Inner Strength
Chapter 1
Author's Note: Hey everybody, what's up? This is my newest story: Inner Strength. It may start out a bit confusing, but I will quickly make my way into the necessary background information, and will fill in the gaps as the story progresses. It will be told from a Zuko prominent point of view (3rd person, but following his story) until *mini spoiler warning* he joins the main group.
I'm kicking this story off on a high note, immediately copping out on the stuff that happens in episodes 1-3 in the show. Assume everything is the same on that end, but replace Zuko with Zhao.
Anyway, enough explaining, here is the first chapter! I hope you guys enjoy it!
-Boredone32
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She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room, scanning quickly over the two or three occupants until she found the person she was looking for. She smiled to herself and rolled her eyes as she saw him staring off into space, completely lost in thoughts he refused to share with anyone.
As always.
The boy hadn't been in town longer than four months, but she was beginning to feel some sort of connection to him. He refused to admit it, but they had become good friends in the short time he had been staying with her, and she could tell he had come to see her as a surrogate family, despite his persistent denial.
She brushed his right shoulder as she took the seat next to him, her pale fingers clashing with the earthy brown color of his robes. "You know they say that if you stare at the ceiling too long it'll fall on you." she quipped, smiling as he turned to face her. He offered a playful half smile back, but it was the closest thing to a smile he ever gave anyone.
"Really? Who exactly are 'they'? I haven't ever heard that before." He turned back to his front and leaned on his elbows, which were propped on the bar table in front of him.
"Maybe that's because you stay here spacing out too much. I bet you would hear all sorts of things if you got outside once in a while." He snorted and his half smile turned into a smirk. He didn't have much room to argue with that point. They sat in silence for a moment before the girl changed the subject. "Your hair is getting long. Too lazy to leave the bar long enough to cut it?"
"It's an Inn. I'm drinking water and I work here." he replied, not denying her initial point. His hair had gotten long, but he wanted it that way. His dark brown hair nearly reached his neck in the back, and his bangs were long enough that he could see them, but not quite long enough to cover his eyes. He was considering growing the left side out to cover the large burn scar that marked that half of his face.
"Fine, whatever," the girl replied. "The point is that if it wasn't for me, you would never leave here and you wouldn't talk to anyone. Don't you get bored, Lee?" The boy turned back, staring into the girl's blue eyes, wearing a devious smirk on his face.
"But Suki, you are more than enough to keep me entertained." The girl rolled her eyes and turned, huffing as she tried to force the blush to leave her cheeks. It wasn't like she was in a relationship with him, but Lee always seemed more than comfortable trying to make her… uncomfortable. And he was getting good at it.
"Very funny, but I'm serious." she replied, trying to keep the conversation on topic. "You've been here for nearly four months now and I doubt you even know more than ten people's names. It's a small village Lee, it wouldn't kill you to get out and meet everyone." Lee shrugged, immediately dismissing the suggestion.
"It might," he said. "A lot of these people don't like 'outsiders,' as they call us." Lee took a sip of his water before turning around, leaning back against the bar and using it as a back rest. Suki followed suit, if only to keep him from ending the conversation.
She had tried to get him to be more social a couple times before, but it was getting a bit ridiculous. "You aren't an outsider anymore. This is as much your home as it is mine." Lee scoffed in response and remained silent, so Suki decided it would be best to give up. "So… what have you been thinking about all day?" she asked, figuring she would get the typical dismissive answer.
"My home." he replied curtly, causing the girl to tense up.
In one of his rare moments of openness Lee had told her the story of how he came to Kyoshi Island. He told her that he had been living on a farm with his mother, father, and two brothers when a group of Fire Nation soldiers came through. The Fire Nation made a habit of stealing supplies from farms and towns as they went through, mostly just to cause more suffering to those who opposed them. Lee's farm was burnt down, and the rest of his family died in the fire. He told her that he got his scar when he was making his escape.
After he left the wreckage, Lee had travelled south, hoping to find some sort of refuge from the Fire Nation. He claimed he had 'seen more than enough war for one lifetime,' so when he heard about Kyoshi Island and how it had managed to avoid the war completely, he jumped on the nearest ferry and made his way there.
It wasn't exactly a happy memory, and Suki didn't like to press the matter. When he had showed up on the island, he was completely broke and had nothing on him but some clothes, a small amount of food, and a pair of broadswords he said were family heirlooms. He spent his first night at the inn, and the innkeeper offered him a job later that week.
Suki had been distrustful of him at first, and as the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, she felt responsible for making sure he didn't pose a threat. She offered to let him stay with her, as her parents had left a little over a year ago with her little sister, leaving Suki alone in the three bedroom house. She would have gone with her family to Ba Sing Se, where her father deemed it would be safer than the poorly defended island, but Suki couldn't bring herself to leave the Kyoshi Warriors.
