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alcesverdes) wrote2007-06-13 12:51 am
[Avatar] Quality Time
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Rating: PG
Summary: Iroh wins a contest and shares his price with his nephew. Sadly, Zuko is not that happy about the outcome.
Spoilers: For some of the second season, though this is conceived to happen before its ending.
No power in the world could've stopped Iroh from participating in the Tea Emporium's Contest to find the Earth Kingdom's Greatest Tea Connoisseur, that was why Zuko didn't even bother. Still, since they couldn't just leave the tea house unattended for a whole day, Iroh left early that morning on his own to the contest. Even thought that meant Zuko would have to be alone in the shop, he prefered it to be watching old people drinking tea. On the spotlight, that is; while in the shop, at least he could disappear into the kitchen every now and then.
Zuko didn't have any idea of how long the contest was going to take, but he began to worry when his uncle hadn't come back by the time their shift was over. Once he'd closed the shop for the day, Zuko began thinking of going out and look for him when Iroh opened the door and got in looking all smug. And slightly drunk.
“Pack your things, nephew!” he said, arms wide open.
Zuko nearly jumped. “What happened? Did someone from the Fire Nation see you?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. Still, we're leaving first thing tomorrow morning!”
“Are they coming?”
“Nope. It's just that I—” (dramatic pause) “—won the first prize! With a perfect record, just as expected,” he added, a big smile on his face. “And—are you ready for this?—we're leaving for a week-long cruise tomorrow morning!”
Zuko stared.
“The first prize was a week-long cruise for two persons,” Iroh explained. “What's with that face? You don't want to come with me?”
Zuko fought the urge of rubbing his face with his hand; he couldn't stand it when his uncle's lower lip quivered. “What if someone sees us?” he said. “We're hiding, uncle, remember?”
“Ah! Don't worry about that, nephew. My brother would never send his soldiers to a pleasure trip; he has an image to maintain, you know?”
“Either way, Ba Sing Se is not near the sea in any account.”
Iroh raised a finger. “That's why we're leaving tomorrow morning, to catch up with the ship on time. The Emporium is covering all the traveling expenses, of course. It's great, isn't it? We'll get to do some sightseeing!”
“We cannot go.”
“Why not? It's free!”
“Be—because...” Zuko couldn't bring himself to say what if the Avatar shows up while we're away?—which would so happen, if his previous luck served as a pattern. “What's going to happen with the tea house?” he asked instead.
Iroh put his hands on Zuko's shoulders and looked at him in the eyes. “Nephew, right now I'm feeling really proud of you; you're showing so much responsibility towards our jobs. But never fear; the owner was a guest in the contest. I talked to him and he gave us permission to go as long as we bring him a souvenir.”
This time, Zuko did rub his face with his hand.
He had run out of arguments and, anyway, if he managed to come up with something else, his uncle was going to tear it apart as well. So, he went to get his traveling bag ready.
He was vaguely glad he'd washed his underwear the day before.
-
For three days they traveled, through the desert, through mountains, through forests, and some villages, just like they had done it not-so-long before, only that now on a cart instead than on foot. This fact, though Zuko would never acknowledge it aloud, made the landscapes more appealing than back then. Nevertheless, he still was looking all around them for hints of the Fire Nation Army.
“In times like this, I wish I was a master painter, to capture all of this beauty as it deserves,” Iroh said as they were passing by an impressive rock formation shaped rustically as a flower. Whether Mother Nature or a creative earthbender should be thanked for it, was debatable.
“Mmmh,” Zuko replied.
“I think I could take classes on the cruise. The brochure said something about it.”
“Mmmh.”
“And there are singing classes too.”
“Mmmh.”
“By the way, I signed you up for dancing classes.”
“You what?”
Iroh snickered. “Sorry, I just wanted to know if you were listening.”
Zuko frowned as a response.
“Relax, nephew. No-one's following us.”
If his uncle said it, it'd be true, but Zuko couldn't relax like he'd been told; they had placed themselves in the open, they had become fair game to any firebender who happened to know who they were.
