No there ain't no rest for the wicked
Until we close our eyes for good.
-"Ain't No Rest For The Wicked", Cage the Elephant
It's deadly quiet.
This isn't really a surprise, since Zuko is at a funeral.
The weather is nice; the sun beats down on his face relentlessly and he can feel sweat start to build underneath his white robes.
The pyre sits in the middle of the royal courtyard with all the funeral goers standing around it. High ranking soldiers form a tight ring around the pyre, all standing rigid as they await the body.
Usually the body would be sat atop the pyre wearing something ornate and white, or, if they're involved in the military, wearing their uniform.
They have to wrap Admiral Zhao's body up in red cloth, as it is unfit for public viewing. Whoever killed him ripped him up pretty badly. They have to carry his body up to the pyre in pieces.
As soon as Zhao's body is arranged neatly atop the pyre everyone looks at the Fire Lord expectantly.
Ozai, who is sitting on a high chair to Zuko's right, stands up with a grave expression on his face.
Zuko knows it's fake. His father couldn't be happier that the man who was a perpetual thorn in his side is finally dead.
Ozai raises his hand, makes a sweeping motion and yells, "Fire!"
The soldiers surrounding the pyre go into firebending forms in perfect unison. They punch out their fists and then the pyre goes up in flames. Zuko suppresses a yawn. They'll have to wait until the body is ash before they can leave.
The royal fire sages standing at the foot of the pyre begin a traditional funeral chant.
Zuko takes this moment to glance at his sister, who is on his left.
She's glaring at him with such hate that Zuko would shrink back if he actually feared her. But he doesn't. Not anymore.
Instead he presses his lips together in order to prevent himself from laughing at her.
It's probably inappropriate to laugh at a funeral.
Zuko likes distractions.
Distractions can come in quite a few different forms. There's smoking, drinking, eating, sleeping, and training.
The distraction that Zuko is using tonight is skinny with black hair and brown eyes.
He knows her fairly well; she's been a seamstress at the palace for a couple of years now. He's not really sure what her name is, but this has never seemed to bother her.
His lips are at her throat. Her fingers are digging into his shoulder and one hand is tangled in his hair. His crown is askew. She lets out low moans and rolls and grinds her hips into his. It feels good. Actually, it feels better than good. It feels great. He pushes the opening of her servant's uniform off to the side, revealing creamy white skin. As he starts to place kisses on her now bare shoulder, his mind starts to focus on a single thing: pleasure.
And not just his pleasure either. Their pleasure. Zuko is good at this, this whole "lover" thing. His bedroom reputation is flawless.
There's a knock at the door.
Zuko doesn't stop touching the seamstress; they're only a couple of feet away from his bed. Whoever is at the door will eventually get the message that he's not coming out any time soon.
Except after a moment of silence whoever is at the door starts knocking again, except this time with more urgency.
Zuko rips his mouth away from the seamstress, his right hand fisting into the fabric around her hip. "What?" he barks.
"Prince Zuko." The man on the other side of his bedroom door sounds horrified. "I am terribly sorry to…disturb you at this time, but there has been an incident in the training area."
Zuko pulls away from the seamstress and she whimpers in protest. "What kind of incident?"
"Two of the volunteers got into a fight, sir. One of them isn't in the best of shape."
Zuko lets out an explosive sigh. He glances between the seamstress and the door. The temptation to stay in his bedroom with this girl is great. But on the other hand, the Project is his responsibility now and it would be negligent for him to not attend to the volunteers.
"I'll be right out," he says to the door gruffly.
The seamstress frowns at him in clear disappointment.
Zuko doesn't apologize to her. He just puts his discarded shirt back on and leaves his room.
The setting sun is casting a dark orange glow of the training area set up specifically for the volunteers.
The man who knocked on his door leads him into the area with sure steps. Zuko recognized him as soon as he opened up his bedroom door. He's one of the waterbender's guards.
This doesn't bode well.
Zuko pauses at the edge of the area. At first glance the scene in front of him doesn't come across as all that serious. The blind earthbender is yelling at the waterbender, who sits on the ground a dozen or so feet away from her.
At second glance Zuko sees that Katara is covered in bruises and contusions and is cradling her right wrist. And she's sitting because she cannot stand up.
"The blind girl challenged the waterbender to a fight, bending only," the guard informs Zuko in a low voice. Zuko slowly nods in comprehension.
The blind earthbender is still yelling.
"—absolutely pathetic. Are you sure you're even a waterbender? I'm not even wet—"
When Zuko makes a step in her direction she swivels around and stares towards him warily, but she hushes up. The welt on her neck from their last encounter is still healing.
Satisfied, Zuko turns away and walks right up to Katara. She looks even worse up close. Her one visible eye, the one not normally covered by her hair, is nearly swollen shut. There are quite a few rips and tears throughout the fabric of her clothes, and a deep cut on her knee bleeds profusely. She looks like she's just been continuously pummeled by a bunch of rocks, which of course she has.
The blind girl starts to talk again. "How are you still sitting there?" she accuses Katara. "This spar isn't even over. Get off your lazy ass and let's finish this."
