Sorry for the delay, my Wattpad has been acting up for some reason, but here is the new chapter!
~ ~ ~
Senlin bids Zuko's ship a hasty farewell, disappearing with the setting sun at their backs as they turn their ship. Zuko stares into the purple gloom, savouring the last of the sun's rays on the back of his neck.
She's safe, he thanks Agni, tipping his head forward in silent prayer.
His men have orders to sail hard and sail strong for the crescent isle, especially after Zhao's attack; they lose the Avatar's trail, they lose their position on Zuko's ship. As happy as they'd be to set back on dry land, being dismissed from the banished prince's ship will guarantee a shoddy station for the long-term assignments.
Zuko is under no illusion. No one wants to be on his ship.
Against his will, as are most of his thoughts, his mind drifts to Katara. Agni's warmth chooses then to dip below the horizon. Replaced by a chill, he shivers as melancholy fills him as it so often does. He has to grip the rails until his knuckles go white, fighting to dispel the rage that almost turns his ship around to finish Zhao once and for all.
When that missile struck the side of his ship and smoke burst from the engine, Zuko almost bolted then and there. How deep did the missile penetrate? Far enough to reach Katara's cell, four levels deep, drier than the desert and no water?
She'd have been incinerated in seconds.
Breathe, he reminds himself.
Once again, a fight has led him to abstain from seeing her. Saving face? Maybe, he can't tell. Not like he has to see her every day. She's his prisoner. So why does he feel like his skeleton is trying to jump out of his skin so it can run to her? Why is he still holding off? Still, after today?
He's only hurting himself, but he can't seem to help it. He has little left to his name, he can't afford to give up his pride as well.
And Katara won't be missing him the way he misses her, even if she's just a few levels below. Might as well be across the world. And it's not fair how many things he has to remind him of her; clouds growing heavy with rain on the horizon. The tsungi horns being warmed up for the evening's entertainment. Even his Kata exercises hold remnants of her awe, her wonder as he performed the Snapping Willow.
She's infected everything he does. Maybe this confrontation he speeds towards will be the last. He'll capture the Avatar, and finally be rid of the waterbender and this hold she's slowly tightening around him.
He's not looking forward to it. The last time he was face to face with Zhao was an experience he'd rather forget.
"Prince Zuko?" His uncle's voice arrives just in time to distract him from the ache in his heart. "Dusk is almost gone. What are you still doing up here?"
Brooding, Katara would tease with a nudge into his side. Only now that it's not there does he wonder when he got so used to her casual touches. A product of growing up perpetually freezing, he suspects. An unconscious habit to seek warmth wherever it may be.
Even from him? Maybe, as a last resort.
"Watching the sunset."
His uncle hums as he comes to stand at his side. Both know he rarely uses his free time for peaceful activities. "You are facing the wrong way for that." Spreading out before them, the gloomy purple sky deepens to match the dark ocean. "Unless you are growing a new fondness for blue?"
"I hate blue. It washes me out." Makes him look downright ill.
"Will the lady Katara be joining us this evening?" his uncles asks after a few moments silence.
"I... don't think that's a good idea."
"Because of the way you scorned her attempt to tell you you'll make a good Fire Lord?"
His cheeks redden. "The only good Fire Lord to Katara is a dead one."
"She seemed to think differently after I told her of our escapades in the Earth Kingdom a few days ago."
"Your escapades. My rescue mission."
Iroh smiles. "Exactly what she thought as well, my prince. She told me to say she doesn't believe you smashed my chains with your heel. Neither does the lovely Lily. You might need to prove it to them." He's quiet a few moments. "She thinks you quite handsome."
"What?" Zuko splutters.
"When I told her of my invitation to join me, she blushed a pretty pink. Not-" he interrupts before Zuko can point out the obviously perverse image everyone but his uncle finds perverse. "-at the thought of being unclothed before me, I can assure you. Watertribe customs do not shy away from practical nudity. Body heat is a commodity in the poles. There are no people who love the sun's warmth like the Fire Nation than the Watertribes of the poles."
"I don't see what that has to do with me."
"She asked if you were invited as well."
Zuko's brain stops working for three heartbeats, his blood pumping decidedly elsewhere than his head.
Thankfully, his uncle fills the silence. "Is it wise to be charting through the Fire Nation, nephew? Of all the things you've done in your twenty years..."
"This is the most foolish," Zuko finishes the thought. For the first time, he feels it. Feels the mortality he speeds towards. Why now? What's changed that has him second guessing the decisions his destiny drives him towards? "I have no choice, uncle."
"Have you completely forgotten that the Fire Lord banished you? What if you're caught?" Uncle pleads. "What do you think will happen to Katara?"
"I'm chasing the Avatar. My father will understand why I'm returning home." He pointedly doesn't answer his uncle's last question.
Iroh waits, but when Zuko offers nothing, shakes his grey head. "You give him too much credit. My brother is not the understanding type."
