"Zuko," Katara said. "You can set up the tent."
They'd landed for the night in their usual sort of spot, a clearing by a stream in a forest. Appa was happily munching at some bushes; Sokka was fishing with an improvised spear, without luck so far; and Aang was off looking for berries or nuts or firewood, nobody was quite clear.
"I can do many things," Zuko agreed, making no movement to get up.
Katara folded her arms. "Aang might have agreed to let you follow us, and I'm willing to listen to him, for now, but I don't owe you anything. If you want any of this," she indicated her pot and the stew ingredients she had laid out, "you're going to have to earn it."
He considered this. He could go a few days without eating. He probably shouldn't while he was still injured, and he definitely couldn't go an entire year, although the idea had some appeal compared to taking orders from a Water Tribe peasant. He could try foraging for himself. On one hand, he had no idea how to do it; but on the other, if Sokka could do it, it couldn't be that hard.
Katara read his expression. "And that's to say nothing of paying me back for all the cooking I've already done," she added. "You'd still be crawling around with a concussion if it weren't for me."
He twitched. "I never asked you to do that."
She hefted the pot like a club. "Well if you want things to go back to that, it can be arranged."
She's joking, isn't she?
Definitely probably joking.
Sokka was within earshot. "Here's an idea," he said, "why don't we put the Fire Nation guy in charge of the fire? Gather firewood, get it going, make sure it doesn't go out."
"I'm not a walking set of spark rocks," Zuko said disdainfully.
"Whatever, man," Sokka said, "if you want to do the tent or be Katara's punching bag, better you than me."
Zuko scowled and walked over to the nearest tree to begin snapping off branches.
Katara tutted. "Everyone knows you don't use living branches," she said, "you have to gather them off the forest floor. Live branches are too wet to burn, and –"
Zuko exhaled, and a haze of steam rose out of the branches, instantly drying them.
"… Well you should gather branches properly anyway. Taking living branches is bad for the forest."
"Does the forest have any opinions on the flying bison that's eating half of it?" Zuko asked.
Appa, who had already stripped half a dozen trees of their foliage, glanced briefly at Zuko, then resumed his dinner.
"Don't bring Appa into this," Katara said warningly.
"Don't be bossy for thirty seconds."
"I'm not bossy," she said.
"You're bossier than my sister," he said.
"Well maybe you'd be a better person if you ever listened to her."
If we listened to her, we probably would've been busy tormenting small children when that war council was on, so if nothing else I suppose we'd have one fewer scar.
He said nothing and kept collecting branches.
"Sokka, tell him I'm not bossy!"
"Of course you're not, Katara," Sokka said. "Should I do the tent too once I'm done with this?"
"No, Zuko can, because he's not doing the firewood properly."
Zuko glanced over his shoulder at her to make sure she was watching, and then, slowly, deliberately, loudly, snapped off another branch.
When Aang returned, carrying an armful of nuts and berries, he stopped short, his eyebrows rising right up his scalp as he looked around. Zuko was meditating, drenched and steaming; Katara sat primly at her field kitchen, despite the fire having long gone out; Sokka stood well away, pretending to fish; Momo clung to Sokka's head, chittering in terror; and Appa had run off, leaving a trail of snapped trees in his wake. Mud and scorch marks covered the clearing, one tent had collapsed and the other looked like it wouldn't last the night, and wet and charred firewood was strewn everywhere. Zuko, Katara, and Sokka were all nursing bruises.
"Were … we ambushed by a Fire Nation patrol?" Aang suggested weakly.
"No," Sokka said, annoyed, "these two are just idiots. But it's okay. We voted, and Momo and Appa agreed to leave me in charge from now on, and I can promise this will never happen again."
"Guys," Aang said, giving all of them a disappointed look.
"Don't look at me like that," Sokka said. "I was just standing here, minding my own business, while these two picked at each other like scabs that have scabs of their own."
Momo screeched in corroboration.
"Well it's not my fault either!" Katara said. "Blame Zuko!"
Zuko didn't say anything, but his face twitched more than it would have if he were actually meditating.
"That's not the point," Aang said. "We're going to have to work together. If I can't leave you alone for fifteen minutes without you picking a fight, how are we ever going to accomplish anything?"
"How are we going to accomplish anything with a spoiled, selfish brat of a Fire Nation prince along?" Katara asked.
"I'm selfish?" Zuko demanded, transitioning from kneeling to standing in a flash. "Everything is all about you! How you want everything done!"
