Tough ten
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender
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"Crystals?"
Katara looked up at the roof of the cave in confusion, why on earth would Zuko be asking about crystals? She turned back to the prince.
"They won't find us here, they never will, it's our cave Oma, our secret"
He smiled that odd smile again the one that didn't seem to fit his face. Katara felt a stone drop into her gut as she ripped her hand out of Zuko's.
"Stop it!"
She yelled.
"Zuko, stop it you're speaking nonsense and it's starting to scare me!"
Katara wasn't the type of girl who scared easy, sure there were things she was afraid of but they consisted mainly around the safety of Aang, Sokka, Toph and more recently The Duke Haru and Teo. Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation was something she was notafraid of. She had been once, what seemed like an eternity ago. When Zuko was a stranger in a land of snows. A boy with an angry scar and even angrier face that didn't seem to fit quite right in his battle armour. Katara had been a child then, of course 'then' had barely been a year ago. A child with nothing other than her grandmother's stories of the world beyond hers to prepare her for what was about to come.
But oh how she had grown up since then, she had not been afraid of Zuko since he tied her to a tree, any fear she might have felt towards him disappeared and was replaced with white hot anger when he taunted her with her mothers necklace and then pity as she sat with with him underneath Ba Sing Se.
But Zuko didn't stop talking instead he continued a calm expression on a face that didn't seem to be his.
"Our caves Oma, we built them together, you and I, last time. Don't you remember, we met on top of the mountain..."
Zuko broke off his face furrowing in confusion
"...no we didn't. We met half way up it, you were in my tribes territory, stealing watercress from our lake. What was the name of that lake? Oh now I remember Dragon tear lake"
Katara stared at him her breath caught in her throat as she remembered tunnels with glowing ceilings and a city named after the two lovers that had made them, Omashu.
"We built our tunnels under that mountain far below the lake. And we were so happy, Oma you and I."
At this point Zuko broke off into a soft laugh he turned to Katara.
"Do you remember how happy we were? Oh and the eggs Oma, you must remember those, I know it's been a long time, so many life times since then, but you must remember them. We loved those eggs, we loved them so much we became thieves. I stole the eggs from my villages duckpigs, I had to get up early in the morning to do it, so early it was probably still night! And I could only take a few, so no one would get suspicious, and you bought the salt. Do you remember when your old Aunt caught you taking the salt and you had to lie and say you were taking it to make an offering to the great mountain spirit! You said when you died your heaven would be filled with salt!"
Zuko laughed heartily and strangely enough Katara felt a bubble of laughter rise from within her too.
"We laughed together then too"
Zuko turned to her his tone lightly serious, Katara grew silent but Zuko continued on.
"We didn't need to steal the lime, there was plenty of that in the tunnels. We put that lime and salt into jars and added those precious eggs and left them. Ten days, that's how long we left them, you were so impatient Oma, you wanted to eat them all at once! But I wanted to as well! Then we mixed up some mud and coated each egg in it. We put them out under the sun to dry and buried them in the Earth. They were so delicious, creamy and salty we made so many of those eggs and then we couldn't eat them"
"Why not?
Before she could stop herself the question had slipped past her mouth, oh great one Katara, lets just encourage Zuko's delusions.
"Our villages, they were starving. The war had driven all the animals from the mountains and the crops had failed. We tried our hardest Oma to feed them, we hunted over the mountains through the tunnels all the secret places we knew for anything to eat. Cave hoppers Grasshopperflies even wolfbats. We gave whatever we caught to our people but in time even that wasn't enough. How could we eat our eggs when all around us people were starving. In the end we decided to split our eggs with our families, we argued for hours over how many we should give them and when we should given them out. But in the end we agreed, we always agreed in the end."
Zuko smiled turning back to the wall in front of him slowly his face became serious but even scowling his face didn't seem quite like Zuko's.
"Our happiness wasn't going to last"
he said sadly giving a hiss of pain as he tried to sit up. All at once Katara's confusion and uncertainty disappeared and she darted back to Zuko's side and helped him into a sitting position. He looked at her a sad smile on his face and a distant look in his eyes as he bought a warm hand up to cup her cheek. The skin of his palm was nothing like what Katara had expected it to be. She had been expecting soft gentle hands, the hands of a prince but Zuko's hands were nothing like that. They were rough, Katara could feel the callouses on his palm and the smooth burn scars that decorated his fingertips it wasn't entirely unpleasant she had to admit, having Zuko's hand on her cheek.
"You must have been so scared Oma, alone in that dark underworld waiting for me and I never came..."
Once again Zuko's face screwed up in confusion
"...no I did come. But I came late, my village had found out about the tunnels they knew our secret. They called me a Traitor, they shot arrows at me, all over my body. I came to you broken and bleeding. And we sat together just like this, me and you in our tunnels. They were coming for us Oma we could hear them, both of our villages were coming to attack us. I took your hand like this"
Zuko removed his hand from Katara's cheek and clasped it around her hand bringing it up between them.
"Remember with me Oma"
Zuko said. And she did. Fear clutched in her chest and she could smell it all around her and it wasn't the only thing she could smell. Blood, she could smell blood, Shu's blood. It was seeping through his blue robe which really was more red now than blue. They were slumped against each other their hands clasped tightly together. She was scared, so so scared, They were going to find them, the men of his village and the men of hers, they were in the tunnels. Katara could hear them shouting and cursing. So long as they kept their torches burning they were safe, they wouldn't find the crystals unless they let their torches go out. Her face was wet with tears as she pulled Shu closer to her. They lay together in the pale green light waiting for death.
