"You've got to be kidding me!" Zuko shouts. He almost shoots a flame in the sky. He kicks at a rock instead.
He takes a deep breath and goes over to Rina.
"Watch them for me. I'm going to find a safe place to stay for a few days. I don't think we should go anywhere until they're both better." He tells her with a gentle pat.
Rina grunts. She seems to understand the mission. She moves closer to Lee and Hua and stands like a stone.
"Good girl." Zuko pats her again and then heads for the woods by the river again.
Here, there are no rocky overhangs. The woods by the water are colder than the fields further up the hill, but he doesn't want to camp in the open with two defenseless people with him. There were still bands of raiders in abundance where no civil authority existed in this area of the Earth Kingdom.
He finds a small group of bushes with just enough room to squeeze in three people and a small fire. Rina will have to be tied just outside of it.
He sets about hauling large, flat rocks, trying to get a flat, elevated surface big enough for a bed. When he has two of them, he places a small pile of wood under each and piles lots of soft moss on them from the riverbank. Although it's altogether a bit clumpy in the end, it will be soft. And warm, if need be.
He runs back up to where he left them with Rina. The rhino hasn't budged, and looks at him warily as he approaches until she's convinced he's really the same guy that left a few minutes ago.
He carefully drapes Hua over the rhino's back, then scoops Lee up and drapes him over his shoulder.
He checks the stone beds for enough moisture to avoid the moss catching fire, if he needs to light the wood piles later, then sets Lee down and unrolls a sleeping bag for him.
Once Lee is wrapped up, he gets Hua settled.
"Zuko?" She asks, weak and a bit confused.
"It's alright. You're safe. You passed out in the fields. I'm going to keep you warm and I have water for tea. Just rest." He carefully presses her back down when she tries to get up.
"Where's Lee?" She asks. He's guessing by her tone that it's meant to be a frantic shout, but it comes out barely a whisper.
"He's here too. He's safe. Go to sleep, Hua. I promise I'll look out for you."
She nods off, a bit unwillingly, but the fever doesn't give her a choice.
He boils some water from the river and steeps the last of the mint tea. He rests each cup halfway in the cold current to cool the tea down.
He pinches Lee's nose first and pours the tea down his throat. Lee coughs a little but remains thoroughly unconscious.
He does the same for Hua, with similar results.
He dozes fitfully for a few hours, waking to use his Breath of Fire each time he gets too cold. The ground is hard and there is frost. The next time he wakes, he's covered in a light dew.
The sun is already pretty high up in the sky. At least compared to when he normally wakes up. He tends the fire, feeds Hua and Lee stew the same way he gave them tea the night before.
Their fevers are still raging, and he has no idea what to do. Aang once told him the story about when Sokka and Katara were sick, back when he'd rescued him from Pohuai, and how the herbalist had told him to have them suck on a particular frozen frog. But they were nowhere near that swamp now, and while the air was chilly, it wasn't quite to freezing yet. Certainly not enough to freeze any frog solid.
Remembering Hua's heart stopping is alarming each time the thought comes up and he checks both their pulses every few minutes throughout the day.
He wants to hunt or forage or just do something. But until their fevers break, he doesn't dare leave them alone. What if one of them wakes up delirious?
Logically, he knows Hua is fine. Just Fire Fever. And as long as she rests and stays calm and hydrated, it will pass. Her case isn't nearly as bad as his was. Or Azula's. All those years ago. And yet, only yesterday.
Logically, he knows Lee is fine. Just a really bad cold from getting frozen more than half to death only two or three nights ago. He knows the pool he had taught him in was warm enough. He'd checked. And heated it a bit too (though he wasn't going to tell Lee that).
Logically, he knows they're going to be fine and that nothing is too wrong. They are pretty sick, but Hua's fever is less than it was when her heart stopped. As long as he keeps watch, she'll be fine. They both will be.
Although he's still exhausted from the night before, he keeps checking their temperatures and pulses every few minutes. He's not going to let anything happen to them!
-o0o- -o0o-
When Mom was in the infirmary, after Azula had burned her in the back, Zuko visited every night. It wasn't too hard to sneak out. Mom was usually the one to intercept him when he got up for some reason. Azula wasn't in her room (he'd checked), and usually she wasn't in the palace at this hour anyway. He hadn't seen her for days. Although he felt bad for whoever she was inevitably torturing, he was glad it wasn't him for a change. And as long as Azula wasn't home, and he avoided any servants who might tell his father he was sneaking out without permission, there was really nothing and nobody stopping him from going to see Mom.
She was almost healed enough to come home now. They no longer gave her sleeping herbs.
She was laying on her side in the moonlight when he stepped into her infirmary room. Her face was still and soft in sleep and he almost felt bad for waking her up.
"Mom?" He lightly shook her.
"Zuko? Son, you shouldn't keep coming here. What if your father finds out? I'll be home soon, and I don't need anything. The nurses here are good to me. I have everything I need and want. Don't you have a budget study coming up tomorrow?" She ruffled his hair, smiling softly.
"It's boring anyway. I'd rather stay with you." He hopped up on the bed with her and lay on his back, staring at a vaguely dragon-shaped shadow on the ceiling.
