A/N: As those of you who follow me on social media will know, I've recently gotten a new job, so I'm sorry for the slightly late chapter. I kept trying to get the editing done to post it and I kept dozing off on the keyboard because this new job is way more mentally demanding and completely different hours to what I'm used to. I hope you enjoy this chapter. I can't wait to see what you make of the developments.
xx-Kitten.
Brightest Nights or Darkest Days
By Kittenshift17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Zuko blinked stupidly when he felt someone shake his shoulder to wake him up. He'd slept hard. Harder than he could recall sleeping since he'd been banished and was recovering from the terrible burn to his face. Without thinking, he drew his dagger from beneath his pillow, ready to defend himself despite his disorientation, and his Uncle jumped back out of the way before he could catch the sharp edge of the blade.
"Easy, my nephew," Iroh soothed quietly. "It's just me. It's time to get up for the day. You and Katara have slept late and your friends are here and worried."
Zuko blinked again, focusing on his uncle for a moment before trying to sit up. His progress was impeded by a weight on his chest and he glanced down, dagger still gripped tightly, to find a mess of dark hair spread across his chest and stomach, and the pretty face of a sleeping Waterbender pointed in his direction. The activities that preluded his deep sleep came rushing back and Zuko smirked a little, lowering his weapon to reach for the girl.
He winced ever so slightly when he noticed that some of her hair was stuck to his stomach, pulling at the skin a bit where last night's mess had been forgotten rather than cleaned up.
"Katara" he said, shaking the Waterbender lightly, waiting for her to stir. She made a noise of protest without opening her eyes and Zuko almost smiled.
Almost, because as she shifted slightly against him, trying to evade his grip so he'd stop shaking her, he realised she was still topless, her sarashi bunched up on the bed next to their prone forms. Shooting a glance at his uncle, Zuko winced when Iroh winked at him, chuckling lightly.
"I'll give you some privacy," Iroh said. "Your friends were knocking on the door insistently, so I let them in and took them through to my room. Dress quickly. We need to get going."
Zuko nodded, watching his uncle leave while he tried to rouse the grumpy Waterbender.
"Wake up, peasant," he said, knowing the address would get a rise out of her.
Her eyes snapped open, narrowed to slits with fury and she glared at him from his chest.
"We have to get up," Zuko told the girl. "And you have to get dressed. Uncle was just in here and could've seen you naked, Water Bender."
Katara's glare fade in favour of bright red cheeks as she apparently recalled last night as vividly as he did.
"Your hair is stuck to me," Zuko said, reaching for it and reefing, hissing when it stung the skin as it pulled free.
"Why?" Katara groaned.
"Good Morning to you, too," Zuko smirked darkly.
"What is in my hair?" Katara wanted to know, pulling her fingers through it as she sat up. She made a face when she found it stiff and crunchy.
"I'll give you two guesses," Zuko said.
Katara's eyes went wide and her cheeks flushed.
"Oh, gross!" she growled. "Zuko!"
"It's not my fault," Zuko protested. "You made it angry enough to spit at you."
Katara thumped him in the chest.
"What is wrong with you?" she demanded. "You don't clean up after?"
"You didn't clean up either, Water Bender," he reminded her. "You were too busy passing out on me. Just get off me and get dressed. Meng and Kuzon are in Uncle's room. They came looking for us."
"Of course they did," Katara growled grumpily, snatching up her shirt and her wraps before rolling out of bed and stomping into the bathroom.
Zuko laughed to himself as he followed her, amused by her wretched mood. He felt great, himself. He'd thoroughly enjoyed himself before bed and he'd slept well, even if he'd slept hard. He could feel the sun outside the room too. It felt stronger, somehow, as though maybe the blizzard was beginning to lessen.
"Why are you following me?" Katara demanded, sounding grouchier than ever and Zuko raised his eyebrows at the Waterbender when she began to strip herself naked, apparently beyond caring that he would see her in all her glory as she stripped out of her pants and stood under the shower, using her Bending to make the water gush through the pipes to rush over her.
His eyes were drawn to every curvy, sinewy inch of her, drinking in the sight and feeling his body grow hard in response.
