Chapter 3:
Demon Wood
I woke with a start. My breath was coming up short and quick. My eyes wide as they were when I was afraid, a rare occurence. "Only a dream. Only a dream." I told myself. But I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep. I dreamt that dream before. It was only a dream, but it had happened once. It was just a bit of past I was not fond of.
"Akina. What is it? That dream again? You know it wasn't your fault." a voice in my ear said.
"Yeah. I know Avari. But I can't help but think about it." I said quietly to my friend Avari. She took the appereance of a small black snake for my convenience.
I walked up to the deck with Avari around my neck. Wolf looked inquiringly at me as I walked out of my room. His grey coloring making him look more wolfish then dog, thus the name, it also gave the young pup an older appearence. But his blue eyes kept his innocence pups can never seem to grasp.
I suppose I must have awakened the prince, for when I stopped to look out at the sea his voice came from behind me.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm wondering if I should just jump out to sea." I said in a vain attempt to cover my suprise that he'd followed me.
"Why?" he asked.
"To end it all. To not have to worry about life, about other, humans" I said the word with distaste.
"What do you have against your own race?" he asked rudely.
"I have nothing against elves. Simply against humans. Mainly men."
"Men? What do you mean by that?"
"Men are the ones who kill my forests." I said. He seemed to have thankfully missed the fact that I said I was an elf. For then I would have to explain the whole, my mother was an elf, father human, me, half and half. It always confused me, and I'm sure it would confuse and ignorant teenage prince.
The forest comment seemed to confuse him enough though, for he left after that.
A few moments later though, I called out loudly, and though I knew not how I managed it, also softly, "Prince!"
He came up to the deck at the shout, and saw my reason. Admiral Zhao's ship had come up alongside his. "What could Zhao want now?" he asked to no one.
A moment after he said this he turned to call his uncle, at that point I saw Zhao's archer, the one I had defeated, raise his bow. I replied by readying mine and raising it. However, Zuko had turned back in time to see me raise my bow in challenge to Zhao's ship.
"What are you doing? You can't just raise your bow at someones ship!" he yelled not seeing the U Yin archer. He continued to yell, and I slowly lowered my bow, thankful my hair covered my face for Zuko would not see that eye, which never stopped watching the U Yin.
As soon as Zuko finished yelling he turned his back on the other archer, the U Yin fired. I had returned my bow , and being myself, shoved Zuko out of the way, and allowed my arm to be shot instead.
As the arrow pierced my skin I gasped, even I couldn't hold in my intake of breath at the pain. Zuko turned back to yell at me for shoving him he saw the arrow in my arm. I straightened myself and broke off the tip of the arrow with had gone clear through my arm, but by some extreme luck it managed to miss the bone, for the most part anyway. I slowly pulled the arrow back through my arm, tossed it to the floor and turned to go down to my room. As I passed by the crew and General Iroh saw my arm bloody and the broken arrow on the floor.
I made it to my room and cleaned my wound. I recognized the wound as the work of demon wood. I bandaged my arm and walked over to Snowthorn.
He looked at me and then spoke. "I can stop it, but not until it surfaces. For now you'll simply have to watch your temper. Or, you shall become a demon. I can't reverse it, only stop it. I'm afraid." the old dragon said. "I would like to stay with you for a while though," he promptly shrunk and joined Avari around my neck.
I walked back up to where the crew, Iroh, and Zuko were. Zuko wouldn't look at me, but the crew wouldn't leave me alone. Zuko ended up leaving shortly after I came up. After about ten minutes of the crew badgering me with questions I decided to retire to my room. As I was walking to my room I saw Zuko's door open a crack. Curiosity killed the cat, I thought to myself, but then as curiosity won I thought, satisfaction brought him back.
I poked my head in just enough to see Zuko meditating in the corner. I decided not to risk having a large fireball thrown at me and returned to my room. I looked around and saw a small shelf in the corner with a few candles on it, a meditation seat.
I lit the candles with a wave of my hand and sat down. Concentrating on my breath and trying to ignore the pain in my right arm. Soon I'd fallen asleep sitting, and was dreaming once again.
"Here. Have this" a young boy, maybe 14 said as he handed a girl of the same age a small crystal dagger on a chain. "Zuko, I can't take this! It's too expensive!" said the girl in awe that someone could give her something like that. Especially since she was just the stable girl. "I don't care how expensive it is, I want you to have it Akina. It's yours now." Zuko persisted. "Zuko..."
The dream faded into a second...
"Zuko...no..." a girl knelt down beside a young boy who had fallen. She suddenly stood. Hate and anger in her eyes her hair turned blood red by the light, she faced the fire lord. "How could you!" she shouted not really asking the question. "How dare you talk that way to the fire lord!" retaliated the fire lord as he stepped forward. The girl did not back down. Fire was starting at her wrists and weaving its way through her hair, a black snake around her neck had slithered down along with a second slightly more grey one, and a third, dark green. They slowly changed as they hit the ground. They became large fire dragons. The grey, the largest of the three, circled around the girl, fallen boy, and fire lord. The green kept the guards at bay, and the black kept the crowd back. The fire lord suddenly realized this girl wasn't human and slashed his hand down, creating a bit of fire that slit a burn just under the girl's right eye. As she advanced on him he did the same to the skin under the left eye. Just as she was about to fight back the fallen boy murmured and she fell back. The fire lord yelled out for help and someone to take away the girl as she was banished now, but two of the dragons had cleared a path and the third had carried the girl out, leaving the boy behind...
For the second time on the ship I awoke with a start. But this time someone heard me.
"What's wrong?" Said General Iroh as he opened the door a crack.
"Nothing, just a bad dream...I'm fine." I replied hoping he wouldn't detect the lie.
"All right, good night archer." he said as he left and closed the door.
