Four: Separation
Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation woke up the next morning cold and stiff. He stretched, and grimaced at the nasty taste in his mouth. It felt like his teeth had grown fur overnight.
Glancing over, he noticed that the Waterbender girl was gone. The spot she'd previously occupuied during the night was empty, only a small patch of light dirt left behind to signify that she'd been here earlier. He stood up, trying to stretch out all of the kinks in his body that came from sleeping on the cold, hard ground.
Where was she? He frowned. The island wasn't so big; there wasn't a single place on it where she could hide from him. Unless...
A panic seized him. Perhaps her rescuers had arrived in the middle of the night, and she'd departed from this godforsaken island? Leaving him behind, all alone?
He began to run, crashing through the bushes towards the beach, thinking to himself that the only thing worse than being stuck on an island with her was being stuck on an island by himself-
Prince Zuko broke through the underbrush, almost stumbling on the sand dunes. He straightened before falling over, and panting, glanced up to scan the beachfront.
There she was. A slight blue figure on her hands and knees, digging through the wet sand at the tideline. She looked up and saw him. He must have looked quite a sight to her; panicked expression, rumpled clothing, heaving breath.
"What?" she said, turning back to her grubbing, "Had a nightmare, your Majesty?"
Her tone sounded particularly nasty.
Zuko narrowed his eyes. "No," he snapped back, "I just had to- just had to- "
Katara finally sat back on her heels, wiping a strand of hair from her face, and leaving a streak of dirt across her forehead. His eyes lingered there, the dark grains of sand contrasting against her golden skin. She gave him a look, up and down. "What, missed me?"
"No!" Zuko snapped back, just as nastily. "I said I had to-"
"Pee?"
"No!"
She lifted one eyebrow. "Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."
He was beyond words. Zuko made some kind of noise, a sort of inarticulate growl, and whirled around, stomping back into the forest.
Damn her. Damn her and her... her impertinence!
----
Shaking her head, Katara bent back down into the sandy hole she'd dug this morning and scrabbling at the side, plucked out another clam. She already had a pile next to her, accumulated during the early hours of dawn and silence. It was her breakfast.
And, she thought to herself grumpily, if that spoiled little Prince happened to be wanting any nourishment this morning, then he was going to get on his knees and beg her. She wasn't going to be giving out food like she could afford it- she barely had enough for herself as it was. If he wasn't going too contribute to this back-breaking, dirty work, then he wasn't going to be gettin' any.
Deciding this was enough, Katara piled the hard seafood into the lap of her skirt, and stood up clumsily, her legs cramped and bent. Stumbling only a little bit, she made her way back to the little clearing where she and the Prince had spent last night.
He was there when she arrived, leaning sullenly against a tree. Katara ignored him as she knelt down, piling the clams next to the ashes of the campfire. Finishing clearing her dress, she looked up at the Prince. He glared back.
"I'll give you a clam if you light this fire for me," she said, trying to negotiate some kind of truce.
Zuko scoffed at her offer. "I don't need your nasty clams."
Katara bristled, angry that she'd tried to make peace with him and been rejected so badly. "Fine. You can just starve to death, then."
He smirked back. "And you can just eat those raw."
Katara lost it. "You do understand what our situtation is, yes?"
"Of course I understand, what do you think I am, stupid-"
She cut him off. "You do understand that we are stuck on a deserted island with nobody but each other, and that to survive until rescue arrives, if it ever does, we will have to cooperate, however an unlikely idea it seems?"
"You are asking me, a Prince of the Fire nation, to cooperate with a dirty little Water peasant like yourself?"
A definite no, then.
Katara gave him a tight smile. "Alright. So that's how it's going to be."
He gave her a triumphant nod.
She stood up, pointing one shaking finger in his direction. "Then you, you can just leave."
He laughed in her face. "Leave? And where would I be leaving to?"
"Get out!" she shrieked, voice ringing in his ears. "This is my clearing! I found it, I built the campfire, I dug up the clams- this is mine!"
"Have it your way," he snarled, turning on his heel to leave for the opposite end of the island. "I, personally, will have a much better day if I never see your face again."