"Don't look at me like that, Zuko. We don't have the time and I'm too annoyed at you."
"Me? What did I do?" he demanded, frowning at her and wondering how badly she might hurt him if he climbed into the shower with her, needing to bathe their combined essences off his skin, too.
"You talked me into this mess in the first place," she said.
"You were the one who stuck her hand down my pants after I said it would be a bad idea," he argued.
"Yeah, well you were the one who pushed with his chi until everything got completely out of control and we ended up too exhausted to get out of bed and clean off," she snapped. "And what do you think you're doing? You can't just climb into the shower with me!"
"I need to wash, too," he said, climbing into the shower with her, uncaring that she'd see him naked or that he had a raging hard-on. "We need to leave. We overslept because you got grabby."
"I'll get grabby with a weapon and bludgeon you if you keep annoying me," she growled, moving over far enough to make room for him under the spray of the water and handing him the soap when she was finished with it.
"What are you so cranky about?" Zuko wanted to know. "I don't have a lot of experience with the morning after, but I thought fucking was supposed to make people feel happy."
"We didn't fuck," she said, illustrating how out of sorts she really was that she swore in such a way after she'd pointedly avoided doing so up until that moment.
"We both orgasmed, Katara," Zuko said. "No matter what body part caused it, if you come, then you fucked. And we both came, so we fucked."
She rolled her eyes, running soap through her hair and combing her fingers through it, trying to untangle the mess it had been left in thanks to the stickiness. Zuko hid his amusement and busied himself with bathing. He didn't at all like the idea of having to put up with Meng again today and he'd almost forgotten, with all of their planning, that the other Firebender and his annoying Earthbender girlfriend would still have to be dealt with.
Zuko suspected his Uncle was going to insist that the two of them be allowed to travel alongside them to Ba Sing Se, even if only for the sake of maintaining a better cover story that they were refugees and couldn't possibly be the exiled Fire Prince, a disgraced General, or the girl rumoured to have been travelling with the Avatar. Two commoners would help hide them, even Zuko could admit that. He didn't have to like it, but he would admit that having them along might be annoying, but could also be useful.
If nothing else, at least Uncle might be able to show Kuzon how to be a proper Firebender. During their time stuck in the igloo, Zuko had showed the other boy a number of Firebending forms and gotten him into the routine of keeping in peak physical condition for the sake of his Bending, but there was certainly more that he could be taught and Uncle was a far more patient teacher.
It had felt strange at first, the idea of teaching anyone else Firebending when he still wasn't technically a Master himself. He'd found that the boy knew some of the basic forms, and little else. He needed a lot of training if he was every going to be of any use in a fight, but Zuko had persevered to teach him when he'd seen how much Kuzon wanted to learn. Teaching him also had the added benefit of ensuring he didn't have to listen to Meng prattle quite as much, so Zuko had done it and would continue to do it if the pair decided to come with them on the rest of their journey.
"If Meng talks too much today, I might ice her mouth shut," Katara grumbled darkly, obviously dreading seeing the girl again almost as much as Zuko was.
He wondered why she was in such a rotten mood, eyeing her through one eye when he foolishly got soap in the other one. She usually wasn't this grumpy. Most of the time she was nice and pleasant and put up with Meng with good grace and even seemed to like the Earthbender. Today she seemed ready to commit murder and Zuko had no idea why. He was in a good mood. After all, he'd gotten to do forbidden things to the feisty little Waterbender and might get to do them again, if she stopped being so cranky.
Katara didn't elaborate on her plans of murdering Meng if the need arose and Zuko didn't want to push his luck too much by continuing to engage her when she seemed so angry. Instead he hurried about washing himself and got back out of the shower before the Waterbender was finished, leaving her to the hot water and her thoughts while he dried off, dressed and packed all of his things. He packed all of Katara's things into her bag, too, leaving clean clothing out for the girl to wear and packing up the rest so they could be on their way.
