Water Lily in a Sea of Fire

Chapter 73: Unguarded

Early the next morning, Izin was helping Chiara with breakfast while Zuko and the guards were meditating on the balcony in the light of the rising sun.

"You can join the others, Izin," she said as she carefully peeled the tubers she had dug up earlier. "Usually I'd meditate with them, but with more to cook for now, I want to start early."

He was setting up the fire in the pit. "I don't mind helping, Princess. You shouldn't have to do all the cooking alone."

"It's all right. It gives Lady Katara a break and allows Aang's teachers time to work with him."

Just then, she spotted Zuko, Toph, and Suki in the distance coming around the corner, but then they stopped and started talking privately. Zuko's posture gave her the impression that they were griping at him about something, and she silently wondered what could be so important that the girls would be up early interrupting his meditation.

"If you don't mind my asking, Princess...," started Izin. He hesitated, and she looked at him curious as to what he was about to ask. "...the Avatar...he's so young. I heard that Fire Lord Sozin attacked the Air Nomads looking for him, but that was a hundred years ago."

"He was frozen in an iceberg for a hundred years. He told me that shortly after it had been revealed to him that he was the Avatar he was flying south when a storm overtook him on his bison, and he went into the Avatar State which preserved him." She withheld the more personal event of Aang's running away, feeling it was not her place to share that information. "It was Lady Katara who freed him from the iceberg." Glancing up at Zuko and the girls, she noticed he looked uncomfortable or maybe frustrated—she was unsure, but she considered going to his rescue.

"I always thought the Avatar was a myth," said Izin.

"I remember how exciting it was to see him airbend when we first saw him," she said with a smile as she continued working. "I never imagined I'd get to see an airbender."

"He's not quite what I expected. I guess I thought he'd be..." He was unsure how to express his thoughts about Aang. "...less like a child?"

Chiara softly laughed. "In a way, he's only twelve or thirteen."

Now Zuko looked relaxed to her and...was he smiling?

"It's difficult to see him defeating the Fire Lord," said Izin.

She looked at him. "It's not so hard to imagine if you've ever seen him in the Avatar State."

"You've seen it?"

She nodded. "When Prince Zuko first captured him, he and Aang were fighting on the deck...well, actually, Prince Zuko was sending fire blasts at poor Aang and it sent him overboard." She paused what she was doing as she thought about it. "When he rose out of the water his eyes and tattoos were glowing white. It was like...it wasn't Aang anymore. It was frightening. And the control he had over the water was amazing."

"Did he bend all the elements?" he asked.

"No. Just water. But he threw us all to the deck and sent Prince Zuko over the side."

His eyes grew wide.

"He caught the anchor chain so he didn't fall in the frigid water," she explained. "But it was still unnerving."

"If it's anything like your waterbending, I can imagine," he said making her laugh.

Zuko suddenly reacted a bit nervously making her more curious as to their conversation. She kept an eye on them, but it was not long before he was laughing, and it made her smile to see him happy. She watched as he bowed to the girls before disappearing around the corner, so she returned her focus on her work again.