." She sounds vicious. Zuko will not escape this without having to use his daggers.

"My fellow warriors tried to convince me that I was mistaken, but I know your face. I'd know your stupid face anywhere." She throws the poster to the ground and grinds her heel into it, eyes never leaving Zuko's.

"And what are you going to do know that you've found me?" he asks, smiling, making sure he sounds nonchalant in order to infuriate her further.

She looks at him as if he's stupid. "I'm going to expose you for what you are. A murdering prince who'd rather fake his own death then deal with the consequences of his actions."

"I didn't fake my own death," Zuko says, shrugging. "It just happened to work out in my favor."

Her nostrils flare. "What kind of person sets fire to their bedroom with their own sister inside?"

Zuko snorts. "You didn't know my sister."

Suki's eyes narrow even further. Zuko drops into a fighting stance seconds before she is on him, fans gleaming sharply in the moonlight.

She is quick, flinging blow after blow at him before he can properly go for his daggers. He can feel blood flowing down his arm from where she's already sliced his bicep.

The more rational side of his brain insists on trying to talk this through. She could probably be bought off, or threatened into submission. Most people like to think themselves as brave until a knife is pressing against their throat. Then all they can think about is survival.

But that doesn't feel final enough. Because this young woman is stubborn, and pissed off. His and the Fire Nation's humiliation would bring her a kind of happiness that nothing like coin could ever buy.

In a way, Suki reminds him of her.

And yet he doesn't bat an eye when he lithely ducks her next blow before bending his body forward, his hand and wrist moving into the perfect arc. He lets go of the dagger at the ideal angle, and it soars at a speed that is just a little too fast for the Kyoshi Warrior to dodge.

The dagger sinks into her skull with a slick thud.

His opponent falls to the ground, and Zuko is given no time to contemplate his actions before the door to the brothel opens and Sokka trots out, hand pressed against his head.

When he sees the body he manages to hide his surprise fairly quickly. "I just can't leave you alone, can I?"

"She knew who I was," Zuko explains, bending down to yank his dagger out of Suki's head. There's the squelching of mud and soon Sokka's feet come into view.

Zuko glances up to gage his partner's reaction. Sokka looks sad—but only as sad as one could be over a pretty stranger. "She didn't seem so bad…"

"Maybe in another life," Zuko says, wiping his dagger on Suki's dirty green robes. He stretches his shoulders out as he stands up. "What do we do with the body?" he asks, glancing again in Sokka's direction.

The other man is already shaking his head. "Oh no. Helping you hide bodies did not come with allowing you to accompany me on my journey—"

"Have you gone back to killing to solve your problems, Zuko?"

Both Zuko and Sokka jump, startled, before peering down at the still lifeless body at their feet. And then, stupidly remembering that she's dead and cannot speak, they both turn to look at the person behind them at the same time.

When Zuko sees who it is he feels both dread and the urge to laugh. "Toph?"


A/N:

I feel as if I should apologize to the readers who wanted Suki's return. I'm pretty sure that this isn't what you had in mind, heh.

I feel much better about this installment then I did about the last one, so yay! Hopefully you all enjoyed reading this, hmm? Admittedly, I get more pleasure out of writing this kind of Zuko then I should.

Review and let me know what you think! :D