Sun and Moon (Avatar: The Last Airbender One-Shot)

Hey guys! So, this is a one-shot that I wrote 'cause I got bored and needed a project to jog my brain for ideas for my other books. My brother happened to be watching Avatar: The Last Airbender at the time and I found myself writing this, a chapter in of the life of Zuko where he meets an anti-heroine (who's nonexistent in the series) named Xatia (zah-tya). I don't think she'll have much of a tale but, if this story does okay, I may give her a full blown story of her own. Enjoy! Please note that I do not own anything, no copy write infringement intended.

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Zuko couldn't tell why but he felt as if someone was watching him. Uncle was out looking for firewood and probably wouldn't be back for a couple minutes, so what was making him jumpy? There was no one around for miles. He glanced around, silently cursing the bandage around his left eye, in search of the source of his discomfort. It had been a week since his banishment and he didn't think he would ever get used to the eye patch.

Then, exactly where nothing had been before, were two eyes. The left one amber, the right gray. They watched him closely, tracking his every move. He didn't like the curiosity behind them, the intelligence that marked it as something more than animal. He watched out of the corner of his good eye as they looked him up and down.

"What are you looking at?"

His uncle's voice made him jump in surprise. He glanced back to the eyes but they were gone.

"I thought I saw...never mind."

Iroh followed Zuko's gaze, "You should rest, Prince Zuko. A man needs his rest, especially after a fight."

"I wasn't in a fight," he replied bitterly, but sat down beside the new fire anyway.

He closed his eye, leaning against a tree trunk, as Uncle walked off once more. A few minutes later, he heard footsteps. Then someone rummaging in the bags that held their supplies. He opened his eyes to see a girl leaned over their bags, searching quickly through the items.

She was thin and tall, but couldn't have been older than he. She wore light gray loose-fitting pants, a long-sleeved black shirt, a leather belt around her waist and thin shoes. Dark curls cascaded down to the small of her back, making her pale skin more pronounced.

"Don't you know that stealing is against the law?" he asked.

She stopped, "Only if you get caught, which I'm not." -she stood and turned to face him, revealing a gaunt face and a thin scar spanning from the top of her gray eye to just below the corner of her lip.- "Besides, a prince can get new provisions. I can't."

He stared at her, for both her mismatched eyes and her knowledge of his status. He fought his surprise and stood, ready to fight.

"Give me back what you're stealing and I'll forget you were here."

She tied the bag to her belt and crossed her arms, "Make me. Prince."

She spat the last word out as if it was the most revolting word she knew. Zuko hesitated, shocked at her response. No peasant had refused him before. And he wasn't about to let them start. He felt the anger of the past week flare; he had been yelled at, burned, scorned, cast out and given an almost impossible task. Now some nobody was stealing from him and refused to return his belongings? That was the last straw.

He shot flames at her, yelling in anger at her insubordination. Her eyes widened, but she threw them off course with the flick of her wrist. The trees next to her caught fire quickly, sending up dark smoke.