Katara wrenched her hand out of Zuko's taking in a deep breath. Her lungs ached with the action and it took her a few seconds to realise she was no longer an Earthbender in a tunnel filled with glowing crystals. Zuko let out a soft breathy moan slumping down the wall and slipping into unconsciousness. His face no longer looked foreign, and like it wasn't quite his. With a puzzled frown on her face Katara slowly reached her hand out to cup Zuko's cheek half expecting him to snap his eyes open and grasp her wrist in an iron hold before she could touch him. But he didn't wake not even as Katara's hand pressed against his cheek.
Her face softened slightly as she ran her fingers gently across the planes of his face, reassuring herself that he was no longer Shu. Her Fingertips ghosted over the rough skin of his scar and Zuko muttered something that sounded more like a breath than a word. Feeling somewhat guilty with herself Katara withdrew her hands from his face. She forced herself to focus on the puncture marks still marring Zuko's back and abdomen, the bites had topped bleeding but they were still swollen and angry. Katara swiped her hand through the air pulling the moisture out of the humid air around her. She moulded it around her hand like a glove as the water started to glow with a slight hum. She bought it to Zuko' side willing the water to do it's work.Slowly the wounds began to mend themselves until they were nothing more than shiny red marks along his side.
Katara let the water drop from her hand and slumped down in exhaustion next to Zuko as his eyes slowly began to open.
"Shu"
Katara said softly
"Who?"
Zuko asked with a frown as he tried to sit up, he winced and at down again, with a frown he turned his gaze towards his side. He gingerly bought a hand to his where his wounds had been.
"It's going to be tender for a while"
Katara told him softly.
"Agni, I feel awful"
Zuko groaned.
"I took the venom out of your blood but you're still gonna experience a few side effects from it"
"Good to know"
Zuko gasped out before rolling on his side just in time to stop the bile in his throat from being expelled all over Katara, she silently thanked him for his consideration before lifting an arm up and rubbing his back.
"I'll bet you're loving this"
Zuko groaned pitifully as he wiped the back of his arm against his mouth, Katara rolled onto her side her staring at Zuko's back.
"What makes you think that?"
She asked gently Zuko glanced over his shoulder back at her.
"You seem to derive a lot of joy watching me suffer, I mean you couldn't stop laughing when I lost my bending"
"It was ironic, come on you have to admit it "
Katara grinned rolling back onto her other side, Zuko let a small smile stretch across his face
"Yeah it was"
They lay together back to back glancing at each other over their shoulders with slight smiles.
"You know I haven't forgiven you"
Katara said suddenly forcing herself into a sitting position, her muscles ached at the movement and it took her several attempts to find a position that didn't make her lower back feel like it was going to snap away from the rest of her body.
"I know"
Zuko said softly as Katara stood up and offered a hand down to him. He took it and let the Water Tribe girl pull him up, he felt in no way capable of standing on his own Katara didn't protest as he put most of his weight on her and together they made their way to the entrance of the cave.
Katara wasn't sure what had happened back there, when Zuko spoke with a voice that wasn't his and smiled with a foreign face. Or what she had felt when he took her hand, what she had seen so clearly in her mind. It seemed impossible now. Yet as she walked stumbling to the edge of the cave and out into the grey half light as the night was chased away by the sun Katara half expected Zuko would be Shu and she would be wearing a red robe stained a dark crimson with his blood.
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STORY NOTES
Frightening: Katara may seem a little OOC when saying she's scared, but wouldn't you be if someone who in the past twenty four hours had had plenty of oppertunities to sustain a brain injury (Being thrown onto a sheet of ice and then into a cave isn't easy on the noggin) Started to sprout utter nonsense! I would be very scared and checking for a concussion...I should have had Katara do that...sorry.
Legend: I know the story Zuko/Shu tells isn't exactly the story Katara read in the cave if two lovers but who knows the story better? Shu or whoever created the Tomb. I believe what was written in the tomb was a legend, based on fact with some details changed to make a better story, Meeting on top of a mountain sounds a lot more poetic than meeting halfway up it and stealing watercress.
Thousand Year Eggs: I touched on these in chapter three I believe. Thousand year eggs are a delicasy in China, the method I have described here is a traditional way of making them, of course with changes in technology thousand year eggs are no longer made like this, nor are they meant to be kept for a thousand years.
Salt: Shu states that Oma wanted her heaven to be filled with salt can anyone tell me of a place on earth that's filled with salt...?
Poisoning again: Just because Katara removed the poison from Zuko doesn't mean he's out of the woods yet. It takes on average 48 hours to recover from a snake bite enough to be discharged from hospital and even then bedrest is recomended as side effects from the venom will remain also there will still be a wound to deal with, of course being that Katara is a healer I have no idea how long Zuko will be suffering for.
Okay that's all for now. I would like to take the time here to say that a large portion of this chapter was inspired by Amy Tan's 'The hundred Secret senses' especially the thousand year eggs. Anyway I apologuise for my poor spelling and puncuation and as always I'm still looking for a beta reader so message me if you're interested, I need all the help I can get.
Ari Out