Reversal of Fortunes
Avatar: The Last Airbender fic by yanocchi
THE STORY SO FAR: After Iroh agrees to teach Aang firebending, Katara and Iroh try to do a bit of damage control...
Standard disclaimer applies.
CHAPTER FOUR: In which Zuko learns several new things and gets a new job.
Dragging the complaining prince behind her, Katara strode directly into the forest. She wasn't even thinking of where to look for food, only that Zuko must not see Aang. Her thoughts were whirling incoherently, flitting from one to the next too fast to follow. She was brought back to reality by a wrench on her arm.
"Enough!" Zuko bellowed, jerking his arm free. "Explain yourself!"
Katara froze, realizing for the first time how precarious of a situation she had put herself in. "Okay, just listen for a second," she said to the angry boy in front of her. She held up her palms in a placating gesture. "This wasn't just about food..."
"I KNEW it!" Zuko gasped, falling into a defensive stance. "Assassin!"
"Would you just shut up and listen!" Katara shouted at him. Taken aback, Zuko remained silent long enough for her to go on. "It's about Aang. Well, about the Avatar, really. He's more powerful than you think," she said cautiously.
"I stopped underestimating the Avatar some time ago," Zuko replied dismissively. "What a waste of time."
"No, you don't understand," Katara insisted. Zuko shot her a skeptical look. Katara hesitated and gnawed on her lip for a moment. "Okay, if I show you will you PROMISE to not do anything?" she said.
"What are you talking about?" her companion replied.
Katara sighed in exasperation. She stuck her pinkie finger out insistently. "Just promise." Zuko looked apprehensively between the girl and her proffered finger.
"What?" he prompted. Katara groaned and reached over to grab Zuko's right hand, molding his fingers to match hers. Then she hooked his pinkie in her own and looked into his eyes.
"Do you promise?" she repeated. Finally understanding, Zuko wrapped his pinkie around Katara's and nodded. Having completed the ritual to the waterbender's satisfaction, Zuko was motioned to silence and led back in the direction of the others. When the voices of Aang, Sokka and Iroh could be heard, Zuko's guide crouched in the lee of a dense cluster of bushes and gestured him forward. Utterly baffled, Zuko joined her and peered through the leaves.
"Very good," Iroh was saying. Zuko couldn't see his uncle, but he could tell by the tone of the man's voice that he was pleasantly surprised. "You seem to have some talent for this."
"Thanks," Aang replied warmly. Zuko could see the boy partially. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at. The tattooed monk was concentrating on a small ball of fire hovering between his hands. Zuko could see the fire ball pulse and grow slightly. "Whoops!"
"Your breathing..." Iroh reminded the boy. Aang nodded and took a deep breath through his nose. The fire ball settled back to its former size.
"How—" Zuko hissed under his breath. Katara clapped a hand over his mouth before he could go any further. Jostled to one side, Zuko could see his uncle turn his head slightly at the noise.
"Did you hear something?" Sokka asked warily.
"Hmm?" Iroh replied in his most senile old man voice.
"Oh no," Katara moaned nervously. Zuko hurriedly covered the girl's mouth. For a long moment the two of them sat there holding their breaths and praying.
"Forget it," Sokka grumbled.
The pair hiding in the bushes inched backwards, deeper into the woods. When they had reached a safe distance, they rose without speaking and headed back into the trees. They trudged in silence for some time. Katara was struck by the peculiarity of the situation. Not even a full day ago the young man walking by her had been threatening her life, and a few weeks before that she had faced him in battle. And now? 'Let's go for a stroll through the gardens,' Katara thought wryly.
She was so distracted she nearly walked right past a laden bush of orrum berries. She stopped to collect them and Zuko plowed into her back.
"Hey! Watch where you're going!" she snapped, staggering.
"Maybe you shouldn't stop so suddenly," Zuko shot back. "What do you expect?"
The pair glared fiercely at each other before turning in opposite directions. Katara picked up the hem of her skirt and began loading the bucket formed with handfuls of the plump yellow berries.
"What are you doing?" Zuko gasped in horror. Katara glanced up at him, eyebrow cocked. "They're POISONOUS!"
"They are not," Katara replied firmly.
"But- I could have sword Uncle Iroh said they were poisonous..."
"They're not, I've been eating them for ages," Katara said, turning back to the bush. Zuko drew closer and watched warily, as though afraid of the berries. "They won't bite," Katara laughed. Zuko straightened hastily.
"Of course they won't, they're just berries," he retorted scornfully.
"And they're breakfast, so help me pick them."
Zuko's lip curled at this suggestion. "Help you pick them? What do you take me for! I'm a prince of the Fire Nation! Are you suggesting I stoop to manual labor?" Katara glared murderously at him, but didn't reply. Frustrated by the lack of reaction, Zuko raised his voice. "I'm the crown prince, I won't be degraded by peasant's work!" His statement was punctuated by a gurgle from his stomach.
