Disclaimer- I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of its characters used in this story.
Okay, I forgot last chapter to mention Zula is a character the creators of Avatar said they are adding (they informed everyone at the San Diego Comic-Con). She is supposed to be 100 evil, and will be that in my fanfic when she gets older. At the moment in my fanfic she is 11 and has not really developed any real evil tendencies yet.
Also, I'm only going to be able to update about once a week because my teachers are INSANE. I've been spending the moment I get home after school till when I go to bed doing homework. No joke. On top of that I'm in marching band and we are going to start having competitions we travel to on Saturdays. It is going to be a push just to get one chapter a week posted.
And just on a side note—you are more than welcome to review to tell me you think I should change something in a chapter I've already posted. I have a drive to edit, so more than likely (if I find the time) I will probably go back and slightly rewrite chapters anyways. Want to know how much I have a drive to edit? If any of you read the first two chapter of "Falling Apart" that I posted, this is the rewritten version of that story. I accidentally made Zula out of character and then had a totally wicked plot twist come to mind that conflicted with the chapters I already posted, so I deleted the story and started over. I promise, though, not to delete it this time around no matter how bad I mess up. I've got to learn to finish what I start.
Chapter 2- Fiery Tapestry
Takes Place 3 Years after the Last Chapter
(Zula is now 11 and Zuko is 12)
Zuko studied the Pai Sho game in front of him. His game pieces were scattered on the board in a loose formation—so much for developing a strategy. It was his turn and he was supposed to move. Too bad he couldn't decide which piece to move. Maybe if he could actually figure out his opponent's strategy he could stand a chance.
Maybe he should move the camellia¹ tile. Maybe he shouldn't. But it might be a good offensive move if he advanced the tile. Then again, it could leave a gap in his defense.
He hated this game.
His uncle just sat there calm and waiting. Zuko looked back at the game board. He might as well move the camellia tile; he couldn't think of any other play to make. Maybe he shouldn't… too bad, he was going to try it. He quickly moved the game piece before he could change his mind.
Iroh eagerly leaned forward and moved one of his game pieces. The lotus tile. An obscure game piece most people never paid attention to.
"I win," Iroh triumphantly announced.
The twelve year old prince abruptly stood up. He ALWAYS lost! Why couldn't he ever win? This wasn't fair! Smoke began to billow from his hands. His anger was mounting.
"Calm down, Prince Zuko. You should really watch that temper of your," Iroh stated calmly.
Zuko glared at his uncle. Calm down? He wasn't upset! Okay, maybe he was.
Zuko struggled to contain his rage. Why did he always let his uncle talk him into playing this STUPID game? There wasn't even a reason to play it! If he couldn't win, what was the point of playing?
The smoke coming from Zuko's hands did stop, even if Zuko could not clear the glare off his face. It was his uncle's fault. He ALWAYS tricked him into playing this game!
"The key to winning, Prince Zuko, is not in simple strategy. While you want to guess what your opponent is trying to do, you yourself must become unpredictable. You need to employ unexpected moves and unusual thinking to outsmart your opponent. In a way, the best strategy is not to have a strategy."
Zuko just continued to glare. Why should this matter to him? He was going to be the Fire Lord someday. How would strategy for a Pai Sho game help him?
Iroh chuckled. His nephew had such a stubborn streak in him.
"Up for another round?" Iroh asked the young prince.
"I refuse to play this any longer," Zuko said. He didn't care if he was pouting, this game was stupid.
"Please."
"No!"
"Can't you play just one more game for your elderly uncle?"
"…alright," Zuko reluctantly agreed. Now he had to play yet another round of this detestable game. How did his uncle always manage to do this?
Just because she is a girl does not mean she will be weak. She will grow up to become even stronger than her older brother. In fact, she will become more powerful than anyone else in the Fire Nation. This girl Fire Lord Ozai is so disappointed in will be the only person who can stand against the Avatar.
The moment I am waiting for is drawing nigh.
That single revelation drifted through the subconscious of a slumbering spirit trapped within the confines of a small boy's body—a body with airbender tattoos. The boy was but a small remnant of a mighty people once called the Air Nomads. Their temples, now, stand empty and silence fills the air where they once lived, only he remains. He is more than just the last Air Nomad, though. He is the Avatar.
The Avatar spirit knew it is to be reawakened soon, for the world needs it. The spirit of the Avatar and the body it inhabited, however, still drifted unconscious in an incasing of ice. The cold sleep separated from time was to end soon. A warmth was seeping into the ice—the warmth of a flaming comet just six years off. Fate is going to send someone to it, the Avatar could feel it. Soon, sometime soon, someone would be sent.
