Wandering Prince

Avatar the Last Airbender, Zuko SI

03

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Looking out at the rain from under the shelter of my tarp, boat, and lean-to, I sighed as I plucked away at my… I guessed it was a lute of some sort. It had five strings as opposed to the koto’s three, and I’d seen them from time to time used in the plays our mother loved to take me and Azula to. They were some of the few times Ozai actually pulled his head out of his ass and acted like a civilized human being.

As it turned out, the airbender temples were all built high up on mountains and nearly impossible to get to from the ground without special equipment or techniques. Equipment I didn’t have. The technique, on the other hand… Well, if the rain would ever stop, I’d be able to get in some more practice. I’d figured out how to use small explosions with every footstep to propel myself up into the air. Now, I was just working on my fine control and the ability to land and not potentially hurt myself. I had some ideas about jet propulsion for powered flight, but I wasn’t there yet.

Reaching out with one hand, I turned the skewers of meat and vegetables dipped in the fruit wine I was cooking over a small pit of rocks I was using my firebending to keep it hot. The smell of cooking food was heavenly and my stomach growled.

Eventually, I set the guitar? aside and took one of the skewers off the rack. Watching the storm hammer the water and lightning pop and dance, I decided that as far as vacation trips went, this one was turning out well so far. Away from the city, the politics, and Ozai. Beautiful vistas. Peace and quiet. Solitude. Nothing but time on my hands to learn, practice, and grow at my own pace. No need to hide what I could do, to keep from drawing Ozai’s attention.

Sure, I had a few regrets. I regretted having to leave Azula behind, with Ozai pouring poison in her ears. I regretted leaving Uncle Iroh, when it was clear the man wanted nothing more than to settle down and spend his last days with family, in peace. And as nice as peace and quiet were…

“I could do with a volleyball or something,” I mused.

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It took a couple of days, but eventually, the rain cleared out and the sun returned. As soon as it cleared up, I went back to my normal routine. Training as the sun rose—unarmed, with my swords, and with bending. Following that, meditation and working on advancing one technique or another.

I was getting to the point where I could cause fires and small explosions out in the water with the power of my mind alone, but practicing the pyrokinesis technique had highlighted some flaws—namely, that anything obstructing the path of ‘casting’ the technique would cause it to detonate prematurely, unless I adjusted the course of the invisible ‘projectile’ of chi around it. I’d learned that when it detonated on sea spray only a few yards from me, instead of the hundreds of yards away I had been aiming. So unless I could work out that basic flaw, I’d be holding that technique in reserve either for surprise attacks at nearly point blank in combat, or very long range alpha strikes when I wanted to stay concealed.

Lightning generation was coming along. I could separate yin and yang chi and join them to create lightning, and even direct it. It was just a matter of getting it faster, stronger, more range, and more control. For that last part, I used some pieces off of some extra metal panels stored in the bottom of the boat for patches and began practicing using lightning generation to weld the pieces together, then cut them with fire and did it over again. Lightning was much easier and cheaper to use at the small scale, but no less deadly.

As the day wore on, I moved on to practicing what I’d come to call ‘jet-stepping,’ after dreaming of a firebender woman who traveled with who I thought might be Avatar Kyoshi. That, I practiced low over the water just off the shore, moving through all of my firebending and sword forms as I got used to it—until I could use the technique as easily and regularly as breathing or walking. After a few days, I even figured out the whole ‘landing’ thing—either by stepping my way down as though walking on a set of stairs, or ‘sliding’ down, not quite holding up my entire weight as I descended in a continuous burn and then catching myself at the last second before landing and just stepping onto the ground.

Eventually, I got the technique down enough that I felt like I wouldn’t accidentally fall out of the air and get myself killed. From there, I packed up some supplies and started my march, up parallel to the nearly sheer cliffs overlooking the ocean and the small beach I’d landed on. I cleared the top and frowned as I looked out over a mostly flat plateau.

