Lurking In the Shadows

The Blue Spirit

A dark shape lurked in the midmorning shadows that lay across the rocky pass. Behind the painted blue mask golden eyes watched the small group of companions. Three were familiar: the Avatar and his Water Tribe tagalongs. The other five weren't so distinguishable: a man with beastly black hair led the way while strumming along on his instrument while a pudgy man in pink walked alongside, beating out the rhythm with a set of drums. Next in line came a woman accompanying the duo with a small flute followed lastly by a younger pair dancing to the trio of music. Of course, the hardest to miss of the entire procession of misfits was the two-ton bison companied by a chattering lemur on its back.

The figure watched the group from behind, wondering what they were doing on the ground. Normally he could look up and see the familiar white speck in the sky and see that once again he had just missed the trail of the young airbender. Not far behind he could see a tendril of smoke rising into the sky to blend with the small clouds roaming the blue expanse. The Fire Nation soldiers, they were hot on the trail of the group.

"Look! Someone's making a big camp fire!" The pudgy man with the drums observed, pointing to the same trail of smoke that Zuko had been watching.

"That's not a campfire," the Water Tribe boy insisted. Zuko faintly remembered the Avatar calling him by name, Sokka. That was it.

"Into the cave, everyone!" The girl shouted as the rumble of the tanks began to shake the ground beneath their feet. Her name he knew; it was Katara. She was the defiant one he'd had a run in with over that stupid waterbending scroll and her necklace. He could still remember the way his arms draped over her shoulders as he whispered in her ear by the river. The look on her face: such raw anger and utter defiance, almost self-assured cockiness. He remembered the shock of her words. "Go jump in the river!" No one had stood up to him before, at least, not like that. It had caught him off guard to see her so angry, full aware of the danger she was in, facing a fire bender. Sure, her goon of a brother had attacked him too, but from what Zuko had seen, it was out of bone-headed foolishness, not true bravery.

All aside, though, the tanks were drawing nearer and the group had already disappeared into the depths of the cave. Glancing again at the tanks, which were now rounding the corner of the pass, he made a spilt second decision and dove from the shadows and into the cave.

Seconds after he'd faded into the overhanging shadows of the cave he could feel the tanks rumbling at the entrance of the cave. Few words were exchanged between the soldiers and suddenly rocks began to fall. Like water falling from the sky, the roof of the cave began to collapse at the entrance. Fearing safety, Zuko fell farther into the cave and pressed against the wall. He was now too close to the group for comfort, they also watched on, horror evident in each face, as the rocks fell into the entrance of the cave.

It all went dark.

Pitch black.

A scream.

Light, dim light, someone had lit a torch. With the newfound source of light Zuko was again forced away from the group, pulling back to the newly created wall from only moments before. He watched on as the group slowly sorted themselves out. They had five torches, two hours each, the flute woman explained. The Water Tribe boy, Sokka, grabbed two of the torches on the ground, stuffing them into his belt while the Avatar picked up another. Not realizing they'd left one of the precious tools behind, they began to walk off.

Stalking off just out of the rim of light Zuko followed, glad to take along the forgotten torch. Decidedly, the prince removed his mask. There was no need for it really; it was dark.Even if he was found (which wasn't likely) the Avatar had seen the mask before and would surely recognize it.

Zuko masked his own footsteps, quiet as they were, with those of the heavy footfalls of the bonehead water tribe boy. Soon enough he fell into the pattern of steps and could take his mind off of the actual walking and began to let his mind wander. Why was he doing this, torturing himself this way? He didn't need the Avatar anymore. My father no longer sees me as an exile. I'm a criminal. Azula was out to capture him under their father's orders and now even the capture of the Avatar would not put him back in line for the throne. So why did he keep doing this? Was it lack of anything else to do? My whole life since I was banished was about finding and taking the Avatar prisoner. Now that I no longer have use for him, why am I here? Maybe it was for a sense of normalcy. The Avatar had been his life for over two years and maybe he just kept after them because it was the only thing he knew away from his true home. Besides, what else did he have to do? He could get a job somewhere in the Earth Kingdom but somehow he knew that he'd be found out eventually. For lack of a better reason, Zuko decided it was because the companions had such a knack for avoiding the Fire Nation. He was a refugee of the Fire Nation now too, perhaps he could learn a thing or two from them.

