Road to Ba Sing Se | Zuko

08

Eventually, the girl couldn't hold it in any longer. Her large inhale was followed by the unpleasant aftereffects of, uhh, 'dust excretion' among other stuff.

"HACHOO!"

Suddenly, Keya's feet were no longer on the floor. Keya's back arched as it hit the ceiling, before her body was dragged back down by the gravity that was supposed to hold her there in the first place. An involuntary grunt left her chapped lips as she face-planted on the dirty floor again. What in the world?!

"Ow..." She groaned and massaged her painful nose tenderly, wiping away the snotty dust that had momentarily coated her upper lip (yuck!).

It appeared that her sneeze had somehow managed to throw her up in the air... but how was that possible? Although she had just hit her head for the nth time this week, Keya had not yet lost enough brain cells to be unable to come up with a likely answer to her predicament. The talent that she had unfortunately been made aware of recently apparently had a handful of side effects.

"Oh no..." Keya sighed dejectedly, "what other side effects are there to airb-?" Keya didn't even finish what she was saying. Two pairs of footsteps hurried over to the shack. She sat back up in alarm.

"What's going on?!" Zuko himself barged in with an attack stance at the ready. He scanned the small shed warily, immediately on the lookout for enemies. His intimidating frame sadly blocked Keya's path to the tea kettle.

"Did someone get- oh, it's you." He noticed that Keya was the only one there and dropped his arms. One lanky (but surprisingly muscular) arm raised up to caress the back of his neck, a nervous habit of his that Keya had quickly picked up on in the short timespan that they had travelled together. Despite the distracting arm, Keya's mind did not forget what he was.

She automatically recoiled at the sight of him. The fact that his hands held that... disgusting power, the same power that was used to hurt her mother and end her father's life. Yeah, Zuko was not on her friend list right now. Even worse, he potentially had a royal heritage -based on the fact that she had heard Iroh call him 'Prince' the day before. Then again, she could have also hallucinated that part, Keya figured. There was no way that the roguish boy in front of her was a Prince! And why would the 'honourable' Fire Nation ever cast out one of their own? The idea was ludicrous. But he was still intimidating, Prince or not.

"Is something the matter- oh dear, what happened?" Iroh came in behind his nephew. He observed the dirt coating Keya's face but made no mention of it to the teen girl.

For some reason, Keya wasn't as scared of him as she was of his nephew. Perhaps it was because the two of them had actually travelled together for a while, whereas Zuko and her barely knew each other (plus, Zuko was not as calm and in control of his anger as his uncle!). Besides, she had only heard Zuko talk about his uncle as a firebender, but the man had never used his power around her, so maybe he didn't like it either.

"Nothing..." Keya quickly came up with an excuse, "I just wanted some tea, but I tripped and fell."

Zuko had the audacity to let out a snort. He coughed in order to try and hide it, but clearly failed. His uncle gave him a stern side eye, but Zuko didn't notice. The boy quickly glanced away when his eyes met Keya's. He seemed just as uncomfortable in her presence as she was in his. Keya glared at him in response when she thought he wasn't looking.

Iroh, ever the wise man, stepped forward peacefully. He looked like a highly skilled mediator, an ever present smile on his pale face. Now that she thought of it... if Zuko was in fact a prince (though she still didn't believe it), what would that make of his uncle? He looked like he could be a great eunuch or a wise councilman.