Water
Into the City
This wasn't his first trip into the city. Not even close. But it was Zuko's first time venturing in like this. His first time venturing in with a group larger than just himself and Katara. His first time venturing in without really worrying about keeping his face concealed.
He was still trying, of course. Zuko hadn't completely lost his mind. His hood was pulled up, and he very much intended to keep his head down once they reached the city itself, but he couldn't delude himself into thinking that it would make much difference today. There was a battle going on just beyond the city walls. The streets were guarded more heavily than usual too. And, possibly most importantly, he was the lone stranger in a group that would absolutely, undoubtedly attract a lot more attention than he was used to. After all, quite apart from being the princess, Yue had a head full of silvery-white hair that made her stand out pretty dramatically from the rest of the group. And Aang was—Aang. The arrow tattoos and orange clothes might as well have been red flashing lights for how well they blended in.
Admittedly, that probably meant that Zuko wouldn't be the first person a passerby would notice. But since none of them were supposed to be here, they would inevitably be stopped, and once that happened, Zuko couldn't possibly hope to go unnoticed. One way or another, people would find out about him.
He tried not to let that bother him too much. He was going to be noticed. But at the very least, he knew that that was hardly the worst risk he would have to face today. From what the others had told him, he knew that most of the warriors guarding the city itself were young—close to him and Sokka in age—and probably not very experienced. That was nothing that Zuko couldn't manage. Even if it ended up being a bunch of nonbenders who he didn't want to firebend at, Zuko could still hold his own.
All he had to do was make it to the moon shrine or whatever it was that Yue was leading them to. Once they were there, he could relax a little. They would be out of sight, out of reach, safe there, as long as Zhao didn't make it through the walls.
Well, the others would be safe, at least. Today especially, Zuko could be killed if something went wrong.
It didn't escape his notice that Katara was holding his hand a little tighter than usual when they finally approached the first house. It didn't escape his notice that although she wouldn't look directly at him, her eyes were busy scanning every corner, every shadow. It was almost like she thought if she could just see everything before it reached them, she could stop anything bad from happening.
He hoped that she didn't notice the fact that he was holding her hand just as tight, that his heart was racing, and his breath coming a bit too fast. He didn't want her to realize that he was nervous. That he was almost scared. He hadn't forgotten his promise to Sokka—to himself. He was meant to be looking out for Katara, not the other way around.
"Can't you give us some fog to hide in or something?" Sokka asked as they made their way down a quiet, narrow street. "Aang sticks out like a sore thumb, and I know for a fact that that hood isn't doing much for Zuko when we're all together like this."
Katara shook her head. "Fog wouldn't help us in the city. People might not see us, but we wouldn't be able to see them either." She glanced up at Zuko, and her grip on his hand tightened a little. "We'll just—we'll have to move fast, that's all."
They were already nearly running. None of them had the patience to just walk today, and running would have looked suspicious, so somehow, they had landed on the worst possible compromise instead.
"We could try the tunnels under the city, but I'm not sure they go anywhere near the shrine," Zuko said. He didn't quite dare to raise his voice high enough for all of them to hear, but Katara glanced his way again.
"If we had more time, I'd try it in a heartbeat. Anything has to be better than this."
He squeezed Katara's hand back. They were going to be okay.
Somehow.
They had to be.
As they passed farther into the city, the flashes lighting up the sky grew brighter, the sounds of blasting more distinct and closer to the flashes that preceded them.
Zuko's insides clenched. He'd seen fighting before, but not like this. Never an entire fleet up against the full force of another nation. Even in his years at sea, he'd never seen much more than a skirmish between a handful Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation ships—and the few times that his ship had come anywhere near that sort of skirmish, Uncle had always done his best to steer them away. That had been one of the very few times when Zuko had given in to Uncle's advice and intervention. Even back then, Zuko had known better than to throw himself into the middle of an all-out battle.
