Maiko Month 2014 PROMPT 1: Wanderlust
A/N: Happy Maiko Month 2014! Wow, it's been a while since I've updated, and for that you have my apologies. This one's more Zuko-centric, but it's got some hints of Maiko to it.
21. Wanderlust
He'd always wanted to travel the world—but not like this. Never like this.
It was curiosity at first: his cousin and uncle's tales of the vastness of the Earth Kingdom, the towering mountains to the west of the great Ba Sing Se, the unending Si Wong Desert, the way Lu Ten's eyes lit up when he spoke of the wonders of the Western Air Temple.
"I'll take you there one day," Lu Ten had said as Zuko sat atop his shoulders. "We'll see it all. You and me."
But such dreams never came to be, dying with the living on the battlefields of The Siege Ba Sing Se. A new title thrust upon him, Zuko's desires of travel became bound with diplomacy—visit the colonies, see the great wall of Ba Sing Se for himself, conquer the Water Tribe rebellions in the northern seas—though no longer with a cousin, his curiosity persisted nonetheless.
Now he sails on his own ironclad ship, chasing a legend, a mere whisper on the wind. Branded. Disgraced. And it is not the inverted architecture of the Western Air Temple that Zuko wants to see, but home.
The palace gardens should be in full bloom right now, the apple blossoms dotting the tree. He wonders if she's there, sitting beneath the pink and white flecked canopy, if she still wears her hair up in ox horns, if she waits for him like he told her not to. He misses the view of the city from his bedroom window, the various aromas wafting through the city square during festival season.
And he realizes why the thought of exploring the world entranced him so, all those years ago; for though the mountains tower above, and the desert stretches on eternally, despite their grandness and beauty, they far from parallel the splendor of home.
And now he can never return.