“Well, my dreams haven’t steered my wrong so far.” With that in mind, I went a bit higher and got a look around, eventually spotting a crevasse some distance away. Making my way over, I found what I was looking for—several recessed sets of stairs leading downwards and, walking into the gap myself, a series of buildings built upside down inside the gap.

Walking down to solid ground, I found a building with a running fountain outside and rooms inside and made myself at home. Once I’d established my camp, I set out exploring.

I stayed out until sunset, poking around the place. From what I could see, it was pristine. There were no corpses, no signs of battle—nothing obvious to give any indication as to what had happened to the inhabitants. I couldn’t remember if this was supposed to be one of the temples with all male or all female practitioners and I saw no signs either way, seeing as all the statues I’d come across were of both men and women.

Just as the sun was starting to set and I was getting ready to call it a day, I found the mother lode. A pair of thick stone double doors led to a large library that looked and smelled to have been sealed all this time. I held up a hand, about to create a flame and go looking, before I thought better of it.

A library full of books and scrolls, dry with age, and an open flame? Bad idea.

Instead, in the fading light and using my heat sense to navigate, I found my way to some sort of central office located near the top. Opening the door, I found a shuttered window on the opposite side of the room—the same side as the chasm outside. Once I got it open, it let in just enough of the fading light to look around. I found a single book sitting on an old, low table in the center of the room. Having a look inside, I found it to be a journal kept by the last head monk of the temple. Tucking it under my arm, I closed up the room and left the library, before making my way back to camp.

Having found some bathing facilities earlier, I used fire to scour them clean. Surprisingly, the water still ran, so I was able to take a relaxing, hot bath. Once I was done with that and a meal, I settled in for some reading before bed.

Skipping right to the end, I discovered what happened to the monks—or nuns, rather—who had lived here. They learned of the attack by the Fire Nation as Sozin’s Comet passed overhead. Not wanting the temple to be destroyed in any attack, they planned to do as nomads do and scatter to the four winds. The plan was to have the flying bison scatter. A large force of adult airbenders would act as a diversion, drawing the attention of the fire nation, while the others escaped with the children, where they would scatter and lie low wherever they found themselves. They would hide among the populace once their hair grew back out and use other means to disguise themselves, and stop practicing airbending. With any luck, even if all of them were eventually discovered, they would have had time to have children themselves by that time so that those who carried the ability to airbend wouldn’t be lost completely.

I had no idea how well that worked out for them, but I hadn’t heard of any airbenders in the last hundred years. It was possible that they were all dead. It was equally possible that some were alive and in hiding, and the people of other nations had hidden them after the attempted genocide. It wasn’t like the Fire Nation was all knowing and ever present, and even if they were, I hadn’t exactly had a line on military intelligence. I hoped it had worked, but if it hadn’t, there was still one on ice somewhere at the south pole.

The rest of the journal was pretty mundane, all things considered. Mostly the important happenings around the temple and at the other temples. I closed it up and tucked it away into my bag, before heading inside to turn in for the night.

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So, how do I apply airbending to firebending? I mused, studying an airbending scroll laid before me, detailing the most basic basic airbending forms as I copied it into my grimoire. Not by hand—the grimoire would let me lay out a scroll, book, or other written material on top of it and copy its contents automagically somehow.

It was one of many scrolls that had caught my interest and had been copied over the last few days. Some of those were on the airbender fighting style, meant to incorporate wind manipulation into their martial arts. A few were more advanced airbending scrolls. I had even found some older water, earth, and fire bending scrolls. There were some on chi and its flow within and outside the body, detailing the chakras, even one on how to unlock them—which I planned to investigate more thoroughly later.

I was going through and making copies of as much of the more important looking information as I could, while I had a chance. Some of it, like my personally chosen selections, I wanted to dig into later on. The rest, I figured it might be handy to have at some point—the old ‘better to have it and not need it’ mentality in action.