Or to anyone who happened to know who they were, which were their circumstances, and wanted to be in good terms with the Fire Nation.
-
They reached their destination without any incident worthy of note.
The port was in a lovely, vivacious town with a well-developed touristic infrastructure, the kind of which Zuko would've never set foot on by his own free will, and even less making a flamboyant fuss; if pressed, he'd probably enter the town burning random things to prove the power of the Fire Nation. However, he and his uncle were there now, with no way out of the noticing, and the hotel they arrived to was providing the flamboyant fuss—as it was part of the prize.
Iroh and Zuko were welcomed by a band playing a triumphal march, some beautiful girls gave them flowers—and kisses—, and the hotel manager gave a very moving speech to the staff about The Earth Kingdom's Greatest Tea Connoisseur.
Zuko felt really uncomfortable; that treatment was more appropriated for war heroes, not for an old man who happened to know a lot about tea.
Still, a part of Zuko's mind couldn't help but imagine this was happening in the Fire Nation and that his father was the one giving the heartwarming speech. Then, he closed his fist and forced himself to get back to the real world. He promised himself he would have a welcoming like that when he returned home with honor, with the Avatar, in a near future.
-
“This is a magnificent room, don't you think so, nephew?” Iroh asked once they were taken to it. “I should partake in contests more often.”
After looking around, Zuko nodded. Though the room and its contents weren't even close to the luxuries he'd enjoyed as a child, it was most definitely an improvement to what he and his uncle had been forced to go through in the past years.
There was a small table with a fruit basket on it, some cushions to linger on scattered near a big window that provided a charming view of the sea. In the back, there were two beds, one at the side of the other. The very first thing Iroh did when they walked into the room was to jump on them to find out which one was the softest and claim it for himself.
“If you don't mind, I'm going to take a nap,” Iroh said, lying down and yawning. “That was enough emotion for one day. I don't know how I'm going to survive the cruise.”
“Uncle, I'm going to take a walk,” Zuko said. “I'll be back soon.”
Iroh snored as an answer, so Zuko smiled and left.
-
The town's streets were all alike; once you saw one, you had seen them all. For example, despite that some of them offered different goods, every single store had ugly, wide-brimmed, bright-colored straw hats on display. The Sun wasn't all that bad, so the hats surely were for the tourists who liked to show up, Zuko thought while frowning in disgust.
After half an hour of wandering around, Zuko stopped for a moment, rested his back on a tree turned his eyes to the sea. Then, he remembered when he sailed all over it, looking for an Avatar whose face he didn't know, whose existence was more a legend than a fact. But, all of a sudden, Zuko had had his last strike of good luck and the Avatar himself showed up for the first time in one hundred years.
And, immediately after, helped by those barbarians from the Water Tribe, the Avatar had slipped from his fingers...
The Avatar had slipped just like water. The irony was the one that hadn't escaped Zuko.
Right when he was promising himself one more time that he was going to do fulfill his task sooner than later, Zuko heard a familiar voice that woke him up and made him hide behind the tree.
He still couldn't believe it even when he saw them, walking right in front of him: he had just ran into the Avatar's friends from the Water Tribe.
“Katara, are you sure you're going to be all right? Because, really, leaving you and Toph alone for a week—”
“Yes, we'll be fine. But you should've thought about it before breaking those jars! We don't have much time left and—”
“I know, I know! I've said I'm sorry about a thousand times, haven't I? I just wish the old man would take another kind of payment...”
“Yes, but as Toph said, it could've been worse.”
“Still, a week working as waiters in a cruise ship? Do you know how people are in those things? Aang and I aren't going to survive!”
As the girl sighed, Zuko gasped. Now he couldn't believe it even less; was his good luck finally coming back in the shape of a tea-expert contest?
That heartwarming welcoming with the speech seemed a little closer now.