When she joined him she huffed over the idea of having things laid out for her and she dug into one of the pouches in her rucksack, looking for something. Zuko frowned at her when he watched her locate a small pouch with tealeaves in it that he didn't recognise. Having spent a good little while rummaging through her pack to figure out where everything was supposed to go, he knew better than to ask why she was keeping those tealeaves separate from the others in the tea-chest like her contraceptive tea.
That pouch had all the girly stuff she needed for what she referred to as her Moon-time. Zuko didn't want to even think about any of that, so he didn't ask why she kept tea in there along with a bunch of strips of cloth and other things for dealing with what her body did once a month. He kept his mouth shut as he watched her slip the leaves into her pocket before packing up the last of her things into her pack and carrying it into his Uncle's room.
Zuko wasn't thrilled by the sight of Meng's wide smile of greeting or the way the girl's green eyes lit up with happiness when they both appeared, but he didn't comment.
"Good morning!" Meng said. "I'd begun to wonder if you two were ever going to get out of bed. How are you both feeling today?"
"Fine," Zuko grunted when Katara didn't answer. He watched her go over to the teapot his Uncle had obviously used to brew some tea for himself, Kuzon and Meng. She handed it to him silently to reheat before pouring a cup of tea for him and handing that over without a word.
When it was done she emptied the contents and refilled it, handing the pot to him a second time after fishing her contraceptive tea from the tea-chest – pointedly not making eye contact with his Uncle as she did so. She dumped the leaves into the pot when he'd boiled the water and then she added the extra ones she'd stuck in her pocket, too.
"Grumpy today, huh?" Kuzon asked when Zuko took his cup in silence and moved over to sit beside the other Firebender.
"We don't ask those sorts of questions," Zuko muttered to Kuzon, drinking his tea and keeping one eye on the angry Waterbender.
"Rough night?" Kuzon said. "I see you located your Uncle."
Zuko nodded.
"Long night," he replied in a low voice. "Are you and Meng still planning to travel with us to Ba Sing Se?"
"May we still travel with you, Zuko?" Kuzon countered, raising one eyebrow at him. "I wouldn't presume permission to travel with the Prince of the Fire Naiton and the most respected General of our Nation without invitation."
"Can you keep your girlfriend's perkiness to a minimum?" Zuko asked in retort. "And stop fucking her when I've got to see it?"
"You could always shut your eyes," Kuzon smirked cheekily.
"It's not the looking that the problem," Zuko said. "It's how loud she is. I've heard quieter Hog-Monkeys."
Kuzon snorted, obviously as pleased as he was that Meng was too busy delightedly annoying Zuko's Uncle with inane questions and chatter to pay attention to the conversation between Zuko and her boyfriend.
"You really wouldn't mind us travelling with you?" Kuzon asked seriously when his amusement faded. "I know she's annoying when she chatters and that you were ready to kill her yesterday."
"We're all travelling in the same direction," Zuko shrugged. "Just make sure you buy enough food before leaving this time. And carry your own weight. Uncle might be too nice to say so, but he doesn't hold with dead-weight companions. If you and Meng are only going to slow down the trip or get in the way, he'll ditch you."
"Have we slowed you down so far?" Kuzon frowned.
"Yes," Zuko nodded. "Neither of you are as fit as me or Katara. We can walk faster and might've got here in half the time yesterday if Meng didn't insist on stopping to look at the scenery and stopping to make friends with everyone else on the road."
"She's just being friendly, Zuko," Kuzon sighed. "She'd never been outside her village until I came along and took her away from it."
"Why are you taking her to Ba Sing Se? On a holiday?"
"To make a new life," Kuzon admitted. "The Fire Nation soldiers had been occupying her village for a while, but things were getting more out of control and more dangerous as more moved in with this renewed push to conquer Ba Sing Se. If we didn't get out she was likely to end up killed by someone who got too annoyed with her, or raped by the less savoury among the ranks of the Fire Nation army when she was too nice and too naïve for her own good."
Zuko nodded.
"Do you actually like her?" he asked quietly, eyeing the pretty Earthbender while she chatted.
"Would I bring her with me if I didn't?" Kuzon asked in reply.
"Maybe," Zuko shrugged. "If you've got some ulterior motive for keeping her around. Why her?"
