Fire & Rain: Book 1

The Winter Solstice Part 1

Days later, we arrived at a rig created to imprison earth benders which had been destroyed when every single prisoner broke out.

Zuko spotted a blue necklace on the floor and picked it up,

"Y/N, is this-"

"Yes, that's the necklace the water tribe girl wore"

They had been here, this was the avatar's doing. We followed the direction that the guards said the ships left in and continued sailing until we came to land to stock up on supplies.

Later on, when we were ready to leave, Zuko was frustratedly looking around for his uncle, he instructed me to stay on the ship and keep the crew there until he returned with his uncle, but he came back angrily yelling about how his uncle was bathing in some hot springs and that we were leaving in half an hour, with or without him.

I knew Zuko didn't mean that, he loved his uncle more than anything, Iroh stuck by Zuko when he was banished and loved him unconditionally, he wouldn't actually leave him behind.

A few of hours had passed before Zuko became livid and left to find his uncle with a couple of members of the crew, I ran after him and followed as he shouted:

"Uncle! Uncle, where are you?"

A soldier suggested that Iroh may have assumed that we left without him, but Zuko insisted that something wasn't right. He spotted a pile of rocks, a member of the crew observed then before concluding:

"It looks like there's been a landslide, sir"

Then he and I replied in unison:

"Land doesn't slide uphill"

We paused to look at each other for a moment, then Zuko continued,

"Those rocks didn't move naturally. My uncle has been captured by earth benders."

We returned to the ship and left the crew there, Zuko took a rhino and went to leave, I grabbed the rhino's reins and sternly told Zuko,

"I am coming with you."

He didn't try to argue, he just gestured to the back of his rhino and I jumped on behind him. After a while, we came across a flip flop on the ground, Zuko stopped to examine it, he sniffed it before pulling away his face, covered in disgust:

"Yep, that's uncle Iroh."

I chuckled,

"Well at least we're on the right track"

I shuffled backwards on the saddle so that Zuko could jump back on and wrapped my arms around his waist as he continued following the trail.

At some point I must've drifted off to sleep, because at some point I woke up with my face buried in Zuko's back,

Zuko's POV
After a while, Y/N woke up and pulled herself away from me, disappointing, the warmth of her body snuggled into mine was somewhat comforting.

She yawned and stretched her arms,

"Oh, haha, well, this is embarrassing, sorry about that..."

I felt my face flush red,

"Don't be sorry, it's fine, you can rest on me any time you'd like..."

"What?"

I'm so stupid, why would I say that?

"I said it's fine"

"Oh... okay. Any sign of your uncle yet?"

I shook my head, we had been travelling for about two hours but still there was no sign of him.

We heard an animal noise from the skies, I turned around and saw the avatars sky bison soaring in the opposite direction to us.

"The avatar!"

Y/N asked me,

"So what are you going to do?"

I paused. What was I going to do? I turned back to the trail leading towards my uncle: if I didn't follow him, he'd be a prisoner of the earth kingdom, then I turned back to the avatar: this could be my shot, I could finally go home.

Then I realised, there was never really any debate, without Uncle Iroh, I never would've made it this far. So I continued on my path towards him.

We came across a loud group of earth benders in a canyon, I heard one them announce:

"These dangerous hands must be crushed"

To my horror, they had my uncles hands chained down and were about to crush his hands. I jumped down ahead of Y/N and at the very last moment, kicked the boulder out of the way, before kicking downwards at my uncles chains and freeing him.

"Excellent form, Prince Zuko"

I smiled,
"You taught me well"

The earth benders surrounded us,
"Surrender yourselves! It's 5 against two-"

Y/N bounced from the canyons walls into the middle beside my uncle and I, before adding:

"Actually, make that 3"

The earth bender smirked before continuing,

"That barely makes a difference, you're clearly outnumbered."

Iroh wasn't phased and replied,

"Uh, that's true, but you are clearly out matched."

The earth benders attacked us, but uncle was right, they were outmatched, we destroyed them in under two minutes.

After uncle put some clothes on, we made our way in the direction that the avatar's bison was flying in earlier, which took us to a town which looked as though it had recently been destroyed.

As we walked through the town, one of the doors opened and a man came out of it yawning. I stood in front of him,

"Having trouble sleeping?"

I then shoved him back into his house,

"Seen the avatar lately?"

When the man refused to comply, Y/N took over interrogating him.

"Listen, sir, we're not here to bring you any harm, and we'll leave you peacefully if you comply. However, it seems as though your town has gone through enough lately, it would be a shame if we had to burn it to the ground."

The man stayed silent. Y/N raised an eyebrow at him before turning to me:

"Zuko, why don't we turn up the heat in here."

I nodded at her, before blasting fire towards the ceiling.

"No, wait! Wait!"

Finally, some sort of response.

"The Avatar has gone to the fire temple on crescent island in the fire nation, but you're too late! You'll never catch up with him in time!"

Y/N turned to me,

"We've got the location, don't worry Zuko, we'll make it, let's go!"

We jumped on the rhino and hurried towards the ship.

I was ready this time.