"Only I'll have to face him." If all goes well, Katara won't have to find out. But it's not in his nature, nor his power, to go on without knowing. "Take her back to Kyoshi if I don't return in three days. She has friends there. Friends who know how to get into contact with the Avatar."
He doesn't want her stranded among enemies; If not on his ship, he wants her with her friends.
"I need to prepare the boat." He turns away. Smoke still billows from the engine stacks. He needs it and loathes it.
"I have taken care of that. Go say your sorry's before nightfall. You'll regret it even after you come back and no longer have a reason." His uncle is not suggesting.
~ ~ ~
Katara whips around as he opens the door. He freezes halfway in, unsure suddenly if she'll want to see him. Blue eyes narrow, and once again he feels he's done something wrong. "What has been going on up there?"
Deciding she won't throw him out, at least not immediately, Zuko comes fully in. "We suffered an attack."
"We were attacked?" She misses him freezing at her use of we, too consumed with the battle she missed. "How?" Then, brighter. "Was it Aang?"
His elation extinguishes quicker than if she'd thrown water over him. "We came across a Fire Nation blockade. Nothing serious happened."
"Nothing serious?" Her arms flap to encompass the box surrounding her. "I could feel the heat through the metal!"
"You weren't hurt?"
She blinks, caught off guard by the out-of-character question. "No, and that's not the point. Why was a Fire Nation blockade shooting at you?"
"They don't like me." He adds a shrug when it seems his answer doesn't suffice, guessing by her twitching eyebrow. "I'm banished, as in, not allowed to come back."
"So why have you sailed into Fire Nation waters?" Her dusky cheeks pale. "You're not... I'm not being handed over to your dad or-"
"No!" He gawks, horrified with her or himself, he can't tell, with how quickly she can fear him. "No, no. I'd never let... I'm going off ship for a few days. I'll be back, but until then, Uncle will play Pai Sho with you."
She blinks, processing his words. "Play Pai Sho? What're you-? Never mind. Where are you going?"
"Off ship."
"Where off ship are you going?" she clarifies through gritted teeth.
"Why do you care?"
"Classified, got it." Grumbling, she shakes her head. "You get to go off chasing my friends, be part of the real world instead of stuck in a metal box, and I get to keep rotting in the box."
He knew she hated it here, yet his heart still twists as if she'd said it right to his scarred face. "I'm sorry about that, and about... before."
She chokes on air, swivelling from her descent onto the bed and almost falling over. "You're what? Since when are you-" She cuts herself off, eyes narrowing. "You're in your armour. And you're leaving as we enter Fire Nation waters. And right before you do that, you come here and say you're sorry. What's going on, Zuko? Where are you going?"
Of course, she'd never accept his apology. Why should she? He's done nothing but keep her captive from her friends, interrogate her, lock her up, keep her from her element. Coming here before he took the ship out was a mistake.
Before the melancholy can overwhelm him, she stops his heart with two words.
"Don't go." She shakes her head when he stares at her, and his breath catches when he realises emotion wells in her eyes. "It's Zhao, isn't it? You don't get this desperate unless he's involved. Desperate Zuko is a stupid Zuko and going off alone is definitely stupid. What are you thinking? Is capturing Aang worth your life?"
He's stunned silent, staring down at her. She hasn't said his name this many times in her whole capture. Each time she does his heart slams against his ribs.
"You can't fight him and his men on your own, Zuko. You're not invincible. I know you think your divine destiny makes you think you are, but you're not. You'll find that out if you go on this suicide mission. You'll leave. You'll find out you're not as strong as you think you are, and I'll be alone."
He can't breathe. Armoured plates clamp his chest as Katara's words fill and expand his heart to bursting. Pushing and pulling. Staying or going. His own father sent him away, and here she is begging him not to go. He's being torn apart on the spot as she stares up at him, pleading him to say something.
"Uncle likes the white lotus manoeuvre," he croaks before fleeing from the cell.
~ ~ ~
Zuko tongues at his bleeding lip as he glares up at Zhao. The Commander's eyes track the lip, the bruise Zuko feels swelling on his cheek, the blood trickling down the side of his head, and sneers gleefully. Luckily, Zuko's armour protected him from any serious injury when the Avatar tossed him down the stairs, though he left a dented vambrace behind in his haste to keep the Avatar from reaching the inner temple.
He failed, and now has to suffer Zhao's gloating, chained to a pillar as soldiers and Fire Sages wait for the door to open. Across the temple, the Avatar's companion glares at him, but he's easy enough to ignore.
Fire Sage Shyu kneels, suffering Zhao's full attention. "Why did you help the Avatar?"
"Because it was once the sages' duty. It is still our duty," Shyu answers without hesitation, straight backed on his knees.
Zhao's lip curls. "What a moving and heartfelt performance. I'm certain the Fire Lord will understand when you explain why the Fire Sages betrayed him."
The five standing sage's pale. "But Commander, only Shyu aided the Avatar."
