They'd been on the run for just over a week, and Nava was convinced Zuko was going to lose his mind. He had stomped away while Nava was collecting berries and she distantly heard him complain that they hadn't found any food.
"I can't live like this. I wasn't meant to be a fugitive," he said angrily. "This is impossible!"
Nava snickered and stood up with Zuko's wide-brimmed had filled with berries and roots of all sorts. She returned to the clearing just as he was leaving and set the hat beside Iroh.
"I'm going to go make sure he doesn't accidentally break his neck tripping over a root or something," she said and then went the way Zuko did.
She found him fashioning a spear out of a tree branch next to a small pond a minute later.
"Why don't you use one of my knives?" she suggested.
"No, I want to do this," he muttered.
Nava shrugged and kicked off her shoes. She rolled her pants up to her knees and waded into the pond. With her knife in one hand, she walked to the deepest part of the water and squinted into the depths for anything that might be swimming around. Neither her nor Zuko said anything as they went about their own business.
////
Zuko took a break from whittling his spear to watch Nava. She had her gaze towards the water, eyebrows furrowed in concentration and her tongue poking out from between her teeth. She'd been a lot happier since they've been on the run, he noticed. He thought smiling wasn't possible for her, but the amount of times she'd smiled since they'd left the bathhouses was astounding. Maybe she was staying optimistic, so he wouldn't feel as bad. Deep down, Zuko appreciated it, but it wasn't working. He was still angry that Azula had played to his weakness like that. And he was angry that he let her. He should have known better. It was stupid to believe his father wanted him home. If that was all it took, he should have been welcomed back sooner.
"I got one!" Nava's exclamation startled him.
Zuko's vision refocused and he saw Nava clutching a fish by its tailfin. It had a deep gash in its body but it still seemed to be able to put up a fight as it struggled against her grip. She glanced at him and beamed, but as she did, the fish gave one last valiant twitch and freed itself from her hand. It slapped her in the face as it went and Nava was sent one way while the fish went the other. She sat up abruptly, spluttering.
Zuko stared at her for a moment longer before he let out a bark of laughter.
"It's not funny!" she said shrilly. She pushed herself to her feet and got back onto the grass. "You think you can do better?"
"I know I can do better. I won't let a fish slap me in the face," Zuko responded.
"Go try it then, fish are slippery little buggers, Mr. Never-Had-to-Fend-for-Himself-Before."
Zuko rolled his eyes and with his new rudimentary spear, waded into the water and started his search for a proper fish. At some point, he glanced up and spotted Nava by a low-hanging tree, stripped down to her underclothes. She had hung her wet clothes up to dry. His eyes wandered to the bright pink scar that started between her shoulder blades and ended above her right hip. It was gnarled and pink and red and Zuko felt his own scar throb in empathy. He was suddenly very glad Zhao was dead.
Zuko quickly realized he was staring and looked away as Nava turned around. He never expected her to be so... muscular. He didn't think archery required such upper body strength, but the muscles along her back and shoulders said otherwise. Zuko gave his head a shake. Now was not the time to be thinking about a girl's muscles. He had a job to do. But he couldn't help but note that she had freckles along her shoulders.
////
A few hours and zero caught fish later, Zuko plopped down beside Nava who lounged in her newly-dried clothes, with a sigh, fishless.
"No luck?" she asked him.
He shook his head as a frown crossed his features.
"Well, let's go declare our failure to your uncle," she said and got to her feet. She held out her hand for Zuko to take and he did. She pulled him up and led the way back to where Iroh waited.
"We couldn't find any food," Zuko announced when they returned. Iroh was where they had left him, except he was scratching at his face and neck wildly. "Uncle, what are you doing?"
"You remember that plant I said might be tea?" Iroh said.
"You didn't," Zuko said in disbelief.
"I did, and it wasn't." Iroh turned to reveal his swollen and patchy face. He scratched at his neck. "Soon the rash will spread to my throat and I will stop breathing - but! I found these berries. They are bacui berries, which cure the rash of the white jade! Or they are macahoni berries, which cause blindness."
"We are not staking anymore chances with these plants," Zuko marched over to his uncle, pulled him up, and then pulled him down a path, away from the clearing. "Come on, we're going to find help."
Nava grabbed Zuko's hat and poured out the collected berries before she followed him and Iroh. Eventually they came across a lively village with a small medicine hut on the outskirts. Zuko went up to the hut's door and knocked a few times. It opened a moment later and a young girl in a long dress opened the door.
"My uncle made the white jade flower into tea, thinking it was the white dragon bush. Now he's got this rash that will kill him, can you help us?"
The girl looked at them incredulously. "Come in and sit on the examination table, I'll get some ointment," she said and stepped aside to let them in.
Nava followed Iroh and Zuko inside and stood beside Zuko while Iroh sat on the table.
"You're lucky you came when you did," the girl said as she slathered Iroh with a gel that had a very pungent minty smell. "You must not be from around here; the locals know better than to touch the white jade bush, much less make it into tea."
"Yes, we are travellers!" Zuko said quickly. "From the... eastern Earth Kingdom."
"Do these travellers have names?"
"Well, his name is... Mushi," from over the girl's shoulder, Iroh shot Zuko a displeased look and Nava hid her smile behind her hand. "And I'm Lee."