----
When he left, Katara let her trembling arm drop and she sank to the ground. She determinedly poked at the ashes of the fire, trying to find a still-glowing ember, but to no avail. All of them were dead, gray, ashy clumps of useless charcoal.
Her shoulders drooped in defeat. Times like this, she almost wished she was a Firebender. Almost.
But not , she thought angrily to herself, if she would end up like the Prince: a temperamental, selfish little bastard.
There was no other option. Picking up a rock to break open the first of the clams, she closed her eyes and pinched her nose as the gooey inside slid down her throat. She almost gagged as the tasteless rawness slimed over her tongue and into her stomach. Utterly revolting and disgusting, but it was food. And she would need her wits about her until Aang and Sokka arrived to rescue her.
----
That night, they slept apart. Katara next to the ashy remains of he campfire, empty clam shells littering the ground next to her. Prince Zuko picked a spot on the beach, grumpily scraping out a small hollow in the sand for his body.
Katara shivered and was afraid of the encroaching shadows made by the moving, whispering leaves of the forest. Zuko had a nightmare that the ocean rose up and flooded the island, drowning him while Katara swam safely to a distant shore.
Neither of them was comfortable, and neither of them slept much at all.
----
By noon of the next day, Prince Zuko was almost in pain from the hunger clenching his insides. He'd already broken open and swallowed down a multitude of coconuts, leaving empty shells scattered along the beach. But just thinking about drinking down another sickly sweet coconut made him want to gag. It'd gotten so bad that he would have gladly gulped down a whole pot of Iroh's tea if his uncle had offered him any.
By mid-afternoon of the third day, he was stumbling between forest and beach, hungry beyond all possibility. Having thrown up after eating his last coconut, the plentiful brown fruit was out of the question. He'd resorted to digging for clams like that Waterbender girl, glancing behind him furtively to make sure she wasn't watching him. He must have been doing something wrong, for he found nothing, and ended up wasting an hour's worth of energy on this venture for food. He was thirsty as well; there was no source of freshwater on the island, and the salty seawater was undrinkable. Coconut juice- he gagged just thinking about it.
By evening of the fourth day, he was in a hallucinatory daze. He wandered into the forest, getting lost, and in the end, grabbing a succulent, leafy green bush and stuffing the bitter leaves into his mouth. He pretended it was something else; a salad perhaps, or other vegetable. He had no experience with identifying edible plants in the wild, and so had absolutely no idea what he had just eaten. Zuko was just desperate to negate the gnawing hunger in his stomach, and continued to pluck, stuff, chew, and swallow.
By midnight he was throwing up his guts.
----
Katara watched from the shadows of the forest as Zuko, Royal Prince of the Fire Nation, looked like he was trying to vomit his internal organs from his body onto the beach. She grimaced as his horrible retching noises echoed through the night. He was on his hands and knees, bent over in the soft moonlight, his body shuddering convulsively with every heave.
It only took her a second to make her decision. She hated him, yes. She wanted him to stop hunting Aang, yes. She definitely wished she wasn't stuck on this island with him, yes.
But he was a human being, no?
She strode purposefully from the greenery towards his shivering figure on the beach.
----
Zuko felt a small hand rubbing warm circles on his back as he threw up the last of what seemed like his entire stomach. A horrible burning sensation filled his throat and mouth before he collapsed onto his back, darkness encroaching at the edges of his vision. He had one last glimpse of a worried, blue-eyed face before he lost all consciousness.
----
A/N: For all of those who are wondering about the status of LTE... I'm having a decidedly hard time writing the next chapter. It's definitely more... complicated than previous ones. It's hard. But I will come through for you, I promise.
how long does it take for you to get home? --Zukos Girl
Um about an hour, so I try to be productive and do a little something during that time
I remember the first time I had a coconut...I was in Taiwan. --XX Painful Bliss XX
EEEK! You've been to Taiwan? Taiwan is my homeland, yo. I was born there and lived there for a long time. English is my second language. XD
Makes ya wish ya were stranded on a deserted island with a certain Firebender... --Patricia
Mmm... glad to know I'm not the only one who's had that fantasy. XD