A fist flew past me, and I attempted to grab it, but a leg smacked into my ankle. I faltered but didn't fall. Zuko smirked in a smug manner, arms brought in front of him. I ducked under his arms and punched him in the stomach. He groaned and tried to grab my arm. I lifted my leg and kicked him back, breaking his stance. He stumbled back and lunged at me. I swiftly moved out of the way, hair swinging out of its ponytail, hanging by the thread of my ribbon.
He charged forward and dropped to his knees. He placed his palms on the floor as if he was about to do a pushup. I looked at him quizzically before he moved his legs from the front to the back through the gap in between his arms. He kicked my legs from underneath me, and I reeled forwards. The ground was rapidly coming closer to me, and I extended my arms out to put on the floor. I used the momentum of the fall to kick my legs up and over my head to land on my feet.
The flashy landing may have been cool, but Zuko had become more agile since our last session. He jabbed me in the back, and I arched in shock and pain. I stepped back, but my heel made contact with his ankle instead of the floor. I comically flailed my arms back as I fell flat on my ass.
I tried to get back up, but Zuko pushed me down by my left shoulder. I writhed around uselessly underneath his grip but stopped when I knew there was no use. I looked up at him, scowling. He never use to beat me in non-bending sparring, but this time he did. He had a ghost of a smile on his face, and I felt my cheeks begin to warm up.
"Ok, ok, you won! Happy?" He released his hold on me and got up, extending an arm to me. I looked away hastily but accepted the gesture. He helped me back onto my feet. I dusted myself off.
"I'm never happy." He said, confusing me on whether that was meant to be humorous.
"First thing you've said that I thought was 100% correct" He glared at me, and I smirked, trying to swat away my ever-growing feelings that I was choosing to ignore.
He looked to the shore, face worried.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Iroh hasn't come back yet, let's go get him from those stupid baths," Zuko said, already storming off the ship. I bolted after him, attempting to retie my hair with my ribbon.
We walked to the baths in a lot of awkward silence. We were almost there when I finally decided to address the elephant in the room.
"Zuko, I wanted to say thank you for the, uh, the other day," I said, fiddling with my bracelet awkwardly. He stared ahead, stone-faced.
"It's not a big deal, he was going to be fired sooner or later," Zuko said, shrugging.
"Oh, no, I meant in my quarters-"
Thankfully that awkward situation was cut short by us emerging out to the baths, where a naked Iroh sat soaking in the natural hot springs. I froze up, feeling as if I had invaded his privacy.
"Oh, hello Miss Laina, is my nephew perchance with you?" I couldn't respond before Zuko butted in and made his presence clear.
"Uncle, what are you doing? We need to move on. We're closing in on the Avatar's trail, and I don't want to lose him." It was true, I was finally getting good leads on him.
"You look tired, Prince Zuko. Why don't you join me in these hot springs and soak away your troubles?" Iroh suggested calmly, sinking into the hot water relaxedly.
"My troubles cannot be soaked away. It's time to go!" Zuko shouted out in frustration.
"You should take your teacher's advice and relax a little. The temperature's just right. I heated it myself." Iroh responded smoothly, breathing steam out of his nose and fogging up the air around him.
"Enough! We need to leave now. Get out of the water!" Zuko screamed out. I just stood there awkwardly, kind of wanting a bath myself.
"Very well!" Iroh exclaimed, beginning to get out of the water. Before I could react, darkness encapsulate my sight, and Zuko had his palms over my eyes.
"On second thought, why don't you take another few minutes? But be back at the ship in a half-hour, or I'm leaving without you!" He said, swivelling me around and marching me out of the clearing. We walked, well he walked, and I stumbled around blindly.
I tripped slightly, and Zuko took his hands off my eyes, realising he had been holding them over mine for too long.
"Sorry," He muttered, charging away at a groundbreaking pace.
It felt like a few hours had passed since we saw Iroh. Zuko meditated at the top of the ship, but not really. He was tapping his fingers erratically on his knees and kept opening his eyes every few minutes. I watched him atop where the Helmsman worked and peered at him from above.
It was like he was always on fire, but I understood the feeling. Firebenders were either eerily calm or always feeling and moving. I had to twitch and move a lot, just like Zuko, fiddling with my bracelet, tapping my foot, tucking strands behind my ears, whatever. But Earth grounded me, when I stepped onto land, I was more at peace. The metal ship didn't help, it just floated further and further away from my base.
I got sick of watching Zuko glance back and forth from the tree line to the ocean. I climbed down the steel ladder, jumping down at the fourth step from the bottom. Zuko jumped at the sudden sound. He looked back to glare at me.
"Do you mind? I was trying to meditate." He grunted out, trying to compose himself. I snorted.
"You weren't doing too well on your own", I retorted, giggling. He got up, sighing exasperatedly.
But Iroh wasn't back yet, and that was the reason he couldn't keep calm. I looked to the tree, wondering if he had fallen asleep in the springs.
"We should go get your uncle," I finally said. He nodded, running off to round up some soldiers, obviously feeling worried.
Zuko trudged through the forest, swatting all the branches and leaves away. I loomed behind, feeling on edge. I tried to listen out for sound, but I couldn't hear much.
"Uncle! Uncle, where are you?' Zuko shouted out as we stepped into the clearing. The spring had a pile of rocks sitting in the middle. I walked up to them, eyeing the pattern in which they were placed.
