Too Far Away

Chapter Nine: I Work Most of the Time

The Fifth Letter

"The Avatar!" said Zuko, pulling on the ostrich-horse's reins. He had seen the sky bison floating through the atmosphere nearby. He had almost mistaken it for a cloud again, but after months of tracking it, he felt like he could recognize it anywhere.

Before he could move, though, he hesitated. His gaze wandered back to the path on which the earthbending soldiers had taken his Uncle.

He felt like he was being pulled two different ways by two extremely powerful magnets. He had failed to capture the Avatar in the past, and he had no way of knowing if he could catch him now, especially without Iroh. With his Uncle, however, he had a much better chance of tracking the Avatar. And there was no way he was ever going to leave him to the mercy of a couple of earthbending thugs.

With that thought on his mind, he turned his ostrich-horse back to the path it had been taking, deciding that rescuing his Uncle was the best possible option. From a strategic sense, of course.

It was at that inopportune moment that Tongyi flew down and landed on his shoulder.

Zuko sighed and turned to the members of the crew that were helping him track his Uncle. "Does anyone have writing supplies?" he asked.

Funnily enough, they did. One man had both a stoppered inkwell and his 'lucky' brush, which Zuko promised to be careful with. A different man had a message from a relative he wasn't close to, which Zuko used the back of to quickly write:

Song Lee,

I can't write to you right now. My Uncle has been taken by earthbending soldiers. I have not read the fifth letter, but as soon as my Uncle is safe, I will. The next time you write, I'll reply to both letters.

Zuko

Barely caring whether the ink was dry or not, and unsure why he was even writing in the first place, he rolled the letter up, pressed it into Tongyi's carrier, and sent the falcon off again.

"Let's move," Zuko told the crewmates after he had returned the inkwell and lucky brush to the man who had loaned them to him, and they were off. Zuko made sure that Song Lee's unread letter was tucked safely in his pocket.

Walking was difficult. The poison had taken a lot out of Song Lee, and it was extremely difficult for her to adjust to her new permanence of weakness. She had to let Zuko or General Iroh help her along. It was humiliating. From what Zuko told her (and he had told her a lot), she had been asleep for two weeks. Two weeks of him and his uncle dragging her around when she was there to be making their journey easier in the first place.

How could she have let Princess Azula surprise her like that? Song Lee found it difficult to look Zuko or General Iroh in the eye. Her teacher would have been so disappointed.

As the customs women looked over everyone's papers, Song Lee experimented with letting go of General Iroh's arm and grabbing on again. He didn't say anything about it, but it quickly became obvious by the way the world tilted around her that she had to stop. Instead, she listened to Zuko chatter about his sister in a tone that wasn't loud enough for anyone around them to hear while she watched the customs woman, who didn't quite look like other Earth Kingdom women that Song Lee had seen. She was certainly a sight to behold.

Zuko stopped talking about Princess Azula and started talking about her two friends, Mai and Ty Lee. Song Lee listened in fascination.

Ever since she had woken up, Zuko had talked and talked with neither rest nor reprieve. Song Lee'd had no idea that he had so much to say. It was like they had switched positions—Song Lee listened, asking questions every so often, and Zuko talked about whatever popped into his head. She enjoyed it immensely, though it may have been because she was too exhausted to actually talk for extended periods of time.