Since the live-action came out today, I thought I'd post the next edited chapter:
|3.2| Kyoshi Island
What did y'all think about the live-action? Been scrolling through social media and I get mixed reviews, some ppl liked it, some hated it. Hbu?
Also, I think I'll be posting the edited version on Ao3 soon.
Enjoy!
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"You have no idea where you're heading, do you?" Sokka asked arching an eyebrow as he turned at Aang who was sitting on the Bison's head.
"Well, I know it's near water," Aang shrugged.
Sokka looked beneath them at the vast ocean. "We must be getting close then," he said sarcastically.
Aang turned and looked at Katara who kept sewing her brother's pants spending all of her attention to the task.
"Momo, marbles please," he said, and Momo immediately wrapped a bracelet from his pocket with blue pearls. "Hey, Katara, check this airbending trick," he said, and he started spinning the bracelet between his hands with his airbending.
"That's great, Aang," Katara said without looking.
Aang stopped doing the trick "But you didn't even look."
Katara turned her attention at him at last "It's great."
"But I'm not doing it now."
"Leave her alone, arrowhead," Sokka huffed "you need to give girls some space when they do their sewing," he said waving his hand.
"What does, being-a-girl, has to do with sewing?" Katara said and she shot a glare at her brother.
"Simple, girls are better at sewing and guys are better in hunting and fighting. It's just the natural order of stuff,"
Katara grinned. "I bet if Iris were here, you wouldn't say that."
Sokka's aloof expression tensed up right away and he sat straight. "I- I- Iris is not a girl."
"Then what is she, genius?" Katara arched an eyebrow.
"Iris..." Aang sighed heavily before Sokka could say something stupid. His goofy smile disappeared in an instant, drawing the attention of the two siblings.
"What is it Aang?" Katara asked worriedly.
"I... I had a sister named Iris," Aang said nostalgically. It had been a hundred years. There was no way she was alive and the chances of her being the same person they were talking about were slim.
"Aw, Aang..." Katara stood up and approached him. She placed a hand on his shoulder "...I'm sorry," she had no idea what she'd do if the same happened between her and her brother. Surely, most times Sokka was an expert at getting on her nerves, but she loved her brother no matter how much they fought.
Aang tried to slip back to his optimism and a bright smile spread on his lips. "It's alright, Katara," he turned and looked at the two siblings. "So, who is this new Iris?"
Katara tried to respond, but Sokka fell between them with a serious look on his face.
"She's a fierce warrior who served as an Earth Kingdom Assassin for years," he made it sound so overdramatic, if Iris were there, she'd roll her eyes and probably smack him too "she became a great enemy of the Fire Nation," Sokka smirked.
He admired her even though he knew her weaknesses. Iris was hard to understand, and she was making it even harder for others to learn what she thought and felt by always being quiet. She was cold and ruthless but skilled. So very skilled. He had asked her to teach him some of those skills, but she had refused.
It's not yet your time, kid, she said even though he could tell she did not truly believe it. She was younger than him when she joined the Assassination Academy of Yu Dao in the Earth Kingdom.
"And where did that get her? I bet the angry jerk recognised her. He's going to drag her to some Fire Nation prison again," Katara sighed heavily and Sokka's eyes widened.
"We must not let them! Aang, we need to find her!" Sokka said urgently.
He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of that. Of course, the Fire Prince would drag her back into some prison and he knew that she hated the time she had spent in the prisons of the Fire Nation. She had been arrested before. She had only mentioned it once in her sleep. Iris barely ever slept, and when she did, she'd jump up, screaming from nightmares.
Sokka had tried to be there for her, but she'd push him away and she'd walk out of the igloo in the middle of the night, and she'd disappear for hours. If Iris did not want to be found, then there was no way to find her. Probably another skill she had picked as an Assassin.
"Wait, considering Prince Zuko is following us, if she's still with him, then she'll come to us," Katara said.
"Yeah, I mean..." Aang turned and looked at the two siblings "...you said she's skilled, right? I'm pretty sure she knows what she's doing."
