The night passes uneventfully. The wind howls. The lamp flickers. Zuko turns in his sleep and pushes the blanket down further. Yue pulls it up each time. She's a light sleeper. A fine sprinkling of snow sneaks in through the crack under the door. Yue gently bends it back outside several times before freezing the crack up. Zuko stirs.
Daybreak comes with soft pastels colouring the sky. The storm quiets, but only slightly. Yue unfreezes the door and opens it a crack, letting the fresh air in. The sleeping man groans and covers his eyes.
"You need to drink, and eat." Yue opens the cabinet. "There's seal jerky, stale bannock, and dried seaweed." She takes some of each out and sets it on the bed next to Zuko's head. He just stares at her. Yue closes the door again, the temperature inside was already starting to get chilly, undoing the work of the oil lamp. "You have to eat." She tells him. "I didn't stitch you up for you to refuse to eat." Without speaking, Zuko's eyes leave hers and look at the food presented to him. He grabs the bannock.
Zuko eats it all in silence. Then he downs his glass of water. Yue goes to refill it but he waves for her to stop.
"Why aren't I in prison? Locked up with a letter sent to my father?" He demands. Yue looks to the ground.
"It's difficult to explain..." How could she tell him how she has become one with Tui, the moon spirit, and everyone didn't know where she was. A thought hits her. Do they think I'm dead? They must, and even she herself had said goodbye, truly believing she was giving up her life. She had been so sure.
"Tell me." Zuko grinds out.
Yue doesn't want to tell him... everything... she didn't fully understand it, but she could tell him some things. "I found you bleeding out on the street. I brought you out here behind the city where no one goes this time of year because... I didn't want the soldiers to find you."
"You're lying," he spits. "There has to be more to it."
Taking a breath, Yue grits her teeth. "There is, but I... I don't know."
"Is it why you were meditating?"
"Yes." Yue answers. Zuko frowns and looks like he's about to say something but thinks better of it. "I need to inspect your stitches, is that okay?"
He grunts in... affirmation? Yue takes it as such.
Zuko settles onto his back. He isn't happy with the Princess's answer. But her last answer... he had woken up, startled, from his sleep, only to see her, Yue, glowing this ethereal light blue, brow troubled. He had thought it was an attack and felt his fists heating up in response until she didn't move, her eyes closed with her palms upwards. Zuko had never seen anyone glow while meditating. Uncle could explain it. Zuko misses the annoying old fart. 1
Yue places her hands gently on his forehead. They were cool as they accessed the stitches.
"They look good, but I'm going to clean them, alright?" She says. He says nothing as she rises from her kneeling position by his bed and disappears from his line of sight, presumably to get the medical supplies. When she returns, she wets a cotton ball in a liquid, alcohol, from the smell of it, and presses it against his head. She quickly wipes around his wound. Zuko hisses when it touches the fringes of the cut. She murmurs a quick apology and informs him the bruising is already improving. At least some parts of my face will heal... he thinks moodily. The princess asks if she can look at the burn on his chest. Zuko mutters an agreement. Yue softly pulls down the blanket, exposing his chest. She frowns when she looks at the wound. 1
"What?" He says, forcefully.
"Nothing," she rushes, "much. I wish it was further along but there's nothing I can do except let it rest and make sure you're hydrated. It will heal though. I'm sorry I can't heal using waterbending." 1
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Zuko is confused. "Heal... with waterbending?"
"Yes." She tilts her head at him. "Female waterbenders learn to enhance the waters healing properties within the body in order to bring more nutrients and oxygen through blood flow to the injured tissues."
"Oh."
"It's what the... glowing water is."
"I've never seen it." He pauses. "Did you say female waterbenders?"
"Yes, girls are sent to learn healing. Men learn to fight."
"Why?" Zuko remembers his training clearly, being yelled at by officers who enjoyed a dig at the exiled prince. He learned both fighting and healing. There were healers for more serious injuries, but soldiers were expected to be able to manage basic injuries in case the healers were overwhelmed.
"It's tradition."
"What if, what if you wanted to fight?" They could not seriously prohibit their girls and women from fighting, could they? They were good fighters and their numbers would have only helped against the Fire Nation invasion. 1
"I'm not allowed," Yue says, eyes wide. Then they soften. "One girl has just been taught, but it's very new, as of last week."
"The girl who is travelling with the Avatar."
"Katara." Yue shifts uncomfortably as Zuko's thoughts drift to the Avatar, who yet again had managed to escape his clutches, destroying his only chance at regaining his honour. His face hardens. Yue diverts her gaze and replaces the blanket on his chest without cleaning his wound. As soon as he could, he would leave, capture the Avatar, and return home. Perhaps find Uncle first though. He had tasted sweet victory for only a moment before it was ripped away. Again. It was, according to Zuko, not allowed to happen a third time. He would rather join the Avatar than let that happen. 1
Yue watches Zuko's focus shift to his failure. From what Sokka said, she knew that he was chasing Aang, trying to capture him. Yue thinks there's something deeper there, but doubts she'll ever find out what it is.
Yue goes for a walk in the afternoon. Normally she would be taken through the city by Dorak, but she had to stay to watch Zuko, right? That was why she was staying. For Zuko's health. She sighs. She kneels down in the snow. Yue is aware of the moon, of all the snow, ice, and water in the world. Every ocean, sea, river, stream, creek, lake, and pond. The water hanging in the air, in the plants and animals. For her, its too much, but for Tui, it was relaxing. Tui was slowly opening Yue up to the extent of being a spirit. Just for moments, extending into minutes, Yue felt that part of her that wasn't entirely human, be itself like it wasn't able to do before when it was just a kernel inside of her. Tui narrows her consciousness to more manageable levels and Yue gasps for air. She is suddenly very tired. She unsteadily rises to her feet and finds her way back to the shelter, sensing the ice path she made under the snow. The storm whips at her face but she is used to it. 2
Zuko looks at her when she walks back in.
