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Chapter Ten:

It was our pleasure

The squeak of a door opening woke Zuko with a start. He shot to his feet, sliding into a defensive stance. Instead of attackers, he saw his uncle and the Pai Sho man from last night staring at him calmly in the secret room's doorway.

There was a moment of panic when he remembered Kinri had been on him when he'd fallen asleep, but his brief fear was reassured as a shifting warmth around his torso alerted him to her presence inside his shirt.

Did she know they were coming? That she shouldn't be seen by other people?

That couldn't be, she was only a baby…

But she understood him and Iroh when they were talking, was that normal for a newly-hatched dragon?

Maybe he could ask his uncle later.

"What's going on?" He frowned, straightening out of the stance. "Is the club meeting over?"

"Everything's taken care of." Iroh answered with a smile, "We're headed to Ba Sing Se."

"Ba Sing Se?" Zuko repeated incredulously, "Why would we go to the Earth Kingdom capital?"

"The city is filled with refugees." Pai Sho man exclaimed calmly, looking over at Iroh. "No one will notice two more."

"We can hide in plain sight there. And it's the safest place in the world from the Fire Nation." His uncle said, shrugging in what seemed to be a mix of awe and amusement, "Even I couldn't break through to the city."

The shop door opened, and they turned, watching a young man enter the shop and close the door behind him, several slips of paper clutched in his hand.

"I have the passports for our guests," he started, then pointed over his shoulder towards the door, "but there are two men out in the street, looking for them."

Zuko looked out the small window, watching as the men who confronted them last night in the tavern stopped a man in the middle of the street and interrogated him.

The prince met his uncle's wide-eyed gaze, the two unsure what to do next.

.

The flower shop door slammed open, shattering a plant pot as it toppled from above the entrance.

With a sigh, the shopkeeper turned towards the two men who stood imposingly in the doorway.

He already had to clean up the mess left by the boy, he didn't need another broken pot on his hands.

"Hey, you. Where are these men?" The muscular one demanded, shoving a wanted poster in his face. "I got a tip that they're in your shop."

The shopkeeper closed his eyes and breathed in deeply before responding with a calm, even voice. "As you can see, no one is here, but us."

"We know all about your secret back room." The skinny one smirked as he looked at the other man. "Kick it down."

Now he was really irritated.

"Hey!" He yelled after Muscles as he ran at the back door, "That room is for followers only!"

The back door was completely blown off the wall, falling to the floor with a loud crash and a cloud of sand.

Of course they didn't listen.

"Some unlucky soul," Skinny commented idly as he stepped into the circular room, picking up a lotus tile from the ground, "has an incomplete Pai Sho set."

Muscles smacked the tile out of Skinny's hands with a snarl, sending it bouncing across the floor. "Let's go back to finding the girl."

The two turned, walking out of the store with an unamused shopkeeper staring mutely after them.

.

She did not like this.

She did not like this one bit.

Kinri growled in frustration, scratching at the lid of the large vase that trapped her in this suffocating blackness.

It was worse than the bag.

In the bag she could at least see a little bit of sun through the material.

But not in here.

There was absolutely no light in here, just like before she was awoken from her deep sleep.

But there was one thing keeping her sane in this cage of no-sun.

"Stop that Kinri, someone might hear you."

Even if he was nagging at her, she still had her person with her.

And that was better than being alone.

Grumbling, she retreated back into his arms, shoving her face into his chest to try to ignore the stifling blackness that surrounded her.

She just wanted to feel the sun on her scales again.

To feel the breeze under her wings and earth beneath her talons.

She just wanted out.

.

Zuko sighed lightly into the stale air, looking down at the shadowy outline of the dragon huddled in his arms who was trying her best, it seemed, to block out everything but his shirt.

It shouldn't be too long before they stopped, right?

The Pai Sho man said they could take them just outside the city in the flower pots, but with all of Kinri's squirming it felt like it was taking forever.