Sokka frowned. They didn't know her. Neither of them knew her. They didn't know what she had been through. He only had an idea of what her past was like, and he needn't know more to be able and tell that she was traumatised and somewhere beneath the cold exterior there was a young girl screaming for help.
Iris would never talk about it. Sokka had tried to convince her to let him in, but he had failed. He had tried to break through her walls, her cold, ruthless, unbreachable exterior, to no avail. She always refused to open up. He respected her wish.
But Sokka cared about her more than he'd dare admit.
💨💨💨
She ran. She ran as fast as her airbending would allow her, but she knew there was no way she could outrun this man. The forests of the Western Air Temple were vast and coated in bright green. The smell of wet soil and pine trees filled her senses. The sounds of bees and birds were bringing a sense of peace.
But she ran because she couldn't afford to lose in that game, even though she knew she would. She turned and looked behind her. There was no indication that he was chasing after her, but it only took a few more steps before she found herself bumping onto someone in front of her.
Both let out a yelp of surprise and he wrapped his arms around her, halting her fast running. Both breathed hard and laughed when they realised, they had bumped onto each other. Iris pressed her hands on his chest, and she looked up at him. That precious smile on his lips and honey brown eyes met her own. His black hair was messy, with some falling on his sweaty forehead.
"You're... way... faster... than me..." Iris panted, and she let out a laugh and he laughed with her.
"Well... I am... a tinsy bit older than you, bunbuns,"
She cringed at the terrible nickname that he had picked for her. She smacked his chest. "Stop calling me that!"
"You know I won't ever stop calling you that," he wrapped his arms around her a little tighter, picking her up with ease and settling her stomach on his shoulder, her head hanging from behind. She yelped and smacked his back.
"Let me down you cocky bastard!"
"Oohh, I'll tell Monk Chengyu you called me that,"
"No, please!"
He laughed. "Fine. But we're late for meditation class!"
"Ughhhh, that's so boring!"
He gasped. "I'll tell Monk Chengyu about that too!"
"You snitch!"
Laughter.
Laughter.
She hadn't laughed like this in such a long time.
Iris opened her eyes, releasing a few tears, allowing them to run down her temples and onto her pillow. It was pain unlike no other. Maybe that's why she was so good at handling physical pain, because emotional pain was so much worse, and she was suffering from it almost always.
Crying is a waste of time. Another lesson she had learned in that God-forsaken academy. She couldn't allow herself to cry. Not now. Not ever. But the night was still young, and the prince wouldn't get on her nerves quite yet. There was no light coming from the window. The ship was still moving, and she had no idea where they were heading to. They were probably chasing after that kid that seemed to be the Avatar.
Iris closed her tired eyes deciding to sleep. A decision that she was going to ultimately regret. Sleeping was dangerous. She shouldn't sleep again. The nightmares... the nightmares were maddening. The screams in her mind that just wouldn't go away. They had taken everything from her. Her dignity, her pride, her soul, her conscience, her innocence. And she had done the same to so many people.
Back then, killing was her job and she was so good at it. But now? Now it was haunting her. The things she had done. The lives she had ruined. The people she had butchered and tortured and killed. People with wives and kids and families who needed them.
Even children.
Maybe she deserved to keep listening to their screams – screams that begged her to spare their lives, but she did it anyway because she was getting paid. Money just weighed more than human lives. Monstrous was amongst the terms people used to describe her and she wouldn't blame them.
I am. They made me.
But she wasn't always. No, she once had a life she cherished. People she loved. It was all gone now.
Fuck it. Anger was much easier to deal with than pain. She channelled all her pain to anger, and it felt good. Anger made her strong. It gave her a drive to continue living. She was living for the sole purpose of murdering the Fire Lord and his children and ending the Royal Family line right then and there.
She couldn't wait for an Avatar to do that. She needed justice. Now.
Iris contemplated breaking out of her cell somehow and setting out to kill the Fire Prince in his sleep.
No. Not children. She had killed children before. She made no exceptions. She did what she was paid to do and that was it. It was simply her job to kill the sons and daughters of Fire Nation Generals since her clients paid her for it. It was mostly Earth Kingdom Government officials who made such offers and they paid handsomely. It was the Earth Kingdom's sinful way of discouraging Fire Nation military officials.