He couldn't decide whether today was shaping up to go better for him or not. On the one hand, he had at least the beginnings of a plan this time, and there were people willing to back him up. On the other, he was practically sprinting straight into the midst of the fight, and today, there was a relatively strong possibility that after he went in, he might not make it out.
They made it past the familiar doorway of the house where Katara and the others were staying, and Zuko's eyes lingered a moment longer than necessary before they veered sharply to the left and followed along a canal. The shrine couldn't be too much farther off, could it? Zuko was fairly certain that he remembered this spot along the canal from the day when he'd first arrived in the city—when Katara had found him and frozen him solid—and it wasn't that far from the canal to the city wall. Unless the shrine was much, much closer to the walls and to the battle than he thought, then it had to be coming up soon.
And he didn't just think that because it was becoming increasingly clear that people were beginning to notice him. Though the streets were emptier than Zuko had expected at first, there had been a few pairs of eyes following along after them, narrowing in an apparent effort at working out just who was sandwiched in the middle of the group. Still, possibly out of respect for Aang or Yue or both, no one made any effort to stop them.
Not until they were nearly at the city wall, at least. Yue led them clear to the far side of the city until they emerged onto a broad street that trailed alongside a canal at the base of the wall, and to their credit, Yue and Sokka had taken an extra step around the corner to see whether anyone was coming before motioning the others to follow.
Unfortunately, before they made it more than halfway down the first block, a stranger emerged around the next corner.
"No," Katara breathed, and her hand tightened around Zuko's. She tugged just a little, trying to angle herself in front of him.
"Well, this is interesting," the stranger said lazily. He was probably around Zuko's age and size, but he was armed with a spear in one hand and a short, bulky club in the other. With a smirk, he used the tip of his spear to flick a lock of brown hair back from his face. "I thought my dad told you that you weren't supposed to be hanging around the city right now. In case you haven't noticed, there's a battle going on. This is way too important for us to risk letting outsiders like you to get involved."
Sokka seemed to grow an inch or so as he straightened. "For your information, Hahn,Chief Arnook asked me to keep an eye on Princess Yue. I don't think I need permission from you or your dad to do my job."
Hahn? Why did that name sound so familiar?
"We won't be here long, Hahn," Yue added hastily. "The palace seems like the first place the Fire Nation will go if they make it through the walls, so we're just on our way to find a more secure place to stay tonight."
"Of course you won't be here long. Because I'm going to escort you to—" Hahn grabbed Yue by the arm.
She shook him off. "Thank you, Hahn, but that really isn't necessary." Somehow, she managed to sound simultaneously polite and furious. "Sokka is doing very well at that, and the rest of my friends are hardly going to leave me in danger."
"Yeah," Aang said, his tone a little harsher than Zuko had ever heard it before. He thumped his staff down in the snow. "And aren't you busy with something anyway? Maybe it's just me, but I don't think it's a good idea for you to leave your mission behind to worry about ours."
"What mission?" Hahn's gaze drifted over the group until he finally noticed Zuko and narrowed his eyes. "What the hell? Who is—"
"That's none of your business," Katara snapped. "Go guard your street corner and leave us alone."
Hahn didn't listen, and as he pressed forward, shoving past Sokka, Zuko tensed.
"What the hell?" Hahn repeated. "Who the fuck are you?"
"Why should I tell you?" Zuko snapped. It took all the restraint he could muster to stop there. He remembered a bit about this Hahn guy now. He remembered Sokka complaining endlessly about some guy in training with him, Yue mentioning something about an arranged marriage that she wasn't happy about, and something else that Zuko couldn't quite place at the moment. Whatever it was, it couldn't possibly make him look less like an absolute ass.
"Maybe because you're clearly not supposed to be here, dipshit." Hahn glanced downward, and his eyes snapped wide open. "What the hell? When did you get your hands on my good parka?"
Oh. That was the other thing. Zuko had been wearing this guy's stolen parka for weeks.
