Note: For those of you confused by the previous chapter-- Katara's lines were not supposed to make sense really. They were actually two separate statements in her head, though it comes out as babbling nonsense. She may not have blood poisoning but she's been out in the sun a long while too. Sidenote: "le petit mort" is the best innuendo metaphor ever. Really.
Act 2
The Fisherman
Scene 2
In his dreams, Zuko was always scarred.
In this dream he was a boy again, nine years old, attending his first carnival outside the palace.
His manservant was marching in front of him and guards hovered at his sides. Colors swirled and flashed in the evening air, and faces of every nation wandered by him. The dream was pulled from his memory, but warped itself as it manifested. His first midsummer night's festival he'd been five, and there had been only Fire Nation civilians.
The crowd carried them forward but Zuko made them stop at a booth, because behind the display was a young woman dressed in blue and white.
"I'm looking for something," Zuko said, little nose high in the air. "Tell me where it is."
The woman became a girl, and the girl said, "Bobbing for apples costs half a copper, you get three tries."
The girl pushed forward a barrel of water with a floating apple, and waited.
"There's only one, how am I supposed to get it?" the prince whined.
The girl strode forward, grabbed his chin roughly in her hand, and bent to look him in the eye. "We do not look down our noses at the fortune given to us," she snapped.
Prince Zuko tried to look around for his servants and his guards, but they were gone. There was only the girl and booth, and he was afraid.
"Your fingers are hurting me," he whimpered, and couldn't remember if he was five or nine this time, or if he'd ever been sixteen.
She must have taken pity on him, because her grip softened and her other hand joined it, closing around his scarred cheeks. She frowned again, and told him sternly, "You'll have to eat my bones one day, Prince Zuko."
He just wanted an apple. He just wanted to go back to the palace. He didn't want bones, which would hurt her coming out and scrape his throat going down.
"But they're your bones!" he replied, voice high and naïve.
The girl shook her head, "They're made of water, Zuko, and one day they'll all pour out of me and become bones again. You'll eat them, and then you will be the Fire Lord."
"Is that what my father did?"
"That is what all kings and queens must do."
"This is what a leader must do," Iroh agreed, and Zuko turned to see his uncle. He found himself looking down at the man instead of up.
"I am not a scavenger, uncle."
"It is not savagery to feed off the strength of your enemies, my nephew." Iroh gestured to the girl beside the booth, and Zuko recognized her now.
"But Uncle, her bones are made of salt and her blood is made of brine. She would be as a poison to me."
Katara grinned, and whispered lightly in his ear, "Don't worry, it is only a little death."
"Blood and bones are not little!" Zuko shouted, and shoved her away, though she was laughing at him and he didn't want to grasp why. He turned on his uncle, fury filling him that he could not explain.
"It is not little and it is not nothing! I am not a scavenger, and I will not destroy others to have what is already mine by birthright!"
Iroh sighed, and shook his head. "Then you will be just a dog, and your sister will steal your skin and eat your bones."
When Zuko sprang to life again, he woke in a bed with coarse sheets and heavy blankets. The ceiling above him was low and made of wood. He sat up like a spring-board, gaze careening over the tiny room. A lock of loose hair fell in his eyes, and he brushed it back with irritation. Fuck his leg hurt. His whole body hurt.
"Where the fuck am I?"
Maybe the ocean had been a nightmare. Maybe his uncle would come striding in any minute now to offer him tea.
"What's going on here?" he asked the empty air around him.