A/N: I realize reviews will be horribly nonexistent for this piece, since, like me, for the majority, everyone is absorbed in current episodes. I completely understand. While I wrote this piece in fervor originally for the reviews I was getting, I now want to complete this piece so I can say that I did. Also, I have a few ideas for other short stories and drabbles that do include the current episodes. My heart giggles at the idea :)This is the last chapter! Besides the prologue. I will give a prologue, in case I decide to continue, which I hope I do. Please read and review, so I may hear what you think.
Zuko paced and thought and moaned, but he did not know what to do. Feng Jie turned and mumbled in her sleep-like state, but he could not get her to wake up. He had yelled in her ear, shook her shoulder, even pulled at the black horns that sprouted out of her beautiful golden hair. But she did not respond. Zuko was close to tears.
"Uncle, please help me, I can't get her to wake up!" Iroh turned from the lamp he had lit, and procured some of the tea he had made back at the oasis. It was cold now, but still good.
"Make her drink this, Zuko. It should at least keep her awake for a while." Zuko took the skin full of tea, and removed the cap. With care he did not know he possessed, Zuko lifted Feng Jie's head, and gently let some of the cold tea trickle into her mouth. Some dribbled down her chin, and Zuko used his sleeve to wipe it away.
"Zuko…" Feng Jie's voice was soft and broken as she opened her glowing green eyes and tried to see Zuko's face. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she reached for his hand. He took it, and her cold claws grazed his skin lightly.
"Zuko, it hurts," she pleaded, closing her radiating eyes in shame. How could she have let this happen?
"Ssh, ssh, it's okay," Zuko whispered, squeezing her hand. He couldn't believe he was doing this. It was against who he was. He could feel the conflict fighting his inner fire.
"Feng Jie, I can help. I heard you and my uncle talking about a final part of your curse. How to break it… and… I think, Feng Jie, I think…" Zuko paused here, trying to see deeper into hazed over eyes that used to be so beautiful, "I love you…"
Iroh turned away and smiled, humming a tune to himself so to politely drown out anything that would pass between the two young ones.
Feng Jie gasped ever so slightly, and the blazing green glow disappeared from her eyes, but Zuko didn't wait to see any more, because his own butterscotch orbs closed as he leaned in and pressed his lips softly against hers. The heat that exploded between them was tremendous.
As soon as their lips parted Feng Jie gasped, and Zuko felt the Dragon's Tear slide out of her breast and onto the soft sand. It stayed there, glowing eerily in the dark. Zuko opened his eyes and looked down at Feng Jie, and saw the horns and claws had disappeared. Her hair was still the color of hay, and her eyes shone in the dark with strange ghostly power, but she looked… human.
"Zuko…" she whispered, pushing herself up onto her elbows. He didn't budge, so they were again dangerously close. Feng Jie closed her eyes, tempted by the sweet smell of his breath, but then she remembered.
"Zuko, something is wrong… I don't feel human." He pulled back then, to look her up and down, but found nothing.
"You certainly look human to me" he said huskily, with a smirk on his face, and he dove back to her sweet mouth. The feeling of… love! He was enthralled in it.
"No, Zuko, wait, you don't understand!" she cried scrambling in the sand until she was sitting up. "I can still feel it! The spirit in me hasn't left! I don't understand!" A look of panic, delicate panic flushed her face, and Zuko felt it too, and all he could do was do something he had longed to do, and that was to grab her and pull her closer, pressing her warm and trembling body to his chest.
"I know why." The voice was deep, unfamiliar, except for Feng Jie. She cried out in horror and scrambled to her feet. Zuko would not be pushed aside, though, and he helped her up, with his arms never leaving her waist. They turned together to face the King Spirit, a powerful and dangerous being, who was currently quite amused.
"I have been watching you, Feng Jie. Yes, watching you and watching your sad life on the earth. I almost pitied you and your mangled soul. But then, oh, then, I saw this!"
The King Spirit, Bi Shen, laughed, and the sound echoed against invisible barriers on the desert. Bi Shen threw back his head and chuckled, twisted horns upon his head glinting in the moonlight. His laughter stopped abruptly, and he turned his glowing gaze upon Zuko.
"You do not know this, little fireling, and I do not expect you too. But your grandfather Firelord Sozen once tried to fight me. He was strong… for a human," the spirit paused, staring sharply at Prince Zuko. He flinched, shying away from the penetrating gaze. Bi Shen reminded him slightly of Feng Jie when she had absorbed the Dragon's Tear, but so much more ferocious. He reminded Zuko of the dragon statues in the palace too, but so real, so ferocious.
"We came to a truce, as I would feel guilty for killing such a worthy opponent. In trade, I gave him some of my power." Zuko's eyebrows rose in surprise. He had never heard this before. "However, he gave me the right to interfere with his life, or his lineage's life, in any way I pleased."
