Disclaimer: Only in my dreams do I own Avatar: The Last Airbender
Holy Crapmuffins! Thank you so much for following, favoriting, and reviewing! Honestly I started writing this a while ago and nearly tossed it, but just by your sweet reviews I am inspired again! *hugs ridiculously tight*
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And now I give you chapter two of The Long Way Home!
The moment Zuko opened his eyelids to find himself lying half naked on a rough cot in the middle of a completely unfamiliar room, surrounded by greenery and trees growing out of the stone floorboards, he knew something was terribly wrong .
His suspicion was confirmed when the face of the Avatar appeared inches above him.
"Great! You're finally awake!" he said far too cheerfully for the situation.
As it is habitual whenever he is within range of the Avatar, Zuko lunged to grab hold of the boy.
He cried out as he felt a sharp pain on the far left side of his abdomen. The Avatar's eyes widened and he put a hand on Zuko's shoulder.
"Don't move. Your stab injury is still mending."
Stab injury?! He looked down and eyed his bare stomach, the source of the sharp pain. His entire torso was wrapped in blood stained white bandages. Blood stained?!
"What in Agni's name is going on here?!"
"Watch your language, young man," said a creaking voice. He slowly turned his head as to not cause himself anymore pain and caught sight of a wizened old women clad entirely in green walking towards them, holding a wooden cup, "You'll tarnish Miyuki's ears."
Zuko furrowed his brow, "Who?"
"Don't ask," the Avatar said as the white haired woman opened her mouth to speak.
The woman had stepped beside the cot and shoved the wooden cup into his face, "Drink this," she demanded.
Zuko took one glance at the wooden cup made an affronted face at the woman. Who did this woman think she was to order him, Crown Prince of the Fire nation to drink whatever the shabby cup contained?
"Speak to your betters with respect, peasant."
To his surprise the aged woman merely smiled, exposing her pink gums, "You remind me of that man who passed by here a few days ago. He had the hottest temper and ordered me to leave to search for this boy," she gestured toward the Avatar, who looked jaded at the woman's babbling, evidently it was not a rare occasion for her to begin a topic erratically, "and some Prince. Now the Avatar told me not to say that you were here while he went to give his friends some frozen frogs and I don't see why I should tell-"
Zuko cut her off and turned to the Avatar, "Who is this man looking for me?" he demanded.
The Avatar opened his mouth to speak but his words were drowned out by the continued prattle of the woman.
"Then I told the grouchy Admiral that I didn't care who he was this was my herbarium and I can let in who I want. Then he got pushy and forced his troops into my home so I hid you in Miyuki's playpen…."
At this point Zuko's amber eyes widened and he once more tried to speak over the woman. When she did not cease to talking her nonsense, the little patience Zuko had on a regular basis evaporated.
"Will you shut your mouth?! No one has any desire to listen to your nonsense!"
Zuko had gotten what he desired, but the disapproving look he received from the woman was so alike his grandmother's he shivered and impulsively straightened his posture. Zuko shook off the memory of his reproachful grandmother and reached forward to grab the Avatar's yellow collar, pulling him toward the cot.
"If you value your life, you will tell me exactly what happened."
OoOoOo
Katara yawned as she stretched her arms and sat up in her sleeping bag. She smiled at the restored energy as she moved all the useless items Momo had brought them off her lap. Disgusting as those frogs may have been, they had certainly cured her infection.
Beside her, Sokka was still sleeping undisturbed, his mouth hanging agape and getting a pool of drool on his sleeping bag. She turned her head to greet Aang but his spot on Appa was occupied by a large pile of dead mice caught by Momo. Clearly Aang was still out helping the herbalist, who had given them the frogs, care for a patient.
She shrugged and picked up her water-skin. Before stepping out to walk to the river she left a note for Sokka so he wouldn't worry about her.
It was the first clear morning, since they came to the ruins of Taku. Not a single rain cloud in the sky. It was a nice change after the several days of nonstop rain, but Katara had to admit she would miss it while it was gone.
