Hello everybody!
See, I'm not dead! Just really...really...really busy with school and work and finals and money for school... (god I hate my life TT^TT)
Anywho...here's chapter 9, hopefully with chapter 10 right on it's heels, and if you go to my author profile you can now view some of my upcoming project ideas. I really appreciate feedback so please don't be shy, COMMENT!
Cool?
Chapter 9
After flying non stop nearly all day the small group had just-just-managed to get out of the Si Wong desert and were resting at a small glade before continuing on the morning. Although "glade" was being rather generous, in actuality it was really a small group of scraggly trees at the base of a large cliff face. It was rather pathetic.
'And the only reason we're here is because of that stupid princess...' Zuko mused to himself as he remembers the earlier events of the day.
Earlier that Same Day...
Trusting the balloon to stay relatively on course, Zuko was looking over the map trying to find the best way to proceed back to the fire nation.
"If we keep flying like this we should reach the coast in a few days, then it should only take us another week to get back to the fire nation capitol. Think you can handle watching the princess Aang?...Aang?"
Still hearing no response, Zuko turns around to fin Aang taking with the princess.
"Alright, say there's this...someone, and they really like you and you like them too but not in "that way" how do you let them down gently while avoiding serious bodily harm on your part?" Aang asks, they were talking about relationships of all things.
"Just tell her she isn't you true love, everyone knows-"
"Hey, excuse me, hate to break up the party but you and the flying nun can talk later, right now we need to go over our route while there's still light to read the map by!"
"We're going to land and camp for the night right?" the princess asked with a note of panic in her voice.
"Not if we can avoid it we won't." The princess suddenly seemed very concerned about their plans.
"We should camp for the night, it could be dangerous."
"In the sky?" Zuko asks incredulously.
"Yes, what about sky-pirates, I've heard they can be very dangerous."
"Sky-pirates aren't real, it's just a story." He says through clenched teeth, using every ounce of his strength not to go medieval on this princess.
"Okay well what about the balloon? What if we hit a warm front? Do you really want to fall out of the sky again, and what if we run out of fuel?"
Zuko is shocked, "How-How do you know about that?"
"Aang told me about it." Shooting Aang a quick death glare he turns back to the princess. As much as he hates to admit it she's right. The last thing they need is to fall out of the sky over the ocean.
"Fine," Zuko says begrudgingly "As soon as wee find somewhere we'll camp for the night."
'And that's how we ended up in this hell-hole.' Zuko thinks to himself as Aang and the princess unload as the sun continues to descend towards the horizon.
"That's a really pretty sunset isn't it Princess?" Aang says sidling closer to her and causing Zuko to do a double take. Was Aang...trying to flirt with the princess?
"Sunset? I really need to go to bed. I'll just go...into that cave now. Well gentleman I bid thee goodnight." She says scurrying into said cave.
"Are you sure you want to be alone? I could always-"
"I SAID GOODNIGHT." Thinking better of it, Zuko and Aang back off and set up their own camp outside of the cave.
"Zuko?"
"Yes, Aang?"
"Are you asleep yet?"
"...what do you think?" Zuko says rolling angrily rolling away from the Aang and the fire between them. Night had long since fallen and the two were still awake, Aang because he was "too excited to sleep" to quote the little cue ball, and Zuko because Aang-as usual-would just not shut up.
"Oh, okay then. Say, what are we going to do when we get the island back?"
"We?"
"Yeah, you know after we get the Princess back to Caldera City."
"There's that we again. Let's get something straight here Aang; there is no "We". There's just me myself and I. Once this mess is over you're on your own."
"What? You're just going to abandon me and Appa?" Aang says sitting up to stare at Zuko.
"No, I'm going to go back to Ember Island, and you can go anywhere that's not there."
"I have nowhere else to go,"
"Not my problem."
"How can you be so heartless, haven't you ever had friends...family...somebody?"
"Leave it alone Aang," Zuko says, but Aang is undeterred.
"This is one of those onion things isn't it?"
"Aang I said leave it."
"But I don't get it...why are you always cooped up alone on that island. I get the whole exiled thing, but there's a whole world out there. Why don't you just go somewhere else?"
"Maybe I like it there Aang, maybe I like to be alone." Zuko says turning around to face the young airbender.
"I think there's more to it than that." Aang is really trying his patience now, but he just doesn't seem to get it.
"For the last time Aang leave it alone."
"Why won't you answer me?"
"Why should I?"
"What are you so afraid of?"
"NOTHING!" Zuko shouts jumping up and surprising the young airbender. As he does so the fire that had been separating them jumps and grows bigger, shooting into the sky like a small inferno and then quickly shrinking back down to normal. "You have no idea what life has been like."
"Then why don't you tell me, help me to understand?"
"I can't"
"See this is what I was talking about; you always shutdown like this. Why can't you trust me?" Zuko says nothing, and with his face obscured by the fire Aang can't tell what he's thinking. He could be gearing up to kill him for all he knows.
"Alright Aang, try to understand then. Three years ago I was exiled by the crown prince of the fire nation and my life ended. When it happened every friend I had abandoned me, even my own mother, because none of them wanted to share my fate. For about a year afterwards I tried escaping that island.
"When I finally did I traveled around the earth kingdom for a little while, and by a little while I mean a day. People I'd never met before or even seen me, all of them reported back to the Fire Nation and I was "returned" to that damn island. You see Aang, I learned the hard way that the only person you can really trust is yourself."
Finally having burned himself out, Zuko falls back to the ground and stares into the smouldering embers that were once the fire, the flames having cooled with his ire. He keeps his head down, not wanting to chance looking at Aang. Though he'd never admit it, he's afraid of what he might in see in the boy's young, innocent eyes.
He hears Aang get up and assumes he's going to leave. Zuko hangs his head even more, exhaling deeply, and feeling like a fool for telling him these things about himself.
"Well I think you're wrong," Aang says taking a seat nest to Zuko "No man is an island Zuko. I think if you allowed yourself to trust other people, they'll do the same in turn, they'll accept you."
"Like who?"
"I do. When we first met I didn't think you were a bad person or anything, I was just scared. I trusted you would help me, and you did. You saved me from a whole Fire Nation battalion, and you didn't even know me. All I could think was 'wow! That guy just stood up to an army-for me. He must be really brave.' I trust and accept you Zuko; maybe you should try and do the same."
Zuko says nothing and for a moment Aang thinks he might have gotten through to the firebender. Then Zuko stands,
"Yeah well…what do you know?" he says sighing exasperatedly and moving to the other side of the campfire. Accepting defeat-but only for the moment-Aang rolls over to go to sleep.
"Goodnight Zuko." He says as he falls asleep, though Zuko ignores him by pretending to be asleep while mulling over what Aang said to him. Soon, he too falls asleep, neither of them aware that there was a certain blue-eyed person listening in on their conversation from the shadows.