"A few minutes, Son, then you need to go back."
"I don't want to go back! Father ignores me, and Azula keeps burning me! See?" He rolled up his sleeves and shows the marks on his arms to her. They were a few days old, and some had angry blisters.
"That's awful, Zuko! Have you asked the servants for ointment?" She cupped his face in her hand tenderly.
"They said they've been ordered not to spare any. I went to Father and asked and he said I should be able handle the pain until it heals." Zuko jumped up in a fit of anger and kicked the nightstand by the bed, nearly knocking the flower vase on it over.
"Son, how do you think your father would react if he knew you were here?" She asked, hands on his shoulders and a sad look in her eyes.
"Badly." He kicked the floor this time and glared at it as though it had offended him.
"You need to go back. I'll be home in a few days and we'll go somewhere nice. To Ember Island maybe, if we can. I'll tend your burns there and we'll go to the theater. How does that sound?" She brushed loose hair out of his face.
"Alright. But what if he won't let us go? He'll just bring us back if we sneak out."
"He'll let us go." She sounded so certain of it, Zuko almost believed it.
"Mom? What's wrong with Azula? Why is she so crazy?" He'd been thinking about this for a while. Why were his father and sister so cruel, and his mother and uncle so kind? How could there be such a divide in his family? Which side of it did he belong to? Which side should he listen to?
He remembered Mom scolding him for throwing a rock at the turtleducks and Father scolding him for not being willing to practice his forms where he might hurt them by mistake. Who was right? It was wartime, after all. But the turtleducks couldn't Firebend and weren't part of the war.
"Why am I not crazy? Or am I crazy, but a different crazy?" He asked.
"You're not crazy. I don't know what's wrong with Azula or how to fix it. I'm sure she's in just as much pain as you and I are. Help her whenever you can, Son. She's just as lonely as you. I'm sure of it." Mom hugged him tight, careful of his burns.
"How do you know, Mom?"
"Call it "mother's intuition." She needs as much help as we do. She's just further away from it."
"I don't want to help her! I hate her!" He muttered, petulantly, and childish to even his own ears.
"You don't have to love her. And you don't have to want to help her. But you're going to do it anyway." She pulled back and looked him square in the eyes.
"Why should I?" His defiant tone a bit less certain.
"Because I said so. And I'm as much your mother as I am hers. And I love you both." She gave him a final hug and a gentle push towards the door.
A moonbeam from the skylight above her showed pale on her face as he looked back at her and she gave a little sad smile and waved good night.
She looked beautiful and almost like a Spirit. Otherworldly in her kindness and love. But as he turned back to face another day at the place he called "home", he couldn't shake the cold shiver in the pit of his stomach and the thought that she looked a bit like a ghost.
0o0-0o0-o0o-
A muffled footstep wakes him from his nap and draws his attention.
With a quick inhale, he snuffs out the fires and crawls out of the enclosure of bushes.
Rina stands tied to a tree just outside. Nothing appears to be amiss. But he hears more footsteps, in multiple directions.
He wanders away and starts firebending some distance from the camp.
"Stupid rabbitrat! I'll get you for that!" He shouts at the top of his lungs.
Instantly, three people materialize from the shadows. A deep rumble is all the warning he gets before a swell of earth knocks him off balance.
Walls enclose him, and a roof on top.
An Earthbender pops up in the space with him, closing the tunnel below him as an afterthought.
"Well, well. What have we here?" The middle aged man asks, scratching his chin. "Earth Kingdom clothes. But looks Fire Nation."
He leans in close to Zuko. "Care to tell me which you are?"
Zuko keeps his mouth shut, waiting to see where this will go. He doesn't like being interrogated in the dark, but fire might not be in his best interest right now.
"The way I see it, you're probably from a Colony. Which one?"
"Yu Dao." It's the only one he actually knows by name.
"Ah. I see. Fire Nation then." A rock punches him in the cheekbone. He doesn't exactly see stars, but it hurt pretty bad.
"Not really. I don't think we're either one." He replies, rubbing his cheek and checking for blood.
"Not what I heard."
"What do you want?"
"I want our land back. I want our families back. I want our history back. I want a lot of things, Fire Nation. But none of them are within your power to give. So, what do you have to offer me instead?"
"Nothing! We're as poor as you are. Nearly destitute! The Fire Nation taxes us heavily for the war." He edges himself to lean against a wall.
A spike comes out of it and sticks him in the back. It draws blood, but doesn't go deep.
"That's funny. I seem to recall the war being declared over."
His half of the stone cube gets noticeably smaller as the floor closes the distance to the ceiling. He flattens himself to his stomach. The roof scrapes his back.
"It was, last I heard." He says, as steadily as he can.
"So why are our homes still gone? Why are you still in our lands?" The sneer is evident in the man's voice.
"Some of us want to make things better. Fix what we can. Restore some of what was lost. Not all of us were involved in the war. Not all of us wanted it." He answers. The floor edges ever so slightly closer to the roof. He can get only half his breath without his back running into it.
"Fix things, hm? And what sort of fixing are you doing exactly? Aren't you a little young to be wandering around alone?" He can smell fish on the man's breath as he leans in close to where Zuko's face is.
