Wandering Prince
Avatar the Last Airbender, Zuko SI
06
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“You should be honored. I was quite the beauty in my youth, young man.”
Yue hid a smile behind her hand and stifled a giggle as I let out a sigh. “Fine. Let’s just… get this over with.”
Fire burned. It was simple physics and chemistry. And as I had come to learn, even if the green fire didn’t burn living things in the normal way, it would absolutely burn inanimate things. Things like clothing. There was a reason I had gone to the bath when I used it on my whole body, and not just because a warm bath relaxed abused muscles. Firstly, because I couldn’t wear anything anyway. Secondly, to protect the rest of Senna’s home from the heat.
“What are you giggling at, young lady?” Yagoda scolded Yue as she stripped down. “You’re going in there with us. Start stripping.”
“W-wha?!” the girl’s eyes went wide and Yagoda leered, laughing.
“You’re going to need to be right there beside me. How long do you think it’ll take your clothes to become unbearable, hmm? For them to catch fire around you?” Yagoda raised an eyebrow. “I imagine young Zuko may be able to stand the heat better than us, but even he won’t be able to keep his own clothes from catching alight. Not while also focusing on what he needs to.”
“She’s right,” I agreed, much as I didn’t want to. I hadn’t woken up this morning and thought to myself how nice it would be to see floppy, wrinkly old woman bits, or that I’d like to strip down in front of said old woman, even with the sexy Yue going in as well as a consolation prize. “Look, you’re a healer, right? You’ve seen more than your fair share of naked people by now, surely. Just think of it like that. It’s for a medical thing, so it’s fine. Nothing to be worried about.”
Yue stared as I began taking off my clothes. Pink tongue darted out to lick her lips as her eyes went wide and she stared as my shirt came off, followed by my pants. She covered her face with her hands as I got to my underwear, but I caught a hint of one blue eye peeking between her fingers and her light brown skin turned beet red as she squeaked.
“Come on, let’s go in. Yue, hurry up!” Yagoda demanded, grabbing my hand and dragging me into the room beyond.
Apparently, Yagoda had thrown around her weight somewhere, as we had this entire section of the building to ourselves at the moment. They had what was effectively a hospital wing in the palace, which hadn’t made sense to me initially, until I thought about it from a tactical mindset. Namely, the palace was the place with the thickest walls and the most ice for their benders to use. Keeping the healers here, behind these thick walls, and bringing the injured to them here was the smartest move in any defensive engagement.
“Ahh, it’s cold on these old feet,” Yagoda complained. I couldn’t blame her, given that we were walking on ice, inside a building made of ice, at the north pole.
“It’ll warm up in a minute. As soon as Yue gets in here,” I reminded her, as I helped her climb up onto a person-sized slab of ice erected for laying patients out on, before sitting down with a quiet yelp as my nuts touched the ice.
“Hehehe! Cold on the old twig and berries, isn’t it?” the old woman cackled.
“Not pleasant,” I grumbled, focusing on my breathing and warming my body up.
The sound of rushing feet announced Yue’s entrance and I glanced up in time to see her rush past me to the other side of the ice block, both hands covering her sensitive bits. She met my eyes and wailed, “Don’t look~!”
“The way you didn’t look?” I challenged, and she whimpered.
“That’s different!” the girl protested, as she settled in on the ground in front of me, the raised block of ice preventing me from seeing anything interesting.
“It’s really not,” I shook my head. Still, what I saw was very nice, I mused, the mental image of a nude Yue dancing in my mind’s eye. She was surprisingly fit for a girl who didn’t get out much, and looked deliciously soft. A bit plump, but that was fine.
“Ee! Stop imagining it!”
Yagoda cackled again, drawing Yue’s attention. “Come now, girl. You should be flattered! It’s not every day you get the attention of a boy like Zuko here. Now, if you don’t mind, get that fire going so I stop freezing my wrinkly old ass off!”
“Yes, yes. One fire, coming up,” I shook my head. Focusing on my breathing rhythm, I conjured green flames to my hands. Holding them out, I considered how best to do this.
Probably not a good idea to do one body part at a time. I doubt the body will react well to parts of it suddenly being younger. Could put strain on her and cause problems. So… wide dispersal. Need to cover her whole body at once.