-
Zuko spent the rest of the evening in the hotel lobby thinking how he was going to set a trap for the Avatar without his uncle noticing it—that'd be the most difficult part. He also wondered if he had enough money to bribe a steward to keep the Avatar caged in the storeroom. In any case, he was certain he didn't have enough for buying the hypothetical steward for the whole week, so it'd be better to go for the Avatar near the end of the travel.
That brought its own drawbacks, though. For example, Zuko needed to make sure that neither the Avatar nor his friend saw the firebenders, not only to keep the element of surprise, but because it wasn't above his enemies to spread the word of Zuko and Iroh being wanted criminals in order to escape their fate.
Zuko remembered then the straw hats he'd seen. Those and strategically-placed fans should be able to make the trick. Everyone else would be dressed up similarly, so the Avatar, who would be busy working on the ship, wouldn't look at him twice, especially if he was careful to hide his scar with the fans at all times.
Still, in principle, Zuko disliked the idea of having to use a disguise; he felt that a frontal confrontation with the Avatar would result in an increase of his dignity and his respectability. But, if he was cautious and everything worked as it should, not engaging in a glorious final battle would be one of the last sacrifices he'd have to make in order to restore his honor. Which was true even if it sounded like an oxymoron.
And, on the plus side, this time around he was going to be the one being served, not the one doing the serving. Thinking of that actually made him feel a little better.
-
At the end, he got the hats and the fans for free—two sets of each, even—, when he asked the hotel manager where to find some specially big and not that expensive. The manager had smiled and had given him the hats while boasting about how hatters had represented a well-respected industry in that town for generations.
This hadn't been part of Zuko's original plan, but he was running out of time; the ship was going to leave the port early in the morning and the shops were about to close. Besides, it'd be easier to explain those items to his uncle that way; he would've been very suspicious if Zuko told him he'd bought them.
“Nice hats,” Iroh said when he saw Zuko coming into the room with the things in his hands. “But they'd look better with an orchid on them, don't you think so?”
“I saw some in the back yard. Do you want me to go for one—?”
“No, no. I'll go myself. I need to stretch my legs a little. Oh, and, nephew?” he added as he stood up from the cushion he was eating grapes on.
“Yes, uncle?”
“See how all the relaxing is working?”
“Excuse me?”
“We've barely begun our vacation and your mood has improved noticeably already. And your eyes are shining like they hadn't shined in a while.”
“Huh...”
Iroh passed an arm around Zuko's shoulders and asked, “So, was she pretty?”
Zuko barely managed to babble a “Wha—?”
“It's the only answer for a change so sudden,” Iroh said thoughtfully. “You met a pretty girl when you went out for your walk, didn't you? By your reaction, I gather she's going in the cruise too—”
“I—I didn't meet any—”
Iroh raised his hand and shook his head solemnly. “It's fine, nephew. Don't worry, I won't meddle. I promise that won't even ask if you come back late to the cabin. Just be careful, all right?”
Zuko blinked. Had his uncle just given him permission to go hunt the Avatar? It certainly seemed so. “I—I will be careful, uncle,” he said, finally.
Iroh smiled half pleasantly and half smugly. “Very well, then. I'll go for the orchids and maybe a cup of tea. Do you want anything from the kitchen?”
“No, thank you.”
Iroh walked away humming, leaving a very perplexed Zuko behind. Still, he wasn't going to complain; finally things were falling right into place.
-
The orchids looked rather good on the hats, and the Avatar would never expect of Zuko to wear a straw hat with flowers on it—even more, until the day before Zuko wouldn't have expected of himself to wear that kind of straw hats, let alone one with flowers on it—, so the detail had only improved the disguise. Either way, Zuko fought his uncle when he began decorating his hat the next morning, out of principle.
The band was there again when they were boarding the ship, playing the same march as before. The hotel staff was there too, waving goodbye and asking them to come back soon. A mature, attractive woman in the back caught Zuko's eye; she was winking and blowing kisses to his uncle, who, in turn, was smiling broadly and blowing kisses back. Right then, Zuko realized that he hadn't noticed when Iroh had come back to the room the night before and held back a whine.