The poor children bore no blame for the war, but they were still held accountable for the sins of their fathers and forefathers.
Assassins like Iris were just used to do the dirty work of the Earth Kingdom, that until a Fire Nation Commander approached her and asked her to kill the son of an Earth Kingdom Commander.
Iris did it without question. She was getting paid for it and she had a reputation to maintain.
And now she was on the blacklist of both countries.
After quitting her job, Iris vowed to never kill children again. She would kill men and women, young and old, but not children. Not teenagers. Their screams were still loud in her memories.
As much as she hated him, the Fire Prince was a seventeen-year-old boy.
Gershwin was sixteen when they killed him. Her childhood friend. The boy she loved. The boy she lost. The Fire Nation made no exceptions either when they wiped out her people. She was there. She had seen it. It was all gone in one day.
Forget it. It never did her any good whenever she thought about the life that she had lost. The life that she could never go back to.
A knock came on her door. It was a soldier, letting her know that they had departed, and that the General requested her presence on deck. Iris huffed and she stood up, walking out of her quarters allowing the man to escort her on deck. It wasn't like she couldn't kill him right then and there and just dive in the sea and escape.
She didn't really know why she wasn't doing it. Maybe her escape wasn't as easy to go through as she initially thought. Iroh would stop her. She couldn't fight Iroh. She had tried fighting a White Lotus Grand Master before and it hadn't ended up well for her. She wouldn't make the same mistake a second time. She was smart enough to understand that she didn't stand a chance.
Of course, he might've not been a Grand Master, but considering his high status in the world right now, she was willing to bet that he was.
So, she abided for now. Living in that ship wasn't the worst experience. She wasn't forced to kill people she'd never met and she wasn't forced to murder children. She wasn't tied down and tortured, nor was she warming the bed of some disgusting military officer. She was generally not threatened.
She had her own quarters, she had a bed, she had food. She didn't have chains tied around her scarred wrists. She was in the best situation than she had ever found herself to be.
There was a chair waiting for her to settle down on when she reached the deck. Uncle Iroh was by the other side of the table and he had set the Pai-Sho waiting for his opponent to arrive. Iris chuckled and shook her head. What was it with this man's fixation with Pai-Sho? Sure, Pai-Sho was how she and many prisoners spend their days – when she wasn't beaten up and tortured. That was mostly the final year of her imprisonment when Zhao had almost given up on her giving him any useful information at all, and she was merely serving him in some other not-so-pleasant way.
It was definitely more pleasant than torture.
The prince was practicing his firebending with the soldiers of his staff. Iris ignored him entirely because she barely had the energy for the teenager's insufferably consistent anger. She sat on the opposite chair of Iroh and she began setting her pawns.
"Good morning, Iris. A little birdie told me you haven't been sleeping well." Iroh said, giving her a brief look, having that annoying little smile on his face that almost seemed to look like... compassion.
Now, how the hell would he know whether she slept well or not? Her attention fell on the prince, who was kicking fireblasts into the air and she arched an eyebrow. The prince's quarters were quite close to her own. It'd make sense that he could hear her if she made any sounds. Iris huffed and she rubbed her aching forehead tiredly. Sleepless nights were the only kind of nights she knew.
"Is that a certain birdie that's got too many anger issues?"
Iroh threw his head back and laughed. "Yes."
"And why would his royal ass give a fuck about whether I sleep or not?"
Iroh shrugged. "He simply mentioned it. I think he worries about you."
Iris yawned tiredly. She honestly didn't give a single fuck. She was just so tired right now, all she wanted to do was sleep in peace. There was no way she'd get that anytime soon though.
"Well, that's his problem." Iris sighed and she made the first move in the game. "Do you have some tea, Uncle? I'll fall asleep right here and now if I don't have some."
"Of course!"
She had called him 'uncle'. It brought a smile to his lips right away. The greatest thing about it was that she hadn't even noticed it. Iroh poured her some tea in a cup, and he engaged her into a conversation right away as the two of them began to play.