After a couple of weeks, she and Lee had become friends, and he eventually told her the story of how he had come to the island.
Lee got out of his chair, snapping Suki from her thoughts as he made his way to the door. She caught up to him as they stepped outside, looking directly out into the bay. Lee stopped as Suki stepped up next to him, and she looked to see what he was staring at.
The sun was setting on the horizon, and the various hues of reds, oranges, and yellows reflected off the calm ocean, giving off the illusion of a fire dancing atop the glittering expanse of endless sea. She had seen the sun set over Kyoshi many times, but this was one of the most beautiful she had ever seen.
"My mother and I used to watch the sun set whenever we were near water." Lee said, smiling softly to himself. "She used to tell me that even something as dangerous and destructive as fire could be beautiful in its own way." Suki could see a deep sadness in his eyes, but all she could offer was a silent hand on his shoulder as a gesture of comfort.
Lee couldn't help but bitterly note that it was the first thing he had told Suki about his past that was actually true.
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He couldn't sleep.
Hell, it was all he could do to force his eyes shut. Why did he have to have such a restless mind? It had been two and a half years since his banishment, and for four months Zuko had begun to leave his old life behind him. But all because Suki had to care about his past and he had to get all sentimental about a sunset, he was starting to feel guilty.
Once Zuko had gotten used to responding to the name Lee, living his life as an orphaned Earth Kingdom farm boy was simple. He kept to himself, worked all day, went to Suki's house, bantered with the girl for a while before going to bed, and then rinse and repeat. But now he was starting to actually like the girl. She seemed like she had started to genuinely care about him. Well, she had started to genuinely care about Lee.
And that was the issue.
For some reason, the more Zuko felt comfortable with her, the more he felt bad about lying to her. Of course, it wasn't like he had a choice. And Zuko wasn't exactly heartbroken about lying to someone, it was just annoying that the first person he really considered a friend didn't even know his name.
He almost wanted to tell her the truth, to get it all off of his chest and to stop living a lie, but that would most certainly not go over well. A Fire Nation citizen would have a hard time convincing the small island community that they had no ties to their homeland, especially considering how paranoid they were about staying away from the war at all costs. A firebender would have an infinitely smaller chance, and might even be executed on the spot.
So add being the banished prince of said Fire Nation to that, and Zuko knew he would be slaughtered before he finished announcing his real name. He could try to convince them that he was no longer part of the Fire Nation, and that he had no ties to their military, but he figured it wouldn't be much of a plausible argument, even if it was true.
Six months ago Zuko had just finished sailing around the world. He had scoured the entire globe, searching every possible corner and crevice, searching in vain to find a fable. After two years of desperation and painstaking search efforts, Zuko had grown sick of it. Too sick of it to keep it up.
He knew, deep down, that he wouldn't find the Avatar. Even if he did, he wasn't sure his father would really take him back. Sure, he had kept his hopes up long enough to give it time and waste his effort, but Zuko was nothing if not a realist. No one had seen the Avatar in a hundred years, and one small warship with a ragtag group of soldiers wasn't likely to break that trend. If he was able to stay hidden for that long, he wasn't about to be found by Zuko, assuming the Avatar even existed at all.
And so, ashamed, dishonored, and broken, Zuko gave up. He left in the middle of the night, leaving a note to his uncle as he left his old life behind, and set himself on starting over. He couldn't be the banished prince of the Fire Nation anymore, so he became Lee. He was smart enough to realize that the Fire Nation probably wasn't fond of him abandoning his mission, so Zuko decided to find a place that he could stay hidden from the Fire Nation.
That quickly left him with two options: Ba Sing Se and Kyoshi Island. The firebender had abandoned his ship in the southwest of the Earth Kingdom, so Kyoshi was a hell of a lot closer. And thus, his decision was made.
Once he had made his mind up, there was no turning back. Zuko couldn't afford to bring anything that could give away his identity, so he took a few supplies, his broadswords, and just enough money to buy some new clothes.
By the time he reached Kyoshi, Zuko's supplies had run dry, but luckily the innkeeper took pity on him. Zuko would never have taken charity from someone as poor as a small town peasant, but Lee didn't have much of a choice. He had thought about offering to do some manual labor, like fixing roofs or repairing run down houses, but he figured that his story of being a farm boy wouldn't hold up if people saw his lack of skill in such areas.
Luckily, the innkeeper offered him a way out, giving him a job running the bar. There were usually only one or two customers per day, so Lee would have felt bad taking up a room for such little work. This time it was Suki who came to his aid, offering him a free stay at her place in exchange for help maintaining the place.