"You're going to be the starving prince soon," Katara teased.
"What are you talking about?" Zuko scoffed.
"Oh, save it. You haven't eaten in days, I can tell. If you hadn't been half-starved I never would have been able to knock you out that easily."
"You? Knock me out!"
"I didn't?"
"Of course not!"
"So you just fainted!"
Zuko ground his teeth in frustration. He kept his hands clenched in tight fists at his sides. If he didn't, he'd wrap his fingers around that pretty throat and throttle the impudence out of her. As though her saucy tone wasn't bad enough, now she was popping berries into her mouth!
"Mm!" she said delightedly, mouth full of berries. "Just right!"
Zuko glared at her in wordless rage. The smell of the plump juicy berries filled his nostrils and made his mouth water. That witch! Taunting him!
Katara glanced up at Zuko. "Did you say something?" she asked.
"Mayplzhavsumburrz," he mumbled through clenched teeth.
"Huh?"
"May I please have some berries?" he snapped, flushing slightly. She looked at him as though he had grown an extra head.
"Sure, help yourself," she replied. Zuko reached eagerly for the pile of berries cradled in her skirts. With a speed that made his head spin he was shoved backwards and sent sprawling on the ground. Dazed, Zuko looked up at Katara. She was edging backwards, hands clutched defensively beneath her chin. The berries, Zuko noted with dismay, had spilled from her skirt and rolled all over the ground.
"What are you doing!" she gasped at him. Her face was bright red, though Zuko couldn't tell if it was from embarrassment or anger.
"That's what I'd like to know! You said 'help yourself!'"
Katara blinked at him for a confused moment, than jabbed with her finger furiously at the bush. "I meant from there!"
"How was I supposed to know?"
Katara slapped her palm against her forehead in exasperation. "That's how it WORKS," she explained, as though speaking to a child. "You eat as you pick!" Sighing heavily, she gathered her skirts up again and began picking berries off the ground. Zuko rose and dusted himself off proudly, then went to the other side of the bush and cautiously plucked a berry from the bush. He popped it into his mouth.
Food! Finally! Sweet and tangy, juicy and firm... With a silent apology to his uncle, Zuko began to grab handfuls of berries and gobble them down.
When his mad dash for sustenance had slowed to a steady graze, Zuko thought back on what he had seen. Though he himself had started training early, he had spent months holding a smoldering piece of paper. Months of burned fingertips and startling flares that singed his eyebrows. Yet only a few meters away in under an hour the boy had skipped all those months. Zuko hadn't advanced to creating and maintaining a fire ball until he was nearly seven years old.
"Pretty amazing, isn't he," Katara said softly from the other side of the bush, as though reading the prince's thoughts.
"The Avatar," Zuko agreed coolly.
"Aang," she corrected. "That's what I was trying to tell you. He— he learns really fast. It made me jealous, too. I got angry and frustrated. It took me months of practice just to create and control a wave, and he was surpassing me in a single afternoon." Despite her calm tone and level words, Zuko could hear that frustration still trembling at the edge of her voice. Moving around the bush slightly, he watched as Katara clenched her fingers in the fabric of her dress, then relaxed them.
"Of course," Zuko replied after a moment. "He's the Avatar." 'Am I trying to comfort her?' he wondered, surprised in spite of himself. 'No, I'm just trying to comfort myself.'
Katara sighed and twisted one corner of her mouth up in a bitter smile. "He's had hundreds of lifetimes to learn each element, over and over again. People like you and me, we'll be lucky if we'll still be able to bend a hundred years from now."
"Don't put me in the same category as you, peasant," Zuko huffed.
Katara stomped around the bush to glare squarely into Zuko's face. "What's your problem?" she demanded. "Can't you ever have a conversation without insulting somebody?"
"Why waste my breath on trying to hold an intelligent conversation with YOU?" he retorted, scorn dripping from his voice.
"At least I don't have my nose so high in the air I can't see what's right in front me!" Zuko shifted uncomfortably at that and lowered his chin a few inches.
"I wouldn't expect a water tribe peasant to understand dignity."
Katara smirked triumphantly. "I don't want to hear that from the BOY with juice stains all over his mouth."
Zuko dragged his sleeve roughly across his mouth. "I suppose that's what happens when you're forced to eat barbaric foods," Zuko replied, snarling. "Of course a water tribe peasant like you wouldn't be able to appreciate the refined flavors of the delicacies I'm accustomed to if they hit her in the face," he added.
Katara's lips were pursed in a thin pale line. Her cheeks flushed with rage and Zuko congratulated himself on that little victory.
"Good idea," she said through clenched teeth. Before Zuko realized what she meant, the water bender had grabbed a handful of berries and thrown them savagely in his face. He knocked them aside easily and angrily reached for her, but she had already darted out of reach. She made a rude face and him before dashing towards the bushes.