Green flames rushed out of my hands and Yue ‘eep!’ed, jerking back for a moment as they washed over Yagoda. I closed my eyes, feeling out my chi in the fire, and how it interacted with Yagoda’s, in order to paint a mental picture of the shape of her body. It took some finagling, but I managed to get a layer of flames under her, between her body and the ice, which quickly began to melt where it was in contact and drip down the larger structure. Eventually, I got to a point where all I had to do was maintain the fire.
“This is amazing,” Yue murmured, her hands touching Yagoda’s arm as, at a guess, she used some sort of diagnostic technique to see what was going on inside the old woman. “I can see her getting healthier, a little at a time.” She moved her hand over to lay it on my arm. “The technique is much more draining than yesterday.”
“Yeah, well, yesterday I was just making a small flame. Now, I’m trying to keep up a bonfire,” I chuckled, sending her a smile. “I’m fine for now. I’ll need something to eat and drink later, and a short break. I’ll be fine until then.”
“If you’re sure?” Yue asked, and I nodded. She looked down at Yagoda, who looked to have fallen asleep at some point once the fire started, before her eyes shifted up to meet my own. “So… There isn’t much to do right now but talk. Will you tell me more of your travels?”
Chuckling, I admitted, “I covered pretty much all of it so far.”
Nodding, the girl hummed, before hesitantly asking, “What was it like? The fire islands? We’ve heard stories, but… somehow I doubt it’s home to demons who roast and eat the infants of the other nations alive.”
I winced, making a disgusted face. “No. Not at all. The preferred method is raw. Kinda like sushi.”
Yue’s mouth fell open and I chuckled. “Sorry, that joke was… in bad taste.” Her hand twitched, half-raising as she glared and I grinned.
“You’re horrible!”
“Yep,” I laughed. “And I guess it depends on where you were in the Fire Nation. Most places, I suppose it was just normal people living out normal, ordinary lives. People are happy and healthy. Aside from the occasional group of soldiers who come through on patrol or a passing Fire Navy ship, you wouldn’t know we were at war. It’s not some kind of caricature, like you’d see put on in some sort of stage play or puppet show. Everyone isn’t all, ‘Haha! I’m of the Fire Nation and today, I will make the world just a little more miserable! And then tonight, I’ll eat some Earth Kingdom baby! Or perhaps I’ll have some Water Tribe child instead! It’s too bad Airbender children are out of season! Ha ha ha!’ while twirling their mustache or stroking their beard, you know?”
Yue’s face looked conflicted. On the one hand, I could see she was a bit horrified at the description, but on the other I could see she kind of wanted to laugh. Eventually, she asked, “What about where you lived?”
“Ah. That would be Caldera City, on the largest, westernmost island. As the name suggests, it’s a city built inside a caldera.”
“What’s a caldera?”
“Do you know what a volcano is?” I asked, and Yue shook her head. “Alright. How do I explain this?”
Considering for a few moments as I glanced down at Yagoda’s face, I raised an eyebrow as I realized the old woman had already begun to show signs of losing years. Yue’s right. It really is amazing.
Catching sight of the ice the old woman was lying on gave me an idea, however. “Icebergs.”
“Hm?” Yue asked, tilting her head cutely in confusion, sending her white hair falling partially over her shoulder.
“You’ve seen icebergs,” I said, and she nodded. “So you know the top is only the smallest part, sticking up out of the water.” She nodded again. “Imagine a whole bunch of ice bergs, all pressed together. It they’re joined at all, it’s only because of the pressure of them pushing against each other. Those are the continents. The great big masses of land sticking out of the water. But below the water, there’s more land, on the bottom. And deep, deep below that, is a layer of molten, liquid rock. What we call magma when it’s underground, or lava when it’s on the surface. Those continents are like ice bergs, floating on top of a sea of magma. Because they aren’t resting on anything solid, they move with the waves and tides.”
“Ah! I’ve seen icebergs shift like that, yes!” Yue nodded, beaming a smile so beautiful it hurt to look at.
Damn, this girl really is too cute. How is this even legal?