"Yeah, because if I don't, none of you –"
"Hey!" Aang shouted. "Stop it!" Under his breath, he muttered, "This is worse than the Gan Jin and Zhang." He blinked, then, aloud, "This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with a sacred orb, would it?"
Zuko gave him a nonplussed look. Katara folded her arms.
"Worth a shot," Aang said. "Look, I know we have our differences, but you" he turned to Zuko "gave me your word as Crown Prince of the Fire Nation that you'd be nicer to her, and you" to Katara "should remember that he rescued me from Zhao when you and Sokka were both really sick with pneumonia, and he gave medical advice and treatment even though he was sick too and still is. So I want both of you to shake hands and apologise. Unless none of that means anything to you?"
Zuko and Katara grumbled.
"Back at the Southern Air Temple, if two people kept fighting and wouldn't apologise, the monks would say they had to go a day in each other's clothes," Aang said warningly. "And they weren't just speaking figuratively."
"Yes," Sokka breathed, picturing it.
No!
How is that fair? I have to wear a ridiculous blue dress made for someone half my size, and she gets a nice sensible ninja-yoroi?
At least wait until I have proper Fire Nation armour, that'd drive her loopier than her hair.
"You wouldn't," Katara said.
"Oh, I would," Aang said, deadly serious.
"You couldn't," Zuko said.
Aang raised one eyebrow, silently reminding them all that he was still the Avatar.
Zuko and Katara exchanged glances.
Aang's strong, but the two of us together …
No, stop! He's trying to manipulate us into working together to beat him and get out of this punishment!
Oho. Pretty crafty for a kid. He almost got us. But there are no prizes for 'almost'.
"I'm sorry I didn't put up the tent," Zuko said.
"… I'm sorry I yelled at you," Katara said.
"And shake hands," Aang said.
They did, although they broke it quite a bit faster than could have been considered polite.
Wait a minute. Did we just –?
"Great!" Aang said. "Now, Zuko, Katara's fire's gone out. Could you please light it for her? And Katara, the camp site's gone soggy, it'd be great if you could dry it out. I'll pick up the firewood."
"Are we ready to go?" Aang asked, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Katara was frantically rummaging through her pockets and under and around boulders. "Has anyone seen my sewing kit?"
"I took it," Zuko said, pulling it out of one of his many pockets and holding it out to her.
She snatched it and held it against her chest possessively, glaring at him. "What would you want with my sewing kit?"
He blinked. "To sew," he said. "What else could anyone possibly want with a sewing kit?"
Behind Katara's back, Sokka got a look of dawning horror. He began shaking his arms in a 'No, stop' way at Zuko, who could only stare, bemused. Katara turned to follow his gaze to Sokka, who snapped into a stretching pose in the split second before she saw him. She turned back to Zuko with a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
"Why, Prince Zuko," she said. "I didn't realise you could sew. What were you sewing?"
That smirk, her honeyed tone, Sokka's reaction, the Avatar looking between the three of us apprehensively – this is just like when Azula used to manoeuvre us into some embarrassing situation or another. This has to be a trap.
Relax. We just have to figure out what, and turn the tables.
"Of course I can sew," he said cautiously. "Every Fire Nation soldier can. I was patching a tear in my clothes."
When he'd taken the arrow from the Yuyan, Aang had dragged him some distance, judging by how his trousers had torn apart at the knees. Aang must be pretty strong for a kid, to take him so far.
"Is that so?" Katara asked. "So you're saying that, according to the highly professional Fire Nation army, you have to know how to sew to be a warrior?"
"As opposed to not knowing?" Zuko asked, trying to puzzle out the prank. "A soldier has to be able to take care of his kit. And if you're too stupid to learn something like that, you're too stupid to be trusted with a weapon."
"That makes so much sense," Katara agreed. "So if you couldn't sew, you wouldn't be a warrior?"
"Well," he said. He had to be precise here: if Azula was any indicator, Katara would pounce on the slightest sloppiness. "You might not be discharged, but you'd be punished at inspection every day for failing to present in a proper uniform. The punishment would be much worse than mending a hole and it'd get worse every day. We take discipline seriously in the Fire Nation military."
"Really! Tell me about the punishment. Spare no detail."
Sokka cut in here. "This is all very interesting," he said loudly, "but the Fire Nation understands division of labour, right?"
Zuko frowned. "As in, bring dedicated tailors on a campaign? Top officers sometimes do that, but if the men weren't responsible for their own gear, they wouldn't take proper care not to damage it in the first place. Besides, logistics are hard enough with just the soldiers, let alone civilians. It's better if everyone just asks the quartermaster for a needle and thread when they need it. Why wouldn't you? Anyone can do it."
