Chapter Text
Going to a bounty hunter is one of those things Zuko never wanted to stoop to before.
But make no mistake: he has no other choice.
It's been weeks since the Avatar appeared, and Zuko still hasn't captured him. It was never supposed to be this way. It was always supposed to be different. Finding the Avatar was supposed to be the hard part of his mission, not capturing him.
Meanwhile, the Avatar evades capture time and time again, mocking Zuko each time, laughing at him, defeating him as if Zuko were nothing. Not only that, but he reaches out to him, offering him something incredibly stupid – “If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends, too?” – even though they are enemies and both know it.
So. Anyway, the facts are as follows: weeks have passed since the Avatar appeared, and Zuko still hasn't fulfilled his mission. He has every right to be desperate, especially when Zhao keeps appearing on the horizon, smiling in that awful way, interfering with him, doing everything he can to show that it is he, not Zuko, who has the Fire Lord's support.
Which is not true, because Father wants Zuko's mission to be accomplished. It's just that Father cannot show that he favors anyone, and besides, Zuko must prove that he deserves to return home.
And that's why Zuko is here now, in an ugly tavern somewhere in the middle of the Earth Kingdom. The place is full of bandits, travelers, beggars – or Agni only knows who these people are, Zuko really doesn't want to know and doesn't want to deal with them, really, the Earth Kingdom is full of the worst kind of people.
We should burn it all to the ground, Zuko thinks as he approaches the woman.
June is busy fighting some drunkard – Agni, Zuko really doesn't want to be here, if he could, he would go back to the ship. Or home, but he can't go home because he's exiled, and Zuko knows that, but he still can't stop missing it, because if only Zuko hadn't been so stupid and pathetic, if only he hadn't defied his father...
June glances at him without much respect, making Zuko want to attack her. And burn down the whole tavern while he's at it, it's not like anyone needs it.
It takes far too long for them to finally get June's attention.
“What happened, your girlfriend run off on you?” the woman asks when Zuko holds out the necklace toward her.
A necklace he didn't steal, it's worth noting. The Waterbender acted as if Zuko were a common thief, not as if he had simply found something she had dropped.
But that never mattered to her, did it? The Waterbender looks at him as if he were the greatest evil in the world, and nothing Zuko says will change that.
Not that he minds. As long as the Waterbender and the Avatar see him as enemies, Zuko's task will be easier – “he was one of the best friends I ever had, and he was from the Fire Nation, just like you” – so all he has to do is make sure they remain enemies, and then Zuko will be able to catch the Avatar and not think about unnecessary things.
June continues to look at him expectantly.
Zuko narrows his eyes. Something strange appears in her eyes, especially when she glances at the necklace.
“It's not the girl I'm after,” Zuko begins.
“Then why do you have an engagement necklace?” June interrupts him.
Zuko opens his mouth to protest – Agni, what engagement necklace? What is that and what does it have to do with anything? – but his eyes catch June's gaze. The bounty hunter doesn't look like she's joking, and she's not smiling.
“If she's not your girlfriend, then why are you looking for an engaged girl?”
Zuko suddenly realizes how this might look: the Fire Prince searching for a young Water Tribe girl who is engaged to someone else...
“She's not my girlfriend!” Zuko says. And then, faced with June's judgmental gaze, he does what he does best: he panics and stops thinking. “She's my fiancée!”
There is a moment of silence.
June raises an eyebrow.
Uncle stifles a laugh.
“Uncle!” Zuko turns toward him, frustrated, feeling his cheeks begin to flush red. Agni, why did he have to panic? Why did he lie? Everyone knows Zuko is a hopeless liar.
“Forgive me, Prince Zuko,” Uncle's eyes sparkle with amusement. He turns to June. “The girl we are looking for is named Katara and comes from the Southern Water Tribe. She often accompanies the Avatar, whom we wish to find.”
“Mhm,” says June.
Zuko feels like sinking into the ground.
His pleas fall on deaf ears, of course.
As soon as they are alone, Uncle turns to him, and a strange gleam appears in his eyes, a mixture of amusement and something else, something Zuko cannot quite read.
“Your fiancée?” Uncle asks.
Zuko groans.
“I panicked!” he tries to explain. “We're not...! There's nothing between me and that Water Tribe Peasant!”
Uncle only smiles in response.
“If you say so, Prince Zuko.”
“Besides—besides, an engagement necklace?!” Zuko catches himself raising his voice slightly. “She's practically a child! She shouldn't be engaged yet!”
It would be different if she were a noblewoman, then it would be possible. But considering that the Waterbender comes from a small village, an incredibly small one... Agni, do these savages marry off their children at that age?
Who is the fiancé – or the husband? Agni, it's an engagement necklace, but does that mean she's before or after the wedding? Is her fiancé the other Water Tribe Peasant? No, that wouldn't make sense. Zuko was convinced that he was her brother, maybe her cousin, but maybe he was wrong and he is her fiancé... Or maybe the Avatar? Does the Avatar know the customs of the Water Tribe? Unless it was a custom of the Air Nomads?
Agni. Why did the girl have to leave her engagement necklace? Couldn't she have left something else, something much less-
Wait.
My mother's necklace! How did you get that?
Why is the Waterbender wearing her mother's engagement necklace?
Maybe Zuko was wrong and the Waterbender isn't engaged at all? Or maybe in her Tribe they have a custom of passing the necklace from mother to daughter, as if it were some kind of family treasure?
“Perhaps in her Tribe there is a custom of marrying girls off young,” suggests Uncle.
“Perhaps,” Zuko agrees.
His gaze wanders for a moment to the necklace, now hanging from his wrist.