Sokka gave an insincere and wildly unconvincing laugh. "You must be imagining things, Hahn. That parka belongs to Red. Always has."
"Red?" Hahn spun on the spot. He was beginning to look a bit like his head was going to explode, and it came as something of a relief when his gaze shifted back to Sokka."This is Red?" Hahn went on. He swung an arm toward Zuko. "I knew it. I fucking knew that you were up to something, you little bastard. Just wait until I tell Chief Arnook about this."
"Don't you think that the chief is a little busy right now?" Katara said. She'd let go of Zuko's hand, but she was still standing close, just slightly in front of him, with her shoulder nearly brushing against his chest. "There's absolutely no reason for you to run off and bother him right now."
"Isn't there?" Hahn demanded to no one in particular. "That's funny, because I could have sworn that the two of you—" He turned, pointing accusingly at Sokka, then at Aang, "—told me that Red was a new pet you were trying to hide. The fact that you were hiding a whole person makes me think that I was right all along."
Despite all the protests from the others—Zuko was taken so badly off guard that he couldn't find a good response and remained silent—Hahn was undeterred.
"I'll even bet that this fucking freak has something to do with the fleet. Right?" Hahn swung back around and advanced on Zuko again. "Is that where you're from? The Fire Nation? It must be. How else would these southern rubes know anything about what a real navy is planning?"
Something went tense in the middle of Zuko's chest, and the words burned their way out of his mouth when he finally spoke. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, I don't? You're not from around here, I know that. And you didn't come into the city when this rabble first got here. There's only one other way you could've gotten here, Fire Nation scum. These traitors picked you up off the fleet when they claimed that they were just out sightseeing, and—"
Blood roared in Zuko's ears, so loud that he didn't hear the end of the sentence. If there were protests from the others—and there probably were, considering how much their mouths were moving—he didn't hear those either. His vision began to narrow, blackness closing in from the edges.
Hahn leaned in closer, looking smug. "And I bet I know one other thing too," he added. "These—friends of yours, or whatever you want to call them. I'll bet I know why they call you 'Red'." Then, sneering, Hahn trailed his fingertips across his own face, drawing a rough approximation of Zuko's scar.
With a furious roar, Zuko lunged forward. But then, before he could grab hold of Hahn or even decide what he was going to do when he did, Zuko's hands closed around empty air. Blinking, he whipped his head around—on one side, Aang had aimed his staff at where Hahn used to be, and on the other, Sokka was reaching for the boomerang strapped to his back. But much more importantly, behind him, Katara had dropped into a bending stance, and now Hahn was pinned halfway up the wall, engulfed in half the contents of the canal and frozen up to his neck.
"If you say one more word, Hahn, I swear you're going to regret it," Katara shouted, still poised to hit him with another lash of water.
On Zuko's other side, Sokka froze for a second, then cleared his throat and replaced the boomerang on his back. "That's—you know, that's not quite what I had in mind. But I guess it works."
"Yeah." Aang sounded less certain than Sokka, and he took a few moments longer to relax out of his stance. "That's pretty good bending, Katara."
Zuko barely remembered how to breathe. He should be fighting right now. He should have been swinging through every motion that he could think of to defend himself, to burn away the awful, gnawing sensation in the middle of his chest, but he couldn't. Mostly because he couldn't actually reach Hahn to fight him anymore. And Katara had—she'd defended Zuko?
Now what was Zuko supposed to do with the horrible, aching tension in his core?
"What the hell are you doing?" Hahn yelled. "Let me go, you little bitch!" When Katara didn't obey, Hahn added, "Yue, make your crazy friend put me down."
Yue frowned, and for a second, it looked like she wasn't going to say anything at all. But then she squared her shoulders and shook her head. "No. You've been needlessly cruel too many times, Hahn. I don't understand it, and I hope I never do." A brief pause. "I hope that taking a bit of time to reflect while you're up there will make some difference."