Zuko felt Feng Jie gasp and sob. He was still confused, but she was terrified.
"Please no," she cried. She had no idea what Bi Shen was going to do, but the fear that he instilled in her before was overwhelming.
"I have an idea, Feng Jie, would you like to hear it?" she shook her head rapidly, cowering before the huge spirit. Zuko growled, but remained speechless in the shadow of the spirit.
"I will keep my word, you will lose the majority of your spirit curse." Feng Jie sobbed, trying to ask what he meant.
"You will remain in the body you posses now, Feng Jie, but if you can learn to call upon the power, you may change into a wind spirit. Would it be fun, Feng Jie?" She shook her head again, whimpering.
"However!" the spirit looked down at Zuko. Feng Jie feared for her prince's life, and shook in his grasp.
"I cannot let this go, Feng Jie. Your true love is the grandson of Firelord Sozen! What a good choice!" Bi Shen paused, as if for effect. "Let us test these bonds of love, Feng Jie. Will a lost memory keep you apart?" Feng Jie cried out, tightening her grip on Zuko.
"Please, don't blank his memory!" The Spirit King laughed again, shaking his head in wonder.
"I will not erase all of it, young one. Just every memory of you in his head. He will not remember this journey, because I will place him at his destination, along with his uncle."
Iroh spoke up for the first time approaching Bi Shen most carefully.
"Wise spirit, would it be best to break apart these two new lovers? Perhaps you should give them the chance of loving each other–" Iroh did not finish.
"Silence, Dragon, I do not care about how this will affect them. They are but specks in this world". Zuko watched, helpless, as the Spirit turned to them. He couldn't move, he felt so petrified! He closed his eyes, and turned his head to bury his face in Feng Jie's sweet-smelling hair, hoping to keep that scent in his mind for forever.
"Please, Bi Shen, at least give them one last moment!" Iroh interrupted once more, and the King Spirit snarled. Then laughed once more, looking at the stubborn old man before him.
"Alright, Iroh, let them have one last moment before I tear these two apart." The spirit turned his head, as if to give them privacy. Zuko was still in shock as he buried his eyes in her soft hair.
"Zuko," Feng Jie moaned, pushing him away so she could gaze one last time into his perfect golden eyes, "Zuko, please remember me…" She pressed her nose against his rough scar, committing every piece of him to memory.
"I will, I will. Promise," he whispered, and he nuzzled her chin, moving her face to an angle where he could press his lips against hers, and she opened her mouth in a desperate cry of despair, and his hot breath echoed on her tongue. She shuddered in delight and fear, for she knew that even though he promised to remember, the King Spirit was too powerful. She pulled apart from the prince, feeling as if they would never see each other again.
"I will hunt for you, Zuko, I will. When I find you, I will make you remember again," she embraced him tightly, letting his warm mouth give her comfort once more.
"You won't have to make me. You're beauty will make me remember. I don't think anything could make me forget," he sighed and filled himself with every bit of her. He gazed deeply into those green eyes, and inhaled her scent once more before kissing her sweet lips for the last time.
"Enough, I am impatient!" roared the King Spirit. Zuko was pulled apart from Feng Jie, and she cried as if her heart had been torn out. A black cloud drew over the desert and Bi Shen approached Zuko and Iroh.
"I will send you to your destination, but you will not remember anything about your journey hear in this desert." The King was not a spirit of many words, and he inhaled. His released breath puffed out in a misty cloud, surrounding the two travelers. Feng Jie ran forward, crying out to Zuko, and she thought she heard him cry back. But when the mist cleared, they had disappeared. Bi Shen was gone as well, and an ominous laugh swept through a desert wind, and then disappeared.
Feng Jie sank to the ground, tears streaming down her face freely. She was alone in the desert, the Dragon's tear buried in layers of sand, perhaps to be lost forever.
She sat there for what seemed to be days, mourning over her lost love, stumped at what she should do to start searching. She had not even learned where they were going once past the desert, except Ba Sing Sei. Ba Sing Sei… it was a start. But how would she get there? She could not walk the desert; she was already starting to feel human thirst again…
Feng Jie looked down at her now perfect, porcelain hand, and thought. Perhaps…
She stood, staring far into the distance where Ba Sing Sei lay. She closed her eyes, thinking back to how her body snaked and thrived as a wind spirit. She could feel it…
There! She gasped, and looked down at her arm. Clenching and unclenching was a scaly, clawed dragon's arm, talons as sharp as cactus needles. Feng Jie grinned slightly, and closed her eyes once more.
"I'm coming Zuko…" she whispered, but it turned into a roar in her throat.
