Burnt Out - Zuko x OC

King Kai

*** Very long and NSFW ***

"Well, we found his footsteps on the beach, but they just led to the edge of the water. He isn't here." Kai said as she walked beside Toph back up to the beach house to join the others.

They'd woken up ready to make their departure and upon loading up Appa's saddle, realized that their most important luggage was nowhere to be found — Aang.

The gang spent the earlier hours of the afternoon searching the immediate area, then decided to split up and search the rest of Ember Island. Toph and Kai combed the beach, Suki and Katara went into town and the two boys flew Appa to get an aerial view. Nothing. They'd thrown around ideas of him being captured or going into the spirit world, but his body wasn't sitting peacefully in the sand and there were no signs of a struggle.

Now that they were all back together, they realized that Momo was missing too, and that he'd left his staff behind as well.

"And you're sure he didn't bury himself under Appa's pile of hay?" Sokka asked Kai.

"I know how to stomp around on some dead grass, Sokka." Kai replied, "Like I said, he isn't here. He isn't anywhere on this island. If he were, I'd be able to read his body map from a mile away."

Katara shuffled her feet in the dirt from worry. "What should we do, Zuko?"

They all turned their attention to him.

"I don't know. Why are you all looking at me?" He said with his arms crossed defensively over his chest.

Kai shrugged, "You're the Aang tracking expert, babe. If anyone's got experience in hunting the avatar, it's you."

Zuko didn't know where to begin without his ships, telescopes, or maps. Even in Ba Sing Se the only reason he'd found Appa was because of the fliers they had put up around town.

But he knew someone that didn't need a lucky lead to get the job done, they could sniff it out all on their own.

~

They flew along the coast of Earth Kingdom territory on Appa's back. Wind whipped Kai's braid around her shoulder as she peered out over the edge of the saddle, still enamored by the waves below. Sokka kept a close eye on her from Zuko's side then, and Toph remained glued to her hip, both from fear that she would sacrifice herself to the insatiable ocean once again. She was just gazing though, daydreaming of all the things she would do differently next time around.

They landed in a village that Kai recognized immediately. She'd spent quite some time wandering in and out of this nameless little town. It didn't have much more to it than the one she'd met Zuko in; a butcher, a seamstress and shoe cobbler duo, and a tavern.

Oh, the tavern. She remembered their whiskey, how they aged it in the basement and kept it stored on ice so that it was smoother going down. And she remembered the assassins, because this was where they usually met their commissioners after being hooked up through the network. The tavern was seedy enough that everyone knew why two men would be sitting at a back corner table alone, but they all had their own skeletons in the closet, so they'd never spill a word.

Kai supposed that was why this bar was named The Bitter Alibi.

"And the reason you brought us to a seedy Earth Kingdom tavern is... what now?" Katara asked, thoroughly confused.

"I know exactly why he brought us here." Kai said, giddy with excitement as she hopped down from the bison.

Kai all but kicked the door to the tavern in and loud, lively music spilled into the atmosphere outside. She heard the raucous crowd before seeing them, it was chalk full of burly men covered in tattoos, ones with biceps as big as her head and swigging whiskey like she hoped to one day be able to.