Dark Puck - Small Flame Ten

The sandstorm died down after about ten minutes. It took Iroh a further twenty minutes to calm Zuko down enough to avoid getting themselves or anyone else killed. They had no luck finding a trail — the storm had covered it — so decided to head back for the town they'd just left to see if anyone had seen him, or the sandbenders who'd taken him.

Nobody had. The sandbenders had completely vanished, and Kouji with them.

Zuko, furious, ran off into the desert before Iroh could stop him.

This was not, perhaps, the wisest decision Zuko could have made — especially as he didn't think to grab any supplies before he ran. Fortunately, the sun set quickly, enabling the fugitive prince to keep up his search far longer than he would have been able to in the day.

Still, he found nothing. Grimly, he kept going, melting the sand behind him into glass to mark his path so he wouldn't get lost. After hours of searching and no sign of Kouji or sandbenders anywhere, the sun began to rise, and with it the temperature.

The heat didn't bother him nearly as much as it might've another person — he was, after all, a firebender — but as the day went on and he grew more tired, having to expend more effort to make his glass trail, he started seeing things.

Around noon, he fell. He managed to drag himself up this time, but he fell again an hour later, then about a half hour after that. The fifth time he fell, he didn't get up. As he lay there, the sun beat down mercilessly on him, giving him plenty of time to think — relatively speaking, anyway.

Why would they take him? Blackmail? No, can't be, they don't value anything Uncle and I have, and they'd've left a message in that town. Slavery, then. Has to be. Lots of people would pay good money for a ten-year-old. These thoughts gave him enough fury and adrenaline to drag himself up and stagger on another hour.

By now it was late afternoon, so the sun had relented just a little bit. This did not alter the fact that Zuko was exhausted, dehydrated, badly sunburned, and was coming dangerously close to heat stroke.

He tried to drag himself up, and managed to make it to his knees, looked up, and froze.

"…Dad? What're you…?" He stood up, and reeled, seeing stars. When his vision cleared, the image had moved, to the left. He hesitated, swaying. I don't know where I'm going anyway… He turned to head towards the image instead of blindly the way he'd been going, not really noticing when his trailblazer died.

The sun was setting when he fell yet again. Kouji had been missing for just over a day.

The vision faded with the sun, and it took its disappearance to let him know that it had been just that — a mirage. He just lay there for a moment, trying to decide what to do. Find Kouji. Before they sell him. He dragged himself back to his feet, reeled, and fell to his knees again, retching.

A whisper of sound, a cry — Kouji? — a thud, and then the sounds of someone trying to run on sand. And managing it fairly well, actually. He turned — a mistake, he realized when he threw up again — to see if it had, in fact, been Kouji. If he's here and able to run, they weren't going to sell him… A few things began to click into place. He pushed them to the back of his mind to go over some other time.

"Lee, you idiot!"

Yes, it was Kouji, and now one of the boy's cool hands was touching Zuko's forehead lightly.

"Came t'find you," he mumbled, trying to stand up again.

Other hands caught him now, forcing him down and turning him onto his side. An unfamiliar voice said, "Sunstroke," and then called for a number of items even as Zuko's chin was tilted up.

Instinctively, he resisted, not trusting these strangers and wanting to get Kouji back to Iroh and back on the road as quickly as possible. "It's okay, Lee," Kouji said, touching Zuko's shoulder. "Shā Zi knows how to deal with this."

A few more pieces fell into place, giving him almost the full picture. He ignored them. He shook his head, and threw up again. "Need t'get out of here," he said, when he was done.

"You need aid," Shā Zi replied seriously. "Or the sunstroke could kill you." A canteen was put to Zuko's lips.

He refused to swallow — he'd been poisoned by accident when he was little, and didn't trust these people not to poison him on purpose.

Shā Zi made an exasperated noise, and a small hand — it could only be Kouji's — came into Zuko's line of sight, taking the canteen. Seeing Kouji drink the water willingly with no ill-effects, he decided to accept the water.

…well, whatever it was, it was more than water. There was a sweet taste to the drink — passionfruit, perhaps? — that almost covered the slightly salty aftertaste. And Shā Zi was giving Kouji quiet instructions that Zuko couldn't quite make out.