"Where were you?"
"Out walking. Tomorrow you should be well enough to come out for a few minutes." Yue removes her outer coat layer. As the firebender was improving, the heat inside the shelter was becoming more comfortable. Yue still marvelled at how he could produce fire from his fingertips to light the oil lamp. "How are you feeling?"
"The same as the last billion times you've asked me."
"I'm sorry, I just... I nag you because, well..." Yue starts, but Zuko interrupts with a growl, mood snapping.
"You don't need to bother, Princess," he hisses. Yue's eyes widen.
"I'm sorry, Prince, but I'm concerned for your health so I'm going to heal you." Without much care for dignity, she collapses back on her bed. "For spirit's sake."
Without meaning to, Yue falls asleep. She sleeps deep, her body doesn't even twitch a muscle. It's a dreamless sleep. Her exhaustion healing itself.
When she wakens, Zuko is facing the wall. She doesn't know if he's awake or not. Yue carefully treads to the kitchen area, and figures that the seal jerky is the quietest food. She notes that there isn't much food left. She would be forced to return to the city tomorrow. Unease settles in her stomach like the tiny strips of seal jerky she allows herself. Yue makes a mental note to ask the Prince what food he would want.
Yue realizes that she will have to lie to her people, her family, about Zuko. She knows that she will do it, but the thought of it ties knots out of the unease in her stomach. Yue will have to sneak away, or tell her parents that she has to do... spirit stuff. She would have to tell Hahn that she was a spirit. Which, in her defence, was partly true. They would respect that. Just her saying she needed to leave for alone time or something would not be respected. Yue needed to share her being a spirit with them. She thinks that they might have an idea of it already, due to the circumstances of her birth, but Yue can't think of any instance of this situation happening in any of her history scrolls. She was a ship in the middle of the ocean. Or rather, a lone ocean somewhere an ocean shouldn't be. 1
"Welcome, Avatar Aang!" General Fong steps forwards, clothed in the Earth Nation's green and gold garb. The gaang is unloading their supplies and are all stretching. General Fong, unpeturbed, bows with his soldiers before straightening and spreading his arms wide.
"I am General Fong. And welcome to all of you, great heroes! Appa, Momo, brave Sokka, the mighty Katara."
Katara grins. "Mighty Katara"? I like that." On cue, fireworks explode overhead. Earthbenders step forwards to launch more into the air. The gaang are amazed at the reception. Appa is unimpressed.
"Not bad, not bad," Sokka comments.
Zuko stares at the wall, wanting to be angry. The princess had gotten back from her "walking" and Zuko was angry then. It was such an unbelievable lie it almost had to be the truth. He had stared at the wall for hours before the young woman had awakened and gotten some seal jerky to eat. Which she ate because it was quiet and she thought he was asleep, otherwise she would have eaten the bannock, which she seemed to love most. Zuko hates that he knew that about her.
Zuko shifts so that he stares at the ceiling instead, making sure there was a definite rustling of the sheets so that she heard.
"Are you hungry, thirsty?" She asks.
"No."
"I'm going to go back to the city tomorrow. We need food."
Zuko just about snarls. "That's what you could have gotten today when you were meeting with them to discuss your prisoner!"
"I-" She is taken aback. "If I wanted you to be a prisoner, you would know you were a prisoner. Besides, I'm the princess, do you think they let me guard prisoners?"
"I bet there are guards outside to keep me from escaping."
"You are, you are so stupid!" The princess grabs his arm and hauled him upright, Zuko too shocked to do anything. She hauls him out the door, into the seemingly never-ending storm outside. "Nothing!" She yells. "Absolutely nothing and no one! I'm so stupid!" She screams out into the snow-filled void, voice nearly breaking. Zuko stares at her, tendrils of white hair falling out from her elaborate hairstyle, cheeks flushed and nose chapped from the cold, brow knit together. There are no guards. Zuko barely remembers to look, when Yue looks back at him with wide blue eyes.
"Satisfied?" She asks.
"Yes." He manages.
Yue glances down at her hand, still wrapped around Zuko's arm, and lets it fall down to his wrist, pulling him back into the shelter.
"Lay down, you might have popped some stitches." She tells him. Zuko obeys, slightly worried to cross her. He hadn't even noticed the pain until she pulls back the fabric covering his wound and laid her cool hands on the red, inflamed skin. He hisses and tries to get back up. With more force than either of them expected, Yue pushes him back down. "Stay." She tells him. Again, Zuko obeys. "Sorry," she adds as an afterthought. Zuko says nothing, only watches as she cleans his wound and applies an ointment. Yue is intent on healing him. It almost makes Zuko uncomfortable, her dedication. He shouldn't have been worth it, not to her, the enemy. And yet her, a princess of the water tribe, was still there. Her morals could perhaps even rival Zuko's uncle.
Zuko's gaze shifts to the ceiling as his thoughts turn to his uncle Iroh. Zuko is sure that wherever he is, he is alive and well. The dragon of the west could handle a siege in his sleep. He forgets that, sometimes, that his fuddy-duddy uncle was actually an ingenious military leader. Supposedly. Zuko also knows what his feet smell like.
Yue stands up. "I'll leave it open for a few hours, to let it breathe."
"Okay," Zuko rasps.
"Are you thirsty?"
"No."
"You sound a bit thirsty." Yue looks at him quizzically.
"That's just my voice."
"Ah."
They sit in silence until the next time Yue offers Zuko food. He accepts this time, the water as well. Then silence falls, then nightfall. When morning comes Yue is gone. Zuko assumes that she has gone to get supplies.