As soon as they set foot on the deck, the captain shook their hands and a lovely girl put a colorful flower collar around their necks.
Zuko concealed his face as much as he could behind his fan and looked around for the Avatar; it would seem like he was just admiring the ship, which, actually, deserved to be admired: it was quite big, and yet it managed to be elegant. Still, Zuko didn't put much attention to the details, only to the main structure, to the parts that would allow him to hide when and if necessary.
The Avatar wasn't on that part of the deck, though his friend was, trying to be all formal and dignified—emphasis on trying; the fact that the waiter uniform didn't become him was the least of his problems. He was helping a reluctant old woman to take her luggage to—most probably—her cabin.
Zuko frowned. While that ensured the presence of the Avatar on board, all that noise and flailing could call his uncle's attention and thus put and end to Zuko's plan. Fortunately, as Zuko noticed with the corner of his eye, Iroh was chatting with a group of passengers, and the Avatar's friend was gone to the lower deck in less than half a minute.
“A drink, sir?”
Zuko looked up, somewhat startled; it had been a while since someone had addressed him with such respect. It was a middle-age man smiling a smile too wide to be entirely heartfelt, though his eyes sparkled with a certain cheerfulness; he was skillfully holding a tray with assorted beverages on the palm of his hand. And the uniform looked better on him than on the Avatar's friend. “Yes, thank you,” Zuko said, grabbing the drink whose color seemed less health-threatening.
The man bobbed his head and left to attend the other passengers. Zuko took a sip of his drink and decided it wasn't all that bad.
One moment later, Iroh approached to Zuko. “Nephew, let's go to our cabin. Once we're all settled down, you can go out to look for your—” (significant pause) “—special friend.”
Zuko tried not to wince.
-
Since before the ship sailed, one could feel the excitement in all the passengers, but now that it had left the port, the thrill was unbearable. Or it would've been, if Zuko hadn't been so focused on his quest.
He saw himself back on the sea, again looking for the Avatar. Life went in circles, he thought—or rather, in spirals, since this time there was no doubt he had the upper hand and he was going to capture his prey once and for all.
-
Iroh signed up himself to the painting classes he had talked about on their way to the port. And to the dancing classes, and the poetry classes, and the bakery classes. All of which meant Zuko counted with several hours a day of being absolutely sure his uncle wouldn't appear to—inadvertently—thwart him.
Zuko walked all over the deck; he hadn't seen the Avatar yet, but his friend kept being everywhere. Currently, he was the one offering the drinks to the passengers—not as skillfully as the man who had given Zuko his a little earlier, but at least he wasn't spilling them over.
Zuko covered his face with the fan and hid behind an elderly couple as the Avatar's friend was getting closer. After he left, Zuko thought of following him, but he immediately realized that no good would come out of that, at least that early in the afternoon; the “authorized personal only” sign wasn't there just as an ornament. Therefore, Zuko decided it'd be for the best to wait until it was dark to comb the lower decks.
The Avatar had to be somewhere, and he'd be easier to find if he was in his cabin and not moving all around serving drinks and helping old ladies to find the pool. On the meantime, Zuko decided going to sleep; he'd need to be well-rested for what he was going to do that night.
-
Zuko woke up after the Sun had gotten down. There was no sign of his uncle in the cabin, so Zuko caught himself wondering vaguely how many women were already under Iroh's charms—and then he slapped himself on the face. He'd absolutely prefer not to do that. Ever again.
Moments later, Zuko was fully dressed up, ready to go to the staff's deck.
There was some security, though considerably less than any military facility Zuko had snuck up in the past, so passing by the so-called guards was a child's game. The hardest part was the actual finding of the Avatar, but that proved to be quite easy as well, once Zuko found out that all had to do was to follow the whining.
“I am tired, Aang!”
“Me too!”
“Hey! You weren't running all over the place doing... everything!”
“I was washing dishes! Did you know there are like ten thousand dishes on the ship? And don't let me start on the vases!”
“How did we get in this mess, again?”