They played for hours, and the grumpy bastard was training for just as many hours. Honestly, he caught himself trying to check whether she was watching him as he pulled out the most impressive moves he had learned yet against his soldiers. But Iris didn't seem to really care. She conversed with his uncle and drank some tea and paid absolutely no attention to him.
And for some reason, it pissed him off.
Iris stood up and stretched her arms. Her back was hurting like a motherfucker. She groaned and straightened herself with a hand on her waist.
"Where are you going?" Iroh asked with a frown. Was she not going to play another round with him?
"Need to take a walk. Been sitting on my ass all day." Iris waved off his pleading little look – it was kind of cute she had to hand him that. She would've fallen for it if she didn't know that he was just a sly old man, obsessed with Pai-Sho and gambling.
She passed by a shirtless Zuko with a towel around his neck, catching his breath, and she completely ignored him. It was like he wasn't even there. He was right there, shirtless, and sweaty, and worked out. But no, she gave absolutely zero shits for his presence.
And it pissed him off even more. But she didn't care. She didn't give a single fuck. On the contrary, getting on his nerves was amusing to her.
"I need you to distract him while I catch up."
Iris groaned as she walked all the way to the backside of the ship. She crossed her arms against her chest and she stood there, away from people, in a solitary side of the ship, watching the vast, endless blue ocean and the lands that they left behind.
Did she really have to fuck with the Prince?
Iris groaned again and she threw her head back, rubbing her forehead. Disgusting. She hated this boy. All she wanted to do was chop his head off. It'd make such a pretty prize hanging on her wall back in her igloo in the Southern Water Tribe. Actually, she was kind of thankful that she had left that Tribe. She didn't like the people there. They were all too innocent and good. Just women and children left behind. She had promised Chief Hakoda to protect the helpless and hopeless and in return she was safe there.
Now, if she set foot on Earth Kingdom land, people would start chasing her again. She was a wanted criminal and an incredibly effective assassin that everybody wanted to hire to do them jobs. Sometimes she wondered whether she missed killing people or whether she never wanted to do that again.
Ugh. Seducing the prince wasn't going to be hard to do. Actually, she didn't have to do much. The boy was a teenager and all he wanted was affection from someone. That's why he had been searching the Avatar for Gods know how many years now, just because he wanted the love and acceptance of his monstrous father.
She sighed. Now that she was thinking about it, she kind of felt bad for him. Iris frowned at herself. He's pathetic.
Fine. It would be nice if the Fire Lord pulled away that bounty on her head and ordered his troops to stop looking for her.
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Iris stared at the metallic ceiling of her cell as she lied down on her bed. It was nearing afternoon. Screams were all she could hear, even though, no one was screaming, and no one was being slaughtered. But in her mind, it was all she ever saw. Those memories played over and over. There was that constant screaming inside her mind. Was it guilt? Was she regretting murdering all those people as an assassin? Was it whatever was left of her morals? All her mind ever did to her was make her feel terrible. She should have gotten used to it by now.
"Run... I'll give you the chance to run." Iris whipped the blood off her dagger, and she watched the man cower away.
He was sitting down on the dirt. His family had just been slaughtered right in front of him by that monster of a woman who stood in front of him. She had blood on her face, and her purple eyes glowed in the dark.
"Y- You're... a monster..."
A bright, sickening smile spread all over her lips. "I've been told that a lot." She looked down at her dagger. There was blood on it. She frowned. She hated when he daggers weren't clear enough. Iris brought it to her lips and her tongue snuck out, licking away that drop of blood that dared keep staying there. The man crawled away. "Run." Iris pointed her dagger at him. "I want to chase you. It is always so fun when a pitiful little prey, like you, is really hoping to escape from me."
The man pulled himself up on his feet and he began running away. Iris laughed as she watched him and not before long, she chased after him.
Iris didn't remember what she had done to that man. She just knew she had done something terrible to him. She tore his teeth out of his mouth. Then, she burned his flesh with a heated dagger. Then, she cut parts of his skin. She sliced his limbs. She tore his eyes out, punctured his ears, cut his tongue, tore his nails off his fingers before slicing them off one by one. She made him a living corpse, and then she killed him.