He felt a tremor pass through the scales under his fingers and he frowned, holding her closer.

For her sake, he hoped it was soon.

.

A light knocking from the outside of the jar announced their arrival, and Zuko let out a breath, reaching up to remove the lid.

Golden scales barreled past his nose, wings battering against his cheeks as the little dragon burst out of the pot and zipped up into the sky.

"What the-" The young man from the flower shop exclaimed in shock, squinting against the sun as he searched the sky. "What was that?"

"Uh..." Zuko faltered, glancing back at the pot before looking back at the man, sweat rolling down his neck. "What was what?"

"The thing that just flew out of the jar?"

"I didn't...see...um...anything."

The young man stared at him, and for a frightening moment Zuko thought he was going to get called out, but the man merely shrugged.

"Oh well, must have been a trick of the light. Anyways," He continued, gesturing towards a figure who was walking towards them, leading an ostrich-horse. "we were able to get you your ostrich-horse, but I'm afraid we can't take you any further."

"Thank you, any help is much appreciated." Iroh said smoothly as he stepped up to Zuko's side.

"It was our pleasure." The young man replied as the other man with their ostrich-horse arrived, and the two bowed, heading back towards the distant sandy mound that was the Misty Palms Oasis.

"And where did Kinri run off to?" Iroh started to ask, but was answered when a streak of gold plummeted out of the sky and crashed into Zuko, chittering happily as she crawled around his shoulders licking his cheeks while he stumbled and nearly fell.

"Argh! I get it, you're happy! Now stop that, geez." Zuko grumbled, rolling his eyes as he caught his balance. But a smile grew on his face as the dragon settled down, draped around his neck like a glorified scaly scarf, all the while rumbling cheerfully.

.

"Uncle, are baby dragons usually this smart?" Zuko asked, sitting with his back against a fallen tree trunk.

The stars flickered brightly in the night sky, shining down on their little encampment. The small fire in the center of the clearing was reflecting off of Kinri's scales as Zuko watched, enraptured by the golden light.

The little dragon was scampering across the ostrich-horse's back, sticking her head into the saddle-bag to sniff at the contents, probably looking for food, and losing her balance as the beast shifted.

The prince grimaced at the sight of Kinri flailing upside down in the bag she had fallen into while the ostrich-horse looked on with amusement, and shook his head slightly.

"Well," Iroh began, molten eyes glittering in the dark as he watched the young dragon fondly. "I never had the great fortune of meeting a newly-hatched dragon before...but I believe they are incredibly intelligent creatures, and the adult dragons have been known to understand human speech."

Zuko raised an eyebrow at the struggling dragon that finally managed to get herself out of the bag and was currently growling comically at the ostrich-horse.

"Right. Intelligent."

His uncle chuckled, resting his hands on his stomach as he leaned back onto the makeshift bed. "You should get some sleep, Nephew, we haven't much further until we reach Full Moon Bay."

Zuko nodded and was about to lay down before a thought struck him.

"Uncle?"

"Yes, Prince Zuko?"

"How are we gonna smuggle a dragon into Ba Sing Se?"

He was surprised he hadn't thought of it sooner. But now that he did, he realized with growing apprehension that Kinri was growing bigger every day. She could no longer fit snugly in both his hands. Now she was almost the length and width of his arm.

And the more he thought about it, the quicker it dawned on him.

How in the world would he be able to hide a growing dragon inside the walls of the great city?

'Cause it's pretty hard not to notice how sparkly she is.

And how she tends to stick her nose into everything.

Not even mentioning all the food she ate, the gluttenous thing was like his uncle in that sense, honestly.

"We'll worry about it when we get there."

Zuko blinked incredulously at his Uncle.

How the-

What-

Ugh!

Zuko turned his back on the old man in frustration, barely registering the warmth of a small dragon nestling up against his stomach as he closed his eyes.

heh, i'd like myself a little dragon scarf :3

thanks for reading~! ^-^