Take 2 – part 2-a
Disclaimer: see previous chapter.
They say that the Firebenders wake with the sun, but it seemed to Zuko, that since had went to sleep in a new, strange place, he had woken up before the sun had risen.
"Cool!" he said to himself in excitement and quickly went to the window to look outside. The sky was slightly overcast, but judging by the heavy dew on grasses and leaves of trees and shrubs, this really was the early morning – the earliest, in fact.
Zuko grinned to himself – the novelty of being the first of his family to wake up in a strange room, in a strange place was enough for him (at this age) to stir excitement in his blood. He quickly dressed himself (unlike Azula he never saw much point in having the others dress you), and climbed through the window to get outside. His room was located on the second floor, but Zuko was an athletic boy and as such he had no problems in climbing down to the ground via the vine trellis located next to his window.
But what to do next?.. Zuko looked around, seeing something resembling a family dojo through the trees in a distance, and thinking about going there, when he felt something behind him. He whirled around – and there it was, a large, hairless cat with a powerful, lizard-like tail, going through the trees. It was carrying something in its mouth, something vaguely resembling a koala-sheep lamb. It was a moat cat.
Zuko knew about moat cats: half-panthers and half-newts, they lived in freshwater moats and similar places of the rich and powerful Fire Nation people. They didn't like to stay long on land, and they didn't like sea water much either, but their affinity with fresh water made them perfect guardians of noble houses and castles back in the Fire Nation.
Still, moat cats guardians went out of fashion during the lifetime of Avatar Roku and had never really returned to favor; this moat cat was probably one of the last in the vicinity...and probably best left alone. But since Zuko had never had any common sense, he followed it instead.
/
Princess Azula woke up early, with the sunrise, as she always did, and for a moment could not realize where she was located, exactly. Only after 10 or 11 minutes, as she mechanically dressed herself, and stared at the now-healed stinger mark on her leg. On the 12th minute she did remember the events of the last few days, and her mood went south, mildly speaking.
She did not want to stay in the stupid backwater, with her stupid brother and mother while father went forth to conquer! She did not! But because it was grandfather's – Fire Lord's – decree, she was stuck!
And this stupid place did not even have a training dojo-!
...Here Azula's memory treacherously supplied her with an image from yesterday: a suspiciously dojo-like building that was located some distance away from the main building. Quickly, though wincing, whenever she stepped onto her sore foot, Azula went off to see if there was a dojo-like building in the immediate neighborhood.
There was.
/
Following the moat cat had led Zuko to a part of the manor's ground, more damp and overgrown with plants than even the rest of the estate. The creature ignored the fire prince who had followed it, eventually bringing its meal to a medium-sized pond, overgrown with duckweed and mildew, with a forlorn and mostly not-working fountain protruding from the pond's middle. There the moat cat stopped and moved a bit to its side, where it dropped the koala-sheep...and another moat cat began to eat it.
Only now Zuko began to realize that stuck on his own around two hungry predators, he was in danger, and began to look around for ways to leave unobtrusively. Instead, his gaze fell upon the weed-choked pond – and he frowned. There were no turtle-ducks, but there were shapes moving beneath the surface – shapes that looked tadpole-like, but with more cat-like heads and external gills – the young of the adult moat cats, who had finished eating the koala-sheep, and were now busy looking at Zuko instead.
"Keep away!" Zuko yelled rather shrilly, and tried to firebend a fire at the end of a stick. "Keep away!" Sadly, his focus was wandering, and so he was able to light only a small flame at the end of the stick in question...while losing his footing in the process. It was always embarrassing when he did that, and the fact that the moat cats did not attack him, only made it worse.
Zuko looked away from the adult animals again, and saw (or realized?) something else: the youngsters of the moat cat adults were having problems. The water was too warm, too stagnant and too overgrown for the water-breathing moat kittens to survive. They were trying to gulp in air from the surface, but they were too young, too small for them to survive this way – and their parents could not help them.
