where the past can't reach us // zuko x reader

Chapter Five - Interrogation

(a/n): hey, the next few chapters will be a lot more character-based rather than plot-based. Also depending on the chapter, I will either be in 3rd person or in (y/n)'s 1st person POV. This chapter is in the latter!

The interrogation started about half an hour after I'd been brought in. The soldier sent down to my cell wasted no time and got right down to business, throwing question after question at me. I sat on my bed, silent.

It's not that I was, as the soldier phrased it "refusing to cooperate". I genuinely didn't know the answers. He asked me dozens of questions about the Avatar - his goals, his friends, where he was headed, and I couldn't answer a single one of them, since I'd been captured before I'd found out anything about Aang. But that didn't matter. It's not like I would have told them anything anyway.

After a while, the soldier left and was replaced by Zuko himself. He wasted no time either.

"Where is the Avatar?" he shouted immediately upon opening the door, and then, not stopping even for a moment, he continued to walk straight towards me, the dim light of the room illuminating his threatening glare. "Well? Answer me!"

"I don't know anything."

"Of course you do. I saw you collaborating with his friend! Your lies might have worked on the Lieutenant, but you can't fool me."

"I was trying to get some children to safety, and so was she. There was no collaboration of any sort," I said, trying to remain as calm as possible, and finding it increasingly hard to do so.

"Of course there was. You really expect me to believe you?"

I didn't answer.

Zuko sighed angrily, then, deciding to change tactics, started again.

"Look," he said, "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. If you just confess and tell me everything you know, I'll let you go as soon as we reach the shore. Provided that your information is correct, of course. Alternatively..." he paused. "Alternatively, you don't confess, in which case you stay on this ship for as long as it takes us to capture the Avatar. And I assure you of one thing." A flame appeared on his hand. "Your stay with us will not be pleasant."

I groaned. He really didn't get it, did he? It was getting increasingly hard to keep up this emotionless facade.

"I said I don't. Know. Anything."

He scowled, and for a moment, the fire in his hand grew bigger. Evidently, he wasn't finding the whole staying calm thing any easier than I was. He turned and began to walk back towards the door.

"If you insist on making things hard for both of us, so be it. I give you until tomorrow morning to reconsider your decision."

With that, he left the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

I leaned back against the wall and sighed. Wasn't this just great? I was stuck on a ship with a bunch of soldiers, as well as an emotionally unstable teenager who was somehow in charge. My only way off was either an escape - impossible, with all the people around - or providing knowledge that I didn't have.

I thought back to Zuko's earlier threat and snorted. Making my imprisonment here any more unpleasant than it already was? That had to be impossible. It wasn't so much the room that was the problem - they could lock me up in a cupboard, for all I cared. It was the fact that, only a day after finally having freedom from the Fire Nation, I was right back in its clutches. They'd taken away my people - thousands of innocent human lives ended for their evil aims, and then, as if that wasn't enough, they'd taken away my parents. Still not stopping, they took away any last chances I had at friendship, and then they came for me. They'd taken everything I had, even taken the very possibility of having something at all. And now, when the news about the fight with Azula would inevitably reach them, I'd suffer the same fate as my parents. I threw myself backwards onto the bed, the hard mattress hitting my back like a brick wall, knocking the air out of my lungs, but I didn't care. Emotional pain blocking out the physical, my fist collided with the wall next to me, leaving a small residue that trickled slowly down onto the floor. I brought my hand back to my body and stared at the dark stain that grew on the dirty sheets. They had once been white, age had turned them yellow, and now, my blood had turned them red.