He was more interested in staying conscious, anyway; he was on the edge of blacking out. "We can take you to the edge of the desert," one of the other sand-people said, "but no further. You'll have to take care of him from there."

"I can do it," said Kouji softly.

Zuko tried to get to his feet again, since these people seemed to be planning on letting them go now. Instead, a group of men picked him up and carried him over to a strange wooden boat of some kind, laying him back down on his side. Kouji was lifted up next to him. "You need to stay like that right now," the boy told him.

He started to argue, then figured if he opened his mouth again, he's just throw up, so he stayed silent. Kouji offered him a little more of the liquid from the canteen; they were making him drink slowly. He knew better to ask for more than they were giving him, focusing on trying to stay conscious so that, when they were let off, he wouldn't have to be dragged.

Zuko must have blacked out at one point, for when he came to again he and Kouji were in a small shed, and alone. He sat up, groaning inwardly when his head pounded harder. "Need to go back in to the town, s'where I left Uncle."

"You can't go out in the desert again, Zuko," Kouji replied. "You'll die."

"I'll be fine," he insisted. "We need to find Uncle and get moving again." He pushed himself the rest of the way to his feet. "Let's go."

"No, Zuko," Kouji insisted, sounding worried. "You can't abuse your body the way you did and then expect to keep going with no ill effects. You have to stay here, out of the sun."

"I can handle it. Don't worry. We need to find Uncle." He leaned against the wall, dizzy and nauseous again.

"No, Zuko, you can't!" Kouji stood in front of the door. "I'll go find him. You need to stay here and recover. Firebender or not, you almost died yesterday!"

"I'm not letting you out there alone again," he said, shortly.

"Then we both stay here." Grey eyes met gold stubbornly.

"We need to find—"

"You won't let me go," Kouji pointed out. "Therefore neither of us goes." He crossed his arms over his chest.

"Or we both go. Just not letting you go alone." He swallowed the urge to vomit again.

"Your going at all is not an option," the boy replied. "You need to recover. Sit down."

He dropped the subject, for now, but he didn't sit down. "How long was I out?"

"A long time. It isn't easy to keep track in here. The sand-people dropped us off here a few hours before dawn."

"What time is it now?"

"I don't know," Kouji admitted.

Zuko moved to the door. "Not going anywhere, just checking the time. Can you move?"

The boy eyed him suspiciously, then stepped to one side.

True to his word, all Zuko did was stick his head out to check the position of the sun. He pulled back in. "'Bout noon. Okay. We'll wait 'til sunset, then go look for Uncle."

Kouji frowned, clearly thinking, then slowly nodded. "Fine. But if we don't find him before dawn, we take shelter."

"Fine. Okay."

The boy made him sit down again and pushed the canteen into Zuko's hand, then settled in a corner.

Zuko gratefully drank from the canteen, then leaned against the wall. The mostly-finished puzzle tried to creep into the front of his brain again. He sternly pushed it back — Find Uncle and get the three of us somewhere safe first.

"…Zuko?"

"Hmm?"

"Why did you come after me?"

"Thought you needed rescuing."

"Yeah, but…" Kouji's voice trailed off, as if he wasn't sure how to voice his thoughts.

Zuko didn't offer any other commentary, drinking slowly from the canteen, waiting for sunset. As the afternoon wore on, Kouji suggested that they both get some sleep so they'd be ready to search for Iroh once night fell.

"You sleep. I'll keep watch. Slept long enough already."

Kouji sighed, but curled up in his corner and swiftly passed into sleep.

Zuko woke him up as soon as the sun had completely set. "Time to go."

"Okay," the boy replied, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Quickly he gathered the supplies they'd been left with and shouldered the bag they went in. Once Kouji was ready, Zuko firmly told himself to ignore the damned sunburn, and led the way outside.

The boy was very reluctant to go back into the desert, and he didn't bother to hide this. Fortunately, Iroh found them on the edge of the desert. "There you are," he said, obviously relieved.

"Uncle!" cried Kouji, throwing himself at the old man to hug him.

He hugged him back. "Are you all right?" He knew better than to ask Zuko the same question — he could see very well that he wasn't, and that the teenager would insist he was regardless.

