When the Wind was Reborn
Chapter Five
It felt like Zuko's blood had stopped flowing. He stared dumbly out the breach at the steadily shrinking form of the fleeing airbender - the Avatar, he reminded himself. His carelessness, his hot-headedness and his lack of forethought had cost him, twice - the first when he had inadvertently cut the Avatar's bonds with some reckless firebending, and the second when he had accidentally blown a hole in the hull, both damaging the ship and providing the Avatar with an easy means of escape.
He had to follow. Zuko turned and made to run, only to crash face-first into soldiers pouring into the room, those who had heard the noise of the skirmish.
"What's the meaning of this?" Lu Ten demanded, striding into the room with his sword already drawn. He cast his eyes about, first marvelling at the damage done, then narrowed his eyes when he noted the cut bonds. "Where is our prisoner?" He practically snarled, turning on Zuko.
"He escaped," Zuko replied lamely, unable to meet his eyes.
"Escaped?" Lu Ten crouched down to inspect the severed ropes. He held up one burned and charred end. "Is that right?"
"There was an intruder, Water Tribe," Zuko explained weakly. "We fought, and I was careless, that's all."
"Men, you can leave," Lu Ten dismissed the rabble of soldiers. Without hesitation they turned and marched out the room. Lu Ten was silent for a few moments, until the sound of their footsteps echoing down the hall faded out, then he spoke. "I don't see an intruder," he said coldly.
"He fell out the hole!" Zuko pointed at the breach emphatically.
"I don't see any water, either."
"I don't think he was a waterbender," Zuko replied, knowing full well that it sounded like an excuse. "Just an ordinary guy."
"Ordinary?" Lu Ten said bitterly, and Zuko almost visibly cringed at his poor choice of words. His cousin let it pass, though. "So you had to cause all this carnage and let our prisoner free just to subdue a single tribesman?"
"Look, I said I was careless, okay?" Zuko snapped, knowing even as he said it that it was a poor move. Lu Ten gave him a withering look and strode forward, looking at the damage in some more detail. He stopped by the breach in the hull and looked close at the ragged steel edge, then put a finger to it that came away red.
"Blood," he said. "The airbender wounded himself on his way out. He won't get far. You will go, cousin, and you will recapture him." Lu Ten left it unsaid, but it was implicit that his patience was at an end and Zuko had better come back with the prisoner in hand.
"I'll take the skiff. When I come back I'll have the airbender in custody, I swear it," Zuko said, nodding his understanding. It chafed to have to submit to his cousin, but he gritted his teeth and kept quiet. He bowed, turned and left the room. He didn't tell his cousin that their lost captive was the Avatar - if Lu Ten knew that Zuko had let the Avatar go free he might not even allow him this last chance to recapture him.
Zuko had always butted heads with Lu Ten, but never like this, Zuko thought as he made his way to his room. He packed light, with little more than a change of clothes, his bedroll, some food, some water and his swords. He almost left it, but at the last moment he picked up his knife, too - a gift from the Fire Lord, and a treasured one. Within a quarter of an hour Zuko was striding out across the deck towards the skiff, the nimble little rowing boat stored at the rear. He intended to leave silently, with no fanfare.
"I'll eagerly await your return, cousin," Lu Ten called. Zuko whipped around, having not heard him approach. He wasn't ten feet away.
"I won't be long, I know it," Zuko said.
"I'll come looking, if you are," Lu Ten said. Zuko didn't like the cold manner that he said it in. Then, he said, "The Fire Lord has banished one of your kin already. I do not want to banish another, Zuko." Zuko's blood had always ran hot, and it took every ounce of will that he had not to shoot back at him with barbed words. He couldn't bring himself to utter even the most acquiescent of words, so instead he silently nodded, turned, stepped into the skiff and lowered it down into the sea.