“You and I were running on the square because we were late to meet Katara and Toph and—”
“It was rhetorical, Aang!”
“He, sorry!”
At the other side of the door, Zuko smiled, feeling somewhat vindicated; the Avatar was washing the dishes on the cruise ship. Washing dishes was awful; it dried your hands' skin and ruined them and...
“Aang, will you keep Momo out of my bed?” the Avatar's friend whispered angrily.
“Sorry! Come here, Momo!”
“Why did you bring him? If they catch him—”
“I didn't bring him; he came on his own. And they won't catch him; he's going to behave. Right, Momo?”
The Avatar's small pet's answer came muffled through the door.
It makes sense, Zuko thought; there was no way for the Avatar to smuggle his big pet, and it was well-known to Zuko that he couldn't live without them.
A subset for his plan began to form in Zuko's mind, one that made everything easier.
Zuko decided it was enough eavesdropping for the moment and went back to the ocean's breeze. He was feeling quite content with himself, and that surely showed up, because Iroh came out of nowhere to ask, “So, did you find her?”
Zuko considered his options before answering, avoiding his uncle's eyes, “I, uh, did.”
Iroh smiled, all warm and understanding—which made Zuko feel a little guilty—, but, as promised, he didn't ask anything else. “Let's go back to the cabin,” he said. “It's getting a little cold here for my poor old bones.”
“I'd like to keep walking around, if you don't mind, uncle.”
“Fine, just be careful, did you hear me?”
“Yes, I did. And I will.”
-
Zuko kept walking and thinking how he was going to catch the Avatar's pet. The thing had been a problem since the beginning; it had also proved to be somewhat intelligent, but was it intelligent enough to avoid a simple trap? Or was Zuko going to have to build a complex one? The more Zuko thought about it, the more he convinced himself to go for the complex trap; better safe than sorry.
Now, there had to be a master carpenter somewhere around the ship who could help him with it. Though asking for a small cage could and would raise unwanted questions. And Zuko still needed a big one for the Avatar, the request of which would only make it all worse.
At the end, Zuko saw himself with only one practical option available: he'd have to make the cages himself, which led to having to look up for one of those therapeutic workshops and sign up to it.
But it'd be worthy.
It'd better be.
-
Zuko found the workshop not long after breakfast the next day, while Iroh was in his dancing classes. The master carpenter in charge asked him if he needed any help with the basics, to which Zuko answered, in all honesty, that he knew what he wanted to do and how to do it, that he only needed the materials and a space to work. He said it in a way that made very clear that he truly appreciated the working space.
The Too-Happy-To-Be-True master carpenter bowed to that and said, “Call me if you need anything, sir,” without losing the Enthusiastic Smile before leaving Zuko alone, all in a way that'd put the most experienced of the Fire Lord's Ministers in shame.
Zuko inhaled and began working without paying attention to his neighbors.
Or so he tried.
As soon as he grabbed the saw, a tiny, middle-aged lady asked him to help her to put a rather big chunk of wood on her bench. Zuko was going to tell he to ask someone else, but when he looked around, he saw that the place was full of people that made his uncle look like a teenager. Sighing inwardly, and because he didn't want to stand out too much by being labeled as rude, he went to help the woman.
And to the small woman followed a myriad of men with ill backs.
By noon, Zuko had only sawed the parts he needed for the small cage, but he was feeling very tired. Either way, he carried on with his work; he wasn't going to throw away an opportunity as good as this one and he didn't have much time to do everything he needed to do.
“Here you are, nephew!” Iroh said from the entrance. “I've been looking for you all over the place! Want to join me for lunch? Um, what are you making here? A present for your little friend?”
Before Zuko could reply, his stomach made its presence known. Zuko wasn't sure if hating it for that, since it'd saved him from answering his uncle's question.
Iroh laughed softly. “Let's go, then; there's a table waiting for us.”
As they sat down, waiting to have their food served by the waiters, Iroh, absentmindedly grabbing a piece of bread, said, “Do you know who I saw an hour ago working on this very ship?”
