Reversal of Fortunes
Avatar: The Last Airbender fic by yanocchi
THE STORY SO FAR: Katara and Zuko aren't the only ones who have started to notice a few little differences...
Standard disclaimer applies.
NOTES TO MY REVIEWERS: Since I can't always reply to questions directed to me through reviews, I'll address a few things here.
•To TheWhiteMonk: Yes, I know the flying boar is the symbol of The Bei-Fong family, but it makes sense for it to represent Toph. Things will become clearer in time.
•To Hotshot94: Let's hear it for excellent taste in reading material! But the "In which..." chapter titles aren't the sole property of the fabulous Ms. Wrede (who is one of my favorite authors.) If you look back, you'll see that many novels, especially serial novels, used chapter titles like that way back when. For example, Hound of the Baskervilles, all the Narnia books, all of Dickens' works...
CHAPTER ELEVEN: In which Iroh thinks of many things, among which is how Zuko thinks of one.
As the sun started to turn the sky pink in the east the people sleeping in the small grove began to stir. Actually, only one person was stirring this morning.
Iroh rolled over and came utterly awake with the quick reactions of a seasoned soldier. He may have been a general but Azulon's eldest son hadn't achieved, and most importantly kept, that rank for so long without reason. Not only had he proved himself on the field, but the affable man's nature endeared him to the troops. It was Iroh's personal opinion that trust was born of shared experiences, and that included carousing with his men until the wee hours of the morning and rising with the sun.
Stretching like an old satisfied cat, Iroh sighed as he recalled happier times. Granted, he had been risking life and limb, and he really had no fondness for killing innocents, but music night around the camp fire during the 600 days of siege with his men and son had been enjoyable in their own way.
Thinking of Lu Ten put a damper on the old man's pleasant mood. Before Iroh's treacherous thoughts could wander further he shook himself and focused elsewhere. Unconsciously, his eyes settled on Zuko's sleeping form. As the boy had aged he looked more and more like his deceased cousin. At the same time, he looked less like Lu Ten and more like a unique man. 'The mysteries of blood,' Iroh thought wryly, picturing his own brother.
Iroh's musings had made his eyes drift from Zuko, but as the sun's first rays filtered through the tree trunks his gaze was caught once again by his nephew as he began to stir. Years of living with soldiers had given Zuko similar habits (though thankfully none of the less tasteful ones) and Iroh was puzzled why the boy was rising so late. Normally it was Zuko who rose first.
Unaware of his uncle's wakeful presence, Zuko groaned and rolled into his stomach, burying his face in his pack. No matter how much sleep a teenager gets, he's always tired. Iroh turned this observation over in his head, searching his mental library of proverbs for one that was similar.
A light, pleasant yawn interrupted Iroh's thoughts. He glanced in the direction of the sound and saw Katara rising herself. A beam of sunlight had slipped through and illuminated the girl in a cool buttery light. Katara had her head tipped to one side between her stretching arms in an unconsciously charming pose. She arched her back curled her legs underneath her body, straining herself upwards towards the sun. Iroh was reminded of a delicate flower greeting the sun.
There was a small flurry of blankets next to him, and Iroh looked down at his nephew. Zuko had pulled his head out of his pack abruptly and had propped himself on his elbows, looking in Katara's direction with wide eyes. Iroh bit back a smile. Oh, the poor boy had it bad for this girl! As Katara let her arms drop she caught sight of the pair on the other side of the fire. Her eyes met Zuko's and Iroh watched with mounting amusement as the pair slowly blushed, then turned away with identical haughty sniffs. He wasn't sure about Katara, but Zuko's sudden movement had made the boy's neck pop painfully. Now facing his kinsman, Zuko blinked at the older man in mild embarrassment and tried to cover it by busying himself with reorganizing his mussed bedroll.
"Uncle, how long have you been awake?" Zuko asked briskly.
"Oh, I only just woke up," Iroh said, feigning a yawn. Zuko tried (ineffectually) to hide his relief. "What about you, Zuko?" Iroh couldn't help asking. "Have you been up long?"
"No, why do you ask?"
Iroh scratched lazily at the back of his neck. "Oh, you just look like you've been awake for a while."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing, I suppose. You just look tired." Iroh hid a smile by pretending to work a kink out of his back. "So does Katara. Perhaps the two of you have caught some kind of cold?" he suggested mildly.