Zuko had always been taught that fire was strength and power, the greatest of the four elements, but down here, so close to the surface of the sea, water felt just as formidable. The sea was frothing and angry, rocking his little boat from side to side, threatening to toss him out of it as if it were angry at him - part of Zuko believed that if he fell into that water it would drag him into its pitch black depths and devour him like a living creature. There was no getting away from the water's presence and power, he could taste the salt spray and feel the icy chill of it even from his skiff - his robes were fire resistant, and insulated and warm as a result, intended to make them harder to inadvertently set alight when firebending, but still they didn't protect him fully from the cold of this frozen hellscape. He heated himself with a small breath of fire, pulled his robes tighter around himself and began rowing off in the direction the Avatar had flown.
The animal, Zuko thought, that great big flying beast. The airbender - the Avatar, he reminded himself again - he'd called it Appa, hadn't he? He wasn't sure if that was the creature's species or its name. It mattered little, either way he'd likely be searching for his animal companion until the cod and fatigue drained him of his energy. All Zuko had to do was sail in the direction the Avatar went, keep his eye on the skies for the flying beast or for the orange of the Avatar's glider - neither one were hard to spot.
Zuko's odyssey was joyless. He wasn't cold enough to be in danger, just cold enough to be miserable, shivering slightly with numb fingers and ears. No matter what he did he couldn't seem to keep the sickly spray of seawater out of his mouth and it was all he could taste. The rocking of the boat made him feel queasy, and every time he hit a chunk of ice that knocked the skiff he nearly vomited over the side. Despite his strength and fitness borne of years of firebending and swordsmanship it wasn't long before his arms ached and his hands began to blister from rowing his little boat. A hundred small inconveniences and unpleasantries all piled one on top of the other until they crushed him.
The day wore on and the sky darkened to a deep navy as night began to fall. He'd seen neither hide nor hair of the Avatar or his flying beast in the hours since he left, and the dwindling daylight gave him little choice but to set up camp for the night. Zuko didn't like to admit defeat, and it irked him. He moored the skiff and just as he was tying it off he became still. He couldn't put his finger on it but something was off. He could see little in the dim light, and all he could hear was the whistling wind - that was it, the wind, it was coming from two different directions, natural wind and an unnatural one. Zuko made off in the direction of what he thought to be the unnatural wind, and as he walked a dot of red caught his eye. He crouched, squinted in the dark and conjured a tiny flame in his hand like a candle. In the flickering light he saw a single drop of blood - the Avatar's wound, he thought.
Zuko moved low to the ground, lighting the way with his little handheld candle, squinting in the dim glow. He tried to move quietly but the snow crunched underfoot with every step - he might as well have just announced his presence with a tsungi horn instead. The red droplets and smears were few and far between, and after each one he would eventually become convinced that he'd lost the trail, until seeing the next just before he lost hope. He followed the trail of dots through thick crusts of snow and slick, crackling sheets of worryingly thin ice - more than once he nearly plunged through the thick ice into the deathly cold below. He was beginning to wish that he hadn't bothered leaving the skiff when he heard something, a noise that at first he thought was an animal, until he recognized it as an all too human groan.
"Ugh!" The Avatar sat there behind the cover of a snowdrift, a pile of wet sticks in front of him, flickering with embers. He was bending gentle air at it, trying to feed the fire, but it was too weak and feeble to take root.
"Cold?" Zuko asked, and the Avatar jumped to his feet with a start, only to stumble, fall and catch himself on his staff. He looked up and Zuko saw that he was pale, with dark circles under his eyes. He looked more like a frail old man than a child at that moment, and it wasn't just the way he leaned on his glider like it was a cane. Zuko's eyes drifted down and saw a large, messy patch of red on the Avatar's side, sticking his robes to his skin.
"You're that firebender," the Avatar said uncertainly. "Zuko, right?" He craned his neck to look up and about.
"I'm alone," Zuko told him, and he relaxed just a little.
"Oh, that's good." The Avatar lowered himself back to the ground, wincing at his wound as he did so.