"Why Katara?" Kuzon challenged.
Zuko's lips twitched. Outside of Katara, no one else had ever really spoken to him in a way that wasn't respectful or fearful thanks to his superior rank and birthright. Kuzon knew he wasn't on equal with the Prince of the Fire Nation – exiled or not – but he'd set aside some of his respectful for blunt honesty that Zuko suspected could turn into friendship if he allowed it.
"Do you know who she really is?" Zuko asked.
Kuzon slanted a glance toward Katara, watching her make a face of disgust as she drank her tea before she crossed the short distance to Zuko and took his half-drunk cup to wash down her tea with his.
"I could take a guess," Kuzon admitted.
"Mmmm," Zuko nodded.
"So you have an ulterior motive, then? Does she know that?" Kuzon challenged.
"I have many ulterior motives," Zuko replied. "But all of them factor her into them with her as an ally, not an enemy."
"Why do I get the feeling that you and your Uncle have a grand plan that will likely rent the world as we know it into smithereens?" Kuzon asked.
"Because you might be smarter than I've been giving your credit for," Zuko smirked. He grunted when Kuzon punched his arm, laughing.
"Are you two packed, Meng?" Katara asked when she'd finished drinking tea, emptying the tea pot and carrying both the pot and the chest over to Zuko before working them into his pack.
"Oh. Yes, we have," Meng smiled at the Waterbender. "We need to buy supplies if we're continuing our travels today, but everything is packed except what we buy. I know you said that you need supplies, too, so I thought that it would make more sense for us all to shop together, that way we can distribute everything we'll need between the four – now five – of us so that we won't run out of anything."
"Good," said Katara. She turned to Zuko's uncle and hesitated a moment, obviously unsure if she should call him Iroh or Mushi in front of Meng and Kuzon.
"I was just saying to Meng that it will be nice to stock up on all my favourite teas," Iroh smiled at Katara. "It's a waste to carry around a tea-chest with empty canisters. I don't know what my nephew was thinking."
"That you weren't with me to drink them and that I'd buy the wrong ones," Zuko told him, smirking.
"And here I'd doubted your levels of sense," his Uncle teased and Zuko laughed, surprised to hear the man making jokes at his expense. He'd always been quick witted and Zuko himself could be mean, but his Uncle usually didn't make jokes at Zuko's expense for fear of angering him. It spoke volumes that he would do so now, after all that had transpired last night, toward how much he'd held back even with Zuko, for fear of revealing his grand plan.
They all got to their feet when Katara announced that if they were buying tea, she wanted a moon-peach blend, immediately engaging his uncle in conversation about the man's favourite topic.
"Does Meng know who my Uncle really is?" Zuko asked Kuzon.
"I may have addressed him as General and bowed when he answered the door to your room," Kuzon admitted, blushing faintly. "But I doubt she'd know who the Dragon of the West is unless we explained it to her. She already knows you're the prince, though, and you've been calling him Uncle, so she'll figure it out eventually. I reminded her to call you Lee and to call him Mushi when we're in public or might be overheard."
Zuko nodded before regarding the boy next to him.
"Do you know that you're both in danger, travelling with the three of us? We're some of the most Wanted criminals in the Four Nations, second only to the Avatar."
"And the Blue Spirit," Kuzon said. Zuko smirked at the other boy for a moment, waiting for him to connect the dots. When he did, his eyes widened.
"You…?"
Zuko nodded.
"Agni, Zuko," Kuzon hissed. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"I'm trying to reclaim my throne," Zuko said, deciding that if he and Meng were travelling with them, they needed to know the basics of their plan. If it seemed like they would betray them, Zuko would kill them both and that would be that.
"By capturing the Avatar?" Kuzon confirmed.
Zuko shook his head. "Not anymore. We have a new and more effective plan now. Tell me the truth, Kuzon. You don't like the way the Fire Nation is run right now, do you?"
Kuzon looked worried for a moment before he shook his head.
