Homeless Dragon- Zuko

Ch. 3 Visits from Spirts

His mind went into instant survival mode, and for the first time in three years, memories of terror and dread filled his heart. There was no way he could fight the archers. He knew, from personal experience, their lethality, and they would kill him before he could stand. He was about to flee slowly and cautiously when he caught a glimpse of the inside of the cage causing him to stay. There was a boy, a bald boy with yellow and orange clothing, and what looked like a blue tattoo on his head.

'That's...!' his thoughts ran wild as he lifted his head in shock.

Some rocks fell from the cliff edge where Zuko was, and he quickly pushed back and laid down flat on the ground, but it was too late. As he landed on his belly, one of the Yu Yan drew his bow, and shot a whistling arrow at the cliff face. Zuko heard it and quickly rolled, to his left, and not a moment later, four inches of arrow stuck clean through the cliff and into the area where he neck was previously. He held his breath, and his swords together not wanting to risk anything to give his presence to the nearly superhuman archers. He saw to his left something moving, it was a chipmunk-hare burrowing out, and approach the cliff face and stand for all the soldiers to see before running off. The Yu Yan figured that the animal's burrowing was probably what caused the noise in the first place, and motioned the others to continue onward.

When Zuko heard the archers continue moving with their prize after a few moments, he slowly exhaled, and began to register what just happened. He had once again nearly been killed by the greatest archers in the world, and seen the Avatar... again.

He groaned at the fact that the kid was once again in trouble, but was relieved to know that he was alive. He briefly began to wonder what to do next, but he remembered what he had told the young Avatar weeks ago.

"If you're ever in trouble, I'll help you out. It's kind of what I do for people anyway."

Zuko wondered why he even bothered asking himself. He had promised to help him. Sure he had helped Sokka almost two weeks ago, but that didn't count. He was very specific on who he owed. And besides, whether he was indebted to Aang or not, he couldn't leave the kid in the hands of his people's military. He sighed.

'At least I'll be even with him,' he thought.

When the sounds of the wagon and its escort could no longer be heard, Zuko ran to a nearby tree, and looked down into the cliff. It wasn't far to the bottom, but it was too high to simply jump down either. He noticed some vines and tree roots jutting out of the cliff face, and thought he could use them, but upon closer examination they didn't seem very safe. He searched his bag, got a rope from his pack, tied it to the tree, and repelled to the bottom. He then took off his outer Earth Kingdom robe, and pulled some leather strips from his pack. He removed his swords from his person, and wrapped a very long leather strip around the sheath, and two smaller ones around the handles. His swords stood out, and he could not risk anyone recognizing it after this "rescue" mission, after all Zukonever used such a unique-looking weapon as him.

When he was done with the wrapping, he pulled out a laughing oni mask painted blue and white before hiding his things and following the Avatar's trail.

xXxXx

In the darkness, the fortress glittered like a harsh grey, red, and gold flame against the mountains that required three great walls to contain its fury. Zuko had carefully followed the Yu Yan to the fortress along with their quarry. The oni mask of the blue spirit was tied to his belt, and his swords were at the ready. He hid in some bushes and began to prepare for his clandestine operation.

Whenever he did things like this, he could not afford to not see anything. He rearranged his ponytail in a way that he no longer had bangs, tucked it to the back of his shirt, and pulled out a hood that was folded inside his shirt and put in on to make sure any loose hairs stay out of his face. He also removed his eye patch. Just because he couldn't see very well with that eye, didn't mean he couldn't see with it at all. When he was sure he nothing was out of place, he waited patiently for a supply wagon to come by that evening, and at the same time, he was devising a plan to break in and rescuing the Avatar.