"It's reopened," Zuko pointed out, gesturing at the bloodstain on the Avatar's robes that had just now started to grow again.
"Yeah, it keeps doing that," the Avatar agreed.
"I can help," Zuko said, making his way over. On his way he flicked his hand at the pathetic firepit and a little fire roared to life, causing the Avatar to jump in fright and wince once more.
"Why would you help?" The Avatar asked, but he let Zuko approach anyway. He had little choice, Zuko supposed - his wound and fatigue would stop him from flying, probably from fighting, and even if he could flee or fight Zuko off the cold and his wound would kill him before long anyway.
"I..." Zuko trailed off - he couldn't tell the Avatar that he was here to recapture him. "It didn't feel right, attacking a child," Zuko told him instead. That part, at least, was the truth.
"I'm not just a child, I'm an airbending master!"
"A master?" Zuko raised one eyebrow, skeptical.
"Yeah, a master!" The boy insisted, then pointed at his forehead. "See the tattoos? Master."
"Your wound needs tended to," Zuko told him, ignoring him. "Move your robes aside. I'm no doctor, but I'll do what I can." The Avatar did, moving the sticky, bloodstained cloth aside to reveal a long, ragged tear in his skin from where he'd cut himself on the twisted edge of the ship's breach. Zuko knelt down next to him, clenched his fist and produced a hissing and roaring flame dagger. The Avatar looked at it nervously.
"Uh, what is that?"
"This will hurt," Zuko warned him.
"Wait -" Zuko didn't. He touched the blazing tip of the flame dagger to the Avatar's side and he screamed. He tried to thrash, but Zuko held him down with his free hand and moved the fire across the length of the wound, cauterizing it - the skin burned, blistered and melted together, closing the wound. It looked like the furthest thing from healing.
The Avatar wasn't moving, thrashing or screaming anymore, the pain had caused him to pass out instead. Zuko looked at the prone figure lying in the snow for a moment before moving him as carefully as he could towards the fire - he couldn't let the Avatar freeze to death or he would have failed his mission, he needed to take the Avatar alive or he'd simply reincarnate and be in the wind again. He should bind the Avatar while he had the chance, he thought. He took a length of rope, wrapped it around the Avatar's wrists but when it came time to tie the knot he didn't. It didn't feel right to take a wounded and freezing child captive. Besides, he needed to earn the Avatar's trust if he was to take him in - or at least, that's what Zuko told himself.
Zuko sat close by the fire, eyes fixed on the Avatar. He'd stay awake and watch him instead, he thought, no need to bind him and try to take in a hostile captive - even with bound hands an airbender of his calibre would be hard to keep. No, instead he would earn his trust and he'd get the Avatar to walk straight into the Fire Nation's open arms. That's what Zuko told himself.
He fell asleep. He didn't mean to, but he was so tired and next to the warmth of the fire it had been so easy to drift off. He felt like he'd only slept for moments, but when he opened his eyes it was to the harsh glare of the sun reflecting off of the icy scape around him - he shielded his eyes with his hand, wincing and blinking as his eyes struggled to adjust, and shot to his feet.
"Avatar?" Zuko tried. How could he be this stupid? He'd fled, of course he had, who wouldn't? There was no way he'd find him again, not now -
"Morning!" The Avatar said brightly. Zuko blinked blearily as the world came into focus and spotted the blurry shape of the Avatar. He couldn't believe it! "It's Aang, not Avatar," he corrected him. "Oh, and look, I caught this!"
"What is that?" Zuko muttered, squinting at it. Aang held up a little purple lump in one hand that looked vaguely like a fruit, or maybe a vegetable.
"It's a sea prune!" Aang beamed. "I think..."
"Are you going to...eat that?" Zuko asked, already wincing - that thing didn't look like real food.
