fire in your eyes • zuko

xxiii

(mature themes at the end)

Zuko was gone when Nava awoke. Tying her hair into a topknot as she exited the tent, she nearly bumped into a girl with bobbed light brown hair.

"Oh, hi!" she said brightly. "I don't believe we've officially met, I'm Suki."

"Hi," Nava said with a tired smile. "Have you seen Zuko?"

"He left early this morning with Katara to go hunt down the guy that killed her and Sokka's mom... I don't really know the specifics."

Nava blinked in surprise. "Oh, well... thanks, I guess," she said.

They stepped around each other and Nava towards the firepit, where Sokka was rekindling it.

"Good to see you're still alive," he said lightly as she sat down. "Zuko's with Katara on their life-changing fieldtrip. We've all had one, except Toph. And you, I guess."

"Trust me, the entire journey I had with Zuko was a life-changing fieldtrip," Nava said. "Suki said they went to track down the guy that killed your mom?"

"Yeah. He was part of some Fire Nation regime that raided our village looking for waterbenders. Katara was the only one, but we were just kids. Our mom offered herself up, thinking they were taking prisoners, but they weren't. She was murdered right in our tent."

Nava's hand went to her mouth as her eyes widened in horror. "Oh, no," she sighed. "That must have been awful for you guys."

"Yeah, it was pretty bad for a while. But Katara really stepped up and took care of us when our dad went off to battle. She deserves this closure."

"Is she... going to kill the guy?"

Sokka stepped back from the fire, which had just re-lit. He shrugged.

"She wanted to, but I don't think she will. She's too kind to do something like that."

Nava leaned back on her hands and nodded slowly. They sat in comfortable silence for a while before Sokka spoke up again, "Zuko said that he left you something in his bag back in the tent. He didn't say what, but I don't think it's anything bad, like an assassin or something."

"I wouldn't put past Zuko to send an assassin after someone," Nava said as she got to her feet.

"He did send an assassin after us!" Toph piped up from a stone tent a few feet away from where Sokka was sitting. "He had metal limbs and could blow things up with his mind!"

Nava stopped mid-step, an turned slowly to face the two of them.

"I'm sorry, he did what?"

"He was going through a tough time, apparently," Sokka said with a shrug. "We're all past that now and kinda joke about it from time to time."

Nava scoffed and shook her head before resuming her path back to the tent.

She rummaged through Zuko's things for a minute before coming across the bag Sokka was talking about. She opened the flap and noticed the quiver first. Her bow, the one she used while training with Shinu weeks ago, was nestled beside it. It didn't have a string, but everything else was intact. Zuko had obviously taken special care not to bend the fletching on the arrows. She pulled out the weapon and smiled to herself. She dug further into the bag to see if there was anything else and her fingers closed around a small box.

She pulled the box out and was surprised to see the music box she had bought. She turned the key a few times and listened to the familiar tune that tinkered out. She couldn't stop the tears this time and sat cross-legged with the music box pressed to her chest. She didn't know how Zuko would have gotten it back, but she was still thankful. She set the box aside and searched the tent until she found a roll of string. Once she did, she got to work re-stringing her bow.