" CHANGE OF PACE "
04. CHAPTER FOUR: "CUT ME OFF, THROW ME DOWN"
He was tired of waiting.
Sitting around, waiting for some sort of sign from the waterbender that approaching the Avatar would be okay was getting him nowhere. And since when did he, the former heir apparent to the most feared nation in the world, take orders from a waterbending peasant? Oh, he tried being patient, he tried being nice, he tried being understanding, he tried listening...but none of that was getting him anywhere.
Zuko had seen them out hunting a few times when he was doing so himself. She had always spotted him before the others could lay their eyes upon his form and signaled for him to duck out of sight. He didn't understand why she was so intent on hiding him from her friends. Katara was like a raven-hawk that was far too protective of her chicks for her own good. Only, the Avatar and his friends weren't chicks, they were people who were fully capable of making up their own minds. The waterbender seemed to enjoy doing the deciding for them, even for those who were older than her like her brother and that tall earthbender with the mustache.
Sometimes, he would watch them. Zuko would position himself in a tree too high for her to spot him in or linger in the shadows where the lack of proper lighting did the job of hiding his form from her without much effort on his part. Katara was a caring individual, he noted--perhaps more caring than he originally realized. In a way, she reminded him of his own mother, but that was something Zuko wouldn't admit. Katara wasn't ready to hear such a compliment from him. Especially when she wouldn't understand it's meaning and would probably just assume he was sucking up to her.
Today, he would not be watching them from afar as he had previously done. No, today he was going to approach them. One of them. Somehow. He'd find someone in that temple who wasn't Katara and make them listen to him. He did not give up everything and leave behind the Fire Nation to sit in a forest and discuss things with Kawa as if the badger-frog was actually capable of giving the firebender his opinion.
At this rate, his great-grandfather's comet would arrive before the Avatar learned anything about firebending. The Avatar needed to master all four elements if there was any hope that he'd be able to take down his father. There was no way around it and Zuko was determined to contribute to that cause. He'd sooner kiss Kawa than give up on trying to reach the Avatar.
With a low grunt, the once-prince dropped to his feet to the floor of a room deep within the Western Air Temple. He rubbed at his legs, protesting with pain at him having jumped to the ground from such a height. The ceiling of this particular room rose high above him, nearly tall enough to house at least two rooms stacked atop one another. There hadn't been anything to jump onto or climb down on from the vents he'd come through, so jumping straight to the bottom had been his only option.
Stretching his limbs, he swiftly lit a flame in his palm so that he could see more of the room, for the light that filtered in through the vents was poor and hard to judge things by. Oddly enough, he seemed to have dropped himself into the temple's storage facility. There were barrels of flour stacked in one corner, fresh apples piled in another, various pots and pans strewn about in various places, and other goods that one would find in such a place.
He'd leaned over a barel of flour to inspect the white pouder when the door creaked open, causing the firebender to jump and quickly duck behind one of the barrels.
"...would you just look at those cow-sheep? They're just begging me to eat them," a familiar voice sounded, though Zuko could not place it.
He looked up and saw the dead, skinned cow-sheep hanging from hooks that extended down from the ceiling and wrinkled his nose at the sight.
Next there was a scoff, then a voice that he did recognize.
"They're dead, Sokka," she said and he knew that the other voice belonged to that dim-witted brother of hers. "They can't beg you to do anything."
Zuko peered out from behind the barrel at the Water Tribe siblings, listening to them bicker and resisting the urge to laugh--biting the insides of his cheeks to keep from doing so. He noticed that even though Katara responded to her brother's ramblings about the various ways to cook the tender flesh of a cow-sheep with sarcasm, she looked upon him fondly, adoringly. His own sister had never looked at him that way...not that he ever wanted her too. The thought of Azula being fond of him was oddly frightening.
The sound of the door slamming resounded through the large room and Zuko stood, letting out a sigh of relief. They'd left, good. It wasn't that he minded being caught by Sokka, but that he minded being caught by Katara. She would have bruised his eardrums and probably other parts of his body if she found him in here, watching her and her brother.
