Searching (Zuko x OC)

Chapter 9

Zuko was meditating as he sometimes did after we had been training with the duel swords. The fire of the candles in front of him were growing and shrinking with his breath. I was sitting silently next to him, playing with the throwing knives in my hand. I twisted them around silently as the light glinted off of them. Zuko still insisted that I stay by his side since my bruises were still healing. I could fight just fine and the bruises only hurt when someone touched them, but Zuko was stubborn.

We were interrupted by Uncle Iroh opening the door, which created as he entered.

"The only reason you should be interrupting me is if you have news about the Avatar," Zuko said, opening his eyes.

"Well, there is news Prince Zuko, but you might not like it. Don't get too upset," Uncle Iroh warned.

"Uncle, you taught me that keeping a level head is a sign of a great leader. Now, whatever you have to say, I'm sure I can take it," he said calmly.

"Wow maybe all this meditation is actually working," I thought.

"Ok, then," Iroh said, pausing before telling Zuko, "We have no idea where he is."

The flames of the candles roared in front of us and I had to shield my face and fall back onto the ground to keep myself from getting burnt.

"I take it back," I scowled in my head, revoking my previous statement.

"WHAT?!" he yelled angrily, getting up from his sitting position to glare at his uncle.

"You really should open a window in here," Iroh said, fanning the heat from the flames away from his face.

"Agreed. You almost burned me you idiot," I snapped as I also got on my feet to join the two of them.

"Give me the map!" Zuko exclaimed, grabbing the map from Uncle's hands before he could respond.

"You would think the meditation would do something but obviously not," I muttered.

Zuko shot a glare at me before unraveling the map and looking at it.

"There have been multiple sighting of the Avatar, but he is impossible to track down," Uncle Iroh explained.

"How am I gonna find him Uncle? He is clearly a master of evasive maneuvering," he sighed in disappointment.

Taking a look at the map, I saw that his pattern was almost totally random. The only similarities it had is that he was always moving north. Except for a few small deviations, he kept on a central path.

"This kid is 12 years old, Zuko! He probably doesn't even know where he's going!" I said, retorting his comment.

"He's the Avatar. He- Hey!" Zuko started saying before I grabbed the map from his hands.

"Don't be an idiot! He was gone for 100 years! He probably doesn't even know what the world looks like anymore. Almost everything is different from back then," I explained while waving my hand over his path before adding," And it doesn't matter if he's the Avatar. He's still a kid. When you were his age you didn't even have your own element mastered, let alone any maneuvering techniques."

"This isn't helping! I need to know where he's going!" Zuko shouted, the flames sprouting up once more.

I simply rolled my eyes and gave the map back to Uncle Iroh before leaving. It was getting hot in the room and Zuko was only getting angrier. I decided to go up on the deck and train while we waited for any news of the Avatar's whereabouts.

I trained until it was dark and Uncle came up to get me for dinner. I got changed out of my sweaty clothes before joining Uncle and Zuko in the dining room to eat. I sat across from Uncle and Zuko sat in the middle of us. He was still clearly high strung from our previous conversation because he refused to look at me.