Try to save a drowning man, and you'll just get pulled in yourself. Isn't that right?

w/c: I posted this a little while back under a different title but took it down for major re-write.

This was originally meant as a one-piece, but after quite a few requests inspiration hit, and now it is a three-part piece. I do think it'll stay as that though.

The first part is a bit dark. All parts are a bit experimental (the first tries this "On the…" style). I'd love to know if this is working, so please review! –even if you didn't like it! –especially if you didn't like it.

PS- completely butchering cannon here. Just pretend Zuko didn't lose his ship to Zhao. Or that Toph joins earlier and they get lost in the desert to lose Appa right after.

On morning of the first day, Zuko addressed his little mantra to the sun itself.

Uncle and all the sailors had disembarked and left for town, he had the privacy to do so. It seemed about as likely Agni would listen as Father, but there was little to lose by it.

However, the Sun turned out to grant requests more readily then he had thought, for within the hour the prince saw the Avatar's bison flying inland: no more than a light speck on a dark blue horizon, barely visible as the dry inland air his sea and caused the air to shimmer with vapor.

But Zuko saw it, and he had only asked for one chance. It seemed only logical to the prince to write a quick letter to Uncle He gathered up the emergency Avatar-hunting supplies he kept ready for just such a situation, added an extra water-skin and mounted the swiftest Komodo-Rhino they had aboard.

As he rode, the town gave way to dry land, and then the land gave way to desert. Prince Zuko found himself on a different, dryer sort of sea then he was used to: nothing but sand and the occasional rock for visual reference, and the few thorn bushes on his track were so sharp and hard not even his Komodo would eat them.

Still, that near-white speck on the horizon taunted him, so Zuko pushed on.

During the night before the second day, Zuko had the dream again.

On his knees at the Agni Kai, begging and repeating that one sentence that had become his mantra.

His Father, as he always did in the dream, slowed; that flaming fist paused. Towering over him, Fire Lord's face distorted to a sneer.

"Pathetic. Well, what are you waiting for then, Zuko? Here is your chance. The Avatar is right there. Catch him already."

Zuko was up before dawn, pushing his mount to the limits of endurance.

By late afternoon, his Komodo sank into the sand, unwillingly and unnaturally. The prince raved and dug for the creature with bare hands, but there was no sign of it. Strange nomad-people taunted him from the edge of his vision, but every time he turned to attack, he found the desert empty and himself alone. He howled at them, challenged those cowards.

No one came out.

Then the Avatar's bison announced itself again, in the sky, and so he shouldered the single pack he had managed to safe from the sand, and went after it.

On the third day, the sky-bison did not take to the sky.

It was not till late evening, when he had finally caught up with the Avatar's group, that Zuko found out why: the sky-bison, too, had disappeared. By the cover of night, the banished prince snuck up the rock that was the Avatar's camp, scoffing silently at their inability to even post a night-guard.

Once there, Zuko noticed a fourth person had joined the little gang; another child; a girl of earth-kingdom origin if her clothing was any indication. She looked no older than twelve, but the prince shrugged the fact off: if the Avatar thought it funny to field a handful of children against the mighty Fire-nation armies, the prince reasoned their deaths would be on that irresponsible boy's head.

So with little remorse, he put a hand to the boy air-bender's mouth. Grey eyes jumped open in shock, and Zuko drew back a fist to knock out the child. Yet the prince must not have been as quiet as he had thought, for something struck him in the back in the head instead.

While unconscious, Zuko dreamt the dream. This time, his father called him lazy for sleeping on the job.

Zuko awoke the fourth day, to a stomach-turning motion the wrong way down.

When the world came into focus, he found himself slung over the Avatar's shoulder. The child panted with effort, so much smaller than the Fire Prince that both Zuko's hands and feet nearly touched the ground as the boy labored under him.

When the prince demanded to know what the Avatar thought he was doing, the air-bender responded with a smile: the child would not leave an unconscious man to die alone in the desert.

Needless to say Zuko retaliated to that audacity with fire and flame.

The air-bender only dodged back, complaining with nervous laughter that there was no need for violence: were they not all stuck in this mess together? Here in this no-man's land without transport and supplies running low. if Zuko would please just listen to reason… But no self-respecting Fire Nation soldier would ever listen to a word of that drivel, and so the prince fought.

The Avatar's three companions were less amused; the following scuffle ended with the fire prince pressed to the hot sand under two girls as the water-tribesman bound his wrists behind him with the shackles Zuko had brought for the Avatar.

Finally let to his feet, the fire bender kicked and breathed flame in retaliation; but he was obviously no longer a threat, and the two girls laughed while the water-tribe boy taunted him and drew his fire.

It was no until that evening, when they offered him dinner, that Zuko realized they had meant for him to follow.

Insulted, the prince did not accept their meal.

On the fifth day, the Avatar tried to feed him breakfast.

Determined not fall to their ploy, Zuko had the satisfaction of setting the child's eyebrows on fire. The water-bender bended some water down his throat though. The prince told himself he would have spat that out too, had he had the chance. He owed these fools nothing.

By evening, when Zuko had run out of both energy and insults, the water-tribesman came unexpectedly to his aid.

"Sometimes, when one of the pack goes rabid, you have to sent it out onto the ice." the taller boy was telling the Avatar, who still shook his head in denial as he made his way up their designated camp-site.

The fire bender was about to thank the boy for understanding; until he realized he was being compared to a sledge-wolf.

