Prompt: #93 - Choices
Word Count: 415
Rating: PG-13, for a swear word.
Author's Notes: This is the fifth installment of that miniseries I claimed to have finished. I don't know if there will be more or not, I suppose it depends on if this creative burst continues or not.

"No. Absolutely not. We are NOT taking him with us," Sokka proclaimed adamantly. "No way."

"Sokka, he has nowhere else to go. His only family is dead," Katara pleaded.

"Dead? Azula wasn't dead last time I checked. Or the Fire Lord." Sokka was not happy about this plan, but Katara didn't care.

"Well, I like him," Toph announced. "He's fun to mess with."

"See? Toph's all for it!" Katara tried pathetically. Sokka wasn't convinced. Desperately, she turned to Aang for help. "Aang?" She whimpered, giving him her best puppy-dog eyes.

Aang took one eyeful of Katara, cleared his throat and said, "I agree with Katara." Katara gave him a dazzling smile and Aang was just glad he didn't pass out from sheer ecstasy right then and there.

(Toph hated to think what would happen if Katara flashed him sometime. The poor kid would probably go into cardiac arrest on the spot. Or possibly spontaneously combust. Which actually sounded pretty cool, or would have, if she could have seen it.)

"And that's a majority!" Katara declared triumphantly.

"But, but Momo didn't vote yet!" Sokka tried. "And neither did Appa!"

"Zuko is coming with us and that's final," Katara said in her best 'I-am-the-leader-and-what-I-say-goes-so-you-just-shut-up-before-I-kick-your-skinny-ass' voice. Sokka was cowering, and Katara smiled. "Got it?" She asked sweetly. Sokka whimpered. "Good."

Then Toph chimed in, "But I still say we make him our slave," and things just went downhill from there.

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"No."

"What did you say?"

Zuko fidgeted, then revised his answer. "No, thanks. I'd rather travel alone."

Katara took a moment to digest this, then promptly told him, "Too bad. You're coming with us."

"No."

"I already convinced everyone!" Well, except Sokka, but his vote didn't really matter anyway, right?

"Sorry."

"Zuko," she began reasonably. "If you go by yourself, you'll be alone. You'll be injured. You'll have no money, no weapons, and," --she took an appraising glance-- "very little clothing. We can fix all that."

"I said, no, thanks."

"Azula will kill you."

He shrugged.

"Well, don't say I didn't try," Katara admonished, just before she knocked him unconscious with a water whip.

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"You kidnapped me," were Zuko's first words when he woke up bright and early the next morning on the back of a flying bison.

Katara shrugged.

"That's illegal."

She laughed. "You're a wanted criminal. Get over it."

And really, Zuko couldn't argue with that.

END.