Zuko's heart skipped a beat and glued his eyes to his uncle's face.
That wasn't happening.
That was not happening.
His uncle surely had just found a long-lost friend and wanted to invite him to have dinner with them or something.
Maybe he had been asked in marriage by one of the eccentric old women that were all over the ship.
Or maybe...
“Do you remember the Avatar's friend from the Water Tribe? He and the Avatar himself are working as waiters in the ship. Can you believe that?”
...maybe he had seen that noisy Water Tribe barbarian.
Zuko felt dizzy. And empty. But specially dizzy. And disappointed. And bordering in anger.
Iroh kept talking. “I went to him to say hello and he gave me exactly the same face you're making. But I told to him that you and I were just passengers who wanted to enjoy the trip as much as we could and avoid any trouble. I'm not sure I convinced him, but we're meeting him and the Avatar tonight on the deck to pact a formal truce. What do you think?”
His uncle didn't want to know what Zuko was thinking right that moment, so he didn't answer.
Fortunately, the food came soon to distract them and Zuko could sulk properly for a while. He didn't eat though; he'd lost all appetite for the time being.
His plans had been thrown overboard by a smooth twist of fate. Though, musing on it, it'd been absurd to expect that his uncle, who was far more observant than he seemed to be, wouldn't notice the Avatar's friend, who absolutely looked like a fish out of the water in that orange-and-yellow waiter uniform.
-
Not bothering anymore with hiding his face, Zuko spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on one of the deck's chairs, wondering if he could've done something to prevent what had happened.
For how long had his uncle known about his plans? Since the beginning? That'd certainly explain the little joke about the 'special friend'.
Zuko sighed. In a way, his uncle would never stop being the great General Iroh, the magnificent Dragon of the West. Always three steps ahead—at least—when something mattered to him.
Around sunset, Zuko had seen—and had been seen by—the Avatar's friend four times. Each one of them they'd exchanged looks. Glares. If eyes could kill, both of them would've been dead before supper.
Talking of which, since Iroh had made friends with the captain—they'd played one Pai-Sho game and bounded through it—both he and Zuko were invited to his table.
Zuko made the best of it bossing around the Avatar's friend for two and a half hours, calling his soup too cold, too hot, too cold again, deliberately melting that sweet made of frozen milk—twice—and claiming he'd asked for a different flavor. He even took the liberty to spill his drink on the 'clumsy waiter'.
At the end, even Zuko had to admit it'd been impressive how the Water Tribe barbarian had managed not to explode.
-
Finally, it was time for the meeting. Zuko and his uncle met the Avatar and his friend—the pet was nowhere to be seen—under the moon and the stars.
“You are going to pay for what you did!” the Avatar's friend all but yelled.
“What did I do?” Zuko asked, trying to look as innocent as possible.
The Avatar's friend shook his fist on the air but said nothing else—the four of them were out in the open, and as long as he worked in the ship, he was representing the whole staff; thus, right then his hands were all tied up if he didn't want to face prison. Zuko repressed a smug smile.
“You really are here!” the Avatar said.
“You didn't believe me?” his friend asked.
“Uh, of course I did,” the Avatar said, scratching his bald head. “But you have to admit it's too much of a coincidence.”
“I'd say,” Zuko sighed, folding his arms.
“Well, gentlemen,” Iroh began. “We're here to pact a truce.”
The Avatar's friend scowled. “Yeah, right.”
Iroh folded his arms and hid his hands within his sleeves. “I hereby promise that you will not receive any harm from me nor my nephew,” he said simply, though in his gravest tone of voice, which apparently made the Avatar and his friend to take him seriously.
The Avatar nodded. “We promise the same,” he said. “No harm of any kind.” He looked at his friend, but he was still frowning, so the Avatar called his name with a pleading voice.
“Fine! Fine! As long as you don't attack us first!” the Avatar's friend added hastily and waving his arms.
“You won't have to worry about that, right, nephew?”
