"Ugh! I can't find anything to eat! I can't live like this!" Zuko whined, stomping his feet childishly. "I wasn't meant to be a fugitive, this is impossible."
I looked over at him, tearing my eyes from my scroll. He looked good with his new haircut, really good. I chuckled as Iroh stared at a flower, Kaze lay on the ground, resting.
"Finally want to ask for help, palace boy?" I teased from my seat on a rock, rolling the scroll back up. I got up, producing a small knife from my sash before I began to wander off into the deep forest. "Don't do anything stupid."
Finding food was easy in the vast forest, I leapt up into a tree, slowing my breathing as I let my eyes flutter closed. I waited for a few minutes, listening to every sound the forest had to offer. Suddenly, my eyes snapped open as I heard a rustling in a bush a few yards away and I skilfully made my way through the trees until I was just above it.
I stared down at the bush, waiting for the animal of sorts I'd heard to reveal itself and it did moments later. A bunny hopped out of the safety of it's burrow and I brought my hand back silently, letting out a breath as I steadied myself. I threw the knife at the bunny, impaling its head, wincing as it let out a strangled squeak before it died.
I jumped down to retrieve it, pulling out the knife. I found a couple more rabbits before returning to the others, food in hand. When I entered the clearing we'd taken refuge in, Zuko shot up into stance as I hummed softly, assuming that it could've been fire nation soldiers.
He stared at the rabbits in my hand, three to be exact. His uneasy eyes flickered up to mine.
"I'm used to hunting my own food." I shrugged as I sat down on my rock, skinning the rabbits. Zuko grimaced and looked away. Iroh was sniffing a flower. "Iroh, what are you doing?"
"It's the rare white dragon bush." He explained, Zuko wandered over to look at the flower, I glanced up from the rabbits to look at it. It was pretty, I guess. "It's leaves make a tea so delicious, it's heartbreaking. That or it's the white jade bush and its poisonous."
"We need food, not tea!" Zuko groaned, slumping down in front of me, watching me prepare the rabbits for cooking. I glanced up at him before carrying on with my work, ignoring my bloodied hands. "You don't mind doing that?"
"I did at first." I shrugged, tossing the bits I didn't need to Kaze as a snack. "I hated myself when I first had to kill something, but in the north pole, food was rare and anything you got could be counted as a blessing."
Zuko nodded, watching me as I went to find sticks to cook the rabbit on, I found some eventually and sat back down in front of Zuko, who had sprawled himself out on the grass in my absence.
"Mind if i borrowing your amazing gift?" I asked jokingly as I held the rabbit on stick up. Zuko nodded, leaning up to hold the rabbit as he blew a stream of fire onto it, cooking the food instantly. "Thank you."
I handed Zuko some of the rabbit, eating a bit myself and saving some for Iroh and for later.
"Your hair looks really good like that." I commented, biting into the warm food, savouring the taste. Iroh was still over in the middle of the clearing, debating whether the flower was poisonous or not. Zuko paused from eating and blushed.
"Thank you..."
He wandered off after he'd finished eating, claiming he was going to catch some fish, yeah, I laughed and told him it'd never happen. Let's just say he got very competitive and promised to come back with three gigantic fish. Ah, he was such a fool...
"Iroh." I groaned, lifting my head of the rock as Iroh began to brew the leaves." Don't do it."
"It could be a white dragon bush!" He protested, watching it brew. I rolled my eyes, before closing them. I listened to the wind for a while before I heard a yelp.
"It's poison, isn't it?" I growled, I faintly heard a yes as I groaned, rubbing my face with my hands. What were we gonna do now?
We waited for Zuko to come back, while he was gone, Iroh found a twig with berries that would cure the affects of the poison or poison him even more. How promising. The poison had begun to take effects and his face was beginning to swell and he couldn't stop scratching himself. Zuko returned with a tiny fish on a stick, it was pitiful how small it was...
"Zuko, remember that plant I thought would be tea." Iroh began nervously, keeping his back to Zuko as he chuckled, scratching himself.
"You didn't..."
"Oh, he did." I grumbled lowly, scratching Kaze's ears as I hummed softly to him. The large being lay with his head on my lap and his large tongue lolling out to cool himself. "You should listen to me next time, Iroh."
"I certainly shall, I've been poisoned." He turned to face Zuko who cried out in horror. Iron's face was swollen and blotchy, along with the rest of his body. "And when the rash spreads to my throat I will stop breathing, but look what I found!"
I rolled my eyes at how blasé he was about death. He held the berries out to Zuko who stared at them unimpressed. Travelling with these two was tiring, so much so that I just wanted to leave and sleep for an eternity.
"These are berries known to cure the poison of the white jade plant, or berries that cause blindness." Iroh explained, grinning to himself, Zuko snatched the branch off him, before throwing it away into the bushes.
"We're not taking anymore chances with these plants!" He snapped. "We need to get help."
"I second that motion." I grunted, patting Kaze's head lazily as I rested against the rock. Sadly, my rest was short lived as I stumbled to my feet, pushing Kaze's large head of my lap as I did. "Come on, buddy."
"But where will we go?" Iroh questioned, not able to stop scratching himself. "We're enemies of the earth kingdom and fugitives of the fire nation."
"If the earth kingdom discovers us, then they'll have us killed." Zuko mumbled, rubbing his hands as he thought to himself.
