Yes everyone, yet another Zuko/Sokka fic from me and not continuing the others. I'm Sorry! But I'm getting though this one pretty quick and I like how its turning out, so I thought I'd post it now cause the other one is in working progress with, um -cough- with more adult themed stuff and I'm having troubles with getting that part up.
Anyway I'm a horrible awful person! I killed my favorite character in the show! -Hugs Hiei and Kurama Lover for moral support- I'm sorry Uncle Iroh! But I had to! Its for the yaoi!
Warnings: Zuko/Sokka; which means they will be seeing eachother in a romantic sense soon enough. Zuko OC; but not in the funny goofy sense, more like the dark quiet sense. Zhoa didn't die in the South Pole; I need him for the evil part later, cause that's when I started this.
This story was from the inspiration of Iroh's song, I love that song, I even recorded it and listen to it when I forget the tune, which isn't often.
The water sloshed in the middle of the night, pulling and pushing everything on its surface. Gazing at another scrap of timber that was once part of the ship; charred and black, it was useless now. It floated away from him, and it seemed almost foreboding. A flicker of flames lit the sky in the corner of his vision, but in his current state, he couldn't bring himself to find the energy to think.
In his moments of consciousness he remembered what had taken place. He'd been in his chambers when he felt the ship jolt. He'd run to the deck to see it on fire and he was shocked from the violent attack while they were docked.
"Zuko, Run!" He heard and saw his uncle trying to extinguish the fire on deck. He had yelled something back, he couldn't remember what; maybe he'd questioned the situation. His uncle just yelled at him though. "Run, Zuko! You must survive!" He then saw an incredible explosion, and felt the pain of debris sear his skin, then the meeting of freezing water...
He then watched as a small wooden tile floated by, half of it was blackened and barely distinguishable. But his mind knew what it was and with his ocean chilled fingers reached out and curled them numbly around it. He couldn't stay awake after that, he was exhausted and he wasn't sure if he even dropped the little tile to the merciless sea or not. The last thing that played through his mind was his elder's words: You must survive...
---
Appa bellowed as they flew over the ocean, the young Avatar popped up from lying on the flying bison's soft head. He yawned and patted the white fur. They'd flown another all nighter and the sun, huge and red over the horizon, rose slowly. Aang took the reins again and looked around, seeing land only a couple miles away from high above.
"Stop at the next island, boy." Aang said and Appa bellowed in agreement, slowly descending towards the small, but flourishing island. Appa knew where he was going, so Aang chanced a glance at his companions. Sokka was curled up in the back of the saddle, asleep. Katara had stayed up as long as she could by the front of the saddle, but had fallen asleep also, Momo curled up next to her, tiny chirps coming from him has he breathed out. Aang smiled and decided to be nice and wake them up before Appa made his very loud landing.
"Hey Katara..." the 12 year old prodded the sleeping water bender's shoulder, "Time to get up." Katara blinked her eyes open sleepily and Momo also chirped, lifting his head. Katara yawned and stretched.
"Ah..." she was caught in the middle of a yawn as she spoke, "Where are we Aang?" She asked and Aang shrugged.
"One more night of traveling north," he said, not sure how far they traveled, maybe 500 miles, maybe only 100; but either way, it was less to travel when they were rested up. Katara took the liberty of waking Sokka, having to shake her brother's shoulder hard before he would come out of dream land.
Sokka rubbed his eyes still as Appa flew lower. It was the most sensible thing to do really, Appa could fly 3 days straight if he wanted to; so an all nighter wasn't much for him, but it did take a toll on the humans on board. Sokka looked over the side of the saddle, watching the sea. He caught glimpses of things on the water. At first he thought nothing of it; they were probably clumps of seaweed that had floated to the surface after a storm.
Sokka was then alert, seeing something on the water. Sokka kneeled up and leaned over the side of the bison, a glimmer of red beneath the waves.
"Aang! Go back!" He yelled and everyone looked at him, confused.
"Go back where?" Aang asked and Sokka pointed back where the red glimpse had been.
"Back there, I saw something." Aang was still confused, but directed Appa around, the bison soon sliding into the calm waters, drifting towards where Sokka had pointed out. Sokka didn't take time to explain himself yet; he climbed over Appa's back and slid down his long flat tail, stopping before his feet hit the water. Katara looked over the back of the saddle to watch what her brother was doing.
Sokka looked around, and was not disappointed. The glimpse of red floated closer and he leaned down, grasping the red and pulling out a large blanket like banner, blood red. He didn't have to open it to know what it was, but he did anyway. Opening it he found a good portion of it burned, but it was clear that it was a fire nation emblem. Katara gasped slightly at seeing what it was when her brother opened it.