Hahn colored a bit. "Oh, come on, Yue—"
"You heard her, man," Sokka interrupted. "Besides, you're supposed to be keeping watch, right? You've got the best view you could ask for from there."
"Wait!" Hahn squirmed inside the ice. "Let me out of here! I'll yell, and the second that they find me, I'm going to tell them all which way you went. Your friend is as good as dead if you don't—"
Katara whirled her arms around, and a chunk of ice rose up to cover Hahn's mouth, leaving his nostrils unobstructed. "Try it," she replied. "I have a feeling it's going to take a lot longer than you think for anyone to find you." She turned back to Zuko and grabbed his hand again. He scarcely felt it through the tumult that had overtaken his mind. "Come on. We've all got somewhere we need to be."
Yue, thankfully, thought far enough ahead to backtrack around the corner and out of Hahn's sight before finding a slight detour that would lead them to the shrine without crossing Hahn's path again. It took longer, of course, but at least he wouldn't be able to point anyone in their direction.
That was what mattered most to Katara. As long as she could keep Zuko—keep all of them—safe, then everything else would be okay.
Or she hoped that it would be, anyway. Though she'd kept a grip on Zuko's hand ever since they'd left Hahn behind, Zuko hadn't said a word or looked her way once, and his pace was beginning to slacken. Or maybe beginning was the wrong word for it. By the time that the others reached a hatch in the wall opposite the canal, she and Zuko were nearly half a block behind.
Which wasn't encouraging, but it didn't seem catastrophic either. Up ahead, Yue opened the hatch in the wall, motioned the boys through it, then waved back at Katara in a way that seemed to say, this is the place. We made it.
They wouldn't get lost, at least. Whatever the reason was for Zuko's lagging pace, at least Katara knew where they were meant to go now.
She waved back in acknowledgement, and Yue ducked through the hatch after the boys.
At that, Zuko stopped walking entirely, his grip on Katara's hand tightening so that she had no choice but to stop along with him.
She looked back over her shoulder and gave his hand another tug. "Come on, Zuko, we're almost there. Let's get inside."
He shook his head harshly. "No. Not before—"
"Before what?"
He drew a sharp, shallow breath, and his forehead creased. He wouldn't look directly at her. "Before you tell me the truth."
Katara felt her brows creep downward. She'd seen that look before. Too many times, really. Back in the ice pit, then out on the ridge several times over, and it was always gut-wrenching. The turmoil and the pain seemed to reach deeper under her skin every time she saw them.
"That—that asshole was right about the nickname, wasn't he?"
"What?"
Zuko's voice came a bit more forcefully this time. "'Red.' You've all been calling me that because of my scar, haven't you?" There was accusation in his tone, but beneath that, there were layers of something else—of something raw and jagged and broken. "I should have known—"
Katara shook her head. "No. Of course we haven't. None of us would ever—"
"Then why call me that?" he demanded. "Because now I can't—I don't see any other reason why anyone would call me that. And I—I can't—"
She reached up and gave him a flick in the center of the forehead. "Zuko. You're a firebender. You used to wear a lot of red. That's it. That's why Sokka decided on that nickname. No other reason."
He stared at her for a few seconds, and his forehead creased even deeper. "What?" He was barely audible this time.
"You wore nothing but red for the first few months after we met you. And—it's not a brilliant nickname, but we had to call you something without drawing too much attention here in the city," Katara said, squeezing his hand a little tighter. "That was the first thing that Sokka came up with, and it just sort of stuck. Hahn doesn't know what he's talking about."
He stared for a few seconds longer, then swallowed visibly. "Are—are you sure?"
She nodded. "Of course I'm sure." Then, when he didn't seem convinced, she took hold of his other hand too. "Do you trust me?"
It took a moment, but he eventually nodded. "I think so."
"Then please try to believe me right now. None of us would ever do that."