"I am a Prince" he growled at them heatedly. "You will not compare me to an animal. And I am most certainly not of your pack."

The water-warrior stood staring at him with hooded eyes as the other three set to make camp. Finally he threw fire bender a gesture in defeat and turned to help the others out. It didn't occur to Zuko till late at night to wonder what rabid meant.

On the Sixth day, Zuko had the dream again. This time, Father told him he was lazy and weak for not taking action when he was so close.

And, as always, pathetic.

It seemed his Father was right, because when the Avatar again brought breakfast, his breath would not take flame. The resulting scuffle ended with him biting the Avatar; hard. It was small satisfaction but Zuko took what he could.

When the water-tribesman walked by while clearing camp, though, offering in an aside: "You are Pathetic." Zuko had to bite back what had become an automated reply, and turned up his nose to the boy.

On the Seventh day, they had run out of food.

It was the only upside to that day, as Zuko was at least saved from the choice between food and dignity.

By mid-morning, he had neither, for after he had landed face-first in the sand for the sixth time the Avatar's whines to unchain him led to the concession where they chained his hands in front instead. So that he could at least get back to his feet himself, the water-boy claimed.

Zuko did not let the fact that they would have been quite willing to leave him completely free, had he not taken his chance to sock the water-tribesman and elbow the girl earth-bender in the face, deter him in the least. He felt no remorse for hitting a blind girl either: if she wanted to stay save, she should never have left home to join a war they were destined to lose.

That evening he sat staring at his manacled arms, mesmerized.

Zuko had toned strong arms for a sixteen year old, even after a week of hardship. And yet the cuffs were set to their tightest position, ends interlocking. Still they left plenty of room for them shift up and down. The prince felt like a fool: had he put these on the Avatar, the boy would well have been able to slip his little hands right out.

The night of the Eight day, Zuko dreamt again.

Pathetic.

His father asked him what he was waiting for; if he enjoyed following peasants around like a guineas puppy. Asked why he had not acted yet.

When the fire bender awoke, panting, the water tribesman was sitting up next to him. The teen told him he was being entirely too loud, and if the prince wanted to scream, he really should be decent enough to walk out into the desert before he did.

Zuko tried going back to sleep, but knew quite well what his Father had meant for him to do.

Still, when he had crawled over to the water-boy who was by now snoring loudly, his body betrayed him. For too, too long he sat staring from his shaking hands to the boy's face, trying to decide if he should smother the man with a hand, or use the short chain to strangle him.

By the time the prince thought he had made his decision, the earth-bender girl had snuck up on him. When he noticed her, she simply laughed and punched him in the side, almost tauntingly. Then she proclaimed loudly to everyone that it was time to get moving.

Zuko had no way of knowing how long she had even watched, but the implication that she not even saw him as a threat stung worse than her fist.

When they stopped for the evening, all exhausted, Zuko explained - quite vehemently - that he did not want any of their last water. Still, the Avatar went against his explicit wishes once again. However, by now even the water-bender was too weak to bend, and so Zuko spat out what had been forced upon him.

The water-tribesmen that had helped keep him down lost it at that: the boy sprung to his feet, kicked the prince viciously twice, and then stalked off.

The boy was quite obviously crying, though where the boy had the moist left to form tears from was anyone's guess.

Yet when Zuko refused to even try standing on the ninth day, senses near-deaf to taunts, it was that same water-tribesman that sighed, and picked him up to carry piggy-back stile. The prince briefly considered also fighting this kindness, but he doubted he had the strength left.

Again the group toiled on. And it had to be said: despite his insistent whining, the water-tribesman's steps only swayed a little more than his companion's.

By mid-morning, the Avatar, who had gone on to scout with his glider, came down with a whoop.

"You guys, I've spotted trees and a village up in the distance. I'm going to go ahead and see if I can find us some water."

With that, the boy was gone again. Both girls that had been walking a little ahead turned on wobbly legs now, grinning to each-other. Then they continued with a new spring to their steps. The water-tribesman followed, but hardly faster than before. It occurred to Zuko the water-boy had spent what reserved he had left already.

"Put m' down."

"Not yet." The tribesman answered after a moment.

"Put m' down. I can - walk myself."

"No you can't." The boy answered, sounding haughty but also very far away as Zuko held to consciousness by a thread. "Besides, I've made it my quest in life to dump you in a river. And I intend to pursue it with as much vigor as you have been chasing us."

"This- changes nothing." The prince managed, finally. "I will. Capture. The Avatar."

"You are pathetic."

The mantra answer pushed past the prince's lips, unwanted.

Zuko groaned, but what was said could not be unsaid.

In answer, the tribesman just laughed; oblivious to Zuko's discomfort.

"You should ask Aang that; he's the one in charge." A stunted step, as the boy hitched the fire-bender up; the chain was by long the only reason Zuko had managed to hold on at all. "Or are you still stupidly asking your father for that?"

Zuko tried to swallow, wishing he was dead. Surely, he had meant those words for Father. He had always meant them for Father. But the Fire Lord was not here; and would definitely not listen now, when his son had found a new low. When Zuko had found completely new ways to fail and embarrass the Fire-Lord yet again.

Perhaps Father had never even listened to start with.

Yet, the mantra would not stop; It just spun on, over and over in his mind; faster and faster. Words ever the same, and yet different as they sped up. If they lost their meaning now, he would truly be lost.

'Please, just give me one more chance .Just one more chance. One more chance. One more chance.

'One last chance.'