YOU SURVIVED ALONE BUT WE'RE STRONGER TOGETHER

This is my first story ever so I'm still figuring it out. LOL

There will hopefully be many chapters to this story, I have several outlined but I want people to read it otherwise there isn't really a point. So please leave reviews!

For visual reference, by the fourth section Zuko's hair is just below his jawline.

I apologize in advance for all grammatical errors

Thanks for reading!!!

Zuko couldn't believe it, he turned around and there was his father, ready to fight him. He threw himself down at his father's feet begging for forgiveness and instead he was told he was being taught a lesson and then he was awash in the flames.

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Zuko sat bolt upright gulping the cold night air, disgusted with himself. Six months after he had been burned, five months since he had been sent to the boiling rock prison and he was still having nightmares. He rubbed his left arm where the burns ran all the way from his face, down his neck and shoulder before finally dissipating at his elbow. It could have been much worse had Uncle not leaped over the arena wall and extinguished the flames. He reminded himself of how lucky he was every time the rough prison sleeve rubbed at the burn, every time one of the guards firebent to control a prisoner and he flinched. The first time Zuko had flinched at fire was when the warden lit a candle in his office when he was marking Zuko's arrival. Word had got around fast and soon he couldn't walk anywhere without guards shoving flickering flames in his face. It went so far that some of the prisoners joined in and decided that getting sent to the cooler was worth scaring the precious prince, and if the guards found it so amusing that the cooler time was significantly reduced, well than the more the merrier. By his second month at the boiling rock Zuko had learned the his second lesson, don't show any emotion except hate or contempt.

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The first lesson Zuko had learned even quicker, never ever let people know that you can't see or hear them coming. Being half blind and deaf in a prison full of people who want to beat you up was defiantly a disadvantage. One that Zuko quickly learned to compensate for. No matter how raw it made the burns he always slept on his left, and he always sat in a corner with his working eye facing the crowd. It only took two or three ambushes to teach him to case any room as soon as he walked in. after 3 months he had mastered fighting blind on one side and people no longer bothered trying too sneak up on him.

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After two years Zuko gave up on his father or his Uncle pulling him out of prison. He had become almost compliant with the guards, and was used to ignoring the other inmates. He stalked through the hallways to and from the cafeteria, his cell, and the courtyard, glaring hotly at anyone who looked at him for a little too long. He ignored everyone and for the most part they left him alone.

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Until the girl with the reddish hair and the blue eyes started shouting. Zuko had seen the guards drag her in a week ago and hadn't seen her since, then all of the sudden she appeared in the courtyard shouting at Chu. Talking with Chu was risky, he was 6'5, rippling with muscle, and a firebender to boot. He also took offence at everything. Put simply, shouting matches with Chu never ended well, some broken bones if you were lucky. Zuko had managed to strike a kind of bargain with Chu after Zuko had broken his nose, Chu respected strength so he had agreed to leave Zuko intact if Zuko stayed out of his way. That had worked for the past year and Zuko was loathe to break it now but as he looked at the slight figure getting up in Chu's face he felt the stirrings of sympathy that he had tried to bury long ago. He groaned and walked over to see if he could keep this girl from being cracked open like an egg. As Zuko drew closer he could hear what she was shouting about. "Is that what I look like to you! I am the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, I have trained for battle since I was six years old and you have the audacity to say that!". Zuko had finally made it to their corner and the girls words confirmed what he had expected. Chu was always cornering the female inmates and it never went well for anyone who tried to interfere, but as Zuko watched Chu back the girl into the corner and shake off her punches like the mild inconveniences they were, something inside Zuko snapped. The girl couldn't be any older than him and regardless of whether she had led a group of warriors or not she wasn't going to be able to escape Chu without help.

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That's how Zuko had ended up slipping in between Chu and the girl, he had started calling her Warrior in his head, and now he was realizing that he didn't have a plan. Chu looked startled as Zuko threw an arm around Warriors waist and leaned in close to her neck. Zuko whispered in her ear right as she went to throw him on the ground. "Just play along, I know you have no clue who I am but if you go with me on this we actually have a chance of walking out of this courtyard on our own to feet." He could feel her stiffen but nod ever so slightly, and so Zuko turned back to Chu who looked ready to breathe fire. "What do you think you're doing kid, this one is mine." Zuko could practically feel Warrior vibrating with anger and quickly jumped in too answer. "Well that would have been nice to know a week ago but I'm afraid she's mine now." Chu jerked back like he'd been slapped and then he was looming over Zuko, a towering mountain of anger. This was going to hurt. "Sweetheart you just run along now this isn't a discussion for a sweet little thing like you." Zuko leaned over on the pretense of kissing her cheek and hissed into her ear again "Just walk away and go back to your cell, don't stop for anything or anyone and don't come out till tomorrow, hopefully it will have blown over by then." Warrior nodded almost imperceptibly and disentangled herself from Zuko's arm striding away towards the courtyard door. Chu reached out to grab her arm and Zuko smacked his hand away, effectively destroying any hopes of keeping his ribs or the peace treaty intact

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