The first hurdle to clearing the library was light. I couldn’t bring fire into it for fear of accidentally destroying its contents. For the first week, I worked to search and copy things during the daytime, and at night I spent my time delving into my knowledge of bending and meditating upon energy-bending. Eventually, I grasped one of the healing aspects of fire and was able to conjure a green flame that didn’t burn me when I touched it, but… I didn’t trust it entirely. Fire was still fire. Thankfully, I did eventually figure out enough energy-bending to just create a ball of raw, non-elemental chi in my hand as a light source—and from there, a mote of the stuff floating around my body at my direction, casting pale moonlight over everything.

With the light hurdle cleared, I was able to work at night, allowing me to work much longer hours at copying things. The next big hurdle was in searching the library’s contents. That actually turned out to be fairly easy to figure out, once I found their index. The monks had developed a storage system and kept a massive tome detailing the entire contents of the library in one of their back offices. Once I found that and copied its contents to my grimoire, the grimoire had produced an actual spreadsheet for me—multiple fold-out pages detailing the library’s contents and where to find each entry. Amusingly, the spreadsheet actually worked like a computerized version—in this case when I sorted by various tables and columns, the text on the pages magically rearranged itself.

I was three weeks into my exploration and making my way down to shore to do some fishing for more food since I wanted to save the dried rations for as long as possible, when I spotted smoke on the horizon. Taking out my spyglass, I had a look out to sea and sighed when I spotted a Fire Nation naval vessel heading towards the island.

Turning around, I hurried back to the temple and closed up the library. I gathered my things and took off, jet stepping back up to the top of the plateau and running to the edge. Jumping off into a jet-step slide, I rode all the way to the bottom, dropping down beside my boat and throwing my bag inside. I’d made sure to keep the boat ready to go just in case of something like this, so it didn’t take long at all to uncover it, untie it from a tree, raise the mast, shove it out a bit further into the water, and get the engine fired up.

I turned the boat around and skirted the edge of the island, the much larger vessel now in sight—and clearly having spotted me, as they began belching smoke and poured on the speed. Unfurling my sail and edging up to nearly redline on the small boat’s little motor, I was just able to keep ahead of them, but I knew I couldn’t keep it up.

“They’ll run me down eventually, when I run out of juice to power this thing…”

I eventually dug into my pouch and pulled out the grimoire. It split open and pages blurred, before stopping on a detailed map of the islands surrounding the temple. Noting where I was now based on the coastline, I considered the bigger ship’s size and maneuverability and eventually came up with a plan.

The bigger ship followed as I tacked north, following the coast. Spotting the next island in the chain, I adjusted my course as the bigger ship moved to intercept.

The next hour or more was tense as we circled the island, my smaller boat able to move into shallower waters, cutting much closer to the island and gaining some ground. On the north eastern side, I spotted what I was hoping to find—several much smaller islands to the north, marked on the map for accuracy and navigation purposes (specifically, in the case of the airbenders, marked as being a good place to catch an updraft). I’d managed to gain enough ground to put the horizon between me and the other ship, so I took a moment to pull in the sails and drop the mast down, before resuming my run. Instead of moving off towards the other islands, I stuck to the coast, running hard and fast as I could.

Eventually, I turned hard to the east—towards the Earth Kingdom. Locking the tiller in place and pointing the boat at open water, I turned around backwards in my seat and braced myself against it. I was getting tired, but I had enough in me for this, I hoped.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Breathing deeply, I gathered fire to my hands, holding them to either side of the boat. The pressure built until I released it, blue flames bursting to life with a whoosh that picked up in pitch and intensity as I adjusted the flames on the fly. The boat began moving, quickly picking up speed as it began to skim over the water’s surface—running much faster than it was ever intended to go. I could only hope I didn’t capsize before I ran out of juice as my jet propelled me away from the island.

