DEAR DICTATOR → zuko

╸eighteen : the givers and takers

Nari crouches behind a bush with watchful eyes. Another squirrel resting in the fortress of a tree trunk's crevices. There'd been two or tree, though they scampered off the mere second Zuko acted a fool. The remainder must've ignored any impending danger. 

It's quiet, no crickets chirping or birds flapping their wings against twigs and branches. Whistling winds become hushed and distant, and the nearby village has silenced itself in respect to Nari's growling stomach.

Zuko taps his foot on the ground like a raging rabbit.

Ignore, ignore, ignore. Nari repeats. A spell recited until it is deprived of all meaning. Ignore it. Ignore it. He's just being childish. But the tapping grows to constant within her ears. Incessant. It's rhythm like a pestering heartbeat she can't shake. 

"Zuko!" She whispers in a hushed yell, scrunched eyes shooting darts his way. 

Nari stands just as sharply as she shouts. She walks to the fidgety prince with eyes as thin as parchment, shoving him to the ground with a hand on his shoulder. Her pointer finger presses against her own chapped lips. "Shut up and sit still. Now."

Zuko opens his mouth to speak, but the girl tilts her head warningly.

"Stay there. Don't move."

Nari returns to her crouched spot. Zuko crawls over to her side to wait like a clingy child.

As much as she dared to roll her attentive eyes, Nari keeps them glued to the tree. The squirrel. Her target. Within moments that stretch on like taffy, the squirrel crawls from its shelter. Nari acts swiftly. Smooth like a professionally crafted sword, she swindles the blade from Zuko's waist and flicks it at the creature.

The animal cries out just as the prince does. "Hey--!" He shouts, watching Nari with an offended, slacked jaw, loud enough and just in time for the animal to dodge the blade as it nails the bark, right where its head once was.

Anger boils inside Nari's stomach as her face tightens, burning red-hot like fiery coals under a broiled pot. A growl releases from the depths of her throat as her hands turn to claws, shaking in front of the boy's face. "Zuko!" The gods could not have rivaled such anger. Her face washes pure white, void of anything but rage.

Her steaming pique is pointless. It's pointless. "Go get your stupid knife back. We're done with this."

As Nari storms but five steps away, Zuko stands baffled. "Done? We haven't even caught anything." He defends, retreating the blade from the tree once Nari sends darts to him with her eyes.

She hardly shifts her face. There's a glint of annoyance in her flaxen eyes, doubting how much she truly needs to stick by Zuko's side. "There are other ways to get food." She drops her tone five octaves, as if the prince were simply... dull.

"We have no money." He reminds. 

"I know," It raises back up, sing-songingly vexed. Nari widens her eyes as if dealing with a younger sibling, obvious and ignorant to the workings of the world. 

"Then what's your plan?"

"You'll see,"

Zuko stops, no longer following Nari. "There's nothing to see! Either we kill something out here, buy something in the village, or starve." He shouts. "There's no way we can steal something, we're already in enough shit with the Earth Kingdom as is."

Nari continues to find her way out of the forrest and back to the lively village they came from. She ducks beneath a low and thick branch. "That's why we aren't going to do anything. I am."