Zuko could never help but notice that his life seemed to turn on the smallest of things. A whispered word here, a moment of passion there, or strangest of all, the quack of a turtleduck.
A direct sequel to Sunday's entry, First Kiss. This can also be read as a much better, properly proofread rewrite of the opening to my first story, A Different Path.
Warning: There's, like, an f-bomb lurking somewhere in there.
Turtleduck
ZUKO WOULD HAVE WALKED RIGHT PAST THE POND IF IT HADN'T BEEN FOR THE QUACK.
He regretted stopping almost immediately. It was just so…so utterly stupid. So utterly like me. It was the second full day since they had fled Ba Sing Se, fled a failure the likes of which none of them had ever imagined, even in the depths of their most horrid nightmares. They had flown all through the rest of that day, flown through that night and the day that followed and the night after that, not daring to stop, ever mindful that their exhausted air bison was carrying three wanted fugitives, a stricken Avatar, and a traitorous prince. No, Zuko corrected himself, his eye searching the pond, searching swaying shadows cast by the overarching trees above, worse than a traitorous prince. No, I'm a spare prince now, and we all know what happens to spare princes, don't we? How does the story go? The gods care not how many princes and princesses live on the day the funeral pyre is lit, for the Scarlet Throne only has room for one.
Zuko looked up. The pond was a small one, with an irregular shape, almost completely covered by interlocking branches thick and heavy with summer leaves. It might have been neat and well-kept once, but now it was one with nature, the last remnants of a long-gone manor. Zuko couldn't help but wonder who had ordered it built, who had ordered it maintained. How old was it? Did some long-dead petty king create it, or was there a temple here once, this little pond the all that was left of the local priest's home? Or was it-
Stop it, you idiot, just…just fucking stop it. Zuko groaned at his own idiocy, smacking himself upside the head and adjusting the strap from which hung several skins full of water he had filled at a nearby stream. He was tired, exhausted, bewildered, shattered, conflicted, his emotions a tattered maelstrom, the heat of Katara's kiss still seeming to linger on his lips, the pain of his uncle's last words still searing his bruised and bleeding heart.
No! Dammit, Zuko, get a hold of yourself! He resisted the urge to slap himself across the face and turned on his heel, snapping around in an about face that even Master Piandao at the Royal Military Academy would have approved of. He set his shoulders and narrowed his one good eye and cursed the lack of expression in his dead eye and gave the strap of the waterskins one last adjustment and lifted one foot and prepared to march away and forget this pond had ever existed, or that he had ever stopped beside it.
But then it happened again.
Quack!
He spun back around on his heel so fast that the world tilted and went for a little spin. He blinked, forcing everything to snap back into focus, and then he looked down and there it was, swimming toward him, slow and unsure, for a moment he was sure he was imagining things, that the exhaustion and the stress and the fact that the most beautiful woman in the world had kissed him – with tongue – had finally gotten to him and here he was, standing by a random little pond in the middle of nowhere, finally going mad. Who knows? Maybe I'll go full Fire Lord Higashiyama and start talking to trees. Wouldn't that be funny? My sister can tie me up out front of the Palace and charge twenty sen a head to let the peasants come and throw rocks at me.
It wouldn't be the worst end I've ever imagined for myself.
He was sitting. He didn't remember sitting down, but his butt hurt and there was a faint ache in his spine, so he must've come down hard. The waterskins were in a sloppy pile beside him and he was inching forward, his breath caught in his throat, he didn't have any idea what he was doing, he would've given anything, anything at all, for a loaf of bread, or even a crust of bread, anything, but he didn't have so much as a crumb so he inched his way down to the edge of the pond and held out his hand and waggled his fingers.
Just like Mother taught me.