"I'm helping someone find his brother. He is too young to be out here alone. I'm older than I look. I suggest you let me go so I can help him."
The roof squeezes the breath out of him. Now only the shallowest of inhales are possible.
"A little boy, huh? Why isn't he with you?"
"I told him to hide when I heard you coming. There are a lot of bandits out here. And some of them are particularly cruel to children."
"He has nothing to fear from us. Take us to him, and we'll let you go. We'll help him find his brother, and you can go back to Yu Dao. You're a long way from home, Fire Nation."
"I can't do that. I don't trust you."
"Let me put it this way:" The man grabs his hair and wrenches his head through the small gap left "You don't have a choice."
The box goes away and stone cuffs clamp down around his wrists.
"You do. You can walk away. Leave us. I don't want to hurt you."
"I think we'll be alright. Even if you Firebend, you're limited." A hand closes around his shoulder and steers him back towards the woods.
Zuko takes a deep breath and forces all his energy into his feet. He blasts the Earthbender away as he rockets upwards. I did it! I've tried to do that a million times! Taking another deep breath, he releases a blinding flame into their midst.
He takes off running as best he can with his wrists still locked together. He hears one pursuer behind him.
He heads away from the woods, further into the rolling grassland. If he can just get far enough away...
He dodges left as a rock wall raises up. Then right. Finally he turns and lays out a blinding flash, ignited a circle of fire in the grass.
He keeps it large, but under control.
Slowly, he spreads out a wall of flame and keeps it burning high enough to conceal him, small enough not to exhaust the fuel beneath it. He opens the half of the circle in front of him and begins to make his way across the field. If he can just get over the hill, he can duck down below it, double back to Lee and Hua...
He hears shouting through the fire and makes the flame a bit higher. He's going to have to bring it forward with him a bit, but doesn't want to reveal his direction of travel too much. He'd been hoping to keep it stationary.
He breathes deep and steady and imagines the flames as extensions of his arms. Holding them up, he stretches the wall as far as he can reach. It can't cover the entire hill from edge to edge, but it will be a long walk for his pursuers to get around it.
About ten minutes of snail's paced walking later, he runs out of steam and has to drop it. He can hear shouts off to his left, but he's been slowly edging right and trying to keep the wall straight behind him. As the flames recede, they still look for him towards where the center of the wall had been. Their shouts are those of surprise, not pursuit.
He crouches below the crest of the hill and starts to work his way back around to the river, hoping the flames have adequately brushed away any footprints.
He enters the wooded area a good bit downstream from where he left Hua and Lee and fords his way across the water, leaving obvious footprints up the other side, then goes back into the water and starts fighting against it's flow to get back to camp, bruising and scraping his knees and hands on the slippery rocks below.
To distract himself from the freezing water flowing over him each time he falls, he thinks about his memories of his life before meeting the Avatar. They'd been surfacing a lot more lately. His mother had always insisted she loved both of them. He'd loved her because she was his only protection and reassurance against the cruelty in his world.
Maybe in a way, his interest in helping his sister now was his way of fulfilling one of his mother's last wishes?
Was that what Lee and Hua were to him? Has he abandoned his sister to her fate in that awful padded prison and tried to ease his guilt by helping someone else instead? Shouldn't he be helping her? Uncle's letters have hinted that something seems afoot in the Fire Nation. Maybe after dropping Hua off in Gao Ling, he should go back and check on things? Check on Azula? Would Lee even go to the Fire Nation with him? Probably not.
Too many questions down that road. And Lee would almost certainly try to go to Ba Sing Se alone if he felt Zuko was breaking his promise, taking too long, or trying to trap him. And if he went alone with men like those bandits around (because they had to be bandits, the way they were talking), he was sure to be captured and possibly enslaved.
I'm their whole world right now. He realizes. I'm the only one looking out for them and protecting them. Lee may not like it, but I really am all he has.
Lee knows this up to a point, as demonstrated by his reckless attempt to catch up to them when nobody in Chin Village made a move to help him find Sensu. But taking Lee to the Fire Nation after promising Ba Sing Se would be a few steps too far. Lee doesn't realize yet just how much he needs Zuko. And Zuko knows this will have to change. He's taught the kid to swim. Maybe he can find some swords in Gao Ling.
He clambers out of the river about where he thinks the camp is. He crawls through the bushes and underbrush haphazardly and feels leaves and twigs tangling in his hair and clothes.
When he emerges, he sees a newly smothered fire, smoke still rising in little wisps, used tea kettle and cups...
And no Lee or Hua.
A quick check of where he'd tied Rina reveals that the rhino is gone too.
He doesn't bother with a display of theatrics this time. He just huffs and starts looking for tracks.
A/N Still no regular updates. They will come as I get them done. But rest assured, this fic is not abandoned (and probably never could be, with all the storylines and ideas richocheting around in my head). Reviews are always greatly appreciated. Any constructive criticism or advice as well. Any detailed ideas, prompts, etc. that you'd like to see for this story, feel free to pm me. :)
Special thanks to OdeClock for favoriting and following this story! It means a lot to me! :)