Zuko's shoulders stiffened at the mention of the girl's name. "I'm fine. A picture of health," he snapped at his uncle. Zuko packed away his bedding, sparing a momentary glance in Katara's direction. "Katara might be sick, though. She's weaker than I am."
At the mention of her name Katara shot a look of anger at the boy. "I'm the healer here, or did you forget?" she pointed out archly from her spot by the ashes of last night's fire.
"So?" Zuko retorted intelligently.
"So I'm naturally more healthy than you'll ever be."
"Ha!" Zuko scoffed. "Women are weaker than men, it's a fact!"
"Your sister Azula has never seemed particularly weak to me," Iroh couldn't help but point out. Zuko shot a murderous glare at his uncle, who glanced up into the trees as though the birds who perched there had made the observation.
Katara smirked at Zuko's frustration and returned to her work at the fire. She was kneeling on the ground, a stick in one hand to expose the coals while she blew on the small red remains to stir them back to life. Finally she gave up and retrieved Sokka's flint and steel from his pack.
"C'mon, c'mon," she muttered under her breath, striking sparks from the stone with growing impatience.
"Let me do it," Zuko said abruptly from her elbow. Katara flushed angrily and clutched the flint close to her chest.
"No! I'm doing fine!" she snapped. Zuko gave her a bemused look and squatted next to her.
"Don't be stupid. I don't need that," he reminded her. Her blush intensified. With him this close to her she could see details in his face and expression she had never noticed before. He had surprisingly long eyelashes... He looked up at her and once again she felt trapped by his yellow stare. His unscarred cheek looked so smooth...
"Gimme that," he said commandingly, holding out one hand. Katara blinked at him.
"What?"
"I'm not your personal heater," Zuko retorted. "Now give."
Katara glanced down at the flint she still held. "I thought you said you didn't need it. And what do you mean, 'personal heater?'"
Zuko gave her a level stare that spoke volumes of his opinion about Katara's intelligence. She returned it defiantly. "Oh for—" Zuko finally said, exasperated. He rudely shoved Katara to one side, knocking her back on her rear on the ground that was still wet with dew. Ignoring her outraged shout he reached across her lap and grabbed a few pieces of wood from the dwindling pile beside her. He began to stack them expertly in the shallow fire pit.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing!" Katara demanded.
"I'm making a fire, obviously," Zuko replied scathingly.
"Stop it, I said I could do it!"
"Well you're doing it wrong!"
"Well— you're cheating!"
Zuko felt the familiar heat of anger rush to his head. "It's not cheating you idiot! It's firebending!" Katara tossed her head with a disdainful sniff. Zuko fought down the urge to throttle her pretty little neck. "You little peasant..." he muttered under his breath.
Katara's eyes snapped with anger. She shouldered Zuko aside and began working on the flint again. "Oh, grow up!"
Nearby, Iroh watched with a combination of resigned frustration and ironic humor. Though they may not have realized it yet, they were already fighting like they had known each other for years. It was just as Iroh had hoped, though of course he would have liked it better if they got along. Zuko needed friends. He needed a real family, one that he could trust and trusted him. As he had thought, telling Aang and his own little mismatched family about Zuko's past had broken the ice and softened the animosity between the children. It warmed Iroh's paternal heart to see Zuko acting like a normal boy.
Though maybe this argument had gone on long enough... Aang and even Sokka were awake and watching the pair by the fire squabble with sleepy, blinking eyes. Iroh cleared his throat. "Um, kids, don't you think—"
Both teens rounded on Iroh, eyes blazing with fury. "Not now, Uncle!" Zuko snarled. Katara echoed him almost exactly: "Not now, Uncle Iroh!" The pair turned back to glare at each other.
Hurt, Iroh watched the two of them argue in silence. He must have been wearing a pretty sorry expression, since Sokka approached him and placed a comforting hand on the older man's shoulder. Iroh glanced up and Sokka grinned wryly. "For a waterbender, she's got a pretty fiery temper," Iroh observed.
"Oh, I know," Sokka assured him with a wince. "I know."
"Give that back!" Katara was shouting. She lunged for the flint Zuko had in his right hand. He held it at arm's length and fended off Katara with his left hand. Finally he managed to grab both of Katara's wrists in one hand. While she strained against his strong grip he blew a jet of flame from his mouth and lit the fire.
"That's cheating!" Katara accused him again. Zuko dropped her wrists with a scornful sniff and rose. For a long moment Katara glared up at Zuko from her sprawled position on the ground. It was Zuko who turned away first.