"He's named after his father, so we just call him Junior," Iroh cut in. Zuko glared daggers at his uncle. "And she is my daughter, Miyu."
"Mushi, Junior, and Miyu. My name is Song," the girl said. "You guys look like you could use a good meal, why don't you stay for dinner?"
"Sorry, but we need to be moving on," Zuko said.
"That's too bad, my mom always makes too much roast duck,"
Iroh visibly perked up. "Where do you live, exactly?"
"There's a path behind here that leads right up to my house. It's less than a twenty minute walk."
"We'll be there!" Iroh exclaimed before Zuko could decline.
////
The three of them waited a few hours for Iroh's rash to go away before they went to Song's house. They made good time getting there and spent a little while chatting with Song and her mother before dinner. They sat around a square table close to the floor. Zuko sat beside Nava, Song and her mother were across from them, and Iroh sat at one of the ends.
"My daughter tells me you're refugees. We were once refugees ourselves," Song's mother said as she set the roast duck in the centre of the table.
"When I was a little girl, the Fire Nation raided our farming village and took all of the men away... that was the last time I saw my father," Song said.
"I haven't seen my father in many years," Zuko said quietly.
"Oh... is he fighting in the war?"
"Something like that."
Nava ate her dinner in silence while she listened to Iroh, Song, and Song's mother converse. Occasionally she'd throw in a comment but she preferred to sit and listen. Zuko didn't say anything at all.
After a dessert of tea and pastries, Zuko insisted they should find somewhere to camp for the night and Iroh reluctantly agreed. Song's mother gathered up the leftover duck and put it in a package for them to take and escorted them to the door.
"Thank you for having us over, your cooking is excellent!" Iroh said with a bow.
"You are very welcome," Song's mother handed over the leftovers. "It brings me joy to see someone eat my cooking with such... gusto."
The older man chuckled sheepishly, patting his stomach.
"Thank you for your generosity," Nava said, bowing curtly.
Zuko turned to leave the yard, but his uncle stopped him.
"Junior, where are your manners? You need to thank these nice people."
Zuko turned and bowed slightly. "Thank you," he said dryly.
As they were leaving the yard, Song called out, "I know you don't believe there isn't much hope left in the world, but there is hope! The Avatar has returned!"
From beside her, Nava felt Zuko tense. "I know," he said through gritted teeth.
Before they left the property, Zuko stopped in front of a stable that housed two ostrich horses. He untied them both and led them away from the table.
"What are you doing? These people just showed you great kindness!" Iroh hissed.
"And they're about to show us a little more," Zuko nodded to Nava. "Get on behind me so Uncle can have his own."
Nava stared up at Zuko for a moment. He rose his eye brow expectantly and she resigned herself and climbed on behind him. She secured his arms around his waist as Iroh clambered onto the other ostrich horse and they set off. Before the house disappeared from view, Nava glanced back over her shoulder and was startled to see Song on her front step, watching them. Nava faced forward as she ignored the pang of guilt in her stomach.
////
A few days of meaningless travelling later, Nava, Iroh, and Zuko found themselves in a small village, sitting on straw mats, begging for money. Well, it was mostly Iroh who was doing the begging; Nava was lounging beside the ostrich-horses and Zuko sulked
"This is humiliating!" Zuko spoke for the first time that day. "We're royalty, these people should be giving us whatever we want."
"Welcome to the lowest of the low, your Highness," Nava said, twirling a loose strand of hair around her finger. "Better get used to it."
The Prince merely scoffed. "Don't you have anything better to do than make sarcastic remarks?"
"Don't you have anything better to do than pout and hate everything?" Nava retorted without missing a beat.
Zuko turned to face her, his eyebrows furrowed and mouth open with a response. Before he could speak, a large man approached him. Nava took note of two hefty broadswords strapped to his back.
"How about some entertainment in exchange for a gold coin?" he said with a wicked smile and produced a shiny gold coin for them to see.
"We're not performers," Zuko said flatly.
"Not professional, anyway!" Iroh said. He stood up, clasped his hands together and started to sing. "It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se..."
Nava and Zuko straightened up, a silent agreement between them. The man unsheathed his swords and swung them at Iroh's feet, which forced him to hop from foot to foot in a weird sort of dance. Zuko's hands balled into fists and Nava grabbed one of them, shooting him a warning look.
Not here.
The swordsman laughed loudly. "Nothing like a fat man dancing for his dinner. Here you go!" he tossed the coin at Iroh's feet and stalked off.
Iroh sat back down and set the coin in his hat. "Such a nice man," he said lightly.
They left the village in the evening, buying some feed for the ostrich horses and some supplies for themselves. As Nava and Iroh set up camp in a clearing somewhere, Zuko stalked off, muttering something about wanting some time alone. He didn't return until the moon was high in the sky. Iroh was already asleep but Nava was still awake, waiting for him. The first thing she noticed was a pair of broadswords strapped to his back.
"You robbed that man," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Maybe I did," Zuko said curtly, putting the swords into one of the ostrich's pouches. "Why do you care?"
"Better you do it than me. Did you get anything else?"
He tossed a small sack at her and she opened it. Inside, a bunch of copper and silver coins glinted up at her. Nava smiled and rolled a coin over her knuckles.
"Your uncle will appreciate this."