Another prolonged pause, but again, he nodded. There was still a kind of distant, lost look in his eyes—something that she couldn't quite place—but after a moment, he did meet her gaze again. "Okay. Sorry. I was just—"
She waited for him to finish, but the words wouldn't seem to come. Finally, she did the only thing she could think of and squeezed both of his hands. "Why don't we catch up with the others? Someone could come along and see us any time now."
Zuko reddened, then nodded. "Okay."
When they both climbed through the hatch, Katara turned on the spot, reluctantly allowing her grip on Zuko's hand to drop away as she took it all in. This place was nothing at all like the rest of the North Pole. There was no snow, for one thing. The ground was all lush and green, blanketed in some type of soft, feathery grass, and a narrow stream cut through the middle of the space, broadening at one point until it became an almost circular pool. A small, elegant bridge arched over the stream just below the pool, and the path that led across it came to an end on a slight knoll just in front of a gray stone arch.
"This place is neat," Aang declared, stretching out his arms. "When you said that there was a shrine, I was sort of expecting something more like—I don't know. Like the Air Temples or Crescent Island, but made of ice. I like this a lot better."
Sokka made a face. "Buddy. Crescent Island and the Air Temples are massive. How exactly did you think something like that would be hiding here in the city?"
"That's not what I meant," Aang said. "I just thought that it was going to be all enclosed or something. Like a building, not a—"
"A garden." Zuko spoke just above a whisper, and when the others all looked at him, he cleared his throat. "It really—it almost looks like the gardens back home. Or the way they used to look a long time ago."
"I'm sure that they're lovely." Yue gestured them all toward the path. "Make yourselves comfortable, I suppose. The area around the pond is the spiritual center of this place, but I imagine it could be quite some time before we have any chance of contacting them."
Katara didn't need to be told twice, and she started to wriggle her way out of her parka.
Sokka raised an eyebrow at her.
"What are you looking at?" she demanded. "It's warm in here. I don't need to boil myself alive."
His other eyebrow crept upward to join its pair. "That's not why I'm looking at you."
"Then what?"
Sokka glanced from her to Zuko and back again. "What took you two so long to get here? Did you have a little chat with Frog Face's third cousin, Pigeon Breath?"
Zuko's expression darkened into a scowl. "Would you shut up?"
"It's just a question."
Katara rolled her eyes, pulled her parka off over her head, and tossed it at Sokka. "Yes. That's exactly what happened, Sokka. We had a conversation with a bird."
He snatched the parka out of the air, tossed it so that it landed on top of her head, and by the time that she knocked it aside and braced up to retaliate, he'd already sprinted off after Yue and Aang.
With an annoyed huff, she tucked her parka under her arm and turned back toward Zuko, then stopped short, breath caught in her throat. He'd taken off his parka too—a perfectly reasonable thing to do, considering the temperature here—and beneath it, he wore a Water Tribe tunic.
She felt her face warm. She was used to seeing him in blue by now. The parka seemed so normal that she never really thought about it anymore. But the tunic, for some reason, surprised her. Zuko looked—nice. The tunic fit him well, and the color suited him, and the longer he let his hair grow out, the easier it was to imagine that the ponytail was a deliberate choice rather than a consequence of his banishment, and—and none of that was a good enough reason to justify the way that her face was burning.
He noticed her staring after a second and frowned. "What?"
"Nothing." She forced herself to look away. "I guess I just forgot that Yue got you a full set of new clothes from the armory."
"Oh." He ran a hand over his hair. "I'm sure I'm not fooling anyone."
"I'm not sure fooling people is the point right now. We all know who you are. I'm just saying—it suits you." Then, before he could speak, she began marching down the path. She was several paces ahead before she spun back to check that he was following. "And if anyone tries to cause problems because you're not Water Tribe, I'll freeze them to the wall like I did to Hahn."
There was much more waiting than Zuko had anticipated when Yue had first announced that she knew what to do. Or at least that she knew what Zhao was looking for. Somehow, when they'd set out to find the moon spirit, Zuko had expected that there would be more—doing things.