“I should find out a little more about this,” he decides after a moment. He doesn't really care whether the girl is engaged or not, whether her fiancé is the Avatar or that other Water Tribe Peasant, but if the engagement necklace is common knowledge...
Agni, what if his crew knows about it? What if everyone misunderstands the situation? What if there's a huge misunderstanding here?
June has already complicated the situation enough.
Why did Zuko lie?
So June doesn't think you want to take this girl for yourself, steal her and use her for things better left unsaid, Zuko answers himself.
And that's why it's better for June to think she's your fiancée?
You're an idiot, Zuzu.
...okay, that last voice in his head definitely sounded like Azula. Zuko almost shudders at the thought of Azula haunting him even here. He doesn't need his sister, especially since he's trying so hard not to think about her. Azula has everything, she has Father with her, she probably took the position that belongs to Zuko...
Zuko turns to Uncle, who is looking at him expectantly.
“So what should we do, Prince Zuko?” Uncle asks. “What are your next orders?”
“The same as always,” Zuko replies irritably. “Let's find the Avatar. We'll try to capture him, no matter what it takes. And someone find out some information about those necklaces. I don't want any more misunderstandings.”
“Ah, so you didn't get engaged while I wasn't looking?”
“Uncle!”
“This doesn't make sense,” Zuko says a little later, incredibly annoyed by the situation they find themselves in.
They failed to catch the Avatar. Again.
They tried, of course they tried. And for a moment, they were so close, Zuko caught two Water Tribe Peasants—June smiled at him in that awful way, as if to say, not your fiancée, huh?—but then the Avatar, of course, had to ruin everything. And of course, he had to take that stupid necklace.
And Zuko would have stopped thinking about it, if it weren't for the fact that now – now that they no longer have the necklace and are unable to use it against the Waterbender! – Uncle found information about that stupid necklace.
“I thought she was from the South,” Zuko frowns, fighting the urge to burn the scroll he holds in his hands. “And yet this necklace is a Northern tradition.”
Does it make any difference? Water Tribe Peasants are Water Tribe Peasants, whether they're from the South or the North.
Except that the scroll they just found clearly shows that there are significant differences between the North and the South. Huh. Zuko had never thought about that before.
“Perhaps her family is from the North,” Uncle suggests. “However, it is quite interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if her family moved from the South to the North...”
“Why?” Zuko doesn't understand.
Uncle glances at him. He looks as if he is weighing his words carefully, wondering what to say.
“You know something!” Zuko says accusingly. “Tell me what you know!”
His uncle sighs heavily.
“You saw what the village in the South looked like when we got there,” he says.
“Yes,” confirms Zuko. “Pathetically small and unprepared. I know it was only one of many villages and that their capital – if these savages even know what a capital is – must look different...”
“I'm afraid most villages in the South look like this, Prince Zuko,” Uncle interrupts him.
“I knew it,” Zuko mutters under his breath. What savages! They can't even build normal houses!
As soon as the war is over and the Fire Nation wins, perhaps these savages will begin to appreciate something like civilization. The Fire Nation will share its goods, its wealth, and...
“The Water Tribes traditionally built houses out of ice, using materials available at the Poles,” Uncle's words make Zuko pay attention to him. “One of them is ice. The Northern Water Tribe has remained neutral in this war for years, choosing a policy of isolationism. The situation in the South is quite different. Years of raids have taken a heavy toll on their population, which has declined dramatically in recent years, especially in terms of the number of Waterbenders. They say that the Last Southern Waterbender was killed years ago, shortly before I left for Ba Sing Se.”
Yes, Zuko remembers something like that. The war with the Earth Kingdom had been going on for years, but at the same time, Fire Lord Azulon was doing everything he could to get rid of the savages from the South who were attacking their ships and preparing to carry out acts of terrorism within the Fire Nation. When the Last Southern Waterbender was killed, the Fire Nation was able to focus on a larger, much more dangerous enemy.
However...
“That girl is a Waterbender,” Zuko points out. “She came from the North to help the South?”
“Perhaps,” Uncle says cautiously. “It wouldn't be strange if families from the South fled the war and moved to the North. And it wouldn't be strange if the North decided to help its sister Tribe.”
“It would be easier if they just surrendered,” Zuko mutters under his breath. “Why fight?”
Uncle looks at him with an expression that Zuko can't quite read.
“Not everyone wants to accept our rule,” he says after a moment. “And not everyone wants to give up part of their culture.”
“Then they are fools,” Zuko concludes. “If only they would surrender, none of them would have to flee or be injured.”
When they meet at the North Pole, the Waterbender still wears the same necklace around her neck.
So the Avatar gave it to her, Zuko thinks. Or did not? Who does the necklace belong to, after all? Did she get it from her mother, the Avatar, or from the other Water Tribe Peasant?
Such considerations cease to matter when the Waterbender directs ice at him.
Lesson learned: fighting a Waterbending Master in the middle of winter, in the middle of the North Pole, is not wise.
Lesson for the future number two: even a Waterbending Master tends to let her guard down, completely unaware that Firebenders draw their power from the sun.
Zuko does not hesitate to attack her, and then takes the Avatar with him into the snow.
Lesson for the future number three: if you plan to kidnap the Avatar in a blizzard, it would be a good idea to come up with a plan, something better than taking him away tied up with you.
Lesson for the future number four, combined with lesson number three: if you plan to kidnap the Avatar in a blizzard, it would be a good idea to make sure his friends can't find him.
Despite this, Zuko still stands up to the Waterbender.
Before he loses consciousness, the last thing he notices is her blue, incredibly annoying necklace.