"I don't think she can," Zuko says sharply.
Katara's head snaps up when she hears him and she begins to shake her head quickly. Please don't, she mouths.
"Looks like you've broken her wrist," Zuko informs the blind girl. Katara's shoulders slump in defeat. "One of her eyes is swollen shut, she's covered in bruises, her knee is bleeding pretty badly, and since she's refusing to stand up I think you've hurt her ankle somehow."
He turns his head and stares back at the earthbender. She's gone pale, very pale. Her milky green eyes widen in horror and then she turns her head away, obviously guilty.
Being blind would mean she cannot see the damage she's managing to inflict upon the people she's fighting.
"You should be grateful that this was a bending fight and not just a purely physical one. Otherwise you wouldn't have known where to swing your fists."
The blind girl goes from pale to bright red.
Zuko shifts his attention back to Katara.
He moves down to help her up off the ground, but she scoots away from him as if she doesn't want him to touch her. Seconds later a couple of her assigned guards appear, and one scoops her up quickly. She winces a bit as he jostles her injured wrist.
Zuko frowns. This bothers him.
"Take her back to her room," he instructs. "I'll go get the physician."
He's almost tempted to tell the blind girl that she can sleep outside tonight.
He brings her grapes.
It's not like it was hard, he just went into the kitchens and took them from a bowl, but the way Katara's face lights up (impressive, considering how beat up it is) when she sees them gives Zuko a slight feeling of accomplishment.
The physician is on his way, and after handing the waterbender the fruit Zuko leans against a wall and crosses his arms over his chest.
The waterbender, propped up on her bed by a bunch of pillows, pops a purple grape into her mouth and sighs happily.
"It's just fruit," Zuko mentions after a beat.
Katara stiffens on the bed. "I don't get to eat it much."
"Fruit is pretty common in the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation."
She shrugs one shoulder. "It's also pretty expensive."
"But don't you have sticky fingers?"
She scowls at him and opens her mouth to comment, but the door swings open and the physician and his new assistant walk in.
Zuko has never seen the assistant before in his life, but when the young woman sees him she turns pink.
The physician lets out a pitying noise when he sees Katara. "Someone did a number on you."
The waterbender turns her head away, clearly shutting down the conversation before it can begin.
The physician moves to the bed and sets down his bag on the bedside table. He pulls out salves, ointments, towels, bandages, and liquid filled bottles. "I'm going to need you to take off your shirt," he asks Katara.
She turns bright red and looks pointedly at her lap, but she complies. It takes her awhile to pull her top off, and she winces and whimpers multiple times as she does so. When it's off the physician lets out a slow sigh. Katara's torso looks bad.
"Does it hurt for you to breathe?" the physician asks, bending over to examine her side. Katara shakes her head.
After a couple of minutes the physician declares that none of her ribs are broken. He gestures for his assistant. "Bring me the bowl of water."
The girl moves forward quickly, too quickly. She glances up at Zuko right as she reaches Katara, jumps, and then spills water all over the patient.
Zuko rolls his eyes.
"I'm so sorry!" the assistant cries, grabbing a towel and trying desperately to dab up the water.
Katara waves her away. She moves her uninjured hand in a sweeping motion and the water lifts itself into the air and neatly returns to the bowl.
"No harm no foul," she says with a shrug.
The assistant nods, looks back at the prince and then quickly mumbles another apology.
Katara shots Zuko a look and he's somewhat surprised to see that she's amused.
Some time passes as the physician cleans and bandages Katara's wounds, then he puts her broken wrist in a sling and wraps her ankle. Katara pouts.
"You know," the physician says as he starts to gather his things. "I'm surprised you needed me. Most waterbenders have the ability to heal small injuries. Some of the more talented ones can actually heal life threatening ones."
Katara's face flushes and she shrugs one shoulder. "I can't," she says sharply, dismissing the subject and glaring at the foot of the bed.
The physician eyes her briefly before picking his bag off the bedside table. "It would be a useful skill. Sometimes I wish I could do something like that. It would certainly make my job easier."
Zuko clears his throat, calmly reminding the physician that he's still in the room.
"I will check up on you tomorrow," the physician states quickly before exiting. The assistant quickly follows him, blushing and stumbling as she passes Zuko.
There's silence for a long time after they close the door behind them.
Finally Katara breaks it. "Do most girls trip over themselves when you're around?"
"Yes," he answers smoothly.
Her head turns and she gives him a disgusted look. "I bet you love that."
He catches her sarcasm and chooses not to indulge her with an answer.
"You're not very good at waterbending," he says instead. It's not an assumption, it's a fact.
"I threw ice needles at you the other day," she reminds him. She looks upset.
"Yes, and you missed. Not that they were all that impressive."
"SHUT UP!" she screams from her bed.
Zuko jumps, startled by her overreaction.
Before he can say anything the waterbender rolls away from him and presents him with her back. Her shoulders are trembling.
"It's not like the Project is too concerned about your skills," Zuko says, confused by how she's acting. "We just need you for your genes."
