A Kindred Spirit [Reader x Zuko]

Chapter Eight

A Kindred Spirit
Chapter Eight

Once Azula left the room, the air felt a bit heavier. It felt a bit awkward as you and Zuko stood in silence. You weren't sure what to do in this situation. Normally when you weren't wanted anymore there would be a Dai Li agent to escort you back to your cell. Obviously there wasn't going to be a member of the elite secret force to do that anymore but you still couldn't help but feel like you were waiting to be escorted out once again. Your eyes kept on the ground as you waited for him to tell you what to do. Zuko, on the other hand, was waiting for you to do or say something. Neither you nor he made a move or a sound for a handful of minutes which only increased the tension.

Finally Zuko cleared his throat. "Azula wants me to train you to survive life in the palace."

You nodded slowly to show that you understood what he said and what he meant by that. You had been there when Azula brought it up, which he knew as well. It was just that without being it back up in the tense environment that she left, Zuko wasn't sure what to really say. Especially considering that he had never been in this position before. He had never been the teacher - that role had always belonged to his uncle.

"What do you remember about the Fire Nation?"

"I..." you tried to calm down as you told yourself that you could do this, you could answer a question. "I was born in a military camp in the Earth Kingdom. I've never been to the Fire Nation."

Zuko almost seemed to pause as he looked at you. There was a slightly perplexed expression on his face as he tried to figure out how to continue from there. You wouldn't know by looking at him but the young Prince really has no idea about what to teach you or how. He had been hoping that you'd bring up something that you remembered that he could help explain or use as a start. Something like that. He knew that you'd been in the camp during the attack on Ba Sing Se, which was highly irregular, but he had no idea that you'd been in that encampment the entire time.

"Well what did your dad teach you about his home? He was a captain right? He must have taught you a few things."

His tone was almost demanding. It definitely came off as aggressive to you as you stood in his room. You squeezed your eyes closed as you shrank in on yourself. Your shoulders rolled forward even more as you grasped your hands in front of you. Your eyes were already cast down so that you didn't look him in the eyes. After all, based on his tone, you knew that he wanted you to answer with a lot of things. You knew that he wanted you to be more informed than you knew yourself to be. You knew that Prince Zuko didn't want to teach you to begin with so you knew that he wanted you to be better than you were. Unfortunately you were also aware that you didn't even know how to answer him. And so you recorded back as you tried to avoid the ire that you knew was sure to come because of your stupidity.

"What's the matter?" He demanded.

"I'm sorry," you apologized in a quiet voice.

"What are you sorry for?"

"I don't know what he taught me. I'm sorry. I've been a prisoner for years. I..." You shook a little as you spoke, expecting to get hit or yelled at for talking so much. "Outside of healing I'm stupid and useless."

"If you've been a prisoner how do you know that? Did they try to teach you or something?"

"No. I was only brought out of my cell when it was time to heal someone. They just used to tell me that all the time," by this point your voice was practically a whisper.

Zuko took a step forward and you flinched. You heard a frustrated sound from his direction which only made you try to step back. You bumped into Something behind you which caused you to freeze as you waited. You knew that trying to run would only make it worse.

"This isn't going to be fun or easy for either of us but let's say that the first rule is that you need to look at people when you're talking to them."

You were tempted to take another step back, running into whatever was behind you even more. But you stopped yourself. Your hands worried over one another as you contemplated what he said. He wanted you to look up? That was a lot easier said than done.

"Look up," Zuko's time was a little impatient as he stood closer to you than before.

Which only made what he wanted harder. You trembled as you took in a deep breath. This was just like when they wanted you to do something. It was just another command you had to follow. Commands you could handle oddly enough. It was just the social aspect of this command that made it hard. Still you tried to raise your head to look up. And through the trembling you were able to do it long enough to see the impatient look on his face. Or what you thought was an impatient look at least.

"You need to be able to look people in the eyes of you ever want to get something done," the prince spoke.

"I'm sorry," you said quietly.

"And you need to stop saying that you're sorry so much. You're not a servant," he spoke though you begged to differ on that. "You're the avatar. That's as far away from being a servant as you can get. You need to start acting like it or people are going to walk all over you."

"I'm sorry," you repeated out of habit before you remembered what he said a split second after he spoke. At which point you flinched.

"Stop doing that. I'm not going to hit you," Zuko said in frustration. "If you keep acting like you're scared all the time no one is going to take you seriously."

Internally you knew one thing for sure- it wasn't an act. You were scared. Probably more so than you'd been in years. At least as a prisoner, as deplorable as it was, there was a certain stability to your life. There were a lot of constants that helped you understand what was happening. Right now all of those constants had been torn away. You were in a drastically new place with new people facing a difference in your situation of epic proportions. And the behavior which had been drilled into your head for the last six years of your life was apparently wrong for what was going on now.

He wanted someone more assertive or at the very least not as afraid. Someone like the girl you were before you were taken during the siege, the vague memories you had of her...of you from so long ago. You weren't sure you could be that girl once again. Long Feng had done a good job of beating her out of you.

"Okay, look. There's no way to teach you years of information in a few days. Especially not if you won't look up."

You said nothing as you trembled in your spot.

"So we're going to focus on making you look the part. And we will work on your bending okay? That way you can at least show everyone who you are until you're ready to act like it."

"You're going to teach me how to firebend?" You asked quietly.

Zuko nodded once. Not that you saw it. But you did hear him move slightly and you didn't get the sensation that he was angry at you. So you took that to mean yes.

"I'll get Ty Lee or Mei to find you clothes that will work for training. Stay here."

You looked down at what you were wearing and blinked. You had no idea why you would need different clothes. The robe you had on would let you move around a lot. It even split open at your legs when you wanted to walk. Maybe it wasn't something people from the Fire Nation wore when they were bending but it was still the finest thing you could remember wearing since you'd gotten taken as a prisoner. You had no way of knowing that it was something indecent for you to walk around in with the way your legs were exposed when you walked. Nor did you know that it wasn't tied tight enough to be decent around your chest either. And since you hadn't looked up at his face before he left you never saw the blush on Zuko's face when he realized what would happen if you tried to fight in what you currently had on.