Suddenly, Zuko was pulled from his thoughts at the mention of his name. It was the fool, Sokka, talking, "—Zuko guy. He's always following us around anyways. It would be just like that arrogant, blasted, Fire Nation, jerk to trap us in a labyrinth, a cursed labyrinth, at that." He determined, with a pointed glare at the grinning man with wild hair. He flung his arms in the air for emphasis, "next time we see him I'll wring his fire-bending neck." Zuko almost had to stifle a laugh. He had been right about that fool; pure blind fury was how he fought. He didn't have the same true courage as his sister, just the normal human instinct of self-preservation, nothing special about that.

And so the minutes drew on in a similar fashion. Sokka would complain, Katara would shut him up; the Avatar would make the best of it all, and the five others sung songs. Zuko followed. It wasn't long before the warrior got frustrated and began to draw a map. "We're just going to solve this thing like a puzzle," he insisted. So maybe the fool wasn't a stupid as Zuko originally thought, at the very least he appealed to normal logic.

With a newly drawn map the group continued their trek with Zuko in tow.

About an hour later, and starting on their second torch, the group finally got fed up with Sokka's nonsense. "Sokka, this is the tenth dead-end you've led us to!" The waterbender complained. He peered closer at the map as if there was some sort of unseen secret to the tunnels.

"It just doesn't make sense!" He whined, "we've been through here before!" In another show of his childish inability to control his emotions he threw the map into the air. The Avatar snatched it as it floated to the ground and looked at it himself. Sokka snatched it back. "There's only one explanation for this," he decided. Suddenly his expression grew grim. He fixed each of them in turn with a steady gaze. Zuko had to admit, though an idiot, the guy could create an atmosphere. "The tunnels are changing."

For a moment it seemed that the group was taking in what he said but then Katara objected. "The tunnels can't change Sokka, they're rock! Don't you even start to tell me some wild story about secret societies of earthbenders in a mountain, you just aren't reading the map right," she insisted. He looked ready to argue but swallowed whatever retort he had planned when she fixed him with a death glare. If looks could kill… Zuko thought absently.

Without warning, a shrill cry echoed through the tunnel like the screech of steel on steel. All but Sokka covered their ears. Slowly, and with a look of stupefied disbelief, he turned and held the torch aloft in the direction of the ever approaching wail. Suddenly, everything happened at once. A flying creature emerged from the dark at top speed just missing the top of the warrior's head. Sokka, the idiot that he was, dropped the torch in surprise. The torch landed to one of the bison's feet and alighted the stark white fur. The bison let out a low rumbling roar and began to run about in pain, knocking against several of the walls as it did so. With horror, the group and Zuko watched as a low thundering sound, accompanied by a spray of pebbles, came from the ceiling. All at once the roof of the cave shook and began to fall in enormous chunks to the ground below.

On instinct Zuko ran to the right, out of the way of the falling debris. He watched as the Avatar blew the water tribe girl, who was in the middle of the barrage, in his direction while knocking the rest of the travelers to the left. For his own safety, the Avatar ran to the side closest to him, the left, leaving Katara and, unknowingly, Zuko as well, on the other side.

All at once the fall of rocks increased and before Zuko could draw a single breath the light of Sokka's torch had been cut off and the path was entirely closed.

Darkness.

A/N: Thanks sooooooo much for reading! If yuo've read my profile I talked about how I'm not sure exactly where this is giong but I'm not by any means planning to turn it into a smut fest or mushy crap. I hope you like and I hope you keep reading! Drop me a review and tell me what you think. It'a always encouraging to hear readers' points of view, it gives one more initiative, you know?