"Yes, I'm fine," Kouji said, pulling slightly back to grin up at him.

"Good," the old man said, smiling. "What happened?"

"Mistaken identity," the boy answered. "They thought I was one of theirs."

Iroh nodded. Zuko frowned a little, then chose to accept the half-truth for now, though the mostly-finished puzzle in his brain he was resolutely ignoring said this wasn't the whole story.

"They were bringing me back," Kouji went on, "and I saw Zuko. So they stopped to take care of him."

"How long were you searching?" Iroh asked, now turning to his nephew.

"About a day."

"You could've gotten lost," the old man pointed out.

"Left myself a trail. Glass."

Kouji scowled. "You still got heatstroke," he informed the prince.

"Yeah, well, I'm better now. Can we get moving?"

Kouji turned to Iroh questioningly.

The old man eyed the teenager. "We'll keep going for another couple hours, then stop for the day."

"Okay!" the boy agreed, sounding and looking much happier.

Zuko didn't look pleased when Iroh insisted they stop two and a half hours later — he clearly wanted to keep going longer.

"I'm beat," announced Kouji, plopping onto the ground and rubbing the sole of one foot.

"Fine," Zuko said, reluctantly, sinking to the ground next to the younger boy.

Once he was done with his feet, Kouji unshouldered the bag of supplies the sand-people had given him and took out the canteen, by now almost empty, to pass to Zuko. He drank the rest of the liquid inside, then leaned back, drawing his swords to lay them across his lap and closing his eyes.

When he was reasonably sure that Zuko was asleep, Kouji looked over at the old General.

"Did they teach you control?"

The boy nodded, and drew a prettily-embroidered money-pouch from the bag. "And they gave me this, too, so I could keep my hand in. Dirt and sand are pretty different from each other."

"Good, good," Iroh said. "You should get some sleep, too. I'll wake you up in a few hours to take a watch."

"All right," the boy agreed. He tied the pouch to his belt on the opposite side to his bag of dirt, then curled up on the ground.

It wasn't Iroh who woke him up. Two hours later, give or take, he was woken up by screaming.

"Endothermic propulsion!" cried Kouji as his eyes snapped open, then his brain kicked in and he sat up and turned to Zuko. He was shaking like mad, not screaming anymore after that first yell. Worried, Kouji half-crawled to the older boy and hesitantly touched his shoulder.

He flinched a little — still sunburned, after all — but didn't jerk away.

"It's okay," Kouji told him, unsure of what else to say.

"It was just a dream, Zuko," Iroh added, quietly, from a few feet away.

"I know," the teenager said, roughly. "I know."

The boy let his hand fall from Zuko's shoulder, feeling a little awkward now. Zuko hugged his knees to his chest. "You two go back to sleep. I'll keep watch."

"All right," said Kouji softly.

Iroh gave Kouji a look that clearly said 'stay with him,' then lay back to fall asleep. The boy nodded and settled down beside the prince, curling up so that his back was pressed gently against Zuko's leg. The older boy didn't say anything further, just stared off into space, watching for danger. After awhile, Kouji, too, fell asleep.

When he woke, the two princes were talking quietly. "…when I go back, right?" Zuko trailed into his hearing. "Like it was before…

"You can hope for that," Iroh said, softly, neither confirming nor denying it.

"You don't think it's likely."

The old man didn't answer.

Kouji didn't move, wondering what they were talking about. Well, Zuko's exile, obviously, but Kouji had thought that their being fugitives now made that exile a little more permanent. Zuko's shoulders slumped a little, and he stared at the ground, falling silent as well.

No answers would be forthcoming. The boy opened his eyes and sat up, groaning a little bit.

"Are you all right?" the old man asked.

"Just that weird ache we talked about," Kouji replied, wincing a little. Granted, it was nowhere near as bad as it had been the first time.

"Right."

Zuko stood up. "Long's we're all up, we might as well keep moving."

"Okay," the boy agreed, pushing himself to his feet.

"Not yet," Iroh said. "We should all eat something first."

He's going to say he's not hungry, thought Kouji, glancing at Zuko.

Sure enough: "Not hungry," the older boy said, quietly.

