DISCLAIMER: I'm ready 2 blow! Don't own AVATAR!
-sigh- ok pplz, I need more R&Rs! I'm feelin lonely, and not 2 mention furious that ppl r starting 2 pay more attention 2 my poems then my stories. (my poem is called Zuko. U can read it, after u read this.) so plz, there's 1 more chapter after this! I need more readers!
Chapter 24: Déjà Vu
After Kierra was released, Kellie was extremely bored. There was noone to talk to!
Iroh was not much fun to talk to anymore, Kellie was afraid the soldiers were REALLY perverts, (especially when she had heard some of them talking about, things.) and Kellie was not intending on talking to Zuko anytime soon. Even though he wanted her to. (We never talk anymore! That's because I don't want to talk to you! MORON!)
So Kellie was left to wander around the ship.
She eventually decided to spend all her time in the galley. Between 2 cooks and 50 men, there was hardly enough food to go around. The cooks were beyond grateful to have another helping hand.
Kellie learned some delicious dishes, and she taught the cooks some of her own. (Like pancakes. She was dumbfounded that noone in that world had never had, nor heard of pancakes! There wasn't anything out there that even looked like it!)
The men also enjoyed the foods that Kellie helped prepare. She had given light tips to make meat get more flavor, fruit more juice, and add an extra zing to quite a few other meals that the men on board loved. They soon grew to love the same dishes even more.
But Kellie was never allowed to really help prepare meals. She was only allowed to watch. She got to clean dishes and get the spices from the cabinets. It was boring, not to mention extremely tiring.
Kellie had to stay up until 12 o 'clock midnight, and get up at 5:30 in the morning. All just to do everything she could for the galley.
Zuko began to wonder where Kellie spent all her time. He rarely ever saw her. But he would catch a glimpse of her washing dishes in the galley, just like before. But nowhere else. Zuko also noticed that the meals were getting better.
"It's about time they read the cookbook." He muttered.
But one day, he learned that the better tasting food was not because the cooks, but because of something else.
It was happening right after lunch, Zuko had finished training, and walked past a couple of soldiers talking about their wonderful meal.
"Man, today's lunch was really something, huh?" One soldier asked his buddies.
"Yah. Best I've had in years. Better than mom's. Sorry, mom." Another soldier replied. The others laughed heartily at this comment.
"I agree. Ever since that little flame-haired girl started helping, all the meals taste like they were made in what she calls Heaven." One more soldier commented.
"Yah. Maybe it wasn't so bad that Zuko captured that girl." Yet one more soldier replied. But it would be the last. Zuko had been noticed, and the soldiers froze at his surprised, and starting to get very angry, expression that was plastered to his face.
"Good day, gentlemen," Zuko replied calmly with a bow, and disappeared down the hatch. The soldiers looked very sad. There went their wonderful meals down the hatch with their employer.
Kellie was scrubbing dishes and wiped sweat from her brow. It got very warm in the kitchens of a Fire Navy ship. Maybe too warm for her liking.
Then Zuko burst through the door. Kellie didn't take notice. Too busy with getting dishes clean before dinner was served.
"THIS is where you have been for the past week!" Zuko yelled, finally having caught his breath.
Kellie spun around, and dropped the plate in her hands. The jig is up… Kellie thought sadly.
"HERE, acting like a common, worthless, little peasant?" Kellie just stared at him.
"What do you care? After all, I'm just a prisoner, aren't I?" Kellie queried. Zuko couldn't answer. So, instead, he told the cooks their assistant was relieved of her duty, and dragged her off.
Kellie stood in her room, practicing waterbending with the water from the basin. After Kierra had left, waterbending became like adding 1+1. Easy. Almost like SHE had been bound.
After dragging her off, Zuko had thrown Kellie into her room. Saying he would come back for her.
The water Kellie was bending fell to the ground when she heard a clap of the thunder. She looked up, and turned around when the door opened. It was a soldier.
"Get up on deck! Now!" Was all he said before he was gone.
She looked around the deck and saw chaos. This storm wasn't a storm, not even a typhoon. It was a storm unlike any other.
Kellie ran to the bow of the ship and immediately began to try and calm the waves. It was easy, but repetitive waterbending soon made Kellie exhausted.
Just as soon as Kellie felt as if she was about to collapse from exhaustion, her eyes grew wide at the largest wave ever. Bigger than the tsunami that had hit southern Asia almost a year ago.
But it wasn't the wave itself she was making googley eyes at, but at what she saw on the wave.
She saw the face of a young goddess of Water crying on the face of the wave. A goddess that had once been her guardian.
"KIERRA! STOP! DON'T DO THIS! KI-" But Kellie's yells for Kierra to silence the storm were quieted as the wave dragged her over the side of the ship and into the dangerously rough waters below.
Just before Kellie hit the water, she realized what was going on completely. Kierra was still grieving the loss of losing her Child. So she caused a storm. A storm that would claim Kellie's life. She and Kierra would always be together, even if she was dead.
As Kellie sank to the bottom of the ocean, her last thoughts were of her family.
I'll never see them again. I won't live to be an aunt. I won't live to graduate. Homecoming, Aaron's marriage, the day he has a child, everything. My hopes and dreams snuffed out with one wave. Who knew it would end like this? They say that your life flashes right before your eyes, right before you die. Well, they're wrong. You don't see what has happened, you see what COULD OF happened. God isn't here, neither is Heaven. I'm going to spend rest of Eternity in the spirit world. How lonely. I don't want to die here, eternity is empty unless there is someone beside you to live through eternity with you. And there's noone here. My family is back home, MOM! DAD! AARON! Aaron-
But Kellie's thoughts dissipated as she lost consciousness…
"MAN OVERBOARD!" Someone yelled on deck. Zuko's eyes shot up and he ran to the edge.