Instead, they were all waiting around the little pool of unnaturally warm water, alternating between conversation and staring idly at the pair of koi circling in the pond. According to Aang, he and Katara would have a better chance of actually crossing over if they waited until the full moon rose.
Which wasn't really an option, what with the fleet waiting just outside the walls, fighting with all they had to break in by the full moon. Still, if they couldn't wait that long, waiting at least until sunrise was probably their best bet.
And that, unfortunately, left them an entire night with nothing to do. Nothing but talking and staring up at the sky, watching bursts of flame light up the world to the south of them in flashes of orange and red.
Zuko didn't particularly care for either option. He still wasn't used to talking to the others. And while he could probably get away with staying quiet unless Katara pulled him into the conversation, he wasn't certain that he could talk to her without completely combusting either. Not right now.
It suits you.
What on earth had she meant by that? And why couldn't he stop hearing the echo of it in his mind?
No. No, that wasn't the reason why his mind was in a million places at once. That would be stupid. And Zuko wasn't stupid. Or at least not that stupid.
No, he was probably just feeling out of sorts because he could hear the occasional rumble from the direction of the battle, because he was keenly aware of the fact that he'd been spotted at least once. It didn't really matter that it had been someone who the others all agreed was an asshole. Hahn had influence here. And that meant that one way or another, the rest of the Northern Tribe would find out about Zuko before too much longer.
When this was all over, there would be no going back to the way that things used to be. No more living in peace and isolation out on the ridge in his borrowed tent and sleeping bag. No more private evening sparring sessions with Katara. No more sneaking in and out of the city with nothing more than a thick ruff of fur to conceal the sides of his face. It would all be different in a few days' time.
What he didn'tknow was exactly how things were going to change. Whether it would be better or worse, or some strange mix of both.
He tried not to think about that too much. Things were going to change, but he couldn't possibly guess what was coming in the battle, much less after it. There was no point in dwelling on that. He had to stay focused on the fight.
The only problem was that it was hard to focus when there was so little to focus on. Aang had sprawled out on his stomach in the grass, and his chin rested on his hands so that he could stare down into the pond. On the other side of Aang, Sokka and Yue sat close together—undoubtedly too close, considering the fact that Yue was supposed to marry someone else, but that didn't seem to bother either of them. And beside Zuko, Katara sat cross-legged, alternating between watching the koi and tossing bits and pieces into the conversation.
"This is dumb," Sokka said for what had to be the fifth or sixth time when he and Yue ran out of conversation. "It's a stupid plan. Zhao is an idiot."
Zuko shook his head. "If you're still surprised about that, I don't think there's anything that anyone can do to help you."
"It makes some sense, Sokka," Katara said. She sounded tired—they'd been over this point several times before, and although it was getting late, it seemed that none of them could think of anything better to do than to tread the same ground over again.
Zuko wondered if it would be a good idea to bring his parka over so that she could use it as a pillow and get a little rest.
Probably not. Not if no one else was going to sleep.
"Yeah," Aang said, not budging from his careful observation of the koi in the pond. "I don't really get why the Fire Nation is trying to take over everything, but if they want the North Pole, then making it so that the waterbenders can't fight is probably a pretty smart thing to do."
Sokka rolled his eyes and tossed his arms out to the sides, making an obvious effort not to smack Yue in the process. "I get that part. But it's a dumb plan. How does that guy think he's going to get rid of a spirit?"
Katara shrugged. "I guess that's what we're going to find out in the morning."
"And," Sokka added as though no one had interrupted him, "it's the moon. It's kind of a big deal. You know—with tides and things. If Zhao gets rid of the moon, then he's going to mess up the whole ocean, which is gonna be a pain in the ass for him. He's an admiral. He kind of needs the tides if he's not going to relearn everything there is to know about sailing. Also, there's the whole sun thing too, right Zuko?"
Zuko raised his eyebrow. "What sun thing?"
"The sun. Big glowy thing in the sky. You can't miss it."