If the turtleduck had just turned right around and paddled away, everything would've been just fine. He would've sat there in the cool shade of the trees, fought down a nicotine fit or three, stood up, brushed off the grass and picked up the waterskins and who knows, he might even have chuckled a time or two, though definitely not three, that would be excessive, and then he would turn on his heel one final time and march away and go right back to dodging reproachful glares from Sokka and exchanging arm punches with Toph and listening to Aang breathing and maybe, just maybe, lock eyes with Katara for yet another brief, exhilarating moment, at least until they both remembered where they were and what had happened and then they'd blush bright red and look away and then-
And then…
And then…
The turtleduck didn't run away. It hesitated, it turned a few lazy circles, but then it was there, stretching its head out towards his fingertips…
At which point it promptly bit him.
Zuko stared.
It bit me.
Zuko blinked.
It…bit me…
Zuko's entire body shook.
It BIT me…
Mommy, it bit me!
Can I have your room if you die?
Lucky to be born.
Everything I do, I do for you.
About time, jerkbender.
You will learn respect, and pain will be your teacher!
If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends, too?
It's just…I think it's time that you and I sat down and talked, you know, really talked, just the two of us, no Aang, no mission, no anything, just…talked…
You're a prince to me, Your Highness.
I've never been prouder of you…
He didn't know how long he sat there, his only company a confused turtleduck and a pile of waterskins and his memories. All he knew was that he didn't stop crying until he realized someone was sitting beside him. He took deep, burning gulps of air, wiped his eye and blubbered and dabbed at his cheek. That almost made him start crying all over again, the fact that there were tears on only one cheek. All he wanted to do was cry his eyes out, but he couldn't, he could only cry one out, because the other was dead and burned and buried in the mark of his father's esteem and it was times like this that he could almost feel the fire touching his skin all over again and he could almost hear his screams and-
He pulled himself upright, giving his eye a final wipe and straightening his back. He turned to his new companion and tried to smile and almost broke down all over again.
It was Katara. She was trying to smile, too, but it wasn't working, because her bottom lip was beginning to tremble and her eyes looked washed out, more grey than their usual startling, almost blinding deep bright blue. He reached out for her, and one of her hands shot out and she tangled her fingers in his and the smile grew even as it began to crack.
"Hey," she whispered, her voice thick and quivering. "I was beginning to worry about you."
He tried to smile, he really did. "Sorry about that…I guess I just…saw this pond and lost track of time…"
She nodded, quick and sharp, brushing at her eyes and looking out at the pond.
He couldn't help but notice that, instead of letting go of his hand, she gripped it even tighter.
"It's a…it's a nice little pond," she said, almost whispering. "It could use a little tender loving care, but it's nice."
He couldn't take his eye off her. "There's a turtleduck swimming around in it somewhere. I think my blubbering scared it off."
Her body stiffened. Two months they had had in Ba Sing Se before the Crystal Catacombs, two months that had felt like two years and that seemed far more than two days in their past. For two months, they had seen each other almost every day and talked about everything, even their mothers.
Katara knew all about the turtleducks.
Her grip on his hand grew tighter. He knew she was well aware of how quickly the memory of a long-lost mother could strike.
And how cruel that strike could be.
She turned away from the pond, went digging with her free hand in a satchel he hadn't noticed was slung across her body. "So," she said, her voice still thick, a lone tear trickling its way down her cheek, "Sokka went to Chameleon Bay, right? And apparently, Dad and the other warriors have captured a lot of Fire Nation stuff since they started guarding it, and that includes just…mountains of Fire Nation cigarettes, so Sokka, he brought a few cartons back with him, and I figured he could spare a few so here you go."
She whirled around and pressed something into his free hand, and she took her free hand away from his and he could help but shudder at how her fingertips brushed the rough skin of his palm as they withdrew but then he looked down and there it was.
An unopened pack of standard, Fire Nation Army-issued cigarettes.
He laughed. He couldn't help it. He laughed and shook his head and stuffed them in his pocket.
He wanted them desperately, but they could wait.
"How are you, Katara?"
She smiled, sad and small.
"You know, Zuko, I don't get asked that very often."
"Well…prepare to get asked it a lot more."