She quickly trod on the crumbling stone paths, careful not to slip on the large puddles left from last night's storm. Behind her she heard soft, almost inaudible footsteps.
Katara whipped her head around and shrieked.
OoOoOo
Aang slowly backed away from Zuko, who was staring at the wanted poster with absolute incredulity. Aang was surprised to see that the prince's expression didn't have a trace of anger. His face looked merely disbelieving and a trace of what Aang supposed was dejection. But he blinked and his expression returned to its standard stoniness. Zuko rather roughly shoved the paper into Aang's hands.
"This is clearly a forgery. It is too improbable for the crown prince to be a wanted criminal."
"But it has the Firelord's seal on it," protested Aang.
"It is a forgery!" he insisted; "Now if we're done here, I'm thirsty."
The herbalist, Kaiku stepped forward with the wooden cup Zuko had outright refused, "Here," she said thrusting the cup into his hands.
The Fire Prince made an exceptionally un-princely face at the green chunky liquid, but slowly nodded. He inhaled deeply and engulfed the remedy in one swallow. Aang bit his lip to prevent himself from bursting into laughter at Zuko's expression upon swallowing the entire cup.
"Get me some water to get that revolting muck out of my mouth."
The avatar nodded, his lips twitching as to suppress the still present urge to laugh. He turned and stepped out of the small herbarium, leaving Zuko alone with Kaiku. He held the wooden cup in his hands out toward her.
"Take this away."
The old woman merely stood there, her green eyes, surprisingly sharp for her age surveying him rather amusedly. Zuko raised his single eyebrow.
"Well?"
To his utter surprise the Kaiku smirked. She took the wooden cup and turned her back on him to leave the room.
"I'm going to the market to fetch some plum seeds," she turned her head to face him a smirk still residing on her face, "Try not to infect Miyuki with your arrogance."
With that she closed the back door and was out of sight.
Zuko made a move to get out of bed and give that woman a piece of his mind. Once again the sharp pain in his abdomen reminded him of his injury. He winced and glared at his bandaged torso.
He was not accustomed to being as helpless as he felt at that moment. He might not be the best fighter but somehow he had the luck to be able to walk out of a fight with only an assortment of bruises, scratches and burns.
His amber eyes roamed the room. The scroll lying unfurled on the ragged bedside table, imprinted with his name and face caught his eye. For a moment he simply stared at the words that he knew his father had proclaimed.
Everything he had feared since being sent on a hopeless mission at age thirteen was written on this simple scroll in front of him. Everything had been taken from him, his mission, his birthright, the little honor he had left. Now he was no longer 'The banished Prince', but 'The traitor Prince'. He was considered a criminal for trying to retrieve the Avatar for his father.
Zhao must have taken over the mission by now, along with his ship, his crew, and…Uncle. That greasy haired, monkey faced, mutton chopped, Admiral, had taken all that Zuko had. He should've killed him when he had the chance.
The small voice in the back of his head, which sounded remarkably like his uncle chuckled, "But you are not a killer, Prince Zuko."
"I know," Zuko said in a hollow voice, "Maybe things wouldn't have ended this way if I was."
He paused. He was talking to himself, one of the first signs of the mentally unstable. He shook his head and made an effort to get himself out of bed.
OoOoOo
Katara tripped and fell to the ground, as she tried to evade the arrow flying past her ear. She hastily crawled backward as to escape the half dozen uniformed men approaching her, desperately looking for some source of water.
She was stopped when half a dozen arrows pinned her sleeves to the ground.
Katara looked up in horror. Through her travels she had come across dangerous and intimidating foes, but these archers, all with an identical red face, swiftly approaching her without a sound.
It was the scariest thing she'd ever seen in her life.
OoOoOo
Aang froze when he heard it.
A bloodcurdling scream amidst the peaceful ruins.
"Katara,"
There was a faint splash of a canteen falling into a river, as Aang ran.
OoOoOo
"Well aren't you a pretty little thing."
What was it with Fire nation men and tying people to trees? Was it a tradition in their barbaric country to tie captives to the nearest tree?