"Silence!" Zhao snaps. He takes a few breaths to calm himself. "Save your stories for the Fire Lord. As far as I'm concerned, you are all guilty!"
You always get desperate when Zhao's involved. Now is not the time to be distracted by Katara, but he can't help it. You care about the prosperity of the Fire Nation. All of the Fire Nation.
"Leave them be, Zhao!" Zuko roars in a desperate attempt to be what she foolishly believes him to be. He earns a sharp strike to his scarred cheek. Stars and blinding pain burst across his skull.
Her brother's fury is unsympathetic and so like hers, only missing a certain... something. Something that is inherently, solely, Katara. Maybe Sokka hasn't spent enough time with him to truly know how to hate him beyond blind prejudice yet.
"Where's my sister?" the Watertribe youth demands for the tenth time.
Yes, you idiot, how about I tell you where my ship is in front of Zhao so he can finish stealing the Avatar and take her from me too. Zuko shakes his head, returning his attention to the inner chamber.
"Answer me!"
But Zhao is watching. Not the watertribe boy. Zhao's prejudice runs so deep, Sokka is less than a person to him. More a sack of meat holding his bones and brain together. Not worth the breath it would take to tell him to shut up.
Zhao watches Zuko, hateful eyes sharp. Zuko stares back at him, gives nothing but his utmost loathing for the Fire Nation Commander, until the man returns his attention to the chamber doors. "A cowardly Sage and a banished Prince. Two traitors in one day, the Fire Lord will be pleased."
"Gloat all you want, Zhao, you're too late. The Avatar's inside and the doors are sealed."
Zhao laughs down at him. "No matter. Sooner or later he has to come out. We'll be ready for him." He turns to the Fire Sages not on their knees. "When those doors open, unleash all your firepower!"
Soldiers and Sages surround the chamber door in a semicircle. Through the gaps in the bodies a glow radiates through the door and floor. Smoke streams through the cracks into the antechamber, blanketing their legs in a hazy cloak as the door groans ponderously open.
Light bursts from the chamber. Zhao gives the order, and Zuko's blinded by an onslaught of heat and colour. He presses his scarred cheek into the stone pillar, heart jacking into the next stratosphere as a wall of fire erupts.
And reveals Avatar Roku.
Zhao's horror matches Zuko's own. Two Avatar's? His father will be beside himself when he learns of this development. Except, where is the Airbender?
Roku kneels into what Zuko knows is a firebending forward strike. Molten fire melts through the floor, a screaming trail of lava bubbling up until it erupts. Soaring towers of lava explode throughout the temple, tearing the stone apart as if it were paper.
Zhao and his firebenders flee, nothing Zuko wouldn't expect of a man who would strike another behind his back in the Burning Place.
Recognising those glowing eyes as the Avatar state, he's been on the receiving end of it enough times to know, Zuko doesn't think twice when his chains evaporate around him. Searing pain lances across his naked arm, molten iron hissing when it meets soft flesh. Sprinting from the antechamber, every pump of his arms burning, open wound stinging and sensitive to the air. Zuko barely sees where he's going, only that outside is the goal as the temple collapses around him.
He see's the Fire Sages wailing ahead of him, their world falling apart, threatening to crush them. He sees soldiers in the entourage. And Zhao, that ugly, traitorous bastard. He runs harder. Legs numb with exhaustion. Lungs aching. Arm burning. Half of Zhao's platoon wait at end of the hall, stationed guards left to guard the retreat as Zhao disappears down the steps. A faceless mask turns as Zuko nears. Behind the white skull visage his eyes flash wide, then disappear in the burst of Zuko's blazing strike. He lets out a scream as Zuko passes. More turn – hand maidens, men, warriors, guards, ship hands and stewards Zuko recognises from his days as son and heir to the Fire Lord.
Their realization of his presence comes in waves. The enemy is supposed to be locked in the chamber, not amongst them, so they flinch in seeing him. And when they gather their wits, he's already past their armoured hands. He dodges a guard's outstretched grip, lashes back, hits metal with his bare fist. Fingers come back numb and shaking.
Shouts. Fumbling for swords. Fire snaps past his head. Zhao turns, stunned at the blasts scorching the wall by his head, eyes widening further when they register the banished prince charging towards him.
"Fire! Fire on the Fire Lord's son!"
Six concentrated rockets scream towards him. Zuko's good eye bugs wide and, without thinking, he skids right and down a corridor he's lucky was there. His ear singes. Tears sting but his face is numb. He runs through darkened hallways but all he can see is the fire screaming towards his face. All he hears is his ragged breathing and the rumbling of the temple.
Until a hole opens up in the wall. The sea rolls peacefully beyond, a giant, beautiful blue eye tired of his excuses when she beats him at Two Lies and a Truth. Crushed diamonds glitter behind his blinks. All his strength bleeds into this last mad dash.
I won't die here. I won't leave you.