Ash [Prince Zuko - Book Two]

❃Chapter Five❃

Asake strolled around the small town with Zuko's hat covering her eyes from the brutal sun. She didn't have any money to buy anything, but she had to get out of that cave. She couldn't stand it any longer. Zuko was being even more brooding, and he somehow came home with immaculate objects that glittered in the sunlight like they were made from precious jewels. She knew he didn't have any money to buy those objects, let alone food, and she had a sneaking suspicion it was the Blue Spirit stealing. However, she didn't have any proof he was stealing under that alias yet. She didn't want to confront him about it, either. 

The market she walked through was bustling with people, almost filled to the brim with people who had more money than Asake could ever imagine. Her stomach burned at the thought of these people wasting their money on items that didn't even matter to them in the long-run while she had to search through garbage to find food. How was that fair? But nothing was fair in this world, so she knew she could do nothing about it. Anyway, it seemed like the people around her didn't mind the blazing sun shining down upon them. However, she minded the sun and was about to leave when she overheard a conversation between two merchants. She stood in the shadows next to a building, listening as hard as she could.

"Last night, I got robbed," the woman merchant said with venom dripping from her voice. Asake could just picture a grumpy old woman, hunched over from years of looking down at commoners. 

"Are you blaming me and my family?" the man merchant asked, his voice rising over the din of the people around him. He seemed outraged that this woman would even talk to him about the robbery. "My son was home all night."

"Who else owns a blue mask?"

Asake growled, curling her lips against her teeth. She was right. Of course she was. She knew Zuko better than most everyone else, and she knew he was doing that to get them money to buy food. Giving him the benefit of the doubt was getting on Asake's nerves; didn't he realize that he had a hundred chances with her and the world, yet he took one hundred and one chances to prove to everyone that he was still a deviant from the place that taught deviance was a way of life?

She took off running and disappeared into the trees at the edge of town. By now, she knew the small forest like the back of her hand. They had been staying in the cave for at least a few days to rest from their travels, and she had walked the whole forest at least five times to get away from Zuko and Iroh, to think her way through things. It also helped her leg get better by using it more and more, making it stronger than it had been before. She didn't like staying in one place for long, especially in close quarters with Zuko and Iroh. They had caught her having a nightmare about Zhao multiple times where she woke up screaming into the black nothingness of her mind. She didn't want that to happen again; she didn't want them to see her living on the thin line between sanity and insanity.

Asake made it to the cave just as Iroh walked around the fire she had started earlier (unfortunately, Iroh wanted her to practice her firebending) and sat down in front it with his back to her. He held a gold teapot in front of him. She opened her mouth to shout at Zuko for stealing that teapot from someone else. However, Iroh beat her to it when he said, "But, where did you get the money?"

She stood in the mouth of the cave and saw Zuko's face blanche. A seed of hope burrowed into her heart. Maybe he was going to spill everything to his very understanding uncle. "Do you like your new teapot?" he asked instead. Asake swallowed hard; of course he wouldn't do what was best for him. He would always choose the worst options because he didn't think he could get out of anything bad.

"To be honest with you, the best tea tastes delicious whether it comes in a porcelain pot or a tin cup," Iroh replied. It looked like the two of them hadn't noticed her yet, so she stayed silent. She didn't want to yell at Zuko in front of Iroh. She would much rather yell at him in private so Iroh wouldn't tell her to knock if off, that Zuko didn't need to hear anything that was on her mind because he needed to figure it out himself. "I know we've had some difficult times lately. We've had to struggle just to get by. But it's nothing to be ashamed of. There is a simple honor in poverty."