I held the jet as long as I could, doing my best to focus my breathing, taking in more ki from the air and the world around me to prolong it. Eventually however, I just couldn’t go any further. The jet died out with a quiet whump of air and I sagged where I sat. Forcing myself to move, my body trembled as I grabbed the right ropes to raise the mast and locked it into place, then unfurled the sails and tacked north, north east to run towards the Earth Kingdom coast while also heading towards my destination. I’d hug the coast for a while before turning north and cross the Northern Sea.

Finally, I pulled out my sleeping bag and bed roll and allowed myself to collapse into my seat. Closing my eyes, I meditated, drifting into nearly a nap to recharge.

Night had fallen by the time I had enough energy to do more than lay there and occasionally crack my eyes open to make sure I wasn’t going to run into anything. I broke out my fishing rod and used some dried meat as bait. After catching and eating my supper, I took a few minutes to relieve myself over the side and then settled in to run the motor some more, to put some more distance between me and that fire nation ship. When I got tired again, I settled in for some more sleep.

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Weeks ago…

“What do you mean, ‘he’s gone?!’”

Ty Lee winced and Mai stifled a sigh at the sound of Azula’s yell. The princess came storming out of her brother’s room, spotting them immediately. Ty Lee smiled. “What’s, uh, what’s the matter Azula?”

Azula bit back a growl. “Zuzu is gone.”

“How?” Mai asked, frowning minutely. “He was wounded—”

“I have no idea,” Azula grumbled, storming off past them, with the expectation that they follow. She fell silent, leading the pair through the halls and outside. Standing in front of the familiar turtle-duck pond, she turned to Mai and Ty Lee. Gold eyes studied them for a moment before she nodded. “Father will know of this by now. He’ll want Zuko tracked down and brought back.” Quieter, she muttered, “Probably to finish the job.”

“So… what do you want us to do?”

Sharp eyes cut to Ty Lee and narrowed in thought. Eventually, she quietly said, “Find him first.”

Mai nodded. “And?”

“Bring him back. If you can’t, then stick with him and keep him out of trouble until you hear from me. I’ll… deal with father in the meantime.”

Mai and Ty Lee shared a look. After a moment, the pair nodded. “We’ll go look around where he usually hangs out—”

“The docks,” Azula shook her head. “He packed a bag. He doesn’t intend to come back.”

Frowning, Mai asked, “How do you know for sure?”

Azula looked away with a sigh. “He packed the stupid doll.”

The pair of girls shared another look, Ty Lee wincing. “Alright~. The docks, then!”

With that, the two of them left Azula to her thoughts.

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A few weeks later…

Mai kept her face neutral, despite her frustration. It had taken entirely too much time for Azula to get them a ship. She was almost certain that the fat old man, Zuko and Azula’s uncle Iroh, had something to do with the delay. The man had spoken with them and asked where they intended to search. Mai had made a judgment call based on what she knew of Zuko.

If Zuko had truly decided to leave, then he wasn’t going to fuck around about being found. He also wasn’t going to be obvious about it, either. So, after consulting a map, she had decided to head north, checking the ports along the way for sign that he had stopped for supplies, since he couldn’t have had enough time between waking up, escaping, and leaving to get much in the way of provisions for any prolonged journey and Zuko was smart enough not to go out to sea without enough food and water to last a while. Her first best guess was the Western Air Temple. It was deserted, hard to get to, a relatively secure location, and close enough to the fire nation that most would overlook it as being too close—likely thinking he would have made for the Earth Kingdom. It was right under their noses, so to speak—and that had ‘Zuko’ written all over it.

Iroh had decided to go east instead, straight to the Earth kingdom, to begin checking in with all of their outposts, colonies, and shipyards along the coast. Mai had wondered why he would do it himself when a hawk would be faster, before realizing that that was the point and Zuko’s uncle was intentionally dragging his heels.

Once they departed, it took more time to stop at every port on the north part of the Fire Island chain before finally catching a lead. Zuko had stopped on Ember Island and bought provisions, just as she had suspected he would. She worried that he might have been caught in the storm that came not long after he had passed through, but… she knew Zuko was smart. He wouldn’t take on more than he could manage. He wasn’t dumb enough to sail into a storm.