"You're right, Prince Zuko," Katara said, satisfied. "Anyone can do it. Here, why don't you hold onto this and finish your mending while we're riding Appa? Just make sure to put it back once you're done with it. Someone else might want to patch up his clothes too, after all." She put a gentle stress on the word his.
Sokka let out a moan of defeat and slumped back on the ground. "Life was so much better when you were still trying to capture Aang," he said. "We got lots of exercise, we only had to see you once a week, and you didn't talk to Katara."
Ooooh, I get it! He's been making his little sister do his sewing for him, and now she's going to hold this over his head. Maybe I should offer him an olive branch.
"I think peasant girls have to do most of the sewing, out in the really backward Fire Nation villages," he said.
Katara looked at him askance, clearly not taking it in its intended spirit.
"Thanks," Sokka said, letting his head thump against the ground. "Really. Thanks so much."
"Hey, so," Aang said, "speaking of boys who might want to patch up their clothes …"
He held out his robe, showing some of the holes made by Yuyan arrows.
"… and who might never have learned because they're only twelve and spent most of that time mastering airbending …"
"I'm your captor, not your tailor," Zuko said flatly.
"… and who could probably talk Katara into cooking whatever you wanted if she didn't have to do this for me …"
Katara perked up at this.
Oh you sweet summer child who's never tasted fire food.
Zuko hid his smirk with one hand and took Aang's outer robe with the other. Sokka let out another whine.
Katara was delighted to have her waterbending scroll, but it really wasn't a substitute for a teacher. Aang had found it intuitive enough, but he'd already had plenty of bending experience, whereas she couldn't maintain focus long enough to really do anything with her moves, and the scroll couldn't offer suggestions on how to get past this block.
She'd offhandedly asked him in a way that didn't admit she was having trouble, but his response had been something about flowing like the breeze that hadn't helped her at all. She'd been far too proud to ask Zuko, of course. The upshot was that she usually spent her mornings trying to do waterbending forms and generally making a mess of things.
"Hey, Prince Ponytail," Sokka said, watching his sister splash around. "You were on a ship. You must know how to fish, right? We should do that. Just two men, some water, and dinner."
He led Zuko upstream, far enough that the fish weren't spooked by Katara's flailing, and waded into a spot where it formed a little pool, fishbone knife in hand.
Zuko in fact did not know how to fish. Back on his ship, some of the men did it, or more often they just took on supplies at port, but as an officer, he'd never bothered. This was one of those things for which the Fire Nation did have a division of labour. Still, his teachers had always insisted there was no problem that couldn't be solved by either judicious or gratuitous use of firebending.
"Hyaah!"
Sokka scrambled out of the pool a split second before it boiled. A dozen se tu, eel fish, and snail crabs floated to the surface.
"Aaand that's an entire ecosystem wiped out," Sokka observed.
"You asked me to fish, and here's fish," Zuko said. He found a stick and began pulling the se tu over.
"Yeah," Sokka said. "Yeah, I guess I did. Let's make a deal. I'll handle the hunting if you handle my sewing, and neither Katara nor Aang needs to hear about this."
"Do either of us care if they hear about this?"
"Depends, how do you feel about Katara nagging you throughout the rest of tonight and all of tomorrow, and sniping at you for at least another week? What about Aang giving Air Nomad monk sermons on the sanctity of all life and the environment for the next month, and probably forbidding me from fishing either?"
"…"
"."
I can't believe you're agreeing to do a peasant's chores for him.
Hey, you know how shrill Katara gets. Say what you will about Azula, but at least she kept her voice down.
True.
Besides, this is a good deal. It'll be thirty minutes' work every few weeks while we're riding Appa and there's nothing else we could be doing anyway, versus hours of hunting. He must just really hate sewing.
Either that, or he really likes hunting. Isn't it supposed to be a Man Thing in the Water Tribes?
"Fine," Zuko said, "but I'm not washing anything of yours, and the deal's off if you tear things because you're an idiot."
"Would I do that?" Sokka asked.
Don't say it. An opening like that isn't sporting.
He said nothing, so they gathered up the fish and headed back to camp.
Aang had got bored with the scroll days ago and, like any well-adjusted boy, wanted to set things on fire instead. He'd taken to watching Zuko's morning kata and trying to imitate them whenever Zuko wandered off. He was good enough that he didn't embarrass himself and constantly overbalance with kicks, but Zuko hadn't told him anything about how to make flame.
Zuko walked over to lounge against a tree, instantly looking like he'd been standing there the entire time. Aang noticed him and froze, which drew Katara's attention. Sokka ignored them and deposited the fish at Katara's field kitchen.
