𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐎 𝐁𝐔𝐑𝐍 | prince zuko

¹⁶

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

     IT TOOK YAN A LOT OF GETTING USED TO now that Zuko was a part of Team Avatar. She still harbored a deep animosity towards him and always avoided him whenever he was near. If he was sitting near her, she would move further away from him, or if he even tried to speak with her, she would walk away in the other direction. She did not trust him and was still very angry at him; knowing her, she probably would never forgive him for what he had done. For now, she would just have to suffer and tolerate his presence. Katara even gave him a nice talk, reminding him that she would not hesitate to end his current journey if he did anything to harm Aang or anyone else in the group.

Aang spent the day training with Zuko. Or, at least he thought it was training; as Zuko tried to demonstrate his firebending techniques, he came to realize that he had lost his mojo. His bending used to be powerful and aggressive, now nothing more than a tiny flicker of a flame came out of his fist when he tried bending. Aang thought it might've been the high altitude of the temple, so he and the hotheaded firebender moved to a lower level, but the results were the same.

"Listen, everybody, I've got some pretty bad news. I've lost my firebending," he stated to the group as they sat around a campfire and ate dinner. Katara's laughter caused the group to turn to her in confusion.

Katara chuckled softly, Yan raising a brow at her. "I'm sorry, I'm just laughing at the irony. You know how it would've been nice for us if you'd lost your firebending a long time ago? Maybe you're just not as good as you think you are." she chuckled as she looked over at Zuko. Yan shared a laugh with her, nodding in agreement as Momo came up to her and sat on top of her shoulders.

Aang set down his bowl and began to think of reasons why Zuko's firebending was exceptionally weaker. "Maybe your firebending comes from rage, and you just don't have enough anger to fuel it the way you used to," he suggested.

Yan huffed a laugh as she finished her congee. "You want me to piss him off because I'll do it risk-free. I've been itching to have a nice good fight with him." Yan smiled mischievously as she cracked her fingers, volunteering to anger Zuko enough to get his firebending back on track. Call it a way of getting even while not getting even at the same time.

"Let's save the landslide for another time, Yan. I got an idea." Sokka smiled, standing up and beginning to poke Zuko with a stick. Although it wasn't getting Zuko angry, it was starting to annoy him to the point where he yelled at Sokka to stop.

"Okay, cut it out! Look, even if you're right, I don't want to rely on hate and anger anymore. There has to be another way." Zuko sighed in annoyance, rubbing his temples to ease a growing migraine.

"You're gonna need to learn to draw your firebending from a different source. I recommend the original source. You need to go back to whatever the original source of firebending is. For earthbending, the original benders were badgermoles. I met a badgermole when I was younger when I ran away and hid in a cave; I learned earthbending from them not only as a martial art but as an extension of my senses." Toph suggested, Sokka sitting beside her and cracking a few jokes which she ignored.

Aang listened in wonder, smiling widely at her short story. "That's amazing, Toph! I learned from the monks, but the original airbenders were the sky bison. The ocean and the moon spirits were the original waterbenders, that's how the people of the Northern and Southern Water Tribes learned how to bend water; they watched the moon push and pull the tides." Aang explained, glancing at both Appa and Katara with his loving smile.

Zuko frowned, a common expression he always wore. "Well, that doesn't help me. The original firebenders were the dragons, and they're extinct. Maybe there's another way; the first people to learn from the dragons were the ancient Sun Warriors. They died thousands of years ago but their civilization wasn't too far from where we are now. Maybe we can learn something by poking around the ruins." Zuko said, rolling around an idea. Aang thought it over before nodding in agreement.