Iroh didn't miss a beat. "You didn't bring any food into the desert, either. Whether or not you want to, you need to eat."

"He's right," Kouji said quietly. "Especially since by now you should be able to keep it down."

Zuko didn't argue any further.

Once they were all fed, the boy glanced over at Iroh. "Are we still heading to Ba Sing Se?"

"Yes," Iroh said.

Nodding, Kouji packed quickly and shouldered his share of the burden, surreptiously patting the bags on either hip to be sure they were still there. The three of them set off towards the city, none of them making much conversation. Finally, they made it to the great city — or at least, to the body of water bordering it, the Eastern Lake.

"We'll take the ferry from here," Iroh said, leading them to a building hidden from view in a protected cove.

Their fake passports were accepted — Kouji, being under twelve and with a guardian, didn't need one of his own — and they boarded one of the ferryboats and left last that night. Fortunately, the boy had thought ahead and managed to get hold of a seasickness remedy, though he refused to say how. He still looked a little green, but was holding on to the contents of his stomach.

Zuko started to ask, stopped, thought for a minute, then just shook his head and boarded the boat. Kouji followed him, and Iroh brought up the rear. The boat was full to capacity, just like the dock had been. There were so many refugees that Kouji felt oddly guilty for taking a spot these desperate folk could have used. Then again, the three of them were just as desperate, and Zuko was rather hard to hide. Kouji sighed and leaned lightly into the older teen to remind himself of that.

Zuko glanced down at him. "Something wrong?" he asked in an undertone.

Kouji craned his head to meet Zuko's eyes and shook his head. "Nothing. Just had to get my head straight." The teenager nodded, unwilling to press the issue. He still wasn't happy about hiding in Ba Sing Se, but he'd accepted the fact that it was the best option for them. Kouji turned his eyes to the water, wondering what the future would bring. An hour or so later, a crewmember brought around food for the refugees — some sort of thin, slimy-looking gruel.

"Who would have thought," Iroh mused, staring into the water, "after all these years, I'd return to the scene of my greatest military disgrace… as a tourist!" He pulled on a silly hat, grinning at the boys.

"Look around," Zuko said, sharply. "We're not tourists. We're refugees." He tried some of the so-called food, more to have something to do with himself that was not having this conversation than because it was particularly appetizing. He spat it right back out. "I'm sick of eating rotten food, and sleeping in the dirt. I'm tired of living like this." He slumped down on the railing, staring into the water.

Kouji bit his lip and leaned into Zuko again, trying to cheer him up, just a little. Truth be told, he really didn't mind the travel, and while sometimes they had bad luck with the food…

A new voice interrupted his thoughts. "Aren't we all?" The voice belonged to a boy about Zuko's age, with shaggy, unkempt hair, chewing on a piece of grass. "My name's Jet. And these are my Freedom Fighters, Smellerbee and Longshot," he said, pointing to two other kids, one of them a lean boy between Zuko and Kouji in age, and the other maybe a year or two younger. It was hard to tell if that one — Smellerbee — was a boy or a girl.

Kouji tensed, looking at the three. Freedom Fighters? Jet? He knew those names.

"Hey," said Smellerbee, while Longshot simply nodded a greeting.

Zuko, too, knew these names, and stiffened a little, and looked away to keep Jet from reading his face. "Hello."

"Here's the deal," the other teenager said, coming closer. "I hear the captain's eating like a king while us refugees have to feed off his scraps. Doesn't seem fair, does it?"

Put that way… Kouji glanced up at Zuko, and remembered what meals had been like that winter, even in the frozen poles of the world. No. It wasn't fair at all.

"What sort of king is he eating like?" Iroh asked, watching Jet.

"The fat, happy kind." Kouji and Zuko weren't looking at the old man, but neither one had any difficulty imagining the look on his face at hearing that. Jet ignored iroh and watched Zuko's back. "You want to help us… liberate some food?"

Kouji had no difficulty translating what Jet truly meant. No more did Zuko, who stared into his bowl for a few seconds, then threw it into the water and turned around. "I'm in."

"Me too," said Kouji firmly.

Zuko started to object, but Jet cut him off, grinning in an almost feral way. "Excellent."

Kouji smiled a little.

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