Zuko guiltily looked away. He never regretted being a firebender, but for the moment, he felt really sorry for the moat cats' young – the latter were dying due to the warm and stagnant water, and he was helpless to do anything about it...
Heat... Zuko suddenly had a crazy idea, one of those, which blew up in his face. He grabbed his burning stick, did his best to tune-in into the rhythm of light and heat that made fire (according to the royal tutors, at any rate), and then tried to match it with the heat in the water.
There was a bang, and a flash, similar to the bangs and flashes that occurred on Fire Nation holidays, and when Zuko got back up, his stick was almost gone, save for a charcoal nubbin... but some of the water in the fountain pool appeared to have cleared up as well.
Now the adult moat cats were paying attention to Zuko...who was not paying any attention to them. Instead, he ran back away, found a bigger stick, and returned, trying the same undertaking. The result was a bigger flash and bang...
/
"I wonder what Zu-Zu is doing at this hour," Azula muttered as her sister sense sensed a disturbance in the firebending force. "Probably making a fool of himself, no doubt, with his pitiful bending..." she chased away the memory of yesterday, when Zuko had carried her back inside, and stood in front of the dojo, or at least the dojo-like building, which clearly had not been used much, at least not in recent months, or even years. "I see that Zhao wasn't a big fan of practicing his bending," she muttered to herself.
"Now that is unfair, little lady!" rasped a man's voice from behind her.
Azula whirled around, her fists already alight with fires, and her body set in a firebending stance, but then, seeing that her new interlocutor, while robust, was older than Katla the cellarer and certainly no danger to her, she relaxed. "And who are you?" she asked bluntly. "One of servants of the commander Zhao?"
"Yes and no, little lady," the old man rasped, apparently unworried by her actions in return. "I'm the retainer of the family's dojo!" the last words were said proudly – too proudly, considering the apparent state of the aforementioned dojo.
"And?" was what Azula asked, instead.
"And, the truth is, master Zhao was the first firebender in the family in several generations!" the man continued brightly. "Until him, the practice in our dojo was done with weapons instead, so, admittedly, it isn't suited for firebending practices."
"Hm," Azula nodded thoughtfully and turned around to investigate. And though she was arrogant, she was also observant enough to notice that the old man was telling some truth – while there were not any scorch or burn marks, typical of firebending practices, there were plenty of slashes, stabs, scratches – typical of weapon practices.
"And what are you doing here, little lady?" the old man's voice was still friendly, but firm, reminiscent of an old and experienced foo dog, who knew when to suck up, and when to bite.
"I was going to practice my bending, but I don't think that this will be a good idea," Azula admitted. "This place is old and dusty; one spark of fire and it will go up in flames."
"True," the strange old man admitted. "Master Zhao had neglected it through the years, and I am too old to clean it up myself. If you help me, though, I can teach you a weapon form or two..."
'He wants me to help him clean up?' Azula thought incredulously, planning to turn around, tell the old man to keep his offer for anyone who cared, and leave. But... there were not many other places to go to, or too many other people to stay with – just mother and Zu-zu and the servants and without father around, Azula did not dare to harass the servants, and harassing Zu-zu would probably backfire as soon as mother heard about it. So-
"Can't you ask Katla for help?" she asked, already half-resigned to spend the morning doing something unpleasant.
"Ah, well," the old man had the good graces to look embarrassed. "Me and young Katla had a falling-out a while ago, so she never comes over here if she doesn't have to, and I generally stay out of her way and out of the way of her servants – what are you doing?"
"Looking for cleaning supplies," Azula said with disgust. "You're probably as bad as my uncle, you know that? Either way, if you will tell anyone that I helped you, I will never help you again-"
"Deal," the old man said quickly. "And by the way, little lady, you can call me Lom."
"I'm Azula."
