ZW 2010 Day 6: Alternate Universe

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Flickers (Pt.2)

1000 years after the Fire Lord destroys the Air Nomads with the Great Comet, a girl from the Southern Water Tribe finds the last airbender in an iceberg, just outside her village. She meets the prince of the Fire Nation, and they discover that their new favorite pastime is arguing over archaic scrolls.

Zuko kicks his feet up on the desk and yawns.

"Hey!" Katara swats him with one of the scrolls she's pulled off the shelves. "Put your big, smelly feet under someone else's nose."

Zuko huffs. "My feet aren't smelly!"

"All boys have smelly feet."

Zuko narrows his eyes. "I'm not a boy."

A nasty smirk curls across Katara's mouth. "Oh, so you're a girl?" Really, he sounds just like Sokka insisting he's a man and a warrior. Boys.

"No!"

Katara turns back to the scroll she's bent over and adjusts the candle. "All these scrolls say the same things. The three nations were devastating the climate, so the Fire Nation put a stop to it. But these are also Fire Nation scrolls!"

Zuko lifts his good eyebrow. "So?"

"So the winners write history. This probably isn't how it happened at all."

Zuko protests indignantly. General Iroh chooses that moment to peek into the room with an all too composed face. "Would anyone care for tea? It's jasmine, my favorite."

Katara throws the scroll down. Zuko jerks down to pick it up. "These are ancient works of history, you can't just slam them around like that!"

She sticks her tongue out at him before turning away. "I'd love some."

Zuko gives both of them a sour look. "Uncle can babysit you. I'm leaving."

Sokka sits on the ground in the tent, head bowed. Gran Gran stands over him, rigid, cold, menacing (but that's not the worst part). He knows he's messed up, knows Katara was his responsibility; he promised Dad he'd take care of her and he failed and now his sister is missing. "I'll find her Gran, I swear."

"I'm not going to lose two grandchildren in one day. You'll stay here." She puts her hands on her hips (the way Katara does) and sighs. "Stand up, Sokka. Do your chores. Your sister won't stay outside for long."

Sokka's not sure he believes that. But, he muses as he dumps his dirty socks into the washtub, she'd better come back soon. Washing isn't manly work. If she doesn't come back, he'll just have to go get her before the next time he runs out of socks.

"I have to stay with her. If I don't, she'll probably do something stupid like accidentally waterbend all over those scrolls."

Uncle lifts his eyebrows over the teacup at his lips. "You've never shown so much interest in preserving our world's history before, Prince Zuko."

"It was never in danger before!" He snaps, glaring at Uncle menacingly.

Uncle shakes his head and moves a pai sho piece. "She's a very pretty girl, Prince Zuko. Finding yourself attracted to her is nothing to be ashamed o-"

"I am not attracted to her, Uncle! She's not my type!"

Uncle's belly rolls when he laughs. "Not your type?"

Zuko flushes. "Not my type."

"So," Uncle chokes out between stifling his giggles. "What exactly is your type, Prince Zuko?"

"This conversation is over." Zuko stomps out of the room. The guards at the door look back in, confused. Uncle chuckles to himself.

As quickly as he'd gone, Zuko walks back into the room, decidedly less angry and looking more like a frightened puppy. "My father is here." His face is whiter than usual, putting the angry red scar around his eye in sharp contrast. He runs a hand along his head, smoothing a few loose hairs, and adjusts his phoenix plume, shifting from one foot to the other.

"Well, I suppose we must greet him," Uncle says, hauling himself up from his cushion on the ground. He tucks his hands into his sleeves and strolls into the hallway, a fidgety Zuko on his heels.

Fire Lord Ozai has always had a tendency toward the dramatic, and his arrival on the island is no exception. He's dropped the gangplank on a rather gilded ship, and a red and gold carpet has been rolled out on the ground. The carpet is lined on either side by Imperial Firebenders holding phoenix flags in one hand and flames in the other. As Uncle approaches the end of the carpet, fire flashes and the Fire Lord appears at the opening in his ship. Zuko pulls himself into a painfully straight posture and clenches his hands at his sides.

The Fire Lord marches down the gangplank, glaring at his brother and son as he walks. As he approaches, his brother bows low, as one does to the leader of a mighty nation, and his son trips over himself to do the same. "Prince Zuko."

"Father."

"You will show me the Avatar."

"Of course," Zuko jerks down in another bow and begins walking toward the holding cell, his father and uncle behind him.

"So, little brother," Iroh chimes in after a near eternity of silence, "can I interest you in some tea? I've been working on a new blend."

The Fire Lord looks down his nose at his brother. "No, thank you."

"What a shame-"

"This is the Avatar," Zuko interjects. They've arrived at the holding cell. Aang is sitting on the floor, meditating in the lotus position.

"Hi! I'm Aang!" He springs from the ground and bows to the Fire Lord quickly, smile on his face. "Can I walk around for a while? It's getting super hot in here." Perhaps for effect, he pulls his collar away from his neck.

Ozai doesn't respond. Uncle shakes his head so subtly he's not sure the Avatar can tell, and Zuko is frozen. The Fire Lord, after contemplating the Avatar for a moment, turns to his son. "Where is the waterbender that was with him."