“You know how sometimes, water shoots up between the cracks, because of the pressure?” I asked, and she nodded again. “Same concept. Pressure builds, magma gets pushed to the surface, it erupts. We call that volcanic activity. But rock isn’t water. Rock is solid, when it’s colder than its melting point. And as it’s exposed to water, or air, or anything other than extreme heat and pressure, lava cools and solidifies. A volcano is when enough lava builds up into a mountain. There’s still usually a vent below it, where more lava leaks up to the surface, but it’s held in place by the rest of the rock of the volcano around it. A caldera is the inside of a volcano. A bowl-shaped depression where the interior has solidified and collapsed. Sometimes, the volcano goes dormant and stays that way for hundreds, even thousands of years. Sometimes, pressure builds and it eventually goes up.”
Yue’s eyes went wide. “Wait! Your capital is built on top of this caldera, which might suddenly explode one day?!”
“Yep. Theoretically, we’d have a few months of warning if it were getting ready to explode. Assuming they recognized the signs. Assuming the reports didn’t get buried in bureaucracy. Assuming the warnings weren’t ignored…” I shrugged, grinning ruefully. “I can’t say it’s the safest place in the world to live, just because of that. Most people don’t even realize the potential danger.”
“That’s… terrifying.”
“A bit, yeah,” I agreed. “Once you get past that, I guess it’s probably like any major city. You’ve got your normal, honest folk just trying to make a living. Then you’ve got your minor government functionaries, trying to keep things running. Then the upper government, politicians, and nobility doing more to make themselves a nuisance and line their pockets than to actually help the country. Military, of course. Lots of police, guards, army, and navy—but for the most part, the lower ranks are all made up of normal, decent enough people who are, again, just trying to make a living for themselves and their families. Or conscripts, who were forced to join for one reason or another—debts, commuted prison sentences, that sort of thing. Then you’ve got the upper nobility, ranking officers, and finally the royalty. They don’t actually go out in public much, so it’s not like most people would recognize one of them on sight. Aside from the emperor, you could be sitting across from one of them and you wouldn’t know.”
Yue scoffed, sending me an amused look. “I think I would be able to pick out royalty if I saw them.”
Chuckling, I asked, “Oh? Why’s that?”
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“Mm,” she put a finger to her lips, then smiled. “Like recognizes like.”
“Yeah? You saying you’re some kind of princess or something?” I challenged, and her smile turned impish.
“Something like that,” she agreed. “It’s refreshing, to not be recognized on sight. To have someone treat me as…” she hesitated, then admitted, “as an equal. Not a prize to be won, or a doll to sit silently in a corner and smile.” Her blue eyes bored into my gold for several moments, the green light of my flames flickering in them, before she giggled. “And you don’t even care, do you?”
“Can’t say I do,” I admitted. “I mean, we’re kind of laid bare before each other here, in the most literal sense. I’ve never put much stock in rank or position.”
Her eyes narrowed in challenge at that and, perhaps deciding to test that theory, she straightened up where she sat—not quite exposing her breasts to my sight as she adopted what I recognized as a very official bearing. A royal bearing, in fact. I recognized it from my own training in preparation for the royal court. “I am Yue, daughter of Chief Arnook, princess of the Northern Water Tribe.”
I stayed right where I was, slouched down in as relaxed a position as I could get while I kept the fire around Yagoda going. Meeting the princess’s eyes, I held her gaze as I answered, “And I’d rather be just Zuko, a wandering student.”
Yue relaxed a bit, even as she eyed me critically. “You didn’t even react.”
“Was I supposed to?”
“Most people would,” she murmured. “Even a noble of another nation would.”
Sending her a smile, I said, “You want to know, but you don’t actually want me to tell you. You want to guess, but the mystery is more fun than the truth would ever be. You’re thinking, ‘Maybe he’s some second or third prince, outcast by the royal family. Or maybe he’s not the emperor’s son, but is in the line of succession.’”
Yue pouted, crossing her arms over her chest as she glared halfheartedly. “How did you know?”
“You’re a woman,” I chuckled. “I will tell you this, since it’s public knowledge: the emperor has one older brother, a son, a daughter, and a deceased nephew. If there are other relatives or bastards somewhere, the public isn’t aware of it. The emperor’s name is Ozai and his brother’s name is Iroh—which is a name the Earth Kingdom knows well given his siege of their capital, before quitting the field after his son died.”