"Sir, maybe he thought you left without him." One soldier suggested. I subconsciously shook my head, the rocks telling a different story.
"Something's not right here. That pile of rocks." Zuko mentioned, pointing to them.
"It looks like there's been a landslide, sir." Another soldier suggested, and I rolled my eyes, astonished at their stupidity, rock doesn't slide uphill.
"Land doesn't slide uphill. Those rocks didn't move naturally." Well, I guess we thought alike. He stood up straighter, coming to a realisation. "My uncle's been captured by earth benders!" I felt my heart sink, I had grown so attached to Iroh over these months. He had shown me great kindness from day one, and I would never forget it.
I also couldn't forget that I had been betraying them all those few months too. I could ignore it, though, so that's what I was going to do.
"Laina, come with me, I'll need you to track him."
We tracked Iroh's trail on the beastly rhino as I clung to the saddle, refusing to hold onto Zuko. We had picked up Iroh's sandal, confirming it was his tracks we were following. We sat in silence for a while, the road bumpy and coarse.
I felt myself slipping off the saddle constantly, my stubbornness in deciding whether I would stay on or fall off. The Rhino's paw slipped, and it jerked forward, I was halfway off the saddle, and I almost fell off. Zuko pulled the reins abruptly.
He side-eyed me, eyes narrowed.
I looked at him, confused. "What?"
He rolled his eyes at me. "Just hold onto me, or else you are going to fall off, and I am going to leave you behind." I huffed in annoyance, but he kept glaring at me until I finally gave in. I wrapped my arms around his waist, feeling a sense of Deja Vu.
He tensed up but forced himself to relax. I just sat there feeling my face warm. There was no way I was feeling that way, especially with that banishment hairstyle. I cursed myself in my head, feeling like a silly schoolgirl.
Silly school girl... I went to school with Mai and Ty Lee, and Azula and Zuko rarely attended. Zuko was widely adored by all the girls, and Azula was feared by them. When I was younger, I was very good friends with Azula, in fact, I don't even think I feared her.
We would sit in the courtyard of the palace by the fountain, gossiping about anyone and everything. A few weeks before the disappearance of her mother, she progressively got more and more twisted. One day she came to school and made a girl bow to her because she spoke to me. This girl was very sweet and humble but a little shy. I began to befriend her, and we became quite close.
Azula hated it, hated it so much she forced her to bow. Perhaps that was when I started to realise that Azula was wrong. Slowly I recognised her tactics, her manipulation, her gaslighting, and her temper. How quickly she could flip a switch was terrifying.
Sometimes I found myself missing Mai and Ty Lee's company. They really were my friends, but I was constantly lying to them about who I was. Where I went in the palace, why I had to leave so often, why I came back from 'tutoring' with bruises and scrapes, why I could punch so well.
I wondered how they had grown up, I had changed so much, had they done the same?
Zuko suddenly pulled the reins, snatching me out of my train of thought. He looked up at the skies, and I followed suit. I gasped.
"The Avatar!" Zuko exclaimed, pulling the Rhino towards the direction in which their bison left. But he stopped and looked back to the trails. He looked conflicted for a moment and then steered the Rhino back towards the tracks, continuing on to find Iroh. I applauded him in my head, impressed by his restraint to not always chase what he wants.
We continued on the path, sometimes stopping so I could decipher the trail. We soon came around a bend that overlooked a crater in the earth. Down in it were earth kingdom soldiers surrounding an old man. Upon further look, I figured out it was Iroh, wearing nothing but a loincloth.
We silently hopped off the Rhino, stalking around the edge of the crater. The soldiers lifted a large rock and hovered it over Iroh's cuffed hands. We crouched and leaned in to hear what they were saying.
"These dangerous hands must be crushed," One soldier said, raising the boulder to bring it down. Zuko jumped over the ridge and flew down into the crater. I jumped up, taken aback. I slid down as Zuko kicked the boulder out of the air. I flittered past the earth kingdom soldiers, having to duck and summersault away from a soldier's grasp. I ended up in the middle with Zuko and Iroh.
"Excellent form, both of you", Iroh commended.
"You taught me well," Zuko responded, smiling faintly. I nodded, feeling slightly preoccupied to make cool remarks.
"Surrender yourselves. It's five against three. You're clearly outnumbered." One of the soldiers commanded. Iroh smirked.
"Yeah, that's true, but you are clearly outmatched," Iroh said.
The soldiers began to fire rocks at us. I dodged, one boulder narrowly missing me. Iroh destroyed them with his chains whilst Zuko took down two soldiers with a blast of fire. One man ran up to me, throwing a large rock at me. I ducked under and punched him in the stomach. He reeled back, and I kicked him in the stomach to cause him to lose his footing. He stumbled back and fell over.
There would have been a lot less effort if I just shifted the ground beneath him. But alas, I couldn't, not even if no one saw, because someone always does. I fought off one more soldier as Iroh delivered the final blow, and in the end, they were all left groaning on the floor.
"Now, would you please put on some clothes?" Zuko urged Iroh embarrassedly.
A/N: Sorry for the late update, I've been quite busy. Thank you to those who have been adding my story to their reading lists, it means the world! Lots of love to my viewers <3