Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar.
Sorry about the unreasonably long wait, but this month has been a bit busy.
I thought it would be a good time to add in a flashback chapter.
I know the Huo Du keep chapters have gone on to long, I promise the next chapter will be the end of it. I'll get the next chapter up as soon as I can.
And of course I'd like to think Celtic Goddess of Fertility and Luiz 4200 for keeping me going.
"What's happening?! Why can't I move!?" Yuo calls out within his own mind. "Someone please...help me.."
"What's wrong little brother?"
--
Many years ago in a small province near the border of the Fire Nation
It is the time of day when morning has just about come to an end and the brilliant sun gently warms the cool whimsical wind.
The honey birds are chirping and the trees magnify the extravagance of the combined beauty of the lush green grass mixed with the fresh morning due.
All seems peaceful save for the events taking place on a nearby dirt road.
"Ouch! Stop it!" a little Yuo still dressed in his Fire Nation school uniform cries out after hitting the ground hard.
"Poor little Yuo...what are you going to do? Tell?" Rochi smiles and lets his own shadow cover his current prey.
Rochi is a tough boy, known by the community as being a kind hearted and helpful young man. He is respected, makes high grades and can play the Fire Nation anthem standing on his head.
Yuo on the other hand has been known to tell the occasional lie, and also spew out a tall tail or two. His grades are decent from obvious lack of effort in school and he can't anyone the first few words of the Fire Nation national anthem if his life depended on it, which to him sometimes felt like the case.
Rochi kicks dirt at little Yuo. "Look Jeux...he's already crying." he points and laughs.
Jeux frowns. "Maybe that's enough...at least for today."
Rochi sighs. "I thought you wanted to be a soldier." he looks at his friend with narrowed eyes.
"I do but..."
"Everyone knows Fire Nation soldiers have no mercy...my dad says that's why we're the greatest nation on Earth." Rochi responds.
"I guess...I guess you're right." Jeux slumps.
Jeux is a shy young boy, although quite smart his physical prowess matches the same low level as Yuo's. In fact Jeux had been Rochi's target until Yuo has ceased being home schooled and thrown into the savage world of a Fire Nation private school.
"Stop!"
"Sa..er..sister?" Yuo asks with surprise as he tries to get up.
"Here we go...Yuo's big sister coming to her pathetic little brother's rescue." Rochi makes a mocking baby voice and laughs.
Jeux gives a few forced "he he"s but looks down in shame.
"Leave him alone Rochi." Yuo's elder sibling speaks calmly, yet with a stern look on her face. She and Rochi are the same age and in a few classes together.
Yuo's sister is an academic prodigy and top of her class. Known for her open kindness and willingness to participate in charities or anything else that might benefit the community. She also has her mother's gift of a sharp tongue and her father's wit.
Although she too shares her brother's physical class. She is weaker than many of the other girls; however, she inherited her mother's beauty and like her mother, keeps her long black hair in a neatly made ponytail.
She too has her school uniform on.
"Why? He's just a puny little..." Rochi brings back his leg to kick more dirt towards Yuo, but is halted when his target's elder sibling steps between them.
"Never undervalue the small." she says with a smirk. "Fore without them...we would all be the same size."
There is a short pause as Rochi brings his leg down.
"You're lucky I don't hit girls." he turns. "Come on Jeux!"
Rochi walks off with Jeux quickly scurrying behind him.
--
About an hour later, at Yuo and his sister's super special place by a pond and a tree.
Yuo sits by the pond, hugging his knees and throwing rocks into the water. His sister is resting against the tree nearest to the still water.
She looks at her little brother with worry in her eyes. "What's wrong lit.." she begins but is cut off.
"I didn't need your help...I was fine on my own!" Yuo closes his eyes tight and throws one last rock in extra hard, causing a very loud splash. "Now they have something else to tease me with in class tomorrow and it's all your fault!"
"I was just trying to..."
"Try to help!? You always say that! But every time..." Yuo sobs and looks down, trying to hide his face from his sister even though she is sitting behind him. "Every time you try to make things better...you make them worse!"
"Do you hate me?"
Yuo's heart suddenly skips a beat. His sisters words struck like a flaming arrow being forced down his throat.
A long stretch of silence passes by until.
"Come on...dad will worry if we're not back in time for lunch...I like days when it's just morning classes...don't you?" she smiles and stands.
Yuo remains silent, but not out of anger. More likely out of his strange inability to utter even the slightest sound.
--
present
"I'm...so...sor..ry." Yuo feels the pain of his long forgotten guilt like a thousand vengeful bee stings to his heart. "I don't hate you! I don't...I do..on't"
The pain is overwhelming and he temporarily loses his mind to sadness.
"There's nothing worse than thinking of the right words after it's to late."
--
One night in the castle of Yuo's father many years ago.
"Come in!" Yuo's older sister calls after hearing a knock on her door.
Yuo enters his sister's room, it has been a few months since she helped him with Rochi.
"Nightmare's again?" she says without even looking to see who it is, she is sitting at her desk with a candle lit.
"What are you...still doing out of bed?" Yuo asks as he gently closes the door.
"Reading."
"What...are you reading?"
"None of you're business...just get in my bed and go to sleep...alright?"
"Let me see." little Yuo peeks over her shoulder.