Zuko was very close to give in to his urge to bit his lower lip. He was caught, once again, between a rock and a hard place. It was a matter of honor. His uncle was offering peace and doing otherwise would be well, dishonorable. And on top of that, if he tried to capture the Avatar, Zuko would hurt Iroh's feelings as well as the trust he'd place on his nephew.
The former Fire Nation prince wished for this situation to be a bad dream. Or for him to be somewhere else, far away, where he didn't have to make this decision.
He just hated his lousy luck while hating everything else in the world.
“Nephew?” Iroh pressed.
“D'you see, Aang? He doesn't want to!”
“I'd take my time thinking about it too, Sokka. He's been trying to catch me for a while; this must be difficult for him.”
“You're too forgiving.”
Zuko scoffed. “Fine!” he said finally. “No hostilities as long as we're on the ship. I promise.”
The Avatar smiled broadly. “That sounds good enough for me.”
“Have I mentioned you're too forgiving, Aang? Like, recently?”
Zuko didn't care if the Avatar was forgiving or not. What he wanted he couldn't get, so he'd have to conform himself with going to his cabin to sulk until dawn—either that or throw himself overboard, whatever it took to end it all as quickly as possible.
-
Two days later, the ship made a stop in a tropical, exuberant island. Iroh was, of course, one of the first ones to disembark, but Zuko wasn't in the mood to follow, so he stayed in the ship. He wasn't in a mood for anything, really.
“You've no idea of what you're going to miss,” Iroh had said.
Zuko didn't answer, so Iroh left.
An hour after his uncle had gone, Zuko got up from his bed and walked around the deck until he found a good spot from where to see the island without been bothered.
He still couldn't believe what had happened to him in the last days. He'd been painfully close to catch the Avatar and, suddenly, bam! Tables were turned around and everything had gone wrong. Oh, so wrong.
Worse still, it happened every time. Like if there were some high power that didn't want him to succeed.
“You're not going down?” the Avatar's cheerful voice asked. “The island seems rather nice.”
“Go away,” Zuko growled. He couldn't have any privacy now?
“It's our free day, but Sokka and I are staying here too,” the Avatar said, sitting down right next to Zuko. “He said that since you promised not to do anything as long as we're 'on the ship', he didn't want to risk leaving it.”
“Oh, look! He thinks! Who knew?”
“I wanted to go, though,” the Avatar continued. “So Momo could stretch his wings a litt—” He stopped and looked at Zuko questioningly with the biggest eyes anyone could possibly have.
Zuko turned his head away, back to the island. “I already knew about your pet,” he said, and he forced himself to add, “I won't say a word; it doesn't benefit me at all.”
“Thank you!” Judging by his voice alone, it seemed that the Avatar wanted to give Zuko a hug. “I still believe that maybe you're not that bad, you know?” he said instead.
Zuko held back a sigh, but didn't answer. The Avatar remained quiet too, and they stayed like that, in silence, one at the side of the other, until the Water Tribe barbarian (Sokka) came looking for his friend and, scolding him for 'fraternizing with the enemy', dragged him away.
-
“You should've gone along with me, nephew!” Iroh said the next morning. “It was amazing! Truly amazing! The views! The food! The way those girls moved their hips—!”
“Thank you, uncle, I don't want to know.”
“Nephew, you worry me sometimes. I—I think of how much I want to cradle little grandnephews in my arms and—and then, well, look at you! You're old enough to be interested in women, but you don't seem to be at all. Sometimes I even wonder—”
“Uncle!”
“There's always adoption, you know?”
“Uncle, please!”
“I mean, it doesn't matter as much anymore if you don't have an heir—”
That was the last straw.
Zuko stormed out of the cabin feeling his blood boiling. He was half expecting his uncle to follow him, but if he wanted to continue that conversation, Zuko was truly going to throw himself overboard.
Nevertheless, he soon forgot that idea, since, turning around at a corner, he ran into the ship's captain scolding the Avatar harshly.