The girl will grow into a woman with ambitious plans and devious schemes. But I feel no happiness in her life, only pain and hate instead.
In her dream, Zula was older and one of the most feared soldiers in the Fire Nation. The Fire Nation did not care she was a girl. To them she was a warrior.
She had been separated from the rest of the troops in her dream, and then found by Earth Kingdom troops. She stood in a dirt clearing and faced three Earth Kingdom soldiers. They stared warily at her and waited for her to make the first move.
Charging forward, Zula let loose a blast of fire aimed at one of the soldiers. The flame moved too fast for the soldier to block it and it hit him squarely in the chest. He screamed as the force of the contact knocked him over.
Two of the soldiers advanced in unison towards her. Zula let loose a barrage of fire to slow their attack, but while she was distracted the first soldier snuck up behind her. He grabbed her arm and threw her to the ground.
She started to push herself up, but a foot pressed down in the middle of her back and she found herself pinned against the ground. She would not let herself be defeated by mere Earth Kingdom soldiers. She was a warrior.
Her hand flared with a violent flame and she grabbed the leg of the soldier pinning her down. The flame burned through the cloth and the soldier quickly drew his leg back. His companions became angry and they roughly grabbed Zula, pulling her to her feet.
Two of them held her arms while another took out a knife. She struggled against their grip as the one soldier looked at her with murder in his eyes. He lunged forward with the knife and she spewed fire from her mouth.
The soldier gasped as he dropped the knife and cradled his burnt hands. Flames bit the two soldiers restraining her and Zula pushed them aside. Angry expressions played on their faces as they morphed into wolves. The three wolves jumped at her in unison and she swept an arc of fire in front of her to protect herself. The wolves retreated, snarling. She stood in front of them a second and was surprised when the wolves began to run. She ran after them, feet pounding on the dirt, determined to capture them.
One of Zula's legs plunged into the ground and she leaned back to balance herself. Her other leg, too, began to sink into the dirt. No, it was no longer dirt. It was snow. The entire clearing was now covered in snow. The wolves were now gone.
Suddenly, she also became her real age. Gone was the proud Fire Nation armor, instead she had on a simple red dress. She was only plain 11 year old Zula again.
She struggled to walk in the snow and peered into the blinding white to try to see what was going on. She began to feel the cold of the snow seep into her bones. Zula hated the cold.
She began to try to melt the snow by hearting her inner fire up. Funny, nothing happened. Was it so cold here that even firebending did no help?
The wind began to blow harder and swept the snow towards her. Zula ran for the nearest snow bank she saw and pressed against it in an attempt to block the wind, but it did no help. The wind continued to relentlessly beat against her, and she felt colder… colder… colder…
Zula sat straight-up in bed and tried to remember what woke her. She half-thought it was her dream, but she suddenly could not remember it. The word "cold", however, seemed to linger in her head. Speaking of cold, it was chillier than normal in her room. She slipped out of her bed to investigate the source of the temperature change.
She started to walk around and began to notice how dark it was in her room. Not that she was scared of the dark, of course, but how could she find the source of the problem if she couldn't see anything?
She willed the candle in her room to burst into fire, but they remained still. With a shiver, Zula noticed the room seemed to be getting colder. And her room was so dark. So empty- the coldness seemed to have sucked the life out of everything. Stumbling forward in the dark, Zula found the door to her room and flung it open. She ran into the hallway, hoping for some warmth. It was the same as her room.
Desperate Zula began to walk down the hallway, not knowing what else to do. Her footsteps echoed hollowly as she walked and she became aware of her own insignificance compared to the giant hallways of the palace. The cold metal walls began to leer and lean in towards her, making her cringe in an attempt to become a smaller target… after all, a smaller prey was harder to attack.
So now she was prey?
The hollow echoes that rang back to her began to whisper about the cold. The coldness is what makes everything so empty, so void of life, they said to each other. All of this is because of the cold. You can't escape it. The coldness is because of you.
It's so cold, so very cold.
Empty, so empty.
Hollow.
She began to walk faster as the walls closed in tighter. You are hollow, just like us. The echoes began to bite at her heels as she began to run. Cold, so very cold. Why are you cold? She began to hate the cold, dark hallway that was whispering to her. Coldness. Run all you want, you can't escape it. Watch me, she thought. Running harder she rounded a corner only to be greeted by an extension of the hallway.
It's so cold. It's so empty. Pressing forward she still ran to try to escape the echoes. Why do you think you can escape the cold? Run faster. Keep running, see if it does any help. Go ahead. She tripped in her hurry and fell sprawled out onto the floor.
