Water Lily in a Sea of Fire

Chapter 28: Destiny is a Funny Thing

"I'm quite anxious to hear of your adventure with the Avatar," said Iroh as he offered her one of the dishes from the tray.

"It was quite an adventure," she said.

As she looked at the amount of food present before them, she felt bad for the Avatar and his friends. She put only a small amount on her plate.

"I was told that you spit fire," he said.

She smiled. "Fire whiskey is quite flammable."

Iroh laughed figuring out exactly what she had done, but Zuko, who had trouble believing the story when Iroh told him, could not imagine it.

"What'd you do?" he asked.

"One of the pirates got too...well, he got too close to me..."

To her surprise, small flames were emanating from Zuko's fists which were tightly clenched.

"I'm okay," she assured him as she delicately caressed his forearm.

The flames faded at her touch and he seemed to relax. Iroh smiled to himself at her soothing effect on his nephew, more calming than calming tea.

"I took advantage of it by grabbing his whiskey and a torch," she continued.

Zuko's eyes lit up in understanding and a smirk broke out on his face at her quick thinking.

"It seems you are a firebender at heart," laughed Iroh. "And truly the Daughter of the Dragon of the West."

"I was hoping they'd think twice about their plans when I said that," she said. "But apparently it took a demonstration too."

Zuko could not help laughing. "I wish I could've seen it."

"It looked like you put up quite a fight," said Iroh proudly. "We saw the damage you caused."

"They deserved it," she said deeply.

Zuko smirked to himself as he thought about what Iroh had done to them too.

"You attended the Fire Days Festival?" asked Iroh.

"I did," she nodded. "The puppet show's changed since you and I went...for the worse," she added in an undertone. "But the Avatar put an early end to the evening by revealing himself."

Zuko was annoyed. After chasing the Avatar from the South Pole to the Southern Earth Kingdom and all the way to the Northern Earth Kingdom, he was frustrated by how the kid eluded him so easily despite being so negligent about hiding his identity in Fire Nation territory. "Why would he reveal himself in a Fire Nation colony?" he asked.

"Lady Katara was on stage during a Fire Show, and Aang thought she was in danger, so he jumped on stage to rescue her before Sokka and I could stop him."

Zuko shook his head at the Avatar's naivety, but then something occurred to him. "You know that savage's name?"

"After rescuing me from the pirates, it seemed like the least I could do was learn their names."

Iroh was chuckling.

"Wait...," said Zuko. "You were at a Fire Nation colony. You could've gone to the local authorities and they could've contacted us."

"I might have if we weren't running for our lives after the Fire Show."

"How did you get away?" asked Iroh.

"We had help from Captain Chey."

"Captain Chey," he said. "I'm familiar with him. An expert in explosives if I remember correctly. He left the army years ago."