It was what she always did.
She did to them what the Fire Nation had done to her.
Iris began laughing. She didn't know why she was laughing. She just laughed out of nowhere. She pulled herself to sit up and she propped a hand on her bent knee, and she laughed.
It made no sense to laugh when all she wanted right now was bury a dagger to her chest. She had done these all when she was even younger than that Prince. Iris was a child when she was introduced into this world. She was taught that killing was a means to survive.
Not even the Monks kept those precious 'values' and rules of theirs. All life is sacred, they said.
But they had killed her own mother.
Of course, Aang was just a baby when that happened. He would never find out. He never should.
Iris laughed even more.
"Hypocrites." She spoke to herself.
Somebody cleared his throat and she looked up at last. It was the Prince. She hadn't even noticed him being there. She didn't pull away her laugh. She turned it into an annoying smirk, and she looked up at him.
"I don't see anything funny in here." Zuko frowned.
Iris shrugged before she lied back down on her bed and she motioned him to approach her with her fingers.
"Come here." She purred in the most seductive way she knew how.
Zuko didn't yet let go of that pissed off look on his face. "Are you trying to play games with me?"
"Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. It all depends on that ridiculous haircut of yours."
Sometimes Zuko was amazed with how infuriating this woman could be. He was about to explode, and it wouldn't look good, but he tried to heed his uncle's instructions. Breathe. He took in a deep breath, and he sighed, slightly more relaxed.
"We located the Avatar on Kyoshi Island. I need you to help me catch him." Zuko finally said and she arched an eyebrow.
Iris sat up, crossing her legs. "And why the fuck would I help you of all people?"
Zuko's hands fisted in anger. "You're a prisoner here. You're in no position to make demands!"
Iris lazily lied back down on her bed, stretching her arms up. "Oh please, what are you going to do to me if I refuse? Torture me?" She threw her head back and laughed. "Fire Nation torturing techniques were in my daily routine for three years. Go ahead."
Fire Nation torturing techniques?! He didn't even know something like that existed, or at least, if it did, it was only used on the worst criminals of all. He wouldn't be surprised if she was one of them. That woman frustrated him more than anything else. Even if he threatened to torture her, she had convinced him that she wouldn't mind it. Always so calm and composed and emotionless.
Compose yourself. Zuko took a deep breath and his shoulders loosened up a bit.
"If you help me catch the Avatar, I'll set you free."
She sighed. "Listen, kiddo," she stood up and approached him, poking a finger on his armoured chest "if I wanted to be set free, I would've snapped that pretty throat of yours and be on my way a long time ago."
"Then why don't you do it?"
That was a smart question. She couldn't believe she hadn't questioned herself the same thing. Was the prince really, finally proving himself to be smart?
Oh right, she had a mission, hadn't she? If she 'seduced' the teenage prince and slowed him down in his search for the Avatar, then Zhao would withdraw the bounty on her head. But she couldn't really trust Zhao. The only thing she wanted was to kill him in the vilest way she could possibly think of – and she could think of many ways to kill that bastard.
But the prince's pretty head would indeed make a nice decoration on her wall back in her little igloo.
Iris smirked and leaned closer. "Because I like to savour the best part of my meal by leaving it last." She walked past him to stare outside that small, circular window in her quarters. She crossed her arms against her chest and turned to look at him. "Fine. I will help you capture the Avatar, on one condition."
He sighed and nodded. It wasn't like he didn't expect her to ask for something in return.
"You'll give me back my weapons and you'll let me roam freely around your little ship." Iris approached him and gave him a mischievous little smile. "We're partners, after all, aren't we? You need an experienced Assassin's help and I need my freedom as soon as I get you what you want." She arched an eyebrow. "Do we have a deal?"
"How do I know that you won't stab me in the back the second you get your hands on those daggers of yours?"
Iris shrugged. He was right. There was no way to trust her. No one should ever trust her. It wouldn't be the first time she would betray a partner. Assassins never worked together, but back in her days, she was a naïve fourteen-year-old trying to make friends and rely on them because she had no one else to rely onto. What a stupid young girl. It had cost her more than she'd like to admit. She knew better than to try and make any kind of relationships now.