"Why can't you two get along?" Aang lamented, giving Katara an accusatory glare.
Both teens shot each other a fierce glare. Pointing accusatory fingers at the other, both of them rounded on the cowed monk. "We get along just fine!" they shouted in unison. Momo gave a startled yelp and dove from Aang's shoulder down the front of his shirt. With identical sniffs and proud tosses of their heads, Zuko and Katara turned their backs to each other.
Shouldering past Sokka the young prince stalked to the opposite side of camp to sulk. "Hey, Zuko," Sokka said abruptly before Zuko seated himself. He paused and shot a look over his shoulder at the pony tailed boy. "Could I get that back?" the younger teen said mildly, gesturing at the flint Zuko still held. Zuko glanced down, then with a casual underhand toss returned the tool to its owner. Sokka caught it deftly and tucked it into his pocket with a nod to Zuko.
"Fine, fine," Aang grumbled to Katara while the other exchange was taking place. "You're just like best friends."
Her angry expression softening, Katara placed a hand on her friend's shoulder. "I'm sorry I snapped at you. You didn't deserve that." The pair grinned at each other, all forgiven in the blink of an eye. Iroh watched the two, and with half an eye also watched his nephew. Though Zuko was staring into the woods, Iroh could tell the boy was paying very close attention to the interaction. The rigid set of his shoulders and the tip of his head as he listened while pretending not to do just that all told Iroh one thing: Zuko was jealous.
But of whom? Katara, for having such good relationships with everybody around her? Or Aang, for being so close to Katara? It was worth thinking over...
"I'm going to go into the spirit world now," Aang was telling his friends from the water tribe. "I don't know how long I'll be, so we might as well get comfortable here."
"Now? Without breakfast?" Sokka asked incredulously.
"Yeah," Katara agreed. "You should have something to eat. It could be a while before you, you know, come back."
Aang hesitated, then shook his head decisively. "No, it's dawn right now. This is when it has to be." Katara looked him over, biting her lip anxiously. She nodded and flashed him an encouraging smile. So did Sokka, and Aang returned their grins. As though sensing what was going on, Momo reemerged from Aang's shirt and took up his favorite perch on Sokka's shoulder.
Then, with surprisingly little ceremony, Aang selected a patch of grass at the base of a tree slightly out of the way, but still well within sight of the camp. Legs folded and the tattooed arrows on his hands facing each other, he closed his eyes solemnly. Zuko and Iroh watched curiously. Zuko had seen this once before, but his mind had been occupied with other thoughts at the time. Now he was able to fully grasp the magnitude of what he was witnessing.
The happy-go-lucky boy vanished in a flash of blue light. The scrawny, half-grown body became a shell, a vessel, a flimsy container into which the soul of the very planet was poured. As much as Zuko had struggled in the past to defeat Aang in combat, this was one enemy against whom he would never win. This glowing blue... entity... it awed him. He suddenly remembered the giant creature of water that had taken Zhao. Mingled with that sense of awe was now a faint, sharp tang of fear.
"That didn't take very long," Sokka observed, stretching.
"He's getting better at it," Katara agreed.
Iroh and Zuko gaped at the siblings with varied degrees of surprise. "Aren't you worried that you'll disturb him?" Iroh asked in a slightly hushed tone.
Sokka snorted and moved to recline against Appa's side. "He got dragged across the North Pole in a blizzard without even a snore. I think we can talk without having to worry."
Zuko and Iroh nervously avoided making eye contact with Sokka or his sister.
"Eww," Katara groaned as she went to roll up Sokka's sleeping bag. "This thing REEKS!"
Sokka snatched it back indignantly. "It doesn't reek! It's just broken in!" As though to prove his point he sniffed at it with an appreciative smile. That smile quickly soured as the equally sour smell of travel grime and stale sweat assaulted Sokka's nose.
"Yeah, well go break it out," Katara commanded. "It smells like Appa and boy and I don't even what to know what else."
"It doesn't need to be washed!" Sokka protested.
Katara gave her brother a wicked grin. "Well SOMEthing in that direction stinks, and if it's not the sleeping bag it's you." She held up a hand to forestall Sokka's angry protest. "No, I've got an even better idea. You take a bath and I'll wash this... thing."
Sokka shuddered apprehensively. "But it's so cold," he whined. "The pools we got water from last night were like ice."