"Well, I thought I would try to find something to eat for breakfast and Yuka - my friend from the Northern Water Tribe - talks about sea prunes all the time, so I thought I would go find some! But I don't know how to cook them..." Aang looked at the grubby little snack in his hand in a crestfallen manner for a moment, then looked up brightly at Zuko as a thought struck him. "Do you know how to cook them?"
"Do I know how to cook sea prunes?" Zuko looked at him flatly.
"Yeah! Do you?"
"I'm Fire Nation."
"So...?"
"No, I don't."
"Aww." Aang glumly tossed the thing back into the sea.
"I brought food with me, though," Zuko told him. He reached into his pack, brought out some strips of komodo chicken jerky and offered some to Aang. He stuck out his tongue and looked it at as though it was, well, a sea prune.
"The thing is, I don't eat meat, but thank you," he said.
"I'll see what else I've got," Zuko said as he dug in his bag. He didn't miss Aang peering hopefully inside the bag. What do kids like? Kids like sweets, right? "I have a hotcake," he offered, holding up the little paper wrapped parcel - he had been saving it as a treat, but he supposed Aang needed it more.
"What's a hotcake?" The kid asked, poking it with a finger.
"It's a pastry, made of sweet bread, like a cake," he explained, holding it out. "Take it," he prompted.
"Thanks," he said happily, unwrapping it and popping the whole thing in his mouth. It lasted all of two seconds before his eyes went wide and he spat it back out. "Ow! Hot!" He grabbed a handful of snow and crammed it in his mouth, letting out a relieved sigh.
"What did you expect?" Zuko snapped. "It's called a hotcake!"
"I didn't think it would be that hot though..." Aang mumbled through a mouthful of half melted snow.
"Let's see what else I've got," Zuko muttered, mourning his lost hotcake. They ended up sitting around the smouldering firepit, Zuko with his komodo chicken jerky, the Avatar with a bowl of mochi.
"So chewy," Aang said through a full mouth. He seemed to like it more than the hotcake, though. Zuko waved his hand and the embers from the firepit grew into a fire once more.
"How is your wound?" Zuko asked.
"Still hurts but I feel better," Aang said cheerily, eating some more mochi - another of Zuko's favourites, but he'd reluctantly gifted it to Aang after the hotcake catastrophe. "Still cold, though - how do the Water Tribes live here?" He went on, shivering. The airbender wasn't wrong - Zuko had forgotten what it was like to be warm.
"Speaking of cold, how long were you in the -"
"Look!" Aang interrupted him, pointing up at the sky with a delighted look on his face just as a large shadow fell over them for a moment. Zuko craned his neck up to look at the sky and saw it, looking almost like a cloud from this distance, six legs, a tail and a few tonnes of fat, fur and muscles.
"It's your beast," Zuko observed.
"Appa's not a beast, he's a sky bison!" Aang corrected him.
"Same difference," Zuko dismissed with a wave of his hand.
"Appa! Appa!" Aang was stood up and waving now, yelling at the sky like a madman. It was no use, though, the beast couldn't see or hear them from so far away and just sailed onwards through the sky. Only when he was out of sight did Aang lose hope and stop waving. He looked down at the ice for a few moments, saddened, then he lifted his head, a look of resolve on his face. "We have to go after him!"
"What? But..." Zuko trailed off, unable to find the words. That would take them further away from the ship! He couldn't very well say that, though, and it's not like he could ask Aang to just come back to the ship with him and be his prisoner - the kid was naïve, but he wasn't completely stupid.
"But what?" Aang pressed, frowning.
"Nothing, we should go after him," Zuko agreed reluctantly, unable to think of an excuse not to. It would help him build more trust with the Avatar, he thought, maybe afterwards he could use that trust to lead the Avatar back into captivity.
"I'll scout ahead!" Aang unfolder his glider, tensed to jump and then stumbled, wincing at the pain in his side.
"I have a boat, we'll take that," Zuko decided instead. He gathered up his things in his pack and turned on his heel. "Follow me."