Pirates {a zutara fic}

part i

Zuko pulls the brim of his hat down, shielding his scar. A shadow is cast over half of his face. His clothes are dirty and worn, holes in the cuffs of his pants and tears in his shirt. He had found them from the days he traveled with Iroh. But he can’t think of his uncle right now, and Iroh is pushed from his mind.

Carrying only a weathered satchel, the crown prince of the Fire Nation walks slowly, his eyes passing over the trinkets and miscellaneous objects in each booth. They’re all worthless items, worth nothing to the treasures in the Palace, but they’re a good distraction.

The market is bustling with people, children and the elderly, here to buy their food for the next week. There are loud calls from stall owners, squeals from baby lizard dogs and the kids kicking up dust as they toss a ball around. The smell of food, fried and fresh, hangs over the entire street. It smells good, he admits, but Zuko’s already eaten and he moves on.

He’s not looking for anything in particular as he wanders between booths, just waiting for something to catch his eye. Zuko stops at a booth selling earrings, stares at the pair dangling in the center display. It’s a shining, smooth blue, swirls running across the small surfaces. He can’t remember why it looks so familiar, and it stumps him for a moment, but then he realizes: it looks like Katara’s necklace, the one he took from her so long ago. He runs his thumb over it.

“Nice, eh?”

The store owner’s voice surprises him, and he looks up. A plump Fire Nation woman is looking at him. “It’s a pretty thing, isn’t it?” she says. “My husband brought it back from the Northern Water Tribe.”

Zuko finds his voice. “Yes,” he says, “It’s very nice.”

“It’ll cost you three hundred yuan. Are you interested?”

He declines politely, and moves on.

Gulls fly overhead, swooping over the water in the bay and landing on the canvases of the stalls. Zuko walks, barely glancing at the other stores. 

But something glints in the mid-afternoon sun, and his eyes flicker imperceptibly. A small…coin? No. It’s a tile. A pai sho tile. There’s a lotus engraved onto both sides, like Uncle’s from that crazy organization. But it’s not a white lotus. Somehow, though, he can’t take his eyes off of it, and discreetly he slips it into his pocket.

“Hey, you!”

Not discreetly enough, as it seems. There’s a large, angry man standing at the doorway of the boat, sitting in front of the stand. He yells again, “You! I saw that!” Other angry men dash out of the boat, brandishing knives. 

Zuko’s head whips towards them, back leg set back in a fighting stance. His palms are burning, fire ready to erupt. But he realizes just in time that he can’t, it’ll draw too much attention. A petty thief snitching things off stores is common, but the news of the crown prince of the nation starting a fight in a commoner’s market will certainly get back to Azula’s ears, and his father’s, not long after. The fire is extinguished.

“Get him!” one of the pirates roar. Zuko turns and runs. No one else pays attention to him, aside from a few uninterested glances.