"But if the fire nation finds us, we'll be handed over to Azula." Iroh noted dully. They nodded to each other, before ambling towards the edge of the forest.
"Earth kingdom it is." Zuko decided, walking over to me and lending me a hand to climb onto Kaze.
"And I was just getting comfortable." I whined, leaning forwards to rest my head on Kaze's neck as we stumbled through the forest and out towards a village.
-
I watched as the woman rubbed ointment on Iroh's swollen body. I'd pulled up the hood on my cloak, trying to be as discrete as possible while Zuko and Iroh wore straw hats.
"You three must not be from around here." She laughed good-naturedly, tending to Iroh's self induced injury. "We know better then to touch the white jade, much less make it into tea and drink it."
"I told him not to drink the stuff." I sighed lowly, folding my arms and turning away from Iroh. She chuckled, shooting me a small smile.
"So, are you travellers?" She asked, wringing out the towel. Zuko got up, turning to face the girl.
"Yes, we're travellers." He lied badly, I raised an eyebrow and made a mental note of it. Zuko was terrible at lying, awful even.
"Oh, then do you have names?" She asked innocently, dressing Iroh's body before packing away her ointments and bandages.
"Of course, we have names." Zuko stuttered, pausing to think of a name. "I'm Lee and this is my uncle... Mushi."
"I'm Ceren." I added dully, using my middle name as a fake. Zuko glanced over his shoulder to me and I shrugged, wondering how Kaze was faring outside in the heat.
"Yes, my nephew was named after this father so we just call him junior." Iroh added, smirking at Zuko, who stared at him blankly.
"Mushi, Junior and Ceren, huh? My name is Sang. " She introduced, turning back to look at me and Zuko. "You all look like you could use a good meal. Why don't you stay for dinner?"
"Sorry, but we need to be moving on." Zuko apologised, looking away rudely.
"That's too bad, my mom always makes too much roast duck." My mouth watered.
"Maybe, we could stay, I'm starving." I could feel Zuko's glare on me but I ignored it.
I was hungry.
-
My mouth water as the food was placed before me.
"My daughter tells me, you're refugees." Sang's mom said, as she served us food. "We were once refugees ourselves."
"When I was a little girl, the fire nation raided our farming village, all the men were taken away." Sang explained sadly, digging into her food. "That's the last time I saw my father."
My heart sank. Families, huh? I suppose they say that you can't grieve what you never had. But sometimes it hurts, knowing I'll never have memories the caring mother or the overprotective father, just the cold open plains of the North Pole. I looked down, loosing my appetite as images of those desolate plains plagued my mind.
"I haven't seen my father in many years..." Zuko muttered, his voice was lonely, and so lost. I ached to reach out to him but refrained myself, I'd just embarrass myself...
"Oh, is he fighting in the war?" Sang asked, pretty insensitively if you asked me. I frowned, would I have been a different person if I had of grown up with my family? Lang Yao's words replayed in my head and I felt tears form in my eyes. I blinked them away.
"Yeah." Zuko muttered, and it was obvious the subject was something to be dropped.
"What about you, Ceren?" Sang asked, and I froze. What about me? Sure, there was people who claimed to be my family, but, did they count? No, they weren't my family, they abandoned me.
"Can't remember having one."
-
I sat lazily in the tree, staring at the stars. Zuko sat on the wooden veranda, gazing into open space as he thought deeply. The silence between us was comforting, that was until Sang appeared.
"Can I join you?" She asked innocently as she opened the sliding door. I rolled my eyes, she seemed too cheerful. "I know what you've been through, we've all been through it."
I rolled my eyes, she didn't. And no, we haven't all been through it. Sure, we were all hurt by the fire nation, we all ran from them, I did it alone in the middle of the North Pole, when I was ten. Hmm, my thoughts had become so self-centred. I cursed silently to the stars, as I noted the change in myself. Had I always been like that?
"The Fire Nation has hurt you." She mumbled, I glanced back to see her reach out to touch Zuko's face, he grabbed her arm roughly. "It's okay, they hurt me too."
She rolled up her trouser leg to show a swirling burn mark.
I paused.
I was a terrible person.
-
"Thank you for the duck, it was excellent!" Iroh complimented. The woman laughed at his compliment.
"You're welcome," She said, handing him some leftovers. "It brings me joy to see someone eat my cooking with such gusto."
"Much practice." Iroh smiled, patting his belly. We bowed to them before turning to leave, well, Iroh and I did anyway. Zuko stood rudely away from us.
"Oi, Zuko , where are your manners?" Iroh snapped as Zuko did as he was told and turned to bow and thank the women halfheartedly.
"I know you think there isn't anymore hope in the world, but there is hope, the avatar has returned." I sighed at her words, knowing it would must likely upset or anger Zuko, probably both. He was such a closed minded person.
We exited the front gate but Zuko stopped, glancing at the weird bird thing earth kingdom soldiers used. I'd left Kaze to his own devices to wander in the woods, though I'd call him later, he'd always find me. Zuko took the bird, hopping onto it before offering a hand to me. Iroh scowled at his ways.
"Zuko, what are you doing?" He asked. "These people just showed you great kindness."
"Well, they're about to show us a little more kindness." Zuko shrugged. "Well?"
Iroh got on first while I hesitated, before Zuko grabbed my arm and pulled my up. I scowled as I landed awkwardly on his lap.
"I was going to get on."
"No, you weren't."
"Oh, really? And how do you know?"
"Because you felt sympathy towards them."