This seems to make things worse. Katara stills completely before slowly grabbing a blanket and pulling it up over her body like a shield.
"Go away." Her soft voice is muffled.
Now he just feels completely confused. A lot of benders aren't actually good at bending. Why is she taking her lack of talent so personally? "Look—"
"Please. Just go."
He frowns and then sees the scrolls and parchment he'd brought in the other say sitting untouched on her desk.
"I'll check up on you tomorrow, and I expect you to have the things I asked you to memorize memorized. No exceptions."
Then he leaves. He might have slammed the door behind him.
The next morning Zuko joins his father and sister for breakfast, as per usual.
The meal is quiet, as it normally is, until Fire Lord Ozai addresses his son. "Zuko, I heard that two of the volunteers got into a fight yesterday."
Zuko freezes. Across from him Azula places her chopsticks down onto her plate and folds her hands against the table. Her golden eyes gleam.
"That's correct," Zuko answers, voice steady.
"The waterbender was injured," Ozai says.
Zuko slowly nods. His gut twists in apprehension.
"Has the earthbender who injured her been punished yet?"
Zuko clears his throat. "No."
Ozai frowns in disappointment and Azula gives Zuko a small smile.
"You must punish her. The waterbender is invaluable. Drill it into the other volunteer's heads that they cannot touch her."
"Of course," Zuko answers evenly. "It will be done."
Ozai looks him in the eye for a long moment. Then he nods once in satisfaction and continues with his meal.
Zuko represses a sigh of relief.
Azula's upper lip curls in a snarl.
Zuko finds them in a dusty section of the library.
He's already sent out the order for the blind earthbender's punishment and has decided to distract himself by spending the rest of his afternoon looking up training techniques.
Not that he's planning to train anyone, of course.
They're old. When he unravels them a dusky smell hits him, and the edges are frayed, but they're definitely still useable.
The pictures in them are graphic. One wouldn't need to read the descriptions to understand the point of these particular scrolls.
When he opens up the door to the waterbender's room he finds her in the corner chair, hunched over her desk. She's writing out the alphabet, but looks up at him as he enters.
The visible half of her face is more difficult to read than normal since her eye is swollen shut. Zuko supposes she can see just fine out of the other one, although he doesn't understand how with all of that hair in the way.
She looks terrified.
"I'm not done!" she says, clearly panic. "I'm got um, maybe half memorized? If you could just give me—"
"Tomorrow then," Zuko cuts her off. Her shoulders sag in relief.
"I thought you would like to know that the blind earthbender has been dealt with."
Katara goes pale. "What?"
"I've sent someone to inflict all of you injuries onto her. An eye for an eye. Seemed just."
Katara's face drains of color."No."
Zuko frowns.
"But she's just a kid!" Katara exclaims. She starts to stand up, but wobbles on her injured ankle. Finally she slumps back down into her seat. She sighs. "I was the one who challenged her in the first place, I was—"
"An honorable fighter doesn't let his enemy suffer just to make him suffer," Zuko interrupts. Doesn't this girl know anything about a fighting code of conduct? "Your waterbending was so pitiful that you didn't even get her wet, yet she obviously continued to attack you despite the fact that the two of you weren't evenly matched. That's unacceptable."
The waterbender looks sad. "But she's blind." As she trails off she turns her head away from Zuko, unable to look at him. "You shouldn't have punished her like that. Being temporarily confined to her room would've sufficed."
For a second Zuko considers telling her that his father told him to do it, that he hadn't been planning to punish the blind earthbender in the first place. But he doesn't.
He dumps what's in his arms on top of her bed instead.
"What are those?" Katara asks, taken aback.
"Waterbending scrolls." Zuko is already heading towards the door.
"She's called Toph, by the way." The waterbender's voice is soft and clear.
"I don't care." Zuko is out of her bedroom and down the hallway quickly, but it's no use.
The name is already seared into his head.
That night he has to be sick again. He had hoped that he'd be able to fall asleep, and that sleeping would be his distraction.
But he can't.
He frowns at his reflection in the mirror and thinks about what he's done, what he's responsible for. He'll need to write uncle soon. In his letters he tells Uncle everything, although in reality Uncle doesn't know anything.
Zuko never sends the letters.
Eventually he manages to fall asleep. He dreams about ripping, and there's screaming and blood. Sometimes the blood is his sister's, sometimes it's the waterbender's or a servant's.
Most of the time it's his.
A/N:
First off, I want to apologize for the lateness of this chapter. I caught the flu, which had me out of commission for a solid week. Then I nearly lost one of the two jobs I have and I also have family in town.
Combine all that with feeling stuck with this chapter and we've got ourselves a late update.
Second off, sorry that this chapter isn't all that long. This chapter kept giving me trouble for some reason, so to be honest I'm just happy that it's finished and out there for you guys to read.
I do hope everyone liked this despite the lateness and the shortness! Please review and let me know your thoughts!
Also, Happy Valentine's Day! It's a pointless and ludicrous holiday, but I'm so excited for the candy. ;)