The only one she could ever trust was herself and sometimes, even that was questionable.
"You don't," Iris said simply. "You've absolutely no reason to trust me. But you should weigh your priorities: risk to get murdered by me, or capture the Avatar? Is your life more important to you than your honour?"
That was a bait that he was undoubtedly going to fall for. That boy was way too naïve and immature. Zuko turned around to leave.
"I'll have your gear delivered to you. We'll be arriving on Kyoshi Island shortly. Come up on deck when you're ready."
A smile spread across her lips. Now it was her turn to weigh her own priorities. Seduce and distract the prince, or run away and chase her freedom? There was no freedom to be chased. She was a wanted criminal everywhere and the Fire Lord's bounty on her head was hefty. She couldn't trust Zhao to clear her name like he had said he would, but what choice did she have?
She'd have to stick around the prince for a little while longer, so it seemed.
It was a great feeling to stuff her daggers all over her outfit again. She passed her bow and arrows to their cases in her back and placed her daggers where they belonged. In her boots, in her thighs, her belt, beneath her sleeves.
It felt good to know she was armed. She felt safe when armed. She always slept with a dagger in her hand. Sometimes she would wake up from nightmares and end up harming herself, but she didn't mind. She had grown used to self-inflicted pain – or any kind of pain.
This was all child's play. A bratty prince and his goofy uncle chasing after a goofy kid and his two stupid friends. Iris was stuck into this ridiculous, boring situation whilst she could be plotting some big operation to murder the Fire Lord. She had tried it before. It went wrong, but that didn't mean she wouldn't try again. All she ever wanted was to kill the Fire Lord.
Would that bring any relief to her grief? No. Vengeance wasn't nearly as fulfilling as someone would think it was, but it was better than standing idle.
Iris walked up on deck, fully armed and ready to kill as many people as her arrows and daggers would allow. But she had to hold back for now. She didn't mind burning down a village of innocents. Her sins greatly outweighed something like that.
The prince and his men had already mounted their Komodo Rhinos, and it didn't look like there was a spare one for her. There was no way in hell she'd walk all the way to the village of Kyoshi.
"Do you expect me to just walk all the way to Kyoshi?" Iris arched an eyebrow, looking up at the cranky prince who had already mounted his own rhino.
"You're an Assassin. You can handle it." Zuko couldn't care the least and she expected nothing less from the stupid teenager. Before he knew it, she had climbed on his saddle, and she settled right in front of him. His eyes widened. She was way too close. "What the hell are you doing-?!"
Iris wrapped the reins from his hands, and she urged the rhino to start moving, making a clicking sound with her tongue and pulling on the reins. She was very, very close. Her back pressed against his chest and his arms were hesitantly trying to grab onto something – anything. The worst of all? She was fucking gorgeous from that angle. She wasn't taller than him. She was fit but feminine and delicate simultaneously.
Her dirty blonde hair was wrapped in a long braid, but some strands still fell loosely on her face. Her neck was exposed to him leading his gaze straight down to her chest. Her black leather shirt wasn't exposing anything more, but he was still a poor teenager.
"I'm just taking the lead." Iris smiled mischievously, turning over her shoulder to give him a look. She held the reins with one hand and the other reached for his own hand. She grasped his hand and brought it to her waist. "You might want to grab onto something. If you don't like me taking the lead, you should do something about it." She winked at him and laughed amusingly when she took a look at his face.
For the first time in his life, Zuko's face was red, and it wasn't from rage.
The entire ride was awkward for him but amusing for her. How funny to think of how the brave prince with all this bravado was now being silent and shaky just because he was that close to a woman.
When they reached the village, it looked empty. Obviously, they were expecting them to show up, but Zuko was just happy to quickly get off the rhino and land on the soil, away from Iris.
"Come out, Avatar! You can't hide from me forever!"
Iris rolled her eyes and literally just lied down on the large saddle of the rhino. She rubbed her forehead lazily. She vaguely registered the sound of people attacking and fighting Zuko and his men, but Iris merely yawned, realising she hadn't had a proper sleep in days. Zuko probably expected her to fight by his side this time, but... nah.