“Hey,” Ty Lee’s chipper voice pulled her from her thoughts as the other girl settled into place against the rail beside Mai, pressing into Mai’s side in the clingy way Ty Lee did.

“Mm.”

“Captain says the island the air temple is on should be coming into sight soon. You think Zuzu’s there?”

Mai hummed, before nodding. “Probably. Knowing him, he set up camp in the temple itself and started training or something.”

“Hmm…” Ty Lee put a finger to her lips in thought, before grinning. “Yup! That sounds like Zuzu!” Mai could hear the grin as Ty Lee turned to look at her. “So~… You, me, and Zuzu. All alone up in some lonely mountain temple. We’d have to keep him tied up so he wouldn’t try to run away again…”

Mai felt her face light up in a blush and her hands clenched the railing. “Quiet.”

“Ehehehe~! You like that, huh?” the acrobat teased.

Shaking her head, Mai narrowed her eyes at a smudge in the distance. “There. That’s the island.”

“Oh! Yup, there it is!” Quieter, she added, “I’m just saying, Azula doesn’t have to know…”

“Azula always knows.”

Ty Lee shrugged. “Yeah, but have you known her to be able to say no to her big brother?”

Mai thought about it for a moment, before shaking her head. “No.”

“So we just make sure it’s Zuko telling her, not us!”

Mai snorted. “Throw him under the boat?”

“Yep!” Ty Lee chirped with a giggle. “Worth it~!”

“Hm.” Sending the other girl a skeptical look, Mai asked, “Why did I agree to share with you again?”

The overly energetic monkey of a girl grinned. “Because otherwise, Azula’d get him all to herself!”

Mai sighed. “Right.” A flash of light caught her eye and she pointed at the island. “What is that?”

Ty Lee studied it for a moment as it fell from the top of the cliff down towards the water, before she cheered, “It’s Zuko!”

“But why—” she started, only to turn and yell at a crew member, “Tell the captain to increase our speed! He saw us!”

“I mean, it’s not like this ship can just sneak up on an island,” Ty Lee murmured as the crewman hurried off and, a moment later, the ship shuddered beneath them as the engine began working harder.

The pair of them moved back towards the tall tower and climbed to the top for a better view. Ty Lee whistled. “Wow, he’s really determined not to be caught!”

Mai nodded, leaning against the railing as she did some estimates in her head and came up short. “We’re not going to catch him at this rate. It’s going to come down to how long he can keep up his firebending.”

“Zuzu can keep it up for a while~.”

Mai sighed, rolling her eyes as Ty Lee giggled. They both watched as Zuko led them on a chase around the island, then around another, his ship eventually disappearing over the horizon as it gained enough ground to leave them behind. They came upon a spot where several smaller islands sat off to the north and the captain took the ship around to check the back side to make sure Zuko wasn’t hiding behind them in a simple ploy to just let them pass while he waited them out. Mai could almost feel him slipping further away at this point, as she realized he’d have known they would have to move to check the obvious and would’ve used it to gain more distance.

A sound in the distance made both girls look up in confusion. It sounded like a low roar, but quickly picked up in pitch as it grew fainter. After a few moments, Ty Lee asked, “Do you think that was Zuzu?”

“Possibly,” Mai murmured. “It sounded like it was heading east to me.”

“Same. Go tell the captain?”

“Mm.”

Ty Lee nodded and scurried down the ladder, while Mai resumed her watch out over the sea with an annoyed look. Stop running from me already, Zuko.

Thinking back to the map she had studied, she wondered where he would head next, now that they had chased him off from his first hiding place. Once more, she reminded herself that Zuko was unconventional compared to other firebenders. It may look like he was running to the Earth Kingdom, and that would be the logical move if he were anyone else…

Which means I need to consider the illogical option. The option no other firebender would dare risk alone.