“I’ve heard of the Dragon of the West before.” Yue hummed, thinking about it as she considered me. Finally, she smiled and shook her head. “Perhaps you’re right, and the game is more fun than the answer. Let us speak of something else, then.”
“Sure. Feel free to ask whatever you like. I can’t guarantee I’ll answer, but I promise not to lie to you.”
Nodding, the young woman across from me eventually smiled a mischievous little smile, before asking, “Do you have anyone waiting for you, back home?”
“A little sister and two friends.” Remembering my last encounter with Mai and Ty Lee, I corrected myself. “But those two friends may have been sent by my sister to track me down and drag me home, so they might not actually be waiting for me back home.”
Frowning, Yue narrowed her eyes. “That isn’t what I meant.”
I grinned. “I know.”
“Nn.” I laughed at her little frustrated noise. “Do you enjoy tormenting me?”
“Yes,” I answered immediately. “Your frustrated face is cute.”
The girl looked away with another frustrated sound, blushing down below the level at where the ice cut off my sight of her body. “Only when I’m frustrated?”
“Of course not. But it’s so easy to fluster and frustrate you that it’s quickly becoming my favorite new game.”
“You’re awful,” she sighed, sulking. “Is there anyone,” she hesitated, carefully choosing her words now, “that you’re romantically involved with, in the Fire Nation?”
I shook my head. “Not to my knowledge. No engagements, no arrangements, no special friends or even lovers. What about yourself? Is there some special person in your life?”
Yue looked down, thinking about it for a moment, before looking up and meeting my eyes with a smile. “Yes. There’s someone who has caught my eye. Unfortunately, as the chieftain's daughter, I will be expected to marry for the good of the tribe. There is one young warrior in training who is intent on pursuing me.”
“And how do you feel about him?”
Yue looked away. “How I feel doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
The girl blinked, turning back to meet my eyes. “I don’t dislike him, but I don’t like him either. I barely know him, so I don’t feel one way or the other about him, mostly. I’m sure he’s strong and I suppose he’s handsome enough. But the truth is, he’s very… dull. All he knows how to talk about is war and politics, himself, and his own career.”
Biting her lip, Yue looked away and murmured, “He does not tell me stories of strange and beautiful lands. He does not consider my feelings on matters. He does not attempt to teach me something new so we can have a common interest. Nor does he treat me as an equal and a woman.”
“How does he treat you?” I asked, having a suspicion given the type of man she was describing.
“As something to be won and possessed.”
“Well,” I murmured, drawing Yue’s eyes to me as I sent her a smile. “You are worth fighting for and winning, and absolutely someone I would possess and guard jealously. And if you were my woman, I would expect the same from you. To see your man as a prize worth keeping out of the hands of others who would try to steal him away.” Yue worried her plump bottom lip between her teeth at that, lowering her head to look at me through dark lashes. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s human nature. But there’s a difference between treating you like someone precious and to be protected and treating you like a thing, like a trophy to collect.”
Taking a breath, Yue quickly pushed herself to her feet and rushed towards the door, incidentally flashing me with a glimpse of her large breasts and the white hair of her neat little bush. She paused at the door. “It,” she swallowed thickly, “I think we should take a short break so you can rest. I’ll go fetch some tea and snacks.”
“Sure. Thanks, Yue,” I nodded, and she left the room in a hurry. Turning my gaze to Yagoda’s face, I sighed as I tried to gauge how much progress I had made. She had gone from a woman in her eighties to maybe in her sixties. The change wasn’t easy to judge, but it was obvious. “Maybe I said too much.”
----------------------------------------
It was late into the night when I finally felt done.
Yue had returned and left several times during her watch over Yagoda, to collect food and drink for us. I had only left once myself, just long enough to use the restroom. I would never get used to sitting on a toilet box made of ice. That was just not how I wanted to ever have to use the restroom again, once I left this place.
With my hands occupied with Yagoda, Yue had taken it upon herself to see to my needs—namely, feeding me and holding a cup while I drank tea. I think something about my comment about if she was my woman must have set something off in her mind.
After that first time exposing herself to do so and me studiously keeping my eyes on Yagoda the entire time, she had taken it as some sort of challenge, and found new positions to sit in to get a rise out of me. And though I could control my eyes, my dick was another matter entirely, as it decided it liked the show I was getting in my peripheral vision and wanted to show its appreciation for the beautiful young woman trying to get my attention.
Thankfully, the torture that was being blue balled for most of the day looked to be about to come to an end. I let the fire die down and sat back, resting my hands in my lap. “I think we’re done. How’s she look?”
“Everything seems normal. Healthy. Better, even. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone this healthy,” Yue mused as she ran her hands over Yagoda’s skin. “We eat a lot of fish, so we see some toxic things accumulate in the body. They’re things we’re trained to remove, but they can be harmful. But there are none! Or any of the other toxins that build up over time and have to be cleaned. It’s like they’ve all… been burned away.”
“That’s good to hear,” I yawned, stretching where I sat. “Can you wake her?”
“She’s coming around now,” Yue nodded.
A few moments later, Yagoda’s eyes opened and she took a deep breath. A smile pulled at her lips as she sat up on the wet, half-melted slab of ice. To be honest, she hadn’t been lying. As she was now, returned to the prime of her life at what I guessed was maybe her early twenties, Yagoda was quite the beauty.
Long, dark hair that came down to her back, before bleeding into gray, then a pile of white bundled on the floor. Smooth, tight, very warm-looking ambiguously brown skin. Plump lips. Full breasts. Thick thighs. Narrow waist. Bright blue eyes that swept over me and danced with amusement as she preened under the attention, unashamedly turning her body to show off more of herself.
“I told you so,” the healer chuckled, reaching out and patting my shoulder, before turning her eyes to Yue. “Be a dear and fetch me some scissors, would you?”
“Of course,” Yue bowed, hurrying from the room.
“And some fresh clothes! Mine aren’t going to fit anymore. Bring me a set of yours, would you?”
“I will,” Yue promised, as she hit the door and stopped only long enough to pull on her clothes outside.
I stood, working the kinks out and groaning in relief as I got off the cold, hard floor. “In the meantime, I’m going to get dressed.”
Yagoda nodded, waving me off. I stepped outside and used fire to dry myself off and warm up, then enough heat to warm up my very cold clothes before pulling them on. Grabbing my coat, I made my way back inside and over to Yagoda, who I found studying her body—prodding herself this way and that. Her hands touched each other, then her tight belly, then hefted her breasts and tweaked her own nipples, before sliding up to her beautiful face.
“Zuko my boy, you have no idea what this means to me,” the woman murmured as I stepped up and draped my coat around her shoulders. She slipped her arms in the sleeves, then took my hands in her own.
“I can imagine.”
Sighing, the woman pulled me in close and wrapped her arms around me, burying her face in my stomach as she hugged me tightly. I returned the hug, rubbing her back. “Thank you,” she sighed, then rubbed her face against my stomach. “Ah, I had almost forgotten how good it feels to touch another person. To not feel like an old, aching bag of bones.”
A quiet, mischievous chuckle escaped her throat and her hands shifted down. I jumped a little as both her hands latched on and squeezed my ass. “Uh, am I in danger?”
“Very much so,” the woman laughed. “I need to find some young buck to enjoy this new lease on life with.”
“Ah, well…”
Yagoda cackled, shaking her head. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m only teasing. I think Yue would strangle me if I stole you out from under her.”
“It’s not like we’re dating.”
The newly young woman pulled back and looked up at me, digging her chin into my stomach. “Don’t play dense, Zuko. I said it last night, didn’t I? Arnook will look for some way to tie you more closely to the tribe, after this. So, congratulations on your engagement.”
I rolled my eyes. “I highly doubt he’s going to throw his daughter at me—”
“If he doesn’t, he’s a fool, and I’ll step in to see that he does,” she countered. I sent her a skeptical look and Yagoda shook her head. “Answer me this, Zuko. Do you like her?”
“I just met her. Ack!” I yelped as she squeezed my ass with both hands.
“That wasn’t what I asked, boy!” the healer glared up at me. “A simple yes or no. Do you like her? Do you find her beautiful? Is she charming? Could you see being married to her, one day? Yes or no.”
I didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes. But—”
“Ah, ah, ah!” Yagoda shook her head. “I don’t care for anything else. The ‘yes’ is all that matters.”
“Yagoda, it is way more complicated than that.”
The woman shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be. And it won’t. You said you want to leave and continue your journey. The ‘walkabout’ my niece spoke of? That’s fine. They aren’t going to deny you that, if the alternative is risking angering the man who can restore their youth and vigor. In fact, after tonight, you’ll find you will have much sway within the tribe. You just need to prepare beforehand.”
“What do you mean, after tonight? And prepare how?”
Chuckling, Yagoda shook her head. She made to answer, only for the door behind us to open. “I’ve bought what you asked for.”
“Ahh, thank you Yue. You’re such a good girl,” Yagoda giggled, letting me go and standing. She stripped out of my coat and handed it to me, before gathering her hair in one hand and taking the scissors on the other. She took a few moments to cut the end off, leaving behind a pile of old, white and gray hair on the ground. A bit of waterbending had the water off of her and she took the clothes Yue offered.
Quietly, Yue asked, “When did you learn how to…?”
Yagoda sent Yue an amused look. I noticed that now that her youth had been restored, Yagoda was actually a little taller than Yue, now that she wasn’t hunched over on herself and shrunken with age. “Girl, use your head. Just because Pakku refuses to teach waterbending to women and it’s tradition that women learn to heal doesn’t mean you can’t study and learn on your own. What are they going to do if they catch you using it, hmm? Tell you to stop? Ha! I’ve found the simplest response to that is to ask old Pakku if he’d like his joint pain to go away or not. It shuts him up for a while.”
“The whole system is stupid,” I muttered, and Yagoda turned a raised eyebrow my way. “If men and women can both learn how to heal and how to fight using waterbending, then they should. If you told a Fire Nation general or admiral that you had a squad of twenty healers, he’d sequester them behind walls, far from the front lines. If you told him those healers could also act as reinforcements for the fighters? He’d stick them on the rear lines, where they could act as artillery, supporting the front lines. If you told him every single firebender under his command could learn how to heal with just a few years more training? He’d be kicking down the emperor’s door demanding that all of them be pulled in rotation to undergo immediate retraining, to ensure the entire firebending force would be capable of both fighting and healing. And for as much of a prick as Ozai is, he’d agree, because it makes sense from a strategic standpoint. I’m sure the Earth Kingdom would do the same if they could. You’re shooting yourselves in the foot by not doing it. You have an advantage over the Fire Nation and you’re squandering it. Why?”
“Because that is what a previous Avatar decreed. It was faster to train one group on healing and the other with combat.”
I groaned quietly at that. “Yeah. You rotate them. Split them into multiple, smaller groups. Then, when their training is complete, one of each group goes active duty, while the other two groups cross-train. Then when they’re done, the ones who were active rotate back in for their cross-training, and you end up with four groups capable of both skills.”
“Hehe. Perhaps I’ll bring it up with Arnook and let you tell him yourself,” Yagoda suggested as she finished getting dressed, now that her hair was trimmed up how she wanted it. “You’ll have an opportunity soon. Come! I want you to sit beside me for the evening meal.”
I found my arm grabbed and pulled tightly to the woman’s chest. Yue joined on the other side of Yagoda as they led me from the room. Frowning, I asked, “What, now?”
“Of course. Tonight is the best time for it,” the older woman nodded. Quieter, she let out a dark chuckle. “This is going to be fun~.”
Looking over to Yue, I asked, “This is going to be trouble, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” the white haired girl smiled. “Thankfully, my seat is a few places down from where you’ll be sitting, so I won’t be caught up in what comes next.”
“Traitor,” I grumbled, earning a giggle.Yagoda patted my hand as we neared the doors. “Oh, don’t worry, Zuko. Yue is going to get hers, soon enough.”
“Eh?” Yue asked, looking suddenly nervous. “Yagoda? What do you mean?” Yagoda sent her a smile and Yue whimpered. “Yagoda please?”
“Hush, girl. You’ll enjoy this. I promise. Now, let’s go say hello…”