He knew that she was trying to see if he was trustworthy, but Lee wasn't going to complain if it got him a free place to stay. By the time Suki had grown to trust him, the two had become accustomed to each other's company, so Suki let him stay permanently. That was what led to the friendship that was now the cause of all of Zuko's stress.
He had never had trouble lying to her before, but the more she prodded and tried to learn more about him, the more he wanted to let her. He hadn't had someone to confide in since he had left his uncle, and, as much as he hated to admit it, even Zuko couldn't live out his life in complete isolation.
Zuko knew he had a decision to make. He was either going to have to live with constant guilt and insomnia, or he was going to have to leave Suki, Kyoshi Island, and yet another life, behind him.
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Lee sighed as he dried the last of the mugs at the bar for the third time that day. Washing dishes over and over again at least gave him the satisfaction of doing something. There had been no travelers for the past week, and even the bar's regulars seemed to be avoiding the place for some reason or another.
He turned as someone burst through the front door. Suki came running in, a look of excitement etched onto her face. Lee was about to ask what was going on when Suki spoke up, slightly winded from sprinting.
"We captured some kids that were hanging around the bay. Turns out one of them is the Avatar! Come on!" She waved Lee along, but he was frozen in shock. His eyes were wide and his mouth hung open slightly, confusion etched into every line on his face.
By the time he processed Suki's claim, she was already out the door, making her way back to the main square. Lee set down the glass and followed her, walking slowly as he tried to think of what to do.
He had just been getting comfortable with being an Earth Kingdom peasant for the rest of his life, and then the Avatar, who he had spent two years searching for, finds him. It seemed like one of the spirits really enjoyed toying with him, but Lee wasn't one to wallow in self-pity. Neither was Zuko, and at the moment, he wasn't exactly sure which one of the two would be confronting the Avatar when he reached the square.
It wasn't like he had any means of capturing the Master of all four elements, but he refused to dismiss the idea completely. There was no sense in slamming shut doors the universe had seen fit to open for him. Unfortunately, the way he saw it, Zuko had two options.
First, forsake his new life and newfound friend for a most-likely-futile effort to single-handedly capture the world's most powerful bender. Then manage to get away from the many angry and betrayed residents of the island. And finally, take the world's most powerful bender across the ocean without access to any sort of self-powered ship to aid him.
The second option was to ignore the Avatar completely, continue trying to forget about all the things that potentially awaited him back at the Fire Nation, and live out his life as Lee, the bored-out-of-his-skull bartender.
Before he managed to make any headway on actually picking one of the two options, Zuko was interrupted by the sight of the Avatar. The one hundred and twelve year old Avatar who was… a kid. A short, bald, little kid who was currently floating marbles between his hands and smiling like an idiot.
Zuko almost broke out into laughter.
He wasn't sure if he was more fascinated by the irony of the whole thing, or by the fact that he actually had a shot at beating the boy in a fight. There was no way someone that young had mastered more than one element. Since he was the Avatar, Zuko figured there might be a miniscule chance of him having mastered two, but it seemed highly unlikely.
"Crazy, isn't it?" Suki's voice drew him from his musings, and Lee quickly jumped back into character.
"Uh, yeah. I thought the Avatar would be… older." Suki laughed in agreement.
"You should have seen him earlier. He was riding the koi fish." Lee turned with a look of skepticism, but Suki showed no signs of lying whatsoever.
She has got to be joking, he thought, shaking his head. The Avatar, the most powerful bender in the world, the one thing supposedly standing between the Fire Nation and victory in the war, was riding koi fish. She has got to be joking.
As Zuko watched the boy continue to spin his marbles, he knew for a fact that Suki was not joking.
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The Avatar had been in Kyoshi for a couple of days, and Zuko had been doing his best to inconspicuously observe the boy and his little group. The older boy, Sokka, as Suki had informed him, had been spending his time trying to learn some fighting from Suki and the other warriors. The girl kept mostly to herself, and spent a lot of time in their room in the upper parts of the inn. Zuko had seen her in the lobby a couple of times, but hadn't bothered trying to start a conversation.
The Avatar himself had spent most of his time goofing off and showing off to a group of young girls that lived on the island, and Zuko couldn't help but think that the kid was taunting him. Zuko had worked his ass off for years in search of this kid, who was nonchalantly doing airbending pushups and soaking in attention from little girls rather than focusing on the war.
Zuko had begun to notice that the girl that was travelling with the Avatar seemed to share his distaste for the Avatar's time use, and decided he would try to get a little insight as to what he would be potentially up against.
