Allelujah! My first Avatar fanfic, and I solemnly swear that no OC's or Mary-Sues shall ever invade this tale. There's just way to much of that "Random Secret Everythingbending ZukoFangirl Avatar who's a hundred times stronger than Aang" bullshit in this fandom, so let's all work dilligently to make coherent Avatar fanfiction, mmmkay?

Disclaimer: I don't own A: tLA; some crackheads at Nick do. How sad.

A/N: Rated "T" for violence and some sexuality. The rating might go up in later chapters.

A Wind Among the Waters

Chapter One: The Tower

Zuko stared at the sun-streaked clouds over the water. He'd seen many sunsets at sea, but this was different. He sat on the edge of the window of an enormous tower, cast on a rocky island in the middle of the sea. A tower; and a prison. Zuko picked up a stone from the sill and rubbed it in his hand. He threw it and counted the seconds until it hit the water. Ten…twelve…fifteen…and then a splash. Too high a drop to jump, though he had contemplated doing so many times, at first to escape, and then…for a different reason altogether.

"You still lookin' at the sunset?"

Zuko turned and faced the man inside the tower room; a gruff, humorless fire soldier with whom he'd spent the last eight years of his life. The man had never told him his name, only admitting his part in the attempt on Fire Lord Ozai's life that had brought him to the tower as well. They were both captives, but for vastly different reasons. Still, they understood one another.

"I wonder," Zuko muttered tonelessly, "If I jumped, do you suppose I'd shatter my bones on the rocks or drown in the sea?"

The soldier laughed. "If you're wise you'll do niether," he said. "No, it's best we accept the hand life gave us, ain't it? Can't change what happened in the past. Hell, even if I could, I'd have still taken my hand to the Fire Lord!"

Zuko watched the old man spit on the floor and sighed. For some reason, he'd never had the heart to tell the man about Ozai's illness, or about Admiral Zhao—no, Fire Lord Zhao's rise to power. It wouldn't have mattered if he did, anyway. Let an old man relive his glory days. He had nothing else to look foreward to. Zuko slid inside and took a slab of meat from the tray on the floor. It was tastleless, but he had grown accustomed to that. Time in the tower wore on, and he was hungry. As he ate, he stared out the window again.

The war of the Nations had not gone according to plan. Zuko thought about the events that had led up to this moment with strangly little regret. He thought of the day when he'd gotten the news of his father's attempted coup d'etat of the Earth Kingdom's capitol, and the tale of Sozen's comet, and what it could do. He thought of the day his father had suddenly fallen gravely ill with a mysterious sickness of the blood. He thought of the day, not long after, when Zhao and his men had boarded his ship and taken him here to rot in a cell. With a twinge of pain, he remembered how his Uncle had tried to defend him, and fallen to the dagger hidden behind Zhao's back. When he thought about his Uncle, anger flared up in him, and he desperatly wished he could escape. But that was impossible.

Zuko had considered every ecsape plan he could think of, and he knew none of them would work. The door to the room was made of iron, and locked form the outside. The only person who could get in or out was the servant who brought the meat. Anyway, even if he did get out of the room, it made little difference. The tower was on an isolated island, miles away from any other civilization, and it was impossible to swim that far. If only I had a flying bison, Zuko thought whimsily, then shook his head. It was best not to think of the Avatar, and all that he had lost.

There were only two ways things could go now. He could grow old and die in the tower, or he could jump and die beneath it.

While Zuko stared at the sky, Aang stared at the fire. It crackled and popped, though that sound was drowned out by the voices of his friends.

"Yeah, I know the west border of Shan Grei is well protected, but it's our best bet for the land troops!" Aang smiled as Sokka's deep voice carried from the tent where he and Vega—one of the Earth Kingdom's best generals—were arguing. They were in the camp of the last Earthbending soldiers, preparing for their next move. Soon the Earth Kingdom would mobilize against the Fire Nation's capitol. If they were lucky, and they had been in the past, they might be able to end the war.

"There's no way we can break those defences, Sokka!" Roared Vega. "Our soldiers are worn down, and we've lost nearly a third of our forces. Attacking Shan Grei now is suicide! The truth of the matter is, we shouldn't even be here now. It was sheer luck that Ozai was attacked with blood sickness before the comet arrived. If not for the chaos among the army of the Fire Nation, we would have never gotten this far."

Both Sokka and the general came out of the tent with angry looks on their faces. Sokka hadn't grown much taller since he was a boy, but his body and face reflected strength. General Vega, however, had a tall, gaunt body, severely short hair, and feirce looks. He surveyed the camp where the Earth Kingdom's forces had converged with his dark eyes. Aang hadn't trusted him when they had first met eight years before, but he had proven himself in battle time and again.

"Mabye it wasn't just luck," said Aang thoughfully, looking away from the fire and toward his freinds, "maybe it was the will of the gods that Ozai never got his chance to use the comet's power."

Katara smiled at Aang from her brother's side, but both Sokka and Vega snorted in disgust. "If you credit the gods for that, why not blame them for making the comet in the first place?" barked the general. "The only real fortune we have is that fool Zhao. I hear the Fire soldiers call him 'Zhao the Worthless' behind his back, and they're right. Even if he is a strong warrior, he's a pretty dumb tactitian."

"That, and a horrible ruler," Katara pointed out. "That's what the captives have been telling us, right? That he doesn't even care about his people; that he lazes around all the time, just eating and drinking?"

Vega frowned. "That's true, but the Fire Nation still has more manpower than we could ever hope to have. Ten times as many warriors, and all of them are benders. Even if their leader is weak, they still have a huge advantage over us."

Aang lowered his eyes. As a boy, he'd had friends among the Fire Nation's people, and it pained him to think about how they must be suffering under Zhao—ordinary people who never wanted war. People like him, who never wanted to kill anyone. Yet Aang had killed, and he understood that there was no peacful way to stop the march of the Firebenders. He looked at the grim faces of his friends, hardened by fighting and sacrifice, and a sudden thought came to him.

"But there is something they don't have," Aang muttered as he stared into the fire. "They don't have a prince. I bet if we could find Price Zuko, the people would listen to him instead of the Fire Lord."

Aang looked up when he realized that everyone was staring at him. "What?"

Vega laughed. "Of course! That's brilliant! With Ozai out of commision and the Fire Lord wasting his country away, the people are bound to want a real leader."

Sokka lept to his feet. "Yeah, and that jerk Zuko hates Zhao, so it'd be easy to convince him to help us." He paused. "There's just one problem with your idea, Aang."

"What's that?"

"Zuko was exiled when Zhao took over. They sent him to some prison somewhere, and nobody's seen him for eight years. How are we gonna find him now?"

"Easy," said General Vega with a broad grin. He called to one of the soldiers nearby. "You, go round up a spy party! I need you to discover the whereabouts of the former Prince of the Fire Nation."

Well, how was that for a first chapter? Can Aang's group find Prince Zuko? Will Zuko join them if they do? And what's going on in the Fire Nation? All this and more in chapter two!

Next Time: Zhao the Worthless