"Neither do I," Zuko said. "The soldiers are bullies and morons, the people are greedy and we're not spreading our greatness to the rest of the world, we're just trying to conquer them. If you come with us, you'll end up incorporated into the plan to take down my father and restore balance to the world, Kuzon. Can you do that? Or do I need to silence you to make sure word never gets back to the Fire Nation until it's too late for them?"
"You're taking them down? You'll take over as Fire Lord? One who won't spread violence and hatred?" Kuzon asked, his eyes lighting up.
"If the plans works," Zuko nodded.
"Then I want in," Kuzon said. "I've lived in the Earth Kingdom since my Mum was banished and I prefer their way of life to the rigidity of our society. I was heading to Ba Sing Se with Meng to make a life there, Zuko. But I miss home. I miss the heat and the food and some of the people. If I could have it back, restored to the glory our people once displayed not in ability to win battles of dominate others, but the rich heritage you and I learned about as boys, I'd… I'd do anything to take Meng with me to that kind of homeland."
Zuko felt a sly smile grow upon his face, recognising in that instance that Kuzon might prove more useful to him than he'd imagined.
"There will come a time when I will have to return before those things can happen, Kuzon," he said quietly. "When it will seem that I've betrayed Uncle and Katara and the Avatar. I have to be reinstated as Prince if I want to be crowned when my father falls. And I have to clean house of the War Generals and other Government officials that are too closely connected to my father. It would be… useful… to be seen with another Firebender on my side as loyal to me and it would help me to have another pair of eyes and ears in the palace. If you're coming with us, that could be you."
"What about Meng?"
"Don't tell her the plan," Zuko said. "I don't trust her not to blurt it out to everyone she meets. But if she's the girl for you, there'd be room for her in my new empire. She might have to hide her Earthbending, for a time. But there will come a day when it will be very important to the world and the Fire Nation's place in it that we be seen cooperating with the other Benders and other nations. An Earthbending wife to my trusted advisor would look good in the eyes of the world not just as a means of being seen cooperating, but as a stamp of approval that not all Firebender are all that bad."
Kuzon looked shocked and honoured at the notion that he might be considered a trusted advisor to the Fire Lord one day and Zuko hid a smile when the other Firebender grinned widely.
"You would... make me an advisor?" he asked. "I'm just the son of a handmaid, Zuko. And I was banished. How will I be welcomed back if I was banished?"
"I was banished too," Zuko shrugged. "For the most part, only decent people have been banished from the Fire Nation in the last hundred years. It would do us good to have most of those decent people back, I imagine."
Kuzon's grin was wide.
"Could I eventually take my mother home, too?" he asked.
Zuko nodded. "It might be a while yet, Kuzon," he warned. "But it will be before Sozin's comet comes that we'll stage the coup. Until then there is much to do."
Kuzon nodded his head, too, but Zuko could see how excited the other boy was at the prospect of returning home with his family to a Fire Nation that wasn't so bent of arrogance and dictatorship.
"What's the first step to this plan, then?" he asked.
"Get to Ba Sing Se in one piece," Zuko grinned.
"And then?"
"Blend in until the Avatar shows up - he's heading that way to meet up with Katara again. From there, things step up a notch."
"Right," Kuzon nodded. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's get going. We need supplies and we need a faster way to travel, I think."
"Ostrich-horses don't do so well in the snow," Zuko pointed out, watching as Meng, Katara and Iroh approached the market intent on buying enough food to last them several days or weeks.
"What about some Komodo-Rhinos?" Kuzon smirked, looking sideways at Zuko before pointing at a Fire Nation army sign directing soldiers toward a nearby farm where they'd been breeding Komodo-Rhinos for ease of travel in this area.
"We'd be caught," Zuko said.
"With enough gold the merchant might sell us a couple," Kuzon argued. "They prefer the warmer weather, but we'd be able to carry more and we'd be less likely to be stopped by the soldiers since it's usually only Fire Nation folks who ride them."
"How would we carry enough food for them?" Zuko asked.
"They'd carry it," Kuzon rolled his eyes. "That's the whole point. We don't need tents or anything for cover, since we've got Katara to bend ice, or Meng to bend Earth if the need arises and the ice runs out. We only need food for us and the rhinos, and our other survival supplies."