He followed the girl to the market, and stayed back while she was buying some food. As the girl turned to leave the stall, he made his move. Acting like he wasn't paying attention, Zuko bumped into her shoulder, knocking her supplies over.
"I'm so sorry," he said, trying to sound sincere as he began helping her pick things up.
"It's alright, I should've watched where I was going." she replied, smiling as he gave her the gourd she had dropped.
"No, no. It was completely my fault… hey wait a minute." He said, praying his acting wasn't as bad as it sounded to himself. The girl raised an eyebrow in confusion. "You're travelling with the Avatar, right?" The girl looked annoyed, as though she was jealous that her friend was getting all the attention. Zuko smirked to himself, this was going to be easier than he had thought.
"Yeah, I am. And before you ask, no, I don't know where he has run off to."
"I wasn't going to," he replied. "I'm sure he's getting enough attention from all those little kids that have been chasing him around." The girl scoffed, confirming Zuko's suspicions that she was jealous. "I'm Lee, by the way." he said, reaching out his hand.
She smiled and shook it. "Katara."
"It's nice to meet you, Katara," Zuko said, starting to get annoyed at his own pleasantness. "Could I help you carry that? I work at the inn you guys are staying at and was already heading back that way." Katara smiled again and nodded, grateful for the offer. "You have quite an interesting name," Zuko said as he took the food from her.
"Yeah, I'm from the Southern Water Tribe."
Zuko's eyes narrowed. He had searched the South Pole, how did he miss the Avatar in such a barren place? Of course, he hadn't exactly been searching for a twelve year old, so that may have contributed to it. "The South Pole, huh? Is that where the Avatar has been hiding this past century?" Zuko asked, trying to sound playful.
"Funny you should ask," Katara answered, walking alongside him as they made their way toward the inn. "My brother and I actually found him frozen in a block of ice a couple of weeks ago. I think he was in there for one hundred years. He didn't even know there was a war going on." Zuko did his best not to show any signs of his surprise, but he was fairly sure he stumbled a bit as they walked.
"I guess that would explain how he is still just a kid after all these years." Zuko mused, half to himself.
"Yeah, if I hadn't seen him go into the Avatar State when we were fighting that commander I wouldn't really believe that he's supposedly the most powerful bender in the world. It seems so crazy when you see him playing around."
"You guys had a run-in with the Fire Nation?" Zuko asked, trying not to sound too interested. They entered the inn and began making their way up the stairs as they talked.
"Yep. Some guy with huge sideburns found Aang at the South Pole and took him away. My brother and I took his flying bison and managed to get him out." Suki had mentioned the flying bison to Zuko earlier, though he was convinced they were all making stuff up. It wasn't exactly the important thing though, as Zuko only knew one man that was commonly defined by his sideburns. Zhao.
"Sounds pretty insane." Zuko mumbled absently, lost in his own thoughts. If Zhao was after this little kid and his friends it was only a matter of time before someone else captured him. Then Zuko would have no chance of redeeming himself in the eyes of his father, and his old life would be gone for good. This was a fate Zuko had resigned himself to not one week earlier, but with his newfound hope came a new desire, and his determination had been restored. He needed to figure out a way to capture the Avatar soon, or he wouldn't even have the option.
He vaguely noticed that Katara was saying something as he set down all of the food she had bought. He turned to ask her to repeat herself when one of the Kyoshi Warriors burst through the door.
"Katara!" the girl cried frantically. "Come quick! It's the Fire Nation!"
Zuko's eyes widened as Katara and the warrior bolted out the door. He was useless to fight without his bending, and as far as anyone knew he had no skill with swords either. Showing off his swordsmanship could potentially blow his cover. Letting Zhao capture the Avatar would ruin his chances of doing the same, and being seen by Zhao would probably end in a worst fate than being executed by the Earth Kingdom. The Fire Nation's presence on Kyoshi meant a lot of things for Zuko, and none of them were good.
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A/N: So this is kind of a Prologue. I say kind of because it is a full chapter, and ties directly to the story, but at the same time, I am only releasing it now to get a feel for it. I intend to wait a while before posting new chapters as I want to get a bit ahead so I can update with some regularity. That said, it would be nice to get a second opinion or two on this. It has been a while since I have done anything on this site, and it felt a bit rough writing it. Reading over it again it didn't seem as bad, but I feel off somehow.
Anyway, lemme know what you thought of either the writing itself or the story (or, if you're feeling particularly awesome, both) and I'll try my best to improve it as I go along. Not to be that guy, but if I get enough opinions for this I'll get the next chapter up ASAP rather than waiting until I am a bit further into the story, as potential encouragement for some outside opinions.
Sorry for the blocky A/N's, I promise they will be shorter in the future. Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear what you thought.
Thanks,
-Boredone32