/
By now, Zuko's experimental set of mind was fully in charge. He ignored the growing agitation and excitement of the adult moat cats, whose stony countenances were betrayed by the whipping of their powerful tails; he ignored the fact that it was soon going to be time for family's breakfast - instead, he was busy rolling a log to the pond.
The pond, it should be noted, was not as overgrown and stagnant as it was before – Zuko's experiments appeared to have killed at least some of the aquatic plant life, releasing more oxygen into the water and making it more oxygenated, and also, possibly, cooler than it was before – more suitable for the moat cats' young.
And now Zuko was rolling a large dry log towards the pond. Admittedly, it was not that large, for otherwise he would have never been able to even roll it, but it still was quite sizeable and thick.
"And now," he said brightly, partially to adult moat cats, but largely to himself. "Now will try my biggest trick yet!"
He positioned the log, concentrated on the firebending and on the heat aspect of his flame, and bent...
The explosion this time was really spectacular. Zuko was blown not just backwards, but skidded some distance away, and was out, for a minute or ten. When the spots and flashes before his eyes cleared away, however, he could see that his experiment has not just killed most of the plant life in the fountain pool, but also blown a hole in its floor, and now the water, bubbling, was pouring up and out of the fountain pool, rather than into the hole.
As Zuko observed, confused and trying desperately to figure out just what was it that he had done, he saw the water leave the pool...through some cleverly designed gates in the walls of the pool: like sluice doors, they released the flowing water into some channels, previously cluttered with rubbish and dead plants, but now swept clean by the water's flow.
It seemed that the dead pool was actually a part of a bigger water system, perhaps some sort of a decorative body of water, and Zuko had just given it a jump-start.
"I didn't mean to," Zuko instinctively replied to his realization. There was no reply, of course: Zuko was not crazy enough to talk to himself on a regular basis, and the moat cats could not speak in human languages at all. Right now, though, they were not talking even in their own purrs and roars, instead busy swimming alongside their aquatic young and exploring their new, improved and enlarged habitat.
"I'll be back," Zuko shouted to them, and raced back to the main building.
/
"What was that?" Lom asked, as he and Azula took a break from cleaning up the dojo. To the princess's surprise, it was not that hard – just dust and some spider-bee webs; fortunately, of the solitary species than the social ones.
"Probably my stupid brother, messing up his firebending – again," Azula said flippantly. "Spirits, sometimes I wish that I was an only child."
"Eh, it's overrated," Lom shook his head. "In master Zhao's family most times there was a single birth – no siblings, and it didn't go, or went, so well. A family with a single child hangs by a thread – cut it and the entire tapestry unravels. A family with several children – ah, that's different."
"Maybe," Azula did not want to argue. "Anyways, is it clean enough for you?"
"Hmm," Lom looked at the girl, made some mental calculations, and stood up. "Enough to show you some basic moves of the form – and then we'll see."
"And what form is that?" Azula frowned, thoughtfully. "Are we talking swords, like master Piandao does?"
"You know of master Piandao?" Lom's eyebrows rose. "Remarkable! But no, our family follows a more simple form, that of the mao-chen, the rabbit-dragon!"
"That I got to see," Azula got up on her feet, even as Lom stood up himself, in a rather smooth motion, despite his own apparently considerable, girth.
"I think we can do that."
/
Ursa loved her son; her relationship with her daughter was more complicated, but she cared for her as well; that said, she was really happy that the day was starting with peace and quiet as she sat down at the table and reached out for the bell to wake up her children – when they appeared at the front door, and things went as they regularly did: Zuko was wet and muddy, Azula – dirty and dusty, and both of them looked more rough and tumble than Ursa would've liked; business as usual.
"Well?" Ursa's voice had a hard edge. "What the two of you been up to?"
"Nothing!" both of her children replied, before glaring suspiciously at each other. "Nothing at all!"
"Then go and change," Ursa's words were practically an order. "Now!"
And the siblings ran off to change.
TBC?