"How are we going to get any without being caught? Uncle and I stand out."
"Yeah, but I don't," Kuzon grinned. "Most of the time I pass myself off as a Fire Nation Colonial and the soldiers don't give me much trouble. If I say I'm an errand boy sent to pick up a few extra rhinos for the increasing number of soldiers pushing toward Ba Sing Se, they won't even blink."
"We'd need at least three," Zuko pointed out.
"Then I'll get three," Kuzon shrugged. "Here, take my pack. How much gold do you have on you?"
Zuko handed over a small sack, accepting the bag from his newly minted friend and advisor. Kuzon winked before darting off in the direction of the farm, calling over his shoulder. "Meet me on the outskirts of town, the road headed toward Kei Lan."
Zuko nodded and moved over to join his Uncle, Katara and Meng in the busy marketplace. Despite Katara's prediction of another blizzard, the weather had warmed enough to bring many people from their homes, the shops all open and travellers already buying up everything they could to search for friends.
"Where's Kuzon?" Meng asked when Zuko strode up to where Katara was debating over what food to buy.
"He's handling another supply matter. He'll meet us on the way out of town," Zuko said, ducking his head and pressing a kiss to the side of Katara's neck when one of the soldiers looked up him suspiciously for a moment.
Katara didn't blink, she just began to argue with the merchant of the store about how well the meats she was looking at might keep if the weather heated up. His uncle moved away a little, spying a tea-shop and obviously planning to purchase whatever he could get his hands on. Zuko himself looked over the array of meats, fruits, nuts and vegetables on offer, smirking to himself when Katara titled her head a little to one side to better let him access her neck as he kissed her skin a second time. Meng was in the process of collecting fruits and nuts for their travels, arguing with another vendor about moon-peach prices. Zuko nipped Katara lightly and pushed away when he spotted a shop across the street selling essentials like toilet paper, crossing to buy enough to last the five of them for a few weeks.
"How are you going to fit all that in your bag, Lee?" his uncle asked when he'd finished buying tea.
"Kuzon's seeing to our transportation," Zuko muttered to his uncle. "There's a Rhino farm just outside town. He's getting three."
Iroh smiled slowly.
"That's good to hear," he said. "I will make sure the girls buy a bit more food. You buy up some feed for the Rhinos. We need to get going. Your scar is attracting some attention. Put your hood up, nephew."
Zuko obeyed, nodding his head and watching Iroh hurry for some weapons and some of the other things they needed to support five people living on the road when they didn't have to carry it all themselves. He made sure to keep a close eye on all the soldiers in the marketplace. Most of them were dressed casually, obviously not on duty and seeming to have mostly taken over this little village for their own purposes. When he was almost ready to go, watching the others gather the things they all needed or wanted for the journey, Zuko blinked when Katara suddenly bounded up to him and kissed him square on the lips. For a minute he thought she'd merely overcome her bad mood after waking up sticky and still tired, but when she nuzzled her face inside his hood, her cheek pressing to his scar, he realised she was trying to hide him from something.
"The pair of soldiers on the porch of the ale-house over there are watching you, Zuko," she breathed in his ear. Her arms were full of groceries and supplies, but she still leaned into him. "You should get out of here and meet Kuzon."
"I'm ready to go when you are," Meng said at that moment, also bouncing over with entirely too much perkiness for Zuko's taste, smiling brightly.
"Me too," Iroh said from a little further down the street, obviously overhearing the girl. "We can re-pack our supply bags a little better outside of the marketplace, I think."
Zuko nodded, juggling everything he was carrying to loop his arm around Katara's shoulders and tuck her into his left side before laying his hooded head against the top of hers in a way he hoped would look adoring and contented, rather than like he was hiding. They all hurried through the snow on their way out of town and Zuko kept a close eye on the soldiers as they went. When Meng started walking backwards, her eyes darting over everything despite the way she grinned and began chattering about what it would be like to start a street-wide snowball fight, Zuko thought she was being an idiot. Before he could say so, Katara nudged him.