Her smile grew, just a little. "About time. And as for me…I'm…I'm not okay."
"Me, neither."
"I'm scared."
"Me, too."
"I don't know if Aang will make it."
"It won't be for lack of trying."
"I'm sorry about your uncle."
"That makes two of us."
"I'm beginning to think we might not win this thing."
"Me, too."
"I really like you."
"I really like you, too."
"My father's going to be mad, but I don't really care."
"Me, neither."
"Did you want to kiss me, when we went on that last date that wasn't supposed to be a date and we went and looked at the fountain and you lit the lanterns while I covered my eyes?"
"Desperately."
"You should have."
"I know that now."
"What did you say to your sister?"
"What?"
"When she gave you back your katana and made her offer, you looked at your katana for a long time then you slung it over your back and you said something in Nihongo and then you attacked her."
"Oh…it was…well…the closed translation into Inuktitut would be, Sister, I love you, but seriously, get bent."
"Really?"
"Really. Oddly enough, it's the pithiest thing I've ever said."
She started to laugh, and then he caught the bug and he was laughing, too, and they laughed until they were in each other's arms, holding each other tight as they started crying all over again, only this time, it didn't feel bad to cry. It didn't make them feel worse.
They discovered that when they cried together, it only made them feel stronger.
By the time they made it back to where Appa was resting, Toph was dozing in the saddle, keeping an eye – so to speak – on Aang, while Sokka had a haunch of freshly caught fox-antelope on a makeshift spit over a fire, dark-rimmed eyes wide and glazed over with ecstasy.
If he noticed that his sister and Zuko were holding hands, he chose to ignore it.
There I was, sitting there, thinking to myself, You know? We've had a lot of fluff. Just tons of honest, good-times-had-by-all fluff. TIME TO CHANGE THAT!
If you're new to my work, ask some of my older fans, and they'll let you know that, as tough as that was, you got off easy.
*maniacal Toph laughter*
Anyhoo, like I mentioned up at the top, this story has two fathers. One, is a long-standing, deep-seated hunger to go back and rewrite A Different Path. In my opinion, while that story is fun, it's also kind of crap. I hadn't figured out my voice yet, I had no patience for proofreading, I sucked at editing, and I really hadn't figured out this whole fanfiction thing yet. And yet, here we are, four freaking years later, and I really do feel that my writing abilities have grown by leaps and bounds. So, I took this week's prompt as a chance to, at the very least, take another crack at the opening to that story.
The second ancestor is my love of my Ripples from an Oasis AU. It currently makes up several stories in A Little Bit of This, and a Little Bit of That, which you can find on this very profile! If you skip to the last entry, you can find a kind of "Master List," which will tell you which stories make up that particular AU.
Or, you can just scroll back to this week's first entry, First Kiss, and get the full list there. Let me know if you do, and what you think!
I didn't have a chance to get too deep into last night's entry, and I've decided not to get too deep into it here. One of you has already taken me up on my offer to ask for more details over on Tumblr (look me up under kangaroo2010), and if that person is reading right now, don't worry, I will reply. At length. You may end up wishing you hadn't. That offer still stands; you can also hit me up on Twitter Historybuff2013, or toss me a comment on AO3 under kangaroo2010. I mean, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for this site, but it makes interacting with people a bit of a pain.
Plus, I suck at responding to e-mails and phone calls. There's a reason why my sister just calls my wife when she needs to get a hold of me!
Anyhoo, that's all for now. I hope you liked the above piece; I'm really happy with how it came together, and even happier that I got it properly proofread! My wife says hello to all of you, sends you her love, and hopes you all realize that the stories you've been reading this week owe their existence entirely to her.
They do, by the way. I wouldn't have done any of this, wouldn't have even started writing fanfiction, if she hadn't pushed me to do it.
Moving on! In tomorrow's thrilling episode, Katara finds a strange-looking crystal, a crystal that shows her such incredible things. Stay tuned!