"I can help with that," Iroh offered cheerfully, pushing himself to his feet.
"You can?"
"Indeed! You've never truly lived until you've bathed in a real hot spring," Iroh said rapturously. Sokka's eyes lit up and he rubbed his hands together eagerly.
"Did you say hot spring?"
"Oh yes. And always the perfect temperature." Iroh winked at Sokka and made the universal "okay" sign. With an expression that bordered on the euphoric, Sokka threw an arm around the old man's shoulders and began ushering him in the direction of their water source. "Coming, Zuko?" Iroh called over his shoulder impishly. He was rewarded by seeing his nephew's face contort and his good eye twitch spasmodically.
"I'll pass," Zuko said weakly.
Zuko was suddenly alone with a glowing boy and a quietly humming girl. He watched Katara warily. None of her previous ill temper was visible in her manner. She even paused once or twice in her rounds about camp to warm herself in front of the fire Zuko had started. When she had a moderately large pile of wash bundled up in a spare pack she hefted it onto her hip and headed in the direction of the springs that fed the pools where her brother and Iroh were bathing.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Zuko blurted out, slightly alarmed.
"To do some wash while I have time," she told him as though it were obvious. "I'm tired of smelling bison everywhere."
"You're kind of living on top of one," Zuko couldn't help but point out.
"That doesn't mean I have to like it," Katara retorted. Resettling her load more securely she took a few more steps.
"Wait!" Zuko called out. He rose to his feet with a lurch, anxious for some reason. Katara gave an exasperated sigh and turned back, her temper obviously starting to rise again. "You're just going to leave him here?" he said, gesturing to the silently glowing Aang. A leaf dislodged by a bird's flight had fallen on Aang's bald head and rested there, rocking back and forth on its curved side.
"Yes," Katara said blandly, turning back to Zuko.
"What if something happens?" Zuko insisted. "He's helpless like this. You're not really going to leave him ALONE, are you?"
"Of course not," Katara replied, amused. At that moment Momo dropped out of the trees, carrying what appeared to be Sokka and Iroh's cast off clothes. The lemur handed them to Katara, then sprang across the distance to perch on Zuko's shoulder as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Momo placed a miniature hand on Zuko's scarred ear to steady himself. The young man marveled briefly at the smooth texture of the little paw and the way the lemur's fine, soft fur felt against his hot scarred skin.
"You're here, aren't you?" Katara told Zuko. Before the startled prince could think of anything to say the water tribe girl flashed him a glowing smile and turned, braid whipping the air, and faded into the trees. Zuko stared after her for a long time, blushing.
ATOGAKI: DEATH TO THIS CHAPTER:stab stab stab: Took me forever to write. It was an agony! Thank you so much for bearing with me while I finish up the term! Also, thank you all for reading! Maybe it won't seem like a lot to some of you, but my humble fic has gotten 6700 hits! I'm so glad you're reading it! And judging from the number of faves and alerts, you're even liking it too! If you had some trouble understanding the title (grammar? What?) it means Iroh thinks about a lot of stuff and realizes that Zuko has a one-track mind: Katara.
IROH! YOU CAN'T DIE! I started writing this chapter over a week ago, and I must have some kind of psychic abilities, because it turned into a tribute to everybody's favorite crazy uncle, Unca Iroh. He's a great character and I'll be most disappointed with Dimartino and Konietzko if he dies. So Iroh, this one's for you! We're all wishing you a speedy recovery! (T-T) Speaking of the latest episode... I TOLD YOU SO:dances: Ahem, pardon me... Moving on!
I had these scenes between Katara and Zuko planned out well in advance, and it was fun to write them out with all the nitty-gritty details. I hope you had fun reading them. XD
Next chapter there will be little to no Zutara interaction, but it's a VERY important chapter for the fic. Please read it, even if all you're looking for is Zutara.
As always, love to my wonderful and patient beta-reader goreandbeans. She's my li'l chili dog and a large part of this fic's non-suckiness is thanks to her.
ADDED NOTE on 5/28: With much thanks to the wonderful people (person?) who run(s?) http/ www. firebender .com and the fabulous news and calendar section on the site, I can happily tell you that Iroh will survive, and not so happily tell you that we have only one more episode before the dry spell, with the only oasis in sight being... THE AVATAR MOVIE! Please check out firebender for all the nitty gritties, and YAY FOR IROH! NEVER SAY DIE::lovelove: