A Different Destiny

Chapter 30

Zuko laid on the straw bed lost in dreams of an earlier - simpler time. When each day wasn't such a struggle to stay alive, there wasn't danger lurking behind every corner and he still had a safe place to call home. These days this was the only time that Zuko felt any semblance of peace, when he was able to let his consciousness drift away into the nothingness without fail images of the few things in this world that he loved flashed before his eyes.

It was mostly flashes of his mother and his uncle. It was at these moments too Zuko felt almost transformed, like he was no longer burdened with the version of his current self. It took him back to a time when he was small and would curl up in mother's bed during dark and stormy nights, listening to her read him Love Amongst the Dragons for the millionth time. He would've traded his life, his soul, his everything to feel that love and safety again.

At that, his mind started, for the first time, to drift to other places. And for a moment the scene began to shift away from scenes of the past and towards the present. A new image started to appear before him.

And she was beautiful, with long brown hair and bright eyes that made his heart skip a beat. It made him yearn for the feeling of that night before she left, of their bodies pressed up against each other and the softness of her lips...

The sound of clay shattering into thousands of tiny pieces woke Zuko from dreams. On instinct as soon as the shatter had rung out in the tiny room Zuko had sprung off the bed, throwing himself off the bed and out of the direct line of the window and door.

Zuko mentally affirmed this decision as two rocks about the size of a child's play ball tore through the air where he had just been and smashed apart the bed.

He heard a man swear at someone else. "Xin you idiot, you had one job."

"Oh shove off." another man scoffed back and there was another explosion this time louder than the last. The area where the water vase had smashed was ripped through the wall with a powerful almost magnetic force.

"See, it's fine." said one of the men as he kicked in the door. A giant brute of man, he must've been two heads taller than Zuko with broad shoulders formed from years of labor. His eyes flashed towards Zuko who had rolled into a crouched pose. He wanted to know how many enemies there were and where they were before he started moving.

"Alright, whatever." His compatriot had appeared in the doorway at this point and looked at Zuko up and down and grinned at him knowingly. "Oh come on now, let's not make this hard."

Zuko's mind was reeling, who were these people? Why were they attacking him? Why was someone always attacking him these days? For a moment he felt a pang of sympathy for the Gaang as he had chased them over the hills and through the woods of several of the world's nations.

He didn't have time to think, as both men raised a foot and brought their heels down hard, breaking apart parts of the earth beneath them. This allowed them to each break a way a large rock leaving it hovering ominously in front of them, an unspoken threat.

Surrender now.

Fat chance.

He felt his body start to automatically react to the situation, he could feel his heart rate increase and his whole body started to burn with energy, particularly in his hands and his feet.

But he heard his uncle's voice in his head, his wisdom on searching for peace and understanding even when it's hard.

Uncle you're going to get my skull cracked in.

"Uh hi? I'm sorry is this your home? I'm just a traveler passing through. I didn't mean to intrude. I can leave right away. I don't want any trouble."

The bigger guy laughed. "You don't want any trouble? I don't think you're going to get much say in this, only thing you get to say is how messed up you'll be by the end so how about you come quietly now? Afterall you don't have any water and we already have your girl."

The fire that had started in Zuko's body suddenly froze over and Zuko forgot about everything else in the world.

"What did you do to Katara?!" he shouted at the men. They had done something with Katara! He knew he shouldn't have let her go alone. He needed to find her, find her before anything else happened.

The bigger guy laughed again, "Oh it looks like we hit a nerve." The smile on his face told a story of a man who had entirely misread the situation. He thought he had Zuko backed into a corner with no resources, nothing left to fight with. "Well just come on now we'll take you to see her."

While Zuko did happen to feel backed into a corner at the moment, he was far from out of things to fight with. Without meaning to his voice dropped to just above a whisper but everyone in the room could hear him clearly. "Last chance, where is Katara and what did you do to her?"

"Enough of this." said the smaller man and he sent his rock flying towards Zuko, with no particular skill but a good amount of force. Zuko easily rolled away from the rock and it clicked in Zuko's head, they thought he was a waterbender that's why they had destroyed the water vase beside his bed.

Whatever they thought no longer mattered to Zuko. The only thing he cared about was getting to Katara and right now they were in his way.