fire in your eyes • zuko

vii

They'd been on the run for just over a week, and Nava was convinced Zuko was going to lose his mind. He had stomped away while Nava was collecting berries and she distantly heard him complain that they hadn't found any food.

"I can't live like this. I wasn't meant to be a fugitive," he said angrily. "This is impossible!"

Nava snickered and stood up with Zuko's wide-brimmed had filled with berries and roots of all sorts. She returned to the clearing just as he was leaving and set the hat beside Iroh.

"I'm going to go make sure he doesn't accidentally break his neck tripping over a root or something," she said and then went the way Zuko did.

She found him fashioning a spear out of a tree branch next to a small pond a minute later.

"Why don't you use one of my knives?" she suggested.

"No, I want to do this," he muttered.

Nava shrugged and kicked off her shoes. She rolled her pants up to her knees and waded into the pond. With her knife in one hand, she walked to the deepest part of the water and squinted into the depths for anything that might be swimming around. Neither her nor Zuko said anything as they went about their own business.

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Zuko took a break from whittling his spear to watch Nava. She had her gaze towards the water, eyebrows furrowed in concentration and her tongue poking out from between her teeth. She'd been a lot happier since they've been on the run, he noticed. He thought smiling wasn't possible for her, but the amount of times she'd smiled since they'd left the bathhouses was astounding. Maybe she was staying optimistic, so he wouldn't feel as bad. Deep down, Zuko appreciated it, but it wasn't working. He was still angry that Azula had played to his weakness like that. And he was angry that he let her. He should have known better. It was stupid to believe his father wanted him home. If that was all it took, he should have been welcomed back sooner.

"I got one!" Nava's exclamation startled him.

Zuko's vision refocused and he saw Nava clutching a fish by its tailfin. It had a deep gash in its body but it still seemed to be able to put up a fight as it struggled against her grip. She glanced at him and beamed, but as she did, the fish gave one last valiant twitch and freed itself from her hand. It slapped her in the face as it went and Nava was sent one way while the fish went the other. She sat up abruptly, spluttering.

Zuko stared at her for a moment longer before he let out a bark of laughter.

"It's not funny!" she said shrilly. She pushed herself to her feet and got back onto the grass. "You think you can do better?"

"I know I can do better. I won't let a fish slap me in the face," Zuko responded.

"Go try it then, fish are slippery little buggers, Mr. Never-Had-to-Fend-for-Himself-Before."

Zuko rolled his eyes and with his new rudimentary spear, waded into the water and started his search for a proper fish. At some point, he glanced up and spotted Nava by a low-hanging tree, stripped down to her underclothes. She had hung her wet clothes up to dry. His eyes wandered to the bright pink scar that started between her shoulder blades and ended above her right hip. It was gnarled and pink and red and Zuko felt his own scar throb in empathy. He was suddenly very glad Zhao was dead.

Zuko quickly realized he was staring and looked away as Nava turned around. He never expected her to be so... muscular. He didn't think archery required such upper body strength, but the muscles along her back and shoulders said otherwise. Zuko gave his head a shake. Now was not the time to be thinking about a girl's muscles. He had a job to do. But he couldn't help but note that she had freckles along her shoulders.