Book 1: Water
Chapter 13: The Blue Spirits
A/N: I know, I'm a bad person for waiting you guys wait this long:P It's been a rough week, but finally this is here:) Hopefully the next chapter will come faster, just gotta stick with me:) Enjoy!
"Where did you go?"
"Huh?"
"You left for a little while, and you took your broadswords. What's going on? What did you hear?" Emi asked. She wasn't reprimanding or demanding, like Zuko had worried she would be. Instead she was curious and maybe a bit excited. He hoped that meant he could convince her to go along with this.
"Zhao is occupying a stronghold not too far from here. He's been promoted to admiral and has the Yuyan archers on his side." His voice was tight. Emi frowned.
"What do we do?"
"I don't know." He said, sounding lost.
The next morning, Zuko and Emi were standing in the main room of the ship along with the rest of the crew and Uncle, who was winning his Pai Sho game by a landslide. The lieutenant, who had gotten along with Zuko a lot better since Emi and Uncle shared his story, was bent over a map, telling them that they couldn't track the avatar, but figured if they just headed north, they would catch his trail. Before either of them could respond, a large ship threw a shadow across the room and over Zuko's much smaller ship.
"What do they want?" Zuko asked rhetorically, irritated.
"Maybe a sporting game of Pai Sho." Uncle said, rubbing his hands together. Emi assumed it was wishful thinking, considering he had beaten every person on Zuko's ship more times than any of them would like to count. Emi stilled as three fire nation soldiers entered the small room. The head man pulled out a wanted poster of Aang and showed it to Zuko.
"The hunt for the avatar has been given prime importance." He stated formally. "Any information regarding the avatar must be reported to Admiral Zhao."
"Zhao has been promoted? Well good for him." Uncle said as he pushed another tile across the board. From the looks on his opponent's face, he was very close to winning.
"I have nothing to report to Zhao." Zuko said stiffly, looking down to the ground. "Now get off my ship and let us pass."
"Admiral Zhao is not letting any ships in or out of this area." The soldier said in his stuffy, 'I-know-better-than-you' voice that annoyed pretty much everyone.
"Off my ship!" Zuko snarled at them. Uncle, who appeared to be paying no attention whatsoever, rejoiced in the fact that he had, once again, won the Pai Sho game.
Emi watched as Zuko shot fire in every direction he could, clearly trying to calm himself. Ever since she had told Katara about her waterbending, she had shied away from firebending too. She felt wrong not bending at all, but now that she was beginning to accept her waterbending as a part of her, firebending felt foreign, and uncomfortable. She no longer pestered Zuko about practicing with her. The blasts stopped as they both heard the ship door open, although neither turned to see who it was.
"Is everything alright? It's been over an hour and you haven't given the men an order." Emi was relieved that it was Uncle who came out to see them. The last thing any of them wanted was some soldier to go running his mouth and stress out Zuko even more.
"I don't care what they do." He said coldly. Uncle sighed.
"Prince Zuko, do not give up hope. You can still find the avatar before Zhao does." He said in a vain attempt to reassure Zuko.
"How Uncle?" he asked, the distress and desperateness he had been feeling finally coming out in his voice. "With Zhao's resources, it will be no time at all before he captures him!" he turned away to look out over the sea, and when he spoke again, his voice was so, so sad. "My honor, my throne, my country…I'm about to lose them all." Emi walked over to him and looped her arm through his, giving a small smile to Uncle as she used her other hand to usher him away, signaling that she wanted to talk to Zuko alone.
"You're thinking of something." She said after Uncle had given her a thumbs up and returned inside.
"How did you…? Nevermind." He said sounding slightly amused. "But yes. Zhao isn't going to leave this stronghold, not with the archers there." He said, his voice turning thoughtful. "What if we watch over the place, that way when the archers come with the avatar, we can rescue him and have him in our custody?"
"Zuko… I don't know. It sounds dangerous. What if we are caught? It would be a treacherous thing to steal the avatar from another fire nation soldier…an admiral no less. The consequences would be severe." She said, unsure.
"Well, that's the thing. I wasn't planning on going as us." He said.
"What do you mean?"
"Come on, I will show you." Emi followed him as he went into the ship and led her up the stairs and into the back room. His chambers. He pulled a box out from under the bed and opened it with a key he had kept in his back pocket. Emi reached over his shoulder and picked up a full face blue opera mask that looked like it was from the Earth Kingdom. The one that Zuko lifted out of the box looked a lot like hers, but hers was clearly more feminine.