"She's keeping watch to make sure that we're not followed," she whispered to him before she laughed loudly and said that it might not be the best idea to throw snowballs at unsuspecting townsfolk unless they wanted to be pelted with snow themselves, engaging the girl in discussion about the effect of the weather on her hair and how she hoped it would get warmer.
Meng's eyes continued to dart about, taking in everything and she began tapping her fingers against the grocery basket she was carrying, first one, then two, then four and Zuko realised she was counting the number of soldiers wandering in their general direction. He scowled, feeling Katara shift slightly next to him before suddenly there was a shout of shock and despair behind them.
Zuko glanced behind and couldn't help but laugh when he spied several soldiers standing in a mound of snow that had 'accidentally' slid off the nearby rooftop to land on them.
When they reached the outskirts of town and made certain they hadn't been followed, they all began rearranging things into each of the packs waiting for Kuzon to return.
"Should've suggested someone to help with these," the Firebender appeared just as they were beginning to wonder where he'd gotten too. He was leading three komodo-rhinos and they were obviously unruly, probably freshly trained and not pleased about the snow. "They nearly got away from me on the way over here."
"What are those?" Meng squealed, jumping behind Iroh in fright and Zuko realised she really was sheltered if she didn't know what a komodo-rhino was.
"We're riding those to Ba Sing Se?" Katara asked, eyeing the beasts with trepidation.
"Would you prefer to walk?"
"I'd prefer to fly," Katara muttered. "Or to ride a Polar-Bear-Dog."
"What's a Polar-Bear-Dog?" Meng asked.
Katara glanced at the girl as though the answer should be obvious.
"It's an animal from the Water Tribes," Katara said, apparently back to being grumpy again. "Some people keep them as pets to travel with or help with tribe business. We're riding Rhinos? Aren't they uncomfortable?"
"That's what the saddles are for," Kuzon pointed. "They're a bit tougher than Ostrich-Horses and might not draw as much attention to us on the road."
Zuko shook his head, smirking when Katara muttered about how much easier it was to fly on Appa, and how she missed her brother and the Avatar, and how she wanted to ride a rhino as much as she wanted to stick shards of ice into her eyes. Her bad mood amused him more than it should, even if he didn't completely understand the cause. The five of them packed their gear into the saddle bags and Zuko watched Kuzon give Meng a leg up to climb aboard the rhino when they were ready to go. His uncle was already mounted up and he realised with a jolt when Katara glanced at him that they were both at odds over who should take the reins.
"I'm driving," he warned. "They won't listen to a Waterbender."
Kuzon was chuckling as he jumped up behind Meng, wrapping his arms around the girl while Katara glared at Zuko.
"All the more reason an Ostrich-Horse or a Polar-Bear-Dog would've been better" she snapped. "Only stupid animals listen to just one kind of bender."
"They're trained for use by the Fire Nation army - we don't enlist non-benders to fight," Zuko pointed out.
"Another reason that the Fire nation is horrible. Nonbenders are just as capable of fighting. Look at Sokka."
"The guy I've beaten in a fight how many times, now?" Zuko challenged. "I took his weapon and used it against him on the very first day when he ran at me."
"He'd never fought anyone before!" Katara argued.
"He throws a boomerang, Katara," Zuko pointed out. "And he's medicore with a sword compared to me."
"He hasn't been trained," she argued. "Dad left to fight in the war with your stupid Nation before he could teach Sokka everything and he's been with us since, muddling his way through."
"I'll add him to the list of people I have to teach to fight, then," Zuko snapped. "Now get on the Rhino, Water Bender."
She made a noise of fury at him when he gripped her hips and threw her up into the saddle before vaulting on behind her, pinning her in place and snatching up the reins, before swatting the Rhino with a fire-encased palm to get it moving. Katara grumbled the whole way as they left the village, about how she wasn't going to be pushed around just because he was the Prince and how he could forget it if he thought manhandling her was okay and how the next time he did anything like that she was going to water-whip him in punishment.
Zuko ignored her, setting a rapid pace to keep the Rhino's warm enough for the journey. The others followed behind and they made good time as they headed into the wilderness.