Traitor - Zuko X Reader

Chapter Four

After traveling for about a month, nothing worth-while had occurred on my journey, just a few run-ins with fellow travelers and wild animals. I found that walking aimlessly about trying to find adventure may not have been the best choice as I could barely tell my North from South. To add to that, I had run low on food and desperately craved sleep in an actual bed instead of on the uncomfortable ground. So, when I reached the first village I had seen in weeks I figured it would be wise to stay for a couple days and gather food, sleep in an actual bed, and buy a map so I could figure out where I wanted to go.

    The village was relatively-sized with ornately decorated buildings littering the clearing. At the edge of the village sat one of the largest volcanos I had ever seen, and that was coming from someone who grew up in the fire nation. I found a building labeled as an inn and requested the cheapest room they had. After paying, I made my way up to my room and was greeted with a single bed that creaked when I flopped down on it and a bathroom large enough to barely house a bath, toilet, and sink. It would have to do since it was the best I could afford without using all of the money given to me by Isano. After getting settled into the room, I made my way back onto the streets of the village where I set out to buy a map and some food for the road.

    As I walked out of the cartography shop with a newly purchased map of the entire earth kingdom and I was making my way towards the food stalls that I had seen earlier near the inn where I was staying, I noticed a bunch of the townspeople gathered in the center of the village with their gaze pointed to the clouds above. Curiosity got the better of me and I made my way to the outskirts of the crowd. I stood behind three kids with their backs to me. Two were dressed in traditional water-tribe clothes, which I found weird since most water-tribe people never leave the poles, and a smaller, bald boy was dressed in a funky yellow and orange get-up. The yellow-clad boy also had some kind of lemur on his shoulders. I shrugged off the judgemental thoughts of the people in front of me, who am I to judge? It's not like I had on the most fashionable clothes anyway.

The water tribe girl questioned exactly what I was thinking and asked a villager, "What's up with the sky?"

"We're waiting for Aunt Wu to come and read the clouds to predict the fate of the whole village." The old man explained. This immediately caused my eyebrow to raise in confusion. Who was Aunt Wu? And why does what she says matter?

The bald headed kid pointed to the sky stating, "That cloud looks like a fluffy bunny." I looked up and tried to make out the shape as well as I heard the old villager explain that that would mean death and destruction . . . weird but okay.

"Do you even hear yourself?" asked the water tribe boy in a sarcastic manner. This caused me to laugh quietly, but he heard me and turned his head to me as I immediately shut up. He gave me a smile and turned back around. A younger woman from the village explained how the cloud reading done by this Aunt Wu woman would somehow predict if the volcano would erupt or not. I found the idea insane that these people were going to entrust their safety in the hands of a self-proclaimed cloud-reader. The water tribe boy voiced my thoughts out loud and exclaimed, "I can't believe you'd trust your lives to that woman's crazy superstitions!"

Aunt Wu soon came out into the center of the town and proclaimed a good harvest, that this year was good for twins and that the volcano would not erupt and that the village was safe for another year. This caused the village people to cheer. Over the cheering I could make out the bald boy from earlier talking to the water-tribe girl about how he liked her more than normal and she flat-out ignored him. Ouch.

    After the whole prediction in the center of town, I finally was able to purchase some food. I also was able to find a medicine shop where I bought first-aid supplies. I figured I could never be too careful when it comes to exploring the earth kingdom. As I exited the inn after returning my newly bought items to my room, I noticed the water tribe boy and the bald kid making their way towards the volcano. I wondered what they were doing and found myself following them up the path to the volcano. I figured these two boys were a magnet for adventure since they seemed to stand out among everyone else. Especially with the boy and the girls out-of-place water tribe garments and the newly noticed tattoos littering the young boy's body. As they began scaling the volcano's side I began to climb behind them as stealthy as possible, while climbing I could hear the water tribe boy giving the kid horrible advice on how to attract a girl by acting like you don't care and found myself silently scoffing at everything he said.