The DragonBorn

Chapter 8

The sun was setting on the day, slowly fading to the darkness of night. Zeraphina was hoping to see the stars clearly that night, but the clouds were blocking the bright full moon.

"Zera?" A voice whispered in the darkness. She turned around towards the palace and saw her only friend in the entire Fire Nation running up to her near the turtle-duck pond. She smiled seeing Zuko in the light of the full moon. Since they first met, they were always able to meet at night, but only on nights with a full moon.

"Good to see you, My Prince." Zeraphina said as she greeted her friend while he sat next to her on the pond's shore.

"You know, you don't have to call me Prince. I gave you permission to call me Zuko, right?"

Zeraphina chuckled, "Sorry, force of habit with everyone in the palace telling me what to call everyone. I'll call you by your name one day."

"Why not call me by my name now?" Zuko pouted.

"When you stop pouting like that, mighty heir to the Fire Nation throne."

The two laughed and talked about even the smallest things that happened during the month. But just as they were talking, Zeraphina accidently dropped something from her pocket. Zuko saw what she had dropped and picked it up.

As he stared at it, he noticed that it wasn't Fire Nation material. It was blue with a strange symbol carved into it.

"You like it?" Zeraphina asked.

"It's nice. What is it?" Zuko asked as Zeraphina took back the object.

"It used to belong to my father's father." She explained, "It's the symbol of the tribe that my paternal grandfather used to live in before he left. My maternal grandmother has something similar, but that's with my mother back home."

"Really?" Zuko questioned, "Where did your grandparents used to live?"

Zeraphina smiled and gripped the object tightly in her hand, "That's not really a question that has an answer."

~~~~

Zeraphina's eyes shot open from the memory of so long ago. Upon instinct, she shuffled around but quickly found that her hands and feet were bound and there was wind blowing harshly in her face.

"What is this?" She asked looking around, only to gasp when she saw familiar faces staring at her, one of them with a relieved smile, but the other two had glares of hatred directed at her. It was the Avatar and his friends.

"Good to see you awake." Aang said.

"Where am I? What's going on here?" Zeraphina demanded an answer.

"It's okay, you're with us for now." Aang explained and went to go help her sit up, but Katara stopped him from getting any closer to her.

"Aang, no!" She shouted and pulled Aang back, "We don't know what she could do to you."

"Yeah, Aang." A boy's voice said, though Zeraphina couldn't see who was talking, "You should stay away from her for now until we can figure out what to do with her."

They stayed silent for a moment as Zeraphina pushed herself up onto her knees and taking a good look around her. All she could see were white clouds and tall mountains that peeked through them. It was sight that she never thought she would be able to see. Zeraphina smiled as she took a look at the peaceful scene. It reminded her so much of her childhood home, no war, no fighting. Just peace and quiet.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Katara said, "Don't just sit up like that!"

"Why not?" Zeraphina asked, surprising everyone with her calm tone of voice, "Can't everyone enjoy this view?"