When she thought about it like that, the choice was obvious, really.

He’s going to pick up some Earth Kingdom garb, disguise himself, and head north. To the Northern Water Tribe.

It would be cold, windy, and otherwise miserable. Firebenders would be uncomfortable at best and would need to almost continuously expend energy to keep warm. He would be surrounded by enemies who wouldn’t hesitate to attack, maybe even kill him, if they discovered who he really was—assuming they didn’t take him hostage and try to ransom him, which wouldn’t work out how they expected. She doubted a bunch of waterbenders living on the north pole knew or cared about the ins and outs of Fire Nation politics or the royal family.

It was insane. Suicidal, really.

And it was so Zuko that it couldn’t be any other option. So, with that, she took the ladder down to speak to the captain.

We’ll just do the same thing he is. Go ashore near an Earth Kingdom village. Get some clothes and a boat. Set out and meet up with the ship again. Tow the boat closer. When we get close enough, Ty Lee and I can take the boat the rest of the way. Claim we’re Earth Kingdom refugees looking for our friend, who might have been dumb enough to come their way.

Infiltrating the northern water tribe sounded fun, but the trip there was just going to be more riding on the ship and finding ways to kill time.

So bored just thinking about it. Almost bored enough to take Ty Lee up on her offer to ‘practice’ for Zuko.

By which the other girl meant, ‘fool around and make out so they could put on a show for Zuko when they caught up to him.’ Mai had to admit, it wasn’t a bad idea. Despite how different he was, she had seen the way Zuko looked at herself, Ty Lee, and even Azula. He was still a man. He wouldn’t say no to watching two beautiful girls put on a show.

On the other hand, it would mean letting Ty Lee be even clingier than normal.

It was a hard choice. Do something Zuko would like, but have to endure Ty Lee’s antics, versus not doing that and not having to put up with Ty Lee…

“Captain,” she called as she stepped onto the bridge. “I know where we need to go next. I need the map.”

“Of course,” the man nodded, and led her over to their navigation charts, laid out on a table in the corner.

Ty Lee pressed herself into Mai’s side as they looked over the map. “So~? Where’s our Zuzu going?”

Ugh. …Maybe she’ll let me gag her so I can get some peace and quiet. It has to be more entertaining than staring out at the ocean.

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Iroh sat on the deck of the ship, sipping at a cup of tea as he looked out over the waves. Before him was his calligraphy set, ready for him to compose a poem. Footsteps approached from behind and stopped beside him.

“We should be at the southern air temple soon, sir.”

“Ah, good, good,” Iroh nodded. “No need to rush, captain. Better that we get there in one piece than not at all.”

“Of course. Do you think it’s possible that Prince Zuko is taking refuge in one of the temples?”

“Taking refuge?” Iroh laughed, shaking his head. “No. We heard no sign of him along the coast of the Earth Kingdom on the way and my nephew is an honorable young man. I don’t believe he ran away, as some are suggesting. Knowing Zuko, he’s concocted some scheme to regain his honor. One hundred years ago, the Avatar escaped the purge of the air nomads, only to disappear. Zuko is most likely searching for signs of the Avatar. If he were captured or killed, then that would surely restore Zuko’s honor and resolve any… ill will with the Fire Lord. The most reasonable place to start our search then is the air temples. His young friends should have searched the western temple by now, so it falls to us to search the south, then the east, and the north if we do not hear from them.”

“That could take a while, sir.”

“Could it?” Iroh asked, a smile pulling at his lips as he glanced up at the captain, who chuckled quietly.

“Oh, yes. Perhaps as much as two years, in fact. If not more.”

Iroh sighed. “Such a shame. Oh well.” Looking around and seeing no one else on the deck, Iroh asked, “Care for a game of Pai Sho?”

“I would be honored.”

Iroh cleared off his writing utensils as the captain left to go retrieve a Pai Sho board.