"I know what the sun is, you moron."
Sokka gave an exasperated sigh. "The sun gives you your firebending, right?"
"Yes."
"And the moon reflects sunlight at night. So for all we know, the moon is the only reason why you can bend when the sun isn't up."
Zuko frowned. "I have used my bending during a new moon before. It's not like it all just goes away the second that everything is dark."
Sokka waved a hand. "Irrelevant. What I'm saying is that you fire-y types probably can't go without the moon any more than the rest of us can. And we all know that Zhao's an idiot, but even he can't be that into self-sabotage."
"You might be giving him too much credit." Zuko scratched at a small, muddy spot by his knee. "Zhao can barely run his own ship."
"Yeah, well he somehow got his own ship. Competent or not, he made it far enough to become an admiral and brought the whole fleet here. How do you think that happened?"
Something tightened inside of his chest, and Zuko had to look away.
"Exactly," Sokka said. "I'm pretty sure that my point stands. This whole thing stinks of the Fire Lord getting his greasy mitts on an idea and refusing to let it go. I'm willing to bet that he passed the plans off on Zhao because Zhao was the only one stupid enough to go along with it and not think about the consequences."
"My father didn't do this," Zuko said quietly, automatically. His chest felt tighter than before, and his pulse began to speed up. "He wouldn't."
He couldn't. Father wasn't that reckless. He wasn't that cruel or thoughtless. He would never do anything to put his own nation in danger of losing their ability to travel or a portion of their bending abilities. Father wouldn't—
"So who did?" Yue asked. "I don't know much about the situation myself, but the orders must have come from somewhere."
The Fire Lord has requested that I call off all inessential missions and gather all our forces for more important operations. Once this mission is complete, the Avatar will never be a concern for the Fire Nation again.
Zuko could almost smell the blasting jelly again, and when he dared to squeeze his eyes shut, he could see the flames engulfing Katara, his ship, even him all over again. The hardened, ridged skin around his left eye began to prickle.
He shook his head again. It hurt to breathe. It hurt so much. "Father—Father didn't plan this."
"And how do you know that?" Sokka said. "Have you talked to him recently? Like—even in the past few months?"
Not for three whole years. Not a single word.
"He couldn't. Father would never—"
"Zuko," Katara's voice was impossibly soft, and her fingertips just brushed against his arm.
His stomach lurched, and Zuko shot to his feet. "You don't know what you're talking about! Any of you! My father—my father is—" The prickling around his eye turned to hot, searing pain, and he could smell the burning that had never seemed to leave his nostrils, even after three years at sea. "Augh!" He doubled halfway over, clutching the scarred side of his face.
"Zuko, please tell us what's wrong so we can try—"
He shoved blindly at whoever it was who was trying to touch him. No. No, he couldn't do this. None of it. Everything was wrong, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it.
"Just stay away from me!"
Author's Note:
My boy is having A Day, isn't he? Which... y'know, he's made friends with a bunch of kids who are supposed to be his enemies, and the rest of the city probably wants to kill him, and he's getting ready to fight against his own people, and he doesn't know what's going to happen to his uncle, so... at this point, it's probably to be expected. Seven more chapters to go, Zuko buddy.
Oh, and Hahn being an absolute asshole about Zuko's nickname was ABSOLUTELY one of the main things I was thinking about when I decided that the others were going to call him Red. It's a perfectly innocent nickname chosen for perfectly innocent reasons, but a jerk like Hahn could still easily misinterpret it, and... maybe I just wanted to give Katara a chance to freeze him to the wall. And to step in and defend Zuko when he wasn't expecting it at all. I just think they're neat.
We've got some stuff to deal with in the next chapter, so I hope you're ready for that! I'll see you back here in two weeks again, and in the meantime, reviews are appreciated as always, and feel free to check out the Zutara Big Bang collection on AO3! One of the fics in there is mine, but I can't confirm or deny which it is until September 18!
