Avatar Zuko

Chapter 7

Zuko was seriously sick of being wet. He’d decided to fake an identity, managed to lie about his intentions and had left his Uncle behind, but if Katara accidentally blasted water at him one more time he’d happily throw away all of his progress and arrest all three of his companions. Except, he’d been travelling with them for over a week now and he was beginning to develop a soft spot for the rag-tag group, which was confusing since he was only meant to be there to either find out if he was the avatar or capture the real avatar- not to make friends.

“Come on, Lee! Hold it a little higher, I have to get this right.” Ordered Katara, once again shifting into the position her scroll was depicting as Zuko held it up for her to see.

Both Sokka and Aang were not helping, since Sokka blamed Katara for their trouble with the pirates and Aang couldn’t stay still long enough to help out. The young firebender, however, had not been too harsh on Katara for her actions as, though stealing was dishonourable, he was doing much worse in comparison by constantly lying to his ‘team’. He was also able to immediately become dry whenever the waterbender soaked him, which was a handy tool that at least Sokka didn’t have access to. But the real reason he’d agreed to assist Katara in learning waterbending was so he could memorise the forms and try them out later on, when everyone else had gone to sleep. It wasn’t like one night of no rest would affect him much anyway, it would probably surprise the group more if he actually looked like he'd had a good, fulfilling night of sleep in the morning.

“Katara! Maybe you should take a break, it’s almost sundown! We need to think about getting some sleep.” Sokka advised loudly from across the stream they were camped next to; they’d decided to move further into the forest after their whole debacle with the pirates.

“And?! I’m pretty sure my bending is stronger at night anyway, and I need to practise!” She yelled back, but she was looking exhausted and frustrated. Zuko quietly wondered whether that was how he usually looked to the rest of them.

“Katara, you need to take some time off. The monks always said ‘the lighter the spirit, the easier the bending’, so if you’re tired it’s more difficult.” Katara seemed to soften a little at Aang’s words and motioned for Zuko to lower the scroll, which was good since the Prince was getting a cramp.

“Fine. But in the morning I’ll be practising first thing, I’m not going to give up until I’ve learned this stupid ‘water-whip’.” She warned, getting the scroll from Zuko and putting it carefully at the bottom of her pack, Sokka breathed a sigh of relief.

“Finally! All that splashing was making it hard to concentrate on the important stuff- meat!” He brandished 5 skewers of some sort of fried meat and passed them around where they were now sat surrounding a campfire Zuko had lit earlier, keeping two for himself.

“Sorry, Sokka, I’m a vegetarian. I’ll just have this cabbage we got from that merchant before is cart got, uh, destroyed by angry pirates…” Said Aang, leaping up to Appa’s saddle and grabbing some vegetables.

Zuko started eating his food, that was better than Water Tribe slop but was still much too bland for him, and noticed that Katara and Aang had also picked up some supplies for tea, for some reason. The teapot was nowhere near as fancy as his uncle’s, but was prettily patterned with bluebells and white roses. He got hit by a such a sudden wave of homesickness that he actually choked on his meat (lamb-beef?) and had to steady himself. The others stared at him worriedly which he just brushed off, sitting back up properly.

“Why did you buy a tea set?” The Prince asked, regaining his composure and looking at Katara expectantly, yet she just seemed surprised.

“Actually… That was me. I figured since our journey is gonna include a lot of bending practise it would be good to keep a clear head, which tea helps with… Plus it was really pretty…” Explained Aang, twiddling his thumbs with a pleading smile and puppy-dog eyes that Zuko was ashamed to admit he was weak to. Katara and Sokka, however, had practise, it seemed.