"If we wear these, no one will be able to tell it's us. Obviously I wouldn't be firebending; I would use my broadswords. You could waterbend." He told her. She pursed her lips. On the one hand, she knew this would be very dangerous, and if they were caught…she didn't know what would happen, but it would be terrible, that was for sure. On the other…She didn't want Zhao to have Aang, but with those archers, he would succeed. Plus she would be able to waterbend, and that in itself was reason enough to go.
"Alright, I'll do it." she said determinedly. Zuko smiled at her and she knew she had done the right thing. He looked hopeful again.
"You go ahead, I will wait here and help with the gates." She muttered quietly. He nodded and snuck onto a cart that was heading into the stronghold. She hoped desperately he didn't get caught. From far off she could hear Zhao's voice bragging about capturing the avatar, and giving all of his mindless fire nation soldiers a pep talk. Take down Ba Sing Se? Never.
Then she heard chaos, and she knew they had found out the avatar was free. She stealthily but quickly sprinted to the wall of the stronghold, using a nearby pond to bend an elevator of water up to the top of the gate. She saw Zuko float to the top of one wall and then watched as Aang helicoptered them over to where they were standing. She, Zuko and Aang battled back to back, and for once Emi didn't feel bad about fighting someone. The fire nation soldiers used three ladders to scale the walls, and Aang felt the need to use those to try to cross the gap. Emi, however, was feeling the power of the moon, and she pulled the water of the pond to her again to create a bridge.
She reached the last wall first, watching as a fire nation soldier set the ladder that Zuko and Aang were using to cross on fire. She attempted to put it out but they leapt off before she could and fell short of the wall. Looking down at the brick wall, she figured she could safely climb off of it, which she did, neatly landing next to Zuko and standing with him and Aang while they faced Zhao.
"The avatar must be captured alive." Zhao snapped. Emi and Zuko moved as one, he putting his swords up to Aang's neck and she pulling the left over pond water into a protective position around them. Zhao narrowed his eyes at them. Emi groaned mentally. She knew this was too dangerous! Yet waterbending felt amazing after so many years of barely doing it.
"Open the gate." He commanded calmly. Emi stiffened. That couldn't be it. The gate opened behind them and they walked backwards out of the stronghold, keeping up their positions around Aang. She could hear the other soldiers objecting to his decision. Before she could do anything, she heard the woosh of arrows heading towards them, and then the world went black.
When Emi woke again, she was resting on a soft bed of leaves. Zuko was beside her and Aang was speaking quietly to the both of them. Zuko silently put his hand over hers, which she took as meaning 'be quiet'.
"I used to visit my friend Kuzon in the Fire Nation all the time. He and I, we would get in and out of so much trouble together. Do you think, maybe if you lived back then, we would be friends too." Emi felt bad for him as Zuko leapt up and sent a fire blast in his direction. She sat up also as he jumped from tree to tree away from them both. Zuko's shoulders sagged forward.
"I lost him." He said, frustrated.
"So did Zhao." She responded, smiling a bit at him. He returned her smile and wrapped her in a hug.
"Thank you for coming with me. I didn't think you would." He admitted.
"Yeah I'm not really known for doing reckless and dangerous things, am I?" she asked playfully. "But you're welcome. It was well worth it!"
"Let's go back to the ship, we need to get going again." He said, releasing her and standing up. They walked together back to the ship where they were having a music night. Uncle was playing the tsungi horn, her favorite.
"You two missed music night. Lieutenant sang a stirring love song." Uncle said. Zuko walked past him. Everyone could see how tired and worn he looked. Even Emi had that look to her, which wasn't as usual.
"I'm going to bed." Zuko said without a backwards glance. Uncle looked at his retreating back but said nothing. He turned to Emi.
"Are you going to stay for the rest of music night Lady Emi? It's not like you to miss it." He asked her.
"No thank you Uncle, I am rather tired as well." She answered. She gave him a hug, which was pretty difficult since he was holding the tsungi horn, before heading into the ship and walking back to her chambers. She was still relishing in the feel of the full moon when she fell asleep.
A/N: Ta da! Oh you guys wouldn't believe the amount of thinking and planning that had to be put in with this one! But, I got it all figured out so smooth sailing from here, yes? of course yes:) I really can't wait to write books two and three. I'm very excited for it:) So, reviews pretty please:)
Much love,
Em
