ZW 2014 Day 3: Motorcycle
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Quarter-ish Life Crisis
Overwhelmed by political and personal responsibility, Katara takes Zuko on a healing session. It doesn't make her feel better.
Sokka's been at it again, as Sokka often is. He's taken the engine from the submarines and miniaturized it, somehow. Katara can't quite keep up with his diagrams most of the time, but the point is that it works tolerably well for buzzing between villages on the main island of the Fire Nation. There's some kind of accelerator in the handlebars that she's finally figured out how to use, and if she twists it hard and fast then the engine makes a roaring sound that pulls her mouth into a grin. Even if their father does think it sounds like a polar bear dog farting in a wooden barrel.
Aang has been hogging it lately, presently more interested in a ground conveyance than usual, which is why she's out with it in the middle of the night, long after he's gone to sleep in a bed across the palace from her (Sokka started insisting about the time Aang turned fifteen, and would have earlier except the distance was hard to enforce on Appa). The fact that they're all nearing thirty has done little to dissuade her brother, even if Aang has made several proposal attempts.
The night is dark, punctuated by a crescent moon and the bright points of the stars. Everything is quiet, and she almost regrets disrupting it with the low gurgle of this thing Sokka says is known to inventors as a combustion engine. It's nights like these that she remembers speeding over a toxic river that flowed next to a tiny town. Wind whipping through her hair isn't so different than it was when it whipped through her veil and threatened to tear her hat from her head, and the sound of the engine isn't so different from the roar of water behind her.
The difference is that this time she has a partner.
Zuko clutches at her waist, and she swears she can feel his eyes getting as large as soup pots every time she leans into a curve in the road. He's screeching something, garbled by the wind, and she laughs. Whatever it is can wait until they stop. She knows she'll get an earful then.
"What was that?" He demands, jumping off the motorcycle like it's a crazed eelhound.
"It's called fun. You should try it sometime."
He pulls on his hair, loosed from the topknot before they'd snuck out. "You're crazy."
Well, maybe she is, but he's the one who snuck out in the middle of the night because she asked nicely. "Come on, Zuko. Lighten up. It's not every night you get to spend with the Painted Lady."
He sighs heavily. "Let's go. Your driving probably woke up the whole town."
Less of an earful than she thought. He lights a flame in his palm that glows brightly in the dark, casting shadows on his face and making his yellow eyes glitter. They make their way down the hill she parked on, skidding a little as it grows steeper and the terrain changes to little stones and volcanic sand. "Here," she says, reaching into one of her packs as they come to the bottom. "This is a poultice. It'll help with the sores. We'll split up. Apply this to any open wounds you see and I'll try to get their fevers down."
"Thank you," he whispers, and he touches her shoulder lightly before slipping into the village. The healing building isn't far, and she decides to start there. Quarantine signs line the street, describing the peeling skin and never healing sores that have been plaguing this corner of the city for months. Katara pushes the door open, careful not to let it squeak on the hinges, and pulls out her water. The first patient's fever is high, and an occasional cough rattles her chest. All of the others are in a similar condition, and after six hours of feeling the blood in their veins and directing cool water around their heads, Katara stumbles back to the motorcycle and curls up in front of it. Zuko will wake her when he's finished.
By the time he returns from the village, the sun is in the middle of the sky and Katara has developed an awful kink in her neck from sleeping on a rock.
"Where've you been?" She groans, pushing herself up with one arm.
"I spoke to one of the doctors."
She gasps. "Did he recognize you?"
He shakes his head. "He has other things on his mind. This plague started about a year ago-one of the doctors was treating sicknesses with some kind of mold."
"Mold?" Katara narrows her eyes. "Why would he use mold?"
Zuko shrugs. "I guess it was working for a while. They were using it for everything, and then it stopped working. People started getting those wounds that wouldn't heal. Nobody can do anything for them."
Katara blows some stray hairs out of her face. "They won't accept help."
"Good thing we snuck up on them and helped them while they were sleeping, then."
She rolls her eyes. "Don't start."
Zuko looks at her through narrowed eyes, as if he'd like to argue but doesn't have the energy for it, and neither of them speak over the noisy grumbling of the engine once Katara has started it. They return to the palace a little more sedately than they left, slipping down quiet side streets and sneaking into the palace through the servants' entrance. Zuko hauls a container of fuel from an outbuilding to refill the tank-they're hoping Aang and Sokka don't notice the motorcycle has been used-and they both disappear into the maze of the palace.
Something is nagging at her for the rest of the day and late into the night, despite how desperately she needs sleep. Zuko has never really judged her (he's too busy judging himself to worry about her), but his disapproval has radiated off of him since she suggested sneaking out to that little village and trying to stop the epidemic, the fact that they had refused Water Tribe healing techniques notwithstanding. But she couldn't just let them die, could she? Was it so wrong to try to heal?
"You're taking away their ability to decide for themselves," Aang had intoned, gray eyes boring into her, seeing every part of her soul.
"Hey, if they want to die, that's their problem," Sokka had agreed as he stuffed a handful of fireflakes into his mouth. At the time Zuko had been quiet, and maybe she'd been wrong to take that as agreement with her.
Or maybe he had agreed, and after they'd done what she thought they had to do, he'd started to wonder if Aang and Sokka were right. Maybe they were.
The fact that the villagers are reporting improved symptoms and possible recoveries does surprisingly little to resolve her moral dilemma, even if Zuko privately breathed a sigh of relief and whispered to her that he was glad nothing horrible happened. So is she, but the gnawing in her gut is still there.
A/N: Well, I was going to do a romantic drabble about running around on a motorcycle and healing people, but that didn't quite happen. Hmm.