He gave a roll of his golden eyes at the thought, moving away from the barrel and to the door, pressing his good ear against the wooden frame. He heard no sound from the other side and slowly pulled it open--just enough so that he could look left and right and make sure no one was around. Spotting no one, he slipped through the door and shut it softly behind him and began making his way down the long corridor the storage room was at the end of. The cooridor opened up to the veranda part of one of the temple's upside down towers.
Zuko moved to the edge and looked down, squinting in the sunlight. He could vaguely see the faintest splotch of blue at the bottom, hinting that there was something below--something that was probably blissfully unaware of the airbender temple above. Grimacing at the thought of someone down there finding this place, Zuko turned around.
And almost fell off the edge.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?" Katara shouted at him, reaching out a finger to poke him accusingly in the chest.
The prince wobbled a bit on his heels, partially hanging off the edge, and seized her wrist--partly to stop himself from falling and to stop her from prodding him. She resisted, a disgusted look filtering in across her features as she tried to yank her arm from his grasp.
"Zuko, let go!"
"Stop moving!"
"I would if you would let go."
He didn't and her blue eyes narrowed as she reached out a palm and slapped it hard against his chest, pushing roughly against him while trying to wrench her wrist from his fingers. This only served to lessen the prince's already unstable balance and with a shriek, he began to fall backwards. Only, the shriek didn't belong to himself--it belonged to her. He realized with horror that when he'd fallen, he'd pulled her along with him.
The barely-visible blue at the bottom of the gorge was growing larger and larger by the minute and Zuko slammed his eyes shut and staightened his body just as his boots came into contact with the water below. It was cold and wet and moving and threatened to pull him under deeper. He struggled against the current and pushed with all his might to the surface, treading water with increasing diffulty as his vision returned to him and he found himself floating in a rushing river.
A tree limb drifted near him and he seized it, eyes immediately falling on strands of dark hair and blood staining the bark.
Blood.
The waterbender!
"Katara!" He shouted, panic taking over. "Waterbender! Katara!"
There were trees on a small ledge just above the river. She must've hit her head on one of the branches and broke it off.
His eyes scanned the churning surface of the water, letting go of the branch without hesitation when he spotted her form on the other side of the water's expanse. Zuko struggled against the current as he tried to reach her, wishing at that moment that he was a waterbender and not a firebender--that she wasn't unconcious and could use her bending abilities to save them both.
Zuko's hand found hers when he drew near, grabbing hold of it and pulling her limp body to his. He held her head above the water, laying it against his shoulder and realized a moment later that he couldn't feel her breath against his skin.
She wasn't breathing.
"No, no, no," he chanted, drawing her back some with both arms to peer at her, kicking fiercing with his legs to keep them both afloat. She couldn't die! That would ruin everything. The Avatar wouldn't believe that they'd fallen and she'd hit her head and drowned. No, they'd think that he killed her.
Zuko could never bring himself to kill anyone. Not even her.
It was then that he noticed the water seemed to abruptly stop just up ahead and resisted the urge to start shouting at the world for being harsh and unfair as he realized that it was a waterfall.
He wasn't a strong enough swimmer to get them both out of the water and there wasn't anything for him to grab onto that would help him in that feat. He might have been able to save himself if he tried hard enough, but he refused to leave Katara behind. If she wasn't dead and merely unconcious--and by Agni, he hoped she was--he wouldn't be able to forgive himself for sending her to her death.
Left with no other options, Zuko pulled Katara against him and held onto her tightly, his stomach flipping over and making him feel nauseated just as they began their decent down the falls. He tightened his hold on her and braced them both for the impact below, feeling a sharp sting against the skin of his arms just before he blacked out.
TO BE CONTINUED...
"Avatar: the Last Airbender" is © Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. Haretsu is not Combustion Man's name, but merely one made up for use in this fic/chapter. Also, this fic is being written for the 30 KISSES challenge community on InsaneJournal, so the chapters follow the themes listed in their userinfo's alternate column.
06/18/2008