"WHO WENT OVER?" He yelled over the roaring winds. He looked around the deck. Everyone was here.
No, not everyone's here.
Zuko realized, it was Kellie down in the ocean, Kellie down there, dying. Before he could think, Zuko stripped off his armor and dove down into the ocean. No storm was going to claim her…
Zuko looked frantically under the waves for the 12-year-old. But couldn't see her. Then, he caught a faint glimpse of crimson, sinking into the eternal darkness…
Zuko began to kick with all his heart and soul, the ocean was not going to claim her, not now, not ever.
Zuko grabbed Kellie's wrist and started to kick upwards. His lungs had been screaming for air, now they felt like they were going to blow like what Kellie called an atomic bomb.
Then, they were out of the water, Zuko gasped for breath.
"Kellie! Kellie! We're alive! We're-" But he cut off short when he saw she was limp, and wasn't taking in giant gulps of air like he was. It was already to late.
"NO! Kellie! Don't die! You're not dead! I know you're not! It's all a dream. And one I'll wake up from soon!" Zuko cried. But Zuko never woke up, and never saw her breathe.
Jus then, Zuko realized he was carrying Kellie bridal style onto the shore of a beach he hadn't noticed. But Zuko didn't care. He just wanted Kellie alive.
Suddenly, an idea that Kellie had told him about popped into his head. It was crazy, stupid, but Zuko was desperate.
"Alright then, if you won't breathe, then I'll do it for you." Zuko said with a delirious smile.
He placed his hand over her heart, and shoved force onto it. He did this five times. Then he covered her mouth with hers, and blew air in. He listened for a heart beat. None. But he didn't give up. He put his hand over her heart, then applied force five times. Then blew air in. Kellie's eyes opened and she shoved Zuko off.
"Wha- wha-" But just then, water erupted from Kellie's mouth, and onto the sand. Silencing her words.
But they came back with a vengeance.
"What, exactly, were you doing?" Kellie asked, in a none-to-kind voice.
"Giving you mouth to mouth. You said it was the only way for someone who isn't a waterbender to save someone who drowned."
Kellie's eyes grew wide. Her and her big mouth!
Well, it's better than being dead. I'll give it, and him, that.
"Well, now what?" Kellie asked quietly. The storm had quieted, and stars were coming out.
"We'll give my uncle something to follow." Zuko replied, and walked over to a log. It was wet from the storm, but Zuko's fiery punch at it dried it quickly.
"That'll keep us warm through the night, and it should let my uncle find us easier." Kellie just sat down next to the embers, and watched them.
Zuko sighed. He had been watching Kellie watch the embers of the fire for hours! It was unnerving.
"How do you sit like that for hours?" He asked. Kellie looked up at him, and grinned.
"It's easy. I used to do it all the time. When you watch, or listen, as I did, all you have to do is let your mind wander. You will stay quiet, at peace, and can stay still till you drive someone to the brink of insanity." She said quietly. Then her eyes noticed something.
"Oh my God!" She exclaimed. She ran up to a tree, and off it, took her leather jacket. It had been in her room on the ship when she ran on deck, but how had it gotten here? Beneath the jacket, there was a circle with a circular arrow in it. Kellie didn't know what it meant, but it was the Master of the Worlds' sign.
Kellie walked back to the fire and fell into the comfort of her jacket. But it didn't comfort her for long, as the night continued, it got colder. The fire died, and Kellie's jacket no longer gave her comfort. Hypothermia began to sink in. And Zuko took notice.
"You're going to freeze." He said simply. Kellie looked up. Her lips were blue.
"What do you propose?"
"We huddle for warmth." Kellie got up and into Zuko's arms. She started to chuckle quietly.
"What's so funny?" Zuko asked as Kellie burrowed into his chest, trying to absorb all of his firebending heat that he gave off.
"It's funny. Cause something just like this happened only a few months ago." She said between giggles. Hypothermia had made her dilerious.
"Really? What happened?" Zuko asked quietly.
"Well, it was the Relay 4 Life. And a few hours past midnight. My mom had taken my sleeping bag, and my brother Aaron had taken his and went off to another tent."
"And then what?"
"I made a bed out of lawn chairs, and tried to take warmth from my sweatshirt, two t-shirts, tank top, and jeans. But the cold cut through them like a hot knife through butter."
"What did you do?"
"I fell asleep. But only for twenty minutes."
"And?"
"And then, my brother came and told me to go into the tent. Mom gave me my sleeping bag, and I crawled in. And tried to absorb all the heat I could from the bag."
Zuko smiled.
"That's nice." He said as he rubbed her head.
"Yah. It's a déjà vu. Only this time you're the sleeping bag, Zuko." Kellie said with a grin and went into a small fit of giggles. Then stopped.
When Zuko looked down, he saw Kellie had fallen asleep. And still trying to absorb all his heat. He smiled, and then fell asleep himself.
Out in the ocean, a mermaid watched, her purple wings springing up from under the water. She wiped a single tear from her cheek, then dove below the surface.
YAY! 1 more chappie, and I'm done! Remember, I want lots more fans b4 this story ends!
2 zuko'sbabygirl: um. I don't really know how Zuko did it myself. I just did it 2 freak ppl out.
Well, like, peace man. (long live hippies! Lol.)
Zukoscute2