The Fire Within - an atla fanfic (Zuko x OC)

Mamma Mia, Let Me Go

Zuko jumped down to a secluded area of the temple with a muffled oof. I glanced down as he nodded back up to me. I took a tiny jump down and sighed in relief as Zuko caught me by the waist. As he let me go, he said, "Alright, uh..."

"Find Druk." I reminded.

"Right, right." Zuko said, shaking his head slightly.

I grabbed his hand gently. "We can go this way." I said as I pointed to the left.

He nodded and followed me as we went around a pillar. I peeked around the pillar and retracted quickly when I saw a guard walking towards our direction. I turned to Zuko and put my finger to my lips to quiet him. We slipped past the guard once he walked past the pillar and continued walking to the area we were staying at with the avatar.

We glanced over an overgrown bush and into the opening where we had stayed. It was swarming with guards.

"How are we supposed to look around there for Druk?" Zuko asked.

I glanced around cautiously. "If we just made a noise over there, maybe they'd move."

Zuko nodded. "That's true. Good thinking."

"Okay. Let's just aim for the top of the cliff over there and maybe some of the rocks will fall and make them go over there." I said, pointing to a specific part of the cliff a ways away. We exchanged nods and fired small blasts of fire at the cliff. A sizeable chunk of stone fell down and made a large clunk on the ground.

Zuko and I hid ourselves back behind the bush and listened as we heard movement. "Heard a loud noise over there!" One of the guards yelled. Footsteps came behind the bush, and I pushed myself closer to Zuko in hopes that they wouldn't see me.

Zuko put his arm around my shoulder protectively and glanced around the side of the bush. I didn't really have time to think about how we broke up earler, but it didn't really seem like we did. Probably because neither of us really wanted to in the first place.

He tapped on my shoulder and tilted his head to the side as a way to say it was safe to go. We got up and skeddadled to the courtyard with the fountain. We split up and looked all around for Druk. I finally glanced under some overgrown weeds and saw Druk crawled under them, practically shaking in fear. I carefully picked him up, and gave him a reassuring stroke. "It's okay, buddy. No one is going to hurt you."

Druk slid against me happily and let out a little yip.

I walked over to Zuko quietly and pointed down at Druk in my arms.

Zuko smiled and gave Druk a pet on his tiny head. "Alright, let's leave." He whispered.

I stopped in my tracks. "Wait. We need to get one more thing." I said softly. He followed me without question as I snuck into a hallway. I gingerly peeked into the room Zuko and I were sharing.
No one was inside so I happily went in. "My walkman!" I said happily, grabbing my bag.

"I shouldn't be surprised." Zuko responded, shaking his head softly. He took Druk from me and peered outside the door again. We were in a really small room, with barely enough room to hide from anyone seeing us from outside.

I grabbed the picture Zuko had left of Uncle and placed it in my bag, along with a few more little trinkets I had collected along the way. I turned to leave and froze when I heard footsteps outside the door. Zuko quickly grabbed my waist and held me in the corner of the room by the door, hoping we wouldn't be spotted.

"..Hm. I thought I heard someone around here." I heard a guard say. The footsteps continued around the outside of our door.

I turned my head back to Zuko, whose face was still inches away from mine since we really didn't have anywhere else to hide. I made an awkward smile, Zuko only returning a flustered expression.