"What happened?" she asked; a question they all wondered. Sokka could only determine a few things from the evidence around them. The banner was burned, and no self respecting bender would damage their own flag. A fire nation ship had been attacked by one of their own. By the debris around them, it looked to be an unexpected ambush and a vicious attack. He had to assume that it was getting pretty bad for the fire nation if they were attacking their own ships.
Sokka didn't know about how fire nation's traditions about flags, and he couldn't say he cared most of the time, but the thought of a ship betraying another, it seemed so wrong, he actually felt sympathetic. He sighed and let the flag drop into the waves, noticing the only thing that had been keeping the flag afloat was a stray board piece. It slid below the waves now, disappearing into the deep blue.
"Hey, I think I see some one!" Aang announced to the water tribe siblings and they both looked in Aang's direction and when Sokka climbed back to the saddle they all were looking at another figure by the beach they had been heading towards in the first place. Appa slowly swam towards the island, slowly approaching the figure. It turned out to be a person, a fire bender they were sure.
Appa swam on, and out of moral and curiosity, Aang and Katara guided the person along beside Appa, making pulling and pushing motions to make the waves push him towards shore. The person was not easily recognized from the angle they were at, the person's face turned away, on a piece of limber, the only reason he hadn't sunk below the waves like the flag.
Only a couple yards from shore, Aang jumped off Appa and manually dragged the person, a teenager, to shore. Appa had climbed on to shore a bit before the siblings climbed off and hurried over to help Aang. Sokka got there first and helped drag the unconscious one to dry land. Once there, they turned the fire nation fighter over onto his back, a mess of black hair in the way of the person's face.
Most spontaneous and concerned, Aang brushed the wet locks away. First noticed was the open wounds and bruises, then when Aang cleared the left side of his face they all jumped back from the fire bender on instinct.
It was Prince Zuko. His most clear feature was the miss-pigmented scar on his face, but the rest of him was a mess. His hair was unbound from its restraints and his skin covered in nicks and cuts. His clothes were torn from what ever had cut his skin, and scorch marks were ever present.
Aang immediately felt for a heart beat and breathing. He found no air being taken into the lungs, but he found a small pulse in the prince's wrist. He kneeled next to Zuko and looked to Katara.
"He's not breathing," He announced, "Katara, help me." He lifted his hands but Katara was hesitant.
"Wait, Aang, this is Zuko," She said.
"I know," the avatar said, "But we can't just let him die, we have to get the water out of him." Katara was still not sure about it, and neither was Sokka, Zuko was the one that had been chasing them for so long, trying to take Aang away from them. But Aang turned his wide watery eyes on, pleading with the water bender. "Please Katara, he saved me once, I can't just let him die." Katara gave into the eyes and sighed, going over and kneeling on the other side of Zuko.
Sokka only stood by and watched. The two benders, quickly got a rhythm going; Katara used her push and pull movements, trying to force the water out of the fire bender's lungs while Aang tried to force life giving oxygen into Zuko. Sokka only watched, the two bender's concentration was intense, willing the water to come out. Sokka mean while examined the other's condition.
Zuko was paler than he'd ever seen him, a ghostly white, most likely from the chilled waters; it could have easily given him hypothermia. Soaked and defenses down, this was defiantly not a side of Zuko any of them expecting to see; or had ever thought there was until now.
Looking further, he saw Zuko's fingers clutched loosely. Curiously, Sokka kneeled next to the fire bender, next to his sister. She and Aang were too focused to bother seeing what he was doing; this took total concentration, trying to get water out of where they couldn't see. Sokka took Zuko's fist and easily pried the chilled fingers open.
Maybe in the back of his mind he'd thought Zuko would have been holding onto something more valuable. Maybe a piece of jewelry or precious gem; he was a prince after all. What he wasn't expecting him to find was a little lotus tile from a Pai Sho game. It seemed to have no specific value to him; half of it was charred anyway, but habit's sake of foraging during traveling made him slip it into the back of his boot.
Just then did Katara made a successful sound, a stream of sea water floating out of Zuko's mouth and pouring back into the ocean. Zuko sat up, convulsing and coughing, his airway free now, working quickly to catch up to the breaths his lungs had been denied until then. They all tensed at the prince's momentary consciousness, but Zuko fell again into the sand, body deprived of rest and possibly with a concussion. What ever it was, his body was not yet ready to be conscious.
Aang, Katara, and Sokka sighed simultaneous, all startled by the sudden action. And all curious to know what happened to Zuko, Aang decided for them, to help the prince.
All for not I know its short and weird sounding but all beginnings are. And to warn everyone, my computer is broken (I'm using the one at School) so you may have to wait a while for an update from any story, sorry bout that. Please review, thank you and good night