"Hey! It's not nice to pry into other people's business." she says, shoving him away.
"Let me read it or...I'll call you by you're name." her little brother states with a victorious little smile.
"Fine...cheater...you can read it." she sighs.
Yuo's eyes widen as he reads who the letter is from.
"I didn't know that you know princess Azula."
The elder sibling giggles. "I do."
"I always heard that...she is a little monster...but how could someone so mean write...like this...it's like she's."
"A normal girl?" Yuo's sister says with a smile. "You're right...but to think she keeps all these sad feeling inside...never telling anyone but someone who lives such a long way from the capital."
"So...she's not evil...she's not evil at all." Yuo looks at his sister.
"Are you going to write back?"
"Of course." she gives a closed eyed smile which always made Yuo feel much better not matter how bad he felt before. "It's just that..."
"What?" Yuo asks in pure curiosity.
"No matter how long it take to write a letter back...I always forget to put something important or better words." she laughs. "There's nothing worse than thinking of the right words after it's to late."
"Maybe if we're lucky mom and dad will take us with them one summer to visit the capital." Yuo's sister continue's. "You could even have a chance to meet her brother...prince Zuko."
He laughs. "By the time they let us go...he'll probably be a famous general like his uncle Iroh."
--
present
"Why can't I control my own memories...I can't stand it anymore!!" Yuo calls out desperately for answers he knew he wouldn't get.
"Then they...took you away." he sobs. "You were...to smart...to kind."
His heart skips a beat and he can feel the warmth of fresh sweat touching his skin.
"Leave her alone!"
--
One year before Yuo meets Zuko for the first time
"A child that intelligent and still so kind...impossible."
"She's a threat...she'll be the end to us all."
"We can't kill a child...we're more civilized than that."
"Agreed...to end the life of a child...that the work of an Earth Kingdom soldier...not us."
"She will lead us to ruin!"
The officials and civilians of the small province are stricken with fear. Over the past few months Yuo's sister had warned of many disastrous events.
A raid conducted by the Earth Kingdom nearly destroyed the entire harvest.
Hordes of plant eating insects swarmed their way destroying more crop the following year.
A flood which was later discovered to be the work of water benders from the North Pole brought many months of hardship.
She warned that these events were coming; however, rather than head her words and place blame on themselves, the people began to fear her to the point that terrified peasants demanded her removal.
They feared what she is capable of and they fear of her unnatural kindness.
A beast behind the beauty.
"Yuo?" his sister quietly enters his room.
He puts down a wooden toy ostrich-horse he had been playing with and walks over to her with a confused look on his face. "What is it Sa..er...what is it?"
Yuo suddenly found himself in a loving embrace.
"I...have to g-go soon." she manages to say, attempting to hide the shaky sadness out of her voice with little success.
"Go? Where...I-I'll go with you." Yuo knows the sound of his sister's voice when she tries to hide something terrible.
"Y-you can..can't come with me where I'm going Yuo." she hugs him tighter.
"Do you...want to go?"
"No.."
"They why...do you have to?" tears start to form in his eyes, the feeling of a monster ripping at the back of his throat makes itself present.
"The people...want to send me away."
"For...how..l-long?" Yuo forces himself to ask even though he knew the answer would make him feel worse.
She stays silent.
"How long?!" Yuo forces himself to ask again in a more demanding voice.
"Don't forget me." she whispers in his ear before letting go and running down the hall and out of the castle.
"Wait!" Yuo yells, running as fast as his small legs can carry him.
He makes it outside to see two soldiers put her in a metal transport.
"Let her go! Leave her alone!" he pushes his way through the crowd seeing her off and jumps for the leg of a soldier, but is caught by his father before he could get to far off the ground.
The people feared her with such a passion that they were on the brink of revolt. Krao, Yuo and his sister's father, had no choice but to give into their demands on the condition that no blood would be shed. The pain he felt was potent, and unwittingly took his rage out on the people which would later be the reason for bringing Yuo along to the capital the following year.
His reign as leader and Yuo's place in a high position was slowly coming to an end.
--
present
"But I did forget...ever since the day I saw you dragged away...I must have repressed many of my memories of you." Yuo begins to calm down. "They sent you to a prison...have you really been there all these years?"
A rush of feeling courses through his previously immovable body.
Soon he can feel and move his fingers, then his arms, legs and finally his eyes.
Yuo wakes up in a cold sweat, his throat horse from the actual screaming he must have done.
He looks around to see all of the others asleep by the camp fire.
A smile appears on his face when he sees Zuko asleep against a tree near the fire.
"I wonder...if he's alright...at least he's not still asleep I guess."
Suki is asleep, her head on Sakka's shoulder.
Sakka must have fallen asleep after Suki, because he has his arms crossed and sitting with his back straight obviously trying to look impressive.
Toph is asleep under a tent she must have made out of dirt.
Yuo turns his head to his surprise finds Katara and Aang lying closer to him and further away from the fire.
"I hope they all rest well...tomorrow we attack Huo Du keep...and tomorrow we'll win."
Yuo's sister's name I kept a secret to keep the mystery going and there is a reason. Her name is one used to death but it fit perfectly. If you don't like this chapter I'm sorry, but I did think it would be a nice break from the plot to look into his past again. The reason why his memories came back and why he couldn't move will be revealed in the next chapter.