Empty, everything's empty. She curled into a ball shutting her eyes tightly. She felt for her necklace, the one of the dragon, and clutched it in an attempt to ward off whatever was there.
She thought she heard footsteps overlapping with the noises already present. She peaked open her eyes and they focused on brown shoes that stood by her face. She thrust an arm pleadingly at the shoes as things began to lose focus. Someone kneeled by her and said her name.
"Its cold," she told them. How else could she explain this feeling? Strong arms wrapped around her and began to carry her, cradled in their arms. A strong wave of heat hit her, and Zula knew that a firebender must be carrying her. She leaned into the warmth and felt it help keep the cold at bay. The evil, hollow cold. She shivered as the heat began to spread through her body, but the center of her remained cold. Not just cold, but empty. Save me from this coldness, she thought as darkness overcame her.
Zhao had stayed up late that night in the council room talking to Admiral Weng. Weng had called him there to inform him that he had been recently promoted to Captain. Captain Zhao. It had such a nice ring to it.
He was to leave the next morning, in charge of his new ship, to help with a blockade. Apparently one of the Earth Kingdom ports they had blocked had found a way to sneak some ships out. The Fire Lord had been less than pleased at the news and had demanded that several more ships should go join the blockade. Starting tomorrow morning life was finally going to get exciting.
When he had been walking to his room that night leaving the council room, he had no intention to staying-up any later that night, especially not to help some invalid. However, things did not go exactly to plan.
At first, he thought he saw a pile of rugs on the floor in the dark hallway. As he approached closer he saw that it was a person lying on the ground, and they were moaning as if nightmares were plaguing their dreams. Why would someone be sleeping in the hallway?
The Captain cautiously stepped closer to the body on the floor and noticed two disturbing things at the same time. First off, this person was awake. Their eyes were tightly closed as if to help hide them from whatever invisible demons were after them, but he could tell from their movements they were wide awake. Their hand, also, was tightly gripped around a necklace that they wore. Second, this was no ordinary person. This was the princess.
Unsure of what to do the Captain just stood there a moment and that's when she first noticed him. She had moved her head his direction and opened her eyes. She weakly raised an arm toward his shoes and then it just dropped limply. He knelt next to her to see what was wrong and softly said her name hoping to draw her attention.
"Its cold," she told him. The words themselves held nothing of importance, but the way she said them alerted him to the fact there was a deeper meaning hidden behind the words. He looked at her a moment trying to decide what to do when he noticed that her eyes were still open, but they had become unfocused.
The Captain quickly decided that the best course of action was to get her to a doctor. The medical room was just a few hallways down. Perhaps he should carry her? He didn't see any other choice; she was too weak to walk there herself.
The Captain gently picked her up and began to carry her to the medic room. Why had she said it was cold? The hallway was warm, just like any other place in the Fire Nation palace. Her skin was smooth, not covered in goose bumps as it would be if exposed to cold air. Something else had to be causing the feeling. He noticed as she began to lean into the heat he was generating with his firebending. So she felt the temperature change—that meant that her skin was not totally oblivious to the air.
Why was she feeling cold then? And why didn't she do anything about it? She could have put on warmer clothes or used firebending to keep herself warm… she was a firebender, right? Yeah, both the Fire Lord's children were firebenders. In fact, now that he thought about it, he thought he remembered her training.
His thoughts were interrupted when he notice he had arrived at the medical ward. The Captain stepped through the doorway and looked about for a doctor. There was one standing beside a patient's bed making them drink some concoction he must have brewed-up for them. The Captain cleared his throat and the doctor turned to them. The doctor motioned for him to lay the princess on the nearest vacant bed. As he gently put her on the bed the doctor walked over to them.
"What's wrong with her?"
"I'm not sure- I found her on the floor in one of the hallways. She complained that it was cold."
"Cold?"
"Feel her skin." The doctor reached forward and wrapper his hand around on of her arms. He looked-up with confusion on his face.
"She's a Firebender, right? Why isn't she using it to heat herself up?" the doctor mused to himself out loud.
"I think she can't."
"What would cause someone to lose their firebending abilities?"
"I had hoped you would be able to answer that."
"An unusual fever would be my guess. It is obvious she can't think clearly either. It has to be a fever." The doctor paused as a look of concern swept over his face.
"Her skin is starting to get cold," the doctor told the Captain. She was getting worse? The doctor looked closely at the sleeping princess for a minute. He suddenly reached forward and shook her, jarring her awake. Zula just sat there and blinked several times. The state of confusion stayed on her face as her eyes focused on things that weren't there.
Cold. Empty. Hollow².