Katara scowled up at the sideburned man in front of her.
"Let me go," Katara demanded.
Zhao chuckled. He reached out and lifted her chin up, "Now, waterbender. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Tell me, where is the Avatar?"
Katara spat on his face.
Zhao dropped Katara's chin and wiped his face, a disgruntled expression residing on his face.
"You're either remarkably brave or remarkably stupid, waterbender," to Katara's dismay the Admiral smiled, "Prince Zuko may be spineless enough not to punish his prisoners, but I am not so merciful"
He clicked his fingers, smirking deviously at Katara. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.
Then she smelled it.
The scent of burning hair.
She quickly jerked her head behind her to see her braid slowly burning away, inch, by inch, by inch.
Her head was roughly pulled back as Zhao took hold of her hair loopies, "Tell me what I want, waterbender!"
"What might that be, Zhao?" said a voice above them.
Zhao froze. He dropped Katara's braid and jerked his head up to see Aang, perched on high branch of the tree Katara was tied to.
"Seize the Avatar!" Zhao shouted, pointing up into the tree.
Aang swooped, almost birdlike out of the tree as a dozen arrows flew his way. He kept a firm hold on his orange glider as he flew away. The Yuyan archers seemed to disappear out of thin air as they as they chased him, Zhao following behind at a much slower pace.
Katara's fingers desperately prod at the rope binding her wrists, as she watched Aang and the Fire Nation troop disappear.
She couldn't let Aang be captured. He was the last hope for an end to this war. They had come so far; she couldn't let it all be wasted because she had been careless.
She stopped abruptly when she heard a familiar chitter.
"Momo!"
The flying lemur was gilding steadily down the tree, landing promptly on Katara's head. He plopped down onto her shoulder and crawled down her back, toward her tied wrists. Momo rested his sharp teeth on the rope and began to nibble the rope away.
As her wrists were freed she smiled gratefully at Momo. She ran in the direction the Zhao and his archers had taken off, Momo following behind.
OoOoOo
Aang laughed; as he watched Zhao and the Yuyan archers try frantically to escape the deep, sticky swamp they had fallen into.
As threatening as the archers may be, now that their bows and arrows had fallen into the depths of bog they better resembled the jesters that came to visit the Southern Air Temple from time to time.
He sat on a large stone, just outside the swamp's edge. He frowned as Zhao began to shout at the top of his lungs, in language so coarse it made Aang's ears redden.
Zhao was now just a few feet away from the stone now. Aang held his hand out over the murky liquid and froze it.
Aang took hold of his glider and soared upward and back toward Katara's tree, trying to block out the sound of Zhao's cursing.
OoOoOo
Zuko was burning a plum tree.
It was the first time he accidentally bended in the last six years.
The tall tree, growing through the tiles of the herbarium, was completely ablaze, giving off a brilliant orange.
Zuko just stood in front of the burning tree, staring into the bright flames. Not caring what the fire would destroy. Nothing mattered anymore. Not this hut, not the Avatar, not the white cat at his feet, not his own life. He had already lost everything else, what difference was losing his life.
OoOoOo
Katara thanked the spirits as the orange blur of Aang's glider came into view.
"Aang!"
Aang landed in front of Katara, a worried expression plastered on his face, "We need to hurry. Zhao and his men are occupied right now but they won't be for long. C'mon," he said grabbing her arm, "We need to get to the herbarium."
Katara blinked, "Why?"
"Zhao's also after one of the patients. I can't leave them to be captured."
Katara nodded. Aang took her hand and pulled her into a run.
By the time they reached a woven grass hut, that she assumed was the herbarium, Katara was almost positive that she was going to pass out.
As she opened the door she made dozens of assumptions and expectations about what the patient was like.
What she did not expect to see was a large plum tree in the center of the hut, its leaves and branches aflame or to see Prince Zuko standing stiffly before it.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Author's Note #2: I hope you can see from this chapter how much I need a Beta. But honestly please send me a PM if you have any good Beta recs!
Hugs and Butterfly kisses!
-MaddyTheFangirl