"You want a lesson that badly?" Zuko asked. "Fine. I'll give you one."
"Really?" Aang said, delighted.
Zuko's fingers twitched, and Katara tensed, ready to spray water and counter if Zuko were to decide to 'teach' Aang with a fireball to the face.
Another time, Princess.
"To start, show me a strong airbending blast on that tree there."
"Okay!"
Aang gestured, and a gust of wind bent the willow tree and blew off some leaves.
"Good. Now, show me a water strike."
"Okay," Aang said, a little less enthusiastically, either because he was worse at waterbending, because he wanted to get to the firebending, or because he was worried the next question would be earthbending. He made another motion, obviously with more trouble than his native airbending, and a water whip snapped at the tree.
"Perfect," Zuko said, making it sound like an insult. "Now, watch closely. Hyaah!"
An inferno wreathed the tree, so hot and bright that everyone else recoiled. Katara recovered her wits enough to bend a spray of water and douse it, but it was already blackened and dead, every leaf burnt to ash.
"That's what happens when you try to firebend before you learn control," Zuko said, walking back to the campsite and lying down. "Lesson's over."
Aang's face fell.
Katara scowled. "You know, you could stand to be a little –"
There came a roar from the forest. Everyone dropped what they were doing and hurried over, except Zuko, because when he tried to get back up, his head spun, and he went crashing to the ground.
This had happened from time to time, even since the run-in with the Yuyan. He'd made a point of hiding it from the others, and it had been getting rarer. As long as he didn't take another hit to the head and didn't push himself too hard, it was supposed to clear up within another day or two.
The other three were out of sight, but he could hear shouting, crashing, and more roaring. He swore and forced himself to his feet, and hurried over. The momentary weakness was already gone.
When he arrived, the problem seemed to have been resolved, whatever it was. An Earth Kingdom man was chatting with them, and Sokka was cradling a massive egg in his hands.
The Earth Kingdom man did a double-take on seeing Zuko, but he didn't seem concerned. "Oh my," he said, "did you know there's a Fire Nation man behind you?"
"Yeah, that's just Zuko," Sokka said. "He's our tailor."
"Well, I'm sure he's harmless," said the old man, and waved them off. "Good day." He took two steps and paused. "Oh, and Aunt Wu said to give this to any travellers I met." He handed Aang a parcel and went on his way.
"Harmless?" Zuko undertoned, his temperature rising.
"You took your time," Katara told him.
Let's stay quiet and pretend we were just being sulky.
Convincing.
Aang unwrapped the parcel: an umbrella. He opened it, and that exact moment, thunder rumbled and it began raining. Katara bent a rain shield for herself, then thought better of it and ducked under the umbrella. Aang looked pleased at this. Zuko ignored them and breathed a little more forcefully, and the rain began steaming off him.
"This proves nothing," Sokka said, trying to use the egg as an umbrella, about as successfully as anyone could ever use an egg as an umbrella.
"If this doesn't prove anything, what would?" Katara said reasonably. "We should pay Aunt Wu a visit."
Do … do they just randomly bounce between villages like this all the time?
Explains why we could never get a bead on where they were going.
"Oh come on," Sokka said, "she's obviously a fraud." They began walking back to camp, toward Zuko, who crossed his arms, meaning to follow them after they passed. "It's been overcast all day, of course it was going to rain."
"I'm with Katara," Aang said. "I think it'd be great to know the future."
"Zuko," Sokka said, "at least you don't believe in any of this nonsense, right?"
"I think that anyone who thinks I'm harmless is an idiot," Zuko said, and then he threw up on them and collapsed again. Aang managed to get the umbrella down fast enough to cover himself and Katara, but Sokka got splattered.
"Oh, eeugh!" He stripped off his shirt and ran to the stream.
Katara and Aang went to check on Zuko.
"Well, Aunt Wu definitely knows what she's doing," Aang said, shaking the umbrella clean. "How do you feel, Zuko? Nauseous?"
"I'm fine," he said angrily, trying to push himself back to his feet, but his body wasn't having any of it.
"What Aang's trying to say," Katara said patiently, "is that you're obviously not fine, you filthy liar, and he was hoping you could give us a hint about what in particular is wrong with you. Physically, I mean."
"That's basically it, yeah," said Aang.
"Probably just food poisoning from your cooking," Zuko said.
She huffed and turned to Aang. "Either that concussion's playing up again, or I gave him my pneumonia. I really hope it's the second one. Come on, let's get him to the village."
9