Zuko pales, looking at Uncle briefly, frantically. "She's locked up elsewhere, Father. I thought it best to keep them separated."

"Bring her to me."

Zuko walks away with as much princely dignity (and haste) as he can muster. Aang looks up at the Fire Lord. "Soooo, I'm going to take that as a no."

Silence, dark and heavy.

The third day after they disappear, Sokka has officially gotten restless. The fourth day he spends plotting, the fifth looking at old maps. There's an island not far from the South Pole, named for the last Earth Kingdom Avatar (a myth, obviously). Sokka rubs his chin. A note on the map reads "female warriors" (as if there could be such a thing), and Sokka would bet a month's worth of seal jerky that it's just the place Katara would want to go. Although he's not entirely sure how she'd know to go there. Katara never looks at maps.

And the second order of business is to figure out how she got out of the dome. Sokka finds himself suddenly desiring a monocle and a pipe. And maybe some sea prunes.

Katara's head jerks up as the door slams open.

"Let's go, peasant."

"Where are we going?" Katara doesn't get up, but she rolls the scroll she's holding and ties the string around it.

"The Fire Lord wants to see you."

He looks jittery, like lightning hit him and he's still coming to grips with the fact that he lived. "Well maybe I don't want to see him."

"This isn't a joke, Katara."

It's the first time he's used her real name. Katara pushes herself up from her seat and looks at him grimly. "Okay."

He turns sharply toward the door with Katara directly on his heels. "When you meet him, you should bow, and don't say anything stupid. Oh-"

Zuko turns back toward her, nearly knocking her over. "What are you doing?" She stutters, trying to keep her balance.

"Tying you up," he huffs as he loops rope around her wrists. "You're supposed to be a prisoner."

"Oh come on, Zuko. What am I going to do, waterbend at the Fire Lord? I don't know what I'm doing."

"Didn't stop you from waterbending at me!" He finishes a series of complicated knots and grabs the tail end of the rope. "Come on."

"That was an accident," she grumbles. Zuko spares her a glance over his shoulder.

The rest of the walk passes in silence, aside from the light scuffing of their footsteps. Katara tugs on the rope from time to time, testing Zuko's hold, but he doesn't let go. She hears Uncle Iroh making bad jokes (and suddenly she misses Sokka so much it hurts), and in a moment she's standing before a tall man, taller than Zuko and Iroh, taller than her father. His eyes are gold, like Zuko's, but there's something cruel in the way they're set in his face, something about the steely glint surrounded by deep lines etched into his skin. Odd, since the Fire Lord can't be older than forty. His marble skin has a frown carved into it, as though if he tried to smile the face would crack.

"The waterbender, Father."

Katara looks at him with a glare she'd like to think is proud and defiant, like a Southern warrior. The Fire Lord walks up to her slowly, looking her up and down as if appraising a wolfhound. "Don't take her back to her dome."

"Father?" Zuko wears his confusion on his face. Katara sneaks a glance at Uncle, who seems paler than usual, and tense.

A smirk curls his lips almost imperceptibly. "She'll tell everyone she knows that the world is habitable again. They'll exit the domes and begin polluting the world again. We can't have that, can we, Prince Zuko?"

Zuko stands up a little straighter. "No, of course not."

"What do you propose we do with her?"

Katara stiffens. She doesn't like his tone, and she doesn't like how tense Uncle Iroh looks, and she doesn't miss the tightening of Zuko's jaw or the slight narrowing of his eyes. "In some cultures, it's rude to talk about people like they're not here."

Zuko ignores her, but Uncle stifles a chuckle. "I'm not sure yet," Zuko replies.

"Perhaps there is a simple solution."

Zuko looks as though he's developed a bad case of cotton mouth. "She's been cooperative."

"Hmm."

"She can be useful to me."

"You know what must be done."

"Father please, she hasn't done anything wrong."

"My nephew is right, Brother," Uncle cuts in. There is no reason to treat her harshly.

Katara eyes the three men deciding her fate. "Don't I get a say in this?"

The Fire Lord closes the distance between them and stands there for a beat before running one finger down the side of her face. Katara's skin crawls, but she stands perfectly still.

He turns to his older brother. "See that the Avatar is kept secure. I will take him back to the Fire Nation." Looking back at Katara, the Fire Lord's smirk slides off his face. "We have no need for either a waterbender or a liability. She will be executed at dawn tomorrow."

Katara gasps. Zuko steps between her and the Fire Lord. "You can't!"

"Would you like a mark on the other side as well, Prince Zuko?" The Fire Lord's voice carries a cold anger, displeasure at being contradicted mixed with some deeper loathing.

Zuko's golden eyes shimmer in the muted light filtering through the windows, fixed on his father. Shadows play across his face from the torches in the room around him, but he has carefully schooled his expression. When he answers, he doesn't look at her.

AN: Yep, there will be a continuation of this in a few chapters ish. Not sure where yet. Sometimes actually writing the ZukoxKatara is hard, just because they aren't really in a place to be head over heels for each other, but I swear it's in there. Deep down. Way, way deep down.