The Kyoshi Warriors did not attack her – which was fortunate for them. Iris was in no mood to be killing children today, even though she wouldn't hesitate if they decided to get on her nerves.
She had never fought the Kyoshi Warriors before, but it only took a glimpse to know that they needed a whole lot of work before reaching an adequate level of combat.
"Iris! What the hell are you doing?!"
A familiar voice came and she could've sworn it must have been Sokka. She didn't turn to look at him, rather she just looked at her nails that had started to grow, making a mental note to herself to cut them sometime today.
"Eh, you know..." Iris crossed her legs, lying in a much comfortable position across the back of the rhino "...living the life."
"Don't tell me you're working with him."
At that she jumped up on a sitting position and she turned to look at him. "Why the hell would I-" but she lost her words when she actually laid eyes on him.
Sokka... in a dress... in ladylike face paint.
She wheezed.
Sokka rolled his eyes when she started laughing. She continued laughing for a while, clutching on her stomach. Her eyes watered and she wiped the tears and threw her head back. It didn't look like she was going to stop anytime soon.
"Ha ha, very funny." Sokka said sarcastically frowning.
"Pfft..." Iris wiped the tears and she finally jumped off the rhino to approach him. The closer she got, the more ridiculous he looked like "...I leave you... unsupervised for two days and you end up like this?"
"THIS IS A WARRIOR'S OUTFIT!" Sokka burst.
"A KYOSHI warrior's outfit!"
"KYOSHI WARRIORS ARE SKILLED FIGHTERS!"
At that she began laughing again. "My apologies, Sokka," she said sarcastically "and here I thought you lacked all sense of humour."
Sokka groaned in exasperation. That woman was so frustrating. "You're unbelievable!"
"Thank you."
"You're more annoying than I am!"
"Uh-huh." That indifferent look on her face was pissing him off.
Always so indifferent. She always tried to pretend there was nothing she cared about and nothing bothered her. It pissed him off because it wasn't natural to be indifferent and emotionless about everything. She was a human too. She had feelings. He hated to watch her pretend otherwise.
"Fine! Stay with your prince and do whatever you want!"
"I will!"
"Fine!"
"Great!"
"Sokka!" Katara rushed to her brother. "C'mon, we need to leave!" Her eyes widened when she realised Iris was there too. "Iris, you should come with us."
Iris waved off her concerns. "Go. I'll catch up with you. I'll be keeping the prince distracted to give you some time."
"No, you're coming with us. I'm not finished with you," Sokka pointed a finger at her.
"We'll continue this utterly annoying conversation on the next stop." Iris smiled amusingly and she turned to leave. "Go." She turned to give them a final look. "Protect Aang for me."
She had no idea where this had come from. She didn't care about Aang. She didn't care about anyone or anything.
But if he really was her long lost brother... she didn't know, and Aang never had to find out she was his sister. His sister had long ago died. She died when the Fire Nation destroyed her temple and killed everyone she ever loved.
Iris had died long ago. What was left now was a mere shadow. It was a criminal. She had nothing and no one.
She watched the bison fly away with the two siblings and the airbender.
A fireblast was coming for her from behind. She could feel it in the air. Iris moved swiftly out of the way. The infuriated prince was attacking her. He shouldn't blame his incompetence on her. Iris avoided a few more of his attacks and when it was starting to get annoying, she shook one of her hands. The stem of her dagger came down for her grasp and before he knew it, Zuko was stabbed against the wooden wall of a house by one of his sleeves.
"How dare you?!" He cried out. "You didn't help me at all! You're useless!"
She hummed and approached him. "Yeah... I suppose I am. Very stupid of me to think that you actually had him." She reached close enough till her face was mere inches away from his own. She grasped her dagger that had undoubtedly created a hole on his expensive clothing. "Do not blame your incompetence on me. Train harder, Prince Zuko."
Her purple eyes met his own. She was intimidating. Her breath brushed down his chin and a wicked smile spread on her lips. She pulled the dagger from the wall, releasing him and she turned to leave.
"I will train you."