Little Soldier Boy

The painted lady

"To easy," he breathed in disbelief going to his bag. He wiped off his hand from making himself throw up, by shoving his fingers down his throat.

He grabbed the water to get the taste out of his mouth and cooled down his body temperature, before putting a black shirt over his fire nation clothes, and grabbing a blue mask.

—

Two hours later the gaang returned with more fish but no medicine,  they saw appa and momo sleeping.

"Zuko we're back!" Aang called and the grumpy teenager rose from the saddle where he was trying to rest.

"Great," he grunted rubbing his head.

"Did you get medicine?" He asked getting out of the saddle and sat on the dirt again before he got dizzy.

"No, the villages medicine is taken by the factory, they have nothing," Katara told him as she knelt to his level again to see if his temperature went down.

"You still feel warm, do you feel nauseous still?" She asked in a low voice.

"Headache and dizzy," he told her flatly.

"We're going to stay another night, let you and appa rest, do you have anything for tea?" Katara asked as they started to gather for a fire.

"I have mint leafs," he huffed, he was saving them for later.

"Aw thanks for sharing sparky," Toph smirked as she went through his things and felt around for the tea leaf pouch.

"You just wanted a reason to get to my good stuff," Zuko pointed at her.

"I just like going through peoples stuff," she shrugged.

-

Late in the night Katara snuck over to zukos sleeping bag and gently nudged him to wake up the fire bender, she put her finger to her lips to keep him quiet as he looked at her confused.

"Can we talk?" She whispered as he got out of the sleeping bag.

"About what?" He hushed back.

She motioned away from the camp and he followed making sure the others were asleep.

"Are we far enough?" Katara asked and he brought her over to the shore of the river.

"We should be, what's up?" Zuko asked crossing his arms.

"Your temperature went down," she touched his face once again with a grin.

"Fire bender," he said sarcastically.

"Were you able to stop much of the pollution?" Katara sighed finally.

"No if anything I just made them annoyed, I tried going back today but it barely did a thing, how was the village?" Zuko looked at her curious.

"I was able to heal a lot of the sick, you should've seen them, it was like a whole new town," Katara smiled brightly looking up at him.

"How's your migraine?" She asked.

"Another healing session and the pain should be gone," he nodded.

"But let's wait till tomorrow morning, tonight you need to go back to the town as the painted lady, I'm going back to the factory," Zuko went to a hole in the ground and moved the moss that covered their secret clothes that kept their identities hidden.

"Meet here in three hours, if your late I'm coming after you," Katara poked his shoulder seriously. Zuko raised a brow and placed a large hate over her head that covered her face.

"I'll see you in three hours painted lady," he smirked the slightest, tilting her hat down.

—

"Hi dock, is shoe around?" Sokka walked up to the stand the next day, with the merchant cleaning a small statue.

"Let me check," the crazy old man walked in a circle, changed his hat, and walked back to the travelers.

"Hey there! Back again! And with your friend!" Show noticed Zuko was with them this time as he stood behind them.

"We need more food, our other friend is still sick and we can't leave until he's better," Toph pushed Sokka out of the way and slapped coins on the counter.

"Well that's to bad, maybe if you guys are lucky the painted lady will visit you tonight and heal your friend," shoe set a plate of clams in front of them.

"Who?" Zuko looked at Aang confused.

"She's a healing spirit," Aang smiled.

"Like the legend from children's tales?" Zuko scoffed a little.

"You know who she is?" Katara put on a face of surprise.

"She's not a healing spirit she's a river spirit, punishes those who endanger her rivers,"Zuko waved her off at the silly folklore.

"She visited us last night, healed most of our sick folks and someone said she was accompanied by another spirit who left medicine behind, she's a healing spirit of some kind," shoe corrected him and zukos eye brow twitched in irritation.

"Is that why this place seems so festive?" Aang noticed more people up and about now.

"Sure is, all because of the painted lady," he nodded proudly.

"Can you believe how much an entire village is effected by the spirits?" Katara smiled in awe of the people's hope for a better life again.

"Well I hope she returns every night otherwise this place would go right back to the way it was," Sokka rolled his eyes.

"Why to ruin the optimism," Zuko stood next to Toph.

"Im just being realistic," sokka put his hands up. "Without her they wouldn't be able to fend for themselves, if she really wanted to help she would use her spirit magic and blow up that factory,"

"Blow it up?" Kataras head snapped to him. "Like destroy it?"

"Destroy it, take it down, make it go boom, whatever spirit magic does," Sokka nodded and started to make spirit noises to imitate how the explosion would go.

"Spirit magic doesn't work that way, it's more like whooooo~" Aang now joined the goofy haunting noises as Katara glared at them.

Kataras eyes flickered at Zuko and he already looked like he had a plan.