"You little—" Zuko snarled, sparks crackling around his fisted hands. Katara paused and glanced back. The firebender prepared for her to launch some attack at him, but instead she raised her hand. Sticking out her little finger she focused on a spot in Zuko's general direction and shrugged some kind of bow-like thanks.
"Thanks anyway. For this," she said, gesturing with her pinky. Before Zuko could even begin to think of a reply she had faded into the trees.
She had thanked him. When was the last time somebody had thanked him? Thinking back, he couldn't recall hearing any form of gratitude in... two years? Almost three? Since his banishment had begun. And really, had he done anything to merit any sort of thanks?
On the heels of that thought was another: when had he last said thanks himself? He never thanked his uncle, though Iroh had done nothing but support his hot-headed nephew. His crew, who had gone through so much for him, received no thanks. He remembered though that (under duress, and with the possibility of having his cover blown) Zuko had thanked the family that had tended Iroh's rash and fed them. That small nugget of human decency restored his confidence.
'It's not like I'm ungrateful," Zuko reasoned.
He recalled suddenly what Katara had said after he had first regained consciousness; "I'm fine, he's just ungrateful." Starting to walk back towards the others, Zuko squirmed in his skin uncomfortably. It's not that he didn't appreciate what she had done for him and his uncle. He just couldn't express it properly. Royal thank you's were rare, and were not bought cheaply. To thank a subject, all Zuko had to do was nod at him with the right expression. To thank a water tribe peasant he'd have to find another way.
Ignorant commoner! Bourgeois! Yokel! He gleefully imagined throwing all manner of taunts at the girl. In his mind's eye she burst into tears as she finally realized how inferior she was to Zuko. Imagining her tear-streaked face killed Zuko's momentary good mood. Snarling in frustration at himself, Zuko stalked back into camp.
Satiated, at least for the moment, Sokka leaned back with a heavy sigh of content. "I don't know if that was lunch, dinner or just a snack, but that was good."
Katara grinned proudly. Using the berries she had collected (that Zuko was worthless, really!) to add flavor, some leftover bread and the remains of the porridge from earlier that day she had somehow managed to cobble together a kind of dumpling for everybody. 'I probably wouldn't even know how to cook in a proper kitchen anymore,' she thought ruefully. Months of cooking over smokey campfires in all manner of odd weather and terrain had overtaken all the lessons she had learned from her Gran-gran, and her mother before she had died. It was probably for the better, since she had been a horrible cook.
Hands on hips, Katara turned challengingly to Aang. "Alright, Mister Avatar," she said firmly. Aang froze in the act of sneaking out of sight and turned back with a groan.
"Why doesn't Sokka ever have to do dishes?" the boy grumbled. Iroh watched Aang, amused. He may have lived for 112 years, but he was still little more than a child.
"Because Sokka breaks too many things." Katara glowered at her brother. He shrugged helplessly.
"I'm a butterfingers, what can I say?"
Katara faced Aang again and took a ready stance, her fisted right hand held out. Aang mirrored the pose, tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth in concentration.
"ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS!" the two of them shouted, pumping their fists in time before displaying a pair of 'papers.'
"Guys?" Sokka said tentatively. Katara looked up and Aang switched to 'scissors.'
Following the line of Sokka's sight, Katara and Aang promptly forgot all about rock paper scissors. Just outside the small clearing that formed the group's camp, Zuko was hunkered over the dishes.
"Zuko?" Iroh asked, disbelievingly.
"What is it, Uncle?" Zuko replied without turning around.
"What are you doing?"
"Dishes," he said simply, holding up a clean bowl to demonstrate. Iroh made a few incoherent noises and Zuko glanced over his shoulder. "You don't expect me to eat off something that hasn't been properly cleaned do you?"
Iroh blinked and scratched at his beard, puzzled. "Hrm, well, I suppose not..." he mumbled.
Though Zuko had been speaking to his uncle, Katara had a feeling he was looking at her. His disconcerting golden eyes bored into hers until she finally had to turn her head.
"Thanks," she muttered. Zuko acted as though he hadn't heard and finished the dishes in silence.
ATOGAKI: Building... building... tears of frustration Want to skip ahead! I'm trying to keep Katara IC, but it's so hard since I'm a long way from 14. I hope the bickering was realistic. I'm trying to make them squabble but keep them from saying anything TOO mean, since Katara is way too smart to put up with that crap. I mean, if they're horrid to each other ALL the time they'd just end up hating each other and then we'd never get our lemonade. ;3 BTW, if you didn't get it, Zuko's new job is dishwasher. XD
The highly esteemed Rashaka has pointed out that I goofed in the second chapter. I'm hoping I'll be able to fix that (without rewriting too extensively, since that just ends up confusing everybody) in the next chapter.
Also, this fic has moved from "sometime in the second season" to "before 'Avatar Day.'" (-.-)9 Stupid Zuko...