"Make sure she stays awake," the doctor told him, "Whenever she is asleep she stops fighting it. She needs to keep fighting. I'm going to try to mix her something to bring the fever down."
The Captain nodded and the doctor moved to one of the tables in the center of the room. The Captain turned his attention back to the girl sitting on the bed. The girl began to relax and close her eyes. He reached forward and shook her.
"You can't fall asleep. If you want to live you have to stay awake."
She wanted to live; yes, she wanted to live so badly. But sleepiness was clouding her mind. Why was she so cold, so empty? Stay awake is what the man had commanded her to do, but she was not sure she could do it. She began to close her eyes and he shook her again. Why couldn't the man just let her sleep?
Zula tried hard to stay awake, truly she did; but after a few minutes she felt herself relax again. This time when he shook her Zula's body just ignored him. It wanted sleep. A hand struck her against her face and she jerked awake. Stunned, she raised a hand to put it on the stinging cheek. Why had he slapped her? She just sat there a minute and then the doctor came towards her.
The doctor force a burning liquid down her throat. Zula gagged on it, but she managed to get it down. Her headache sharpened and the room began to blur. A burst of heat spread through her and threatened to engulf her. What was happening?
The Avatar is coming back and will be sent to defeat the Fire Nation. He will have the ability to bring the greatest nation to its knees. Only this girl can stop him. The outcome of this entire war rests with your child.
Ozai stared at the map in front of him. It was the map of the world.
The small continent to the west was completely red. That was the glorious Fire Nation, his domain.
Scattered throughout the map were large white islands, once the home of the Air Nomads. They were no longer of concern.
At the top and bottom of the map were blue continents. That was the Water Tribes' territory. The Water Tribes were nothing but weak people already nearly conquered from periodical Fire Nation raids.
But right there, to the East, was the largest continent. Colored brown, its impressive size was formidable, even if on just a map. The Earth Kingdom.
However, throughout the sea of brown, were red splotches—the parts already conquered by the Fire Nation. The red was reaching toward the heart of the Earth Kingdom, the city of Ba Sing Se.
That single dot on the map indicated where the city stood. A single dot represented the one obstacle that kept the Fire Nation from winning the war. Even the Avatar had long since been eliminated. The Fire Nation had managed to take out an immortal spirit, but they could not conquer that single city.
A strategy. That is what he needed to bring that impregnable city to its knees. That, however, was his brother's realm. Iroh was a master at strategy. However, it was hard to get any strategy of war out of his brother. Iroh was simply too passive and did not approve of war. He would rather waste time baby-sitting my son.
How weird those words sounded. My son. They felt so foreign. Ozai did not have time to waste thinking about the prince. Of course, he spent time making sure the prince was being properly trained. After all, the Fire Lord reasoned, the prince will be my heir when I die. Hopefully, by that time, I will have succeeded in conquering the world. The entire world will bow to me and my descendants.
Night had long since crept up to the palace while the Fire Lord was thinking. Ozai knew he should stop trying to think of a plan and just go to his room to sleep. The problem of Ba Sing Se, however, was too pressing. Something needed to be done. The key to the entire war was in the forefront of his mind. He was the Fire Lord. He could do without sleep.
One of the many tapestries in the room captured the Fire Lord's attention. Its fiery background curled around a figure bravely fighting in the midst of a battle. The figure was Fire Lord Sozen. Ozai looked at his father and then turned his attention to the upper left corner of the tapestry. There, woven with great care, was a comet. The comet that came every hundred years. A slow smile spread on the Fire Lord's face. He knew how he was going to make Ba Sing Se nothing but a pile of rubble abandoned in a waste land.
Notes:
1) Camellia is the name for certain evergreen shrubs or small trees native to Asia. Since a lotus is a white lily important to Asia, especially for religious purposes, it seemed like camellia was a feasible name for a tile.
2) Quick note on why she feels "empty", "cold", and "hallow". Chances are a firebender constantly has the feeling of a small fire on the inside of them (maybe not, just a guess). If suddenly that fire you have had on the inside all your life went away, you would certainly feel like you were cold and missing something. Just wanted to explain.
Note to Hotspur:
I was completely surprised when I checked my reviews for my poem and saw you were one of the reviewers. Believe it or not, the only reason I wrote that poem is because earlier that day I had read your "Iroh to Ozai" poem and it left such a big impression on me. Then I found out you also marked my poem as a favorite! That is so cool that the person I got the inspiration from liked it so much. Apparently you also liked my poem enough that you decided to grace my story with a review too. Wow… that totally made my day. Maybe even my week. That is so cool! Sorry, I just still can't believe that you liked my poem. Maybe I should write more poetry…