The captain had either found or had been informed about the animal; he had it in a cage he was holding up above the Avatar's head. And he was threatening with throwing it to the sea. “It is against the rules,” the captain said. “I gave you a fair warning before you came on board.”
It turned out that Zuko had been wrong about what he'd thought about the Avatar's eyes, because he now had them wider than before. “I'm sorry, really!”
“The rules are the rules,” the captain said. “No-one is going to break them.”
“Wait, please!”
But it seemed that no amount of begging would make the captain change his mind. He was going to throw the animal to the sea. Still, it could fly, couldn't it? At least enough to get back to the island, until its master went for it on his flying bison.
Unless the captain threw it away along with the cage, which was apparently the case.
Where was the Avatar's friend when he needed him? Probably serving drinks and leading old ladies from here to there at the other side of the ship.
Therefore, the Avatar was on his own.
“No! Please!” the Avatar said, trying to slow down the captain by means of clinging to his leg.
On his own, helpless, about to lose one of his beloved pets.
The Avatar—the kid—had now small tears on the corners of his eyes. “Wait! Don't!”
Zuko bit his lip, rubbed his face, and sighed deeply.
...maybe you're not that bad, you know?
Yes, maybe he wasn't.
“Excuse me, captain,” Zuko said stepping out from his hiding place. “But I must confess: that animal is mine.”
Both the Avatar and the captain—who had undoubtedly recognized Zuko as his newest Pai-Sho friend's relative—stared at him.
“Is it, really?” the captain asked.
“Yes. I gave it to the boy here to take care of it for a while. I did wrong; I apologize.”
The captain looked from Zuko to the Avatar a couple of times before changing his puzzled look into one of amusement. Next, he reached out the cage to Zuko. “Very well,” he said. “There you go, young master.”
The animal hissed when Zuko grabbed it, making him feel thankful for the existence of handles.
“It'd be better if you keep it in your cabin,” the captain said. “So the boy won't be distracted at work.”
“I will,” Zuko said.
The captain walked away, but not before whispering to the Avatar, “You're very lucky, boy.”
The Avatar jumped on his feet and, this time, he did give Zuko a hug. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
“Go away!” Zuko said, trying to remove him.
The Avatar looked up at him; his eyes were shining and grateful. “Why did you do it?”
“I've seen what you can do when you're angry,” was all Zuko answered before the Avatar's friend's scandalized voice reached them.
“Aang! What in the world are you doing?”
“Don't tell him or the truce is over,” Zuko growled through his teeth.
“Don't worry,” the Avatar said, finally letting go and smiling broadly. “It's our secret.”
-
The ship got back to the port on schedule. The Avatar's pet didn't exactly seem to want to let neither Zuko nor Iroh sleep the two nights Zuko took care of it, but his uncle didn't mind. Actually, he'd said he was very proud of Zuko for doing what he'd done—he heard everything from the captain—and commended him for having grown up on their trip.
“I really, really should partake in contests more often.”
“Oh, please, don't!”
When the Avatar went to claim his animal, his friend said he was willing to wait on the ship until Zuko and Iroh had left the town. “I don't know what you were doing with Aang,” he said, “but you won't do it again.”
“I will absolutely not.”
“It was nice meeting you,” Iroh said, shaking hands with Aang. “I hope we can meet again in such pleasant circumstances.”
The Avatar's friend winced. “I hope we won't,” he muttered while rubbing his back.
While they were disembarking, Zuko noticed his uncle waving at someone. He wondered if it was the same woman he'd said goodbye to when they left, so he looked at the same spot Iroh was looking at. The Avatar's other friend, the girl, was gaping at them. She seemed to be, as anyone could expect, rather shocked at seeing the firebenders.
They were now off the ship, so it'd probably be fair game, but Zuko didn't feel like it. Besides, there were many witnesses. So, instead, he just pointed at the ship, from where her friends were also waving and yelling hello.
It seemed that the girl wouldn't be able to close her mouth again for a while.
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¿Ves? Hubiera quedado peor con la sirena. XDThanks. :3
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(Se va a buscar ZukoxSokka XP)
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