Chapter Text
Combined, the water and wind made whips, lashing into the young man, and everything else around him without discernment. He was usually miserable anyway, but damn, did he have a good excuse to be right now.
Gritting his teeth and squinting his eyes, he tried to swallow his rage and focus on the breathing technique that Iroh had taught him, for the doomed North Pole mission. An irate hiss escaped him as the thought of such, reminded now not only of his intolerable failures earlier that day, but at the Northern Water Tribe, too. With a humorless laugh, he pondered which one he should consider worse.
So far, today was winning. Not only had that little bald hippie and his broke bitch friends evaded him yet again, but he’d also, yet again, let his anger take over him, which caused him to give chase, and led him into his currant situation: cold, wet, and lost as balls.
Focus! Getting back to Uncle and the crew could wait; right now, he had to find somewhere in this stinking, mildewy forest where he wouldn’t be actively waterboarded every five seconds. Prince Zuko, disgraced heir (bender hyuk hyuk hyuk) to the Fire Nation throne, actually stopped moving for a second, forcing himself to try and think logically, despite being Prince Zuko, and find a way to improve this horrid situation.
Deeper. If I go deeper into the forest, the tree cover should be thicker, and it’ll shelter me more from this moist sky bullshit. In the morning, when I can see, I’ll retrace my steps out of here. “Peh.” It was crappy advice, sure, but as it was all he could come up with at the moment, he chose to begrudgingly accept it. Now, the only problem was actually figuring out which direction deeper in the forest meant.
Oops! You’ve used up all your rational thinking abilities for the day! Would you like to fly into a hormonal rage, and bullshit your way out of it again? Zuko let loose with a frustrated scream, chose a random direction, and started trudging that way like he was trailing someone who owed him money.
Or,
you know,
the Avatar.
~~~~~
The breath-holding technique wasn’t working anymore, he was close to madness, and the way his skin was shriveling and ‘pruning up’ was actually starting to hurt. Night was falling, but any flames made to guide the way were quickly extinguished by the torrential downpour.
Shelter. He had to find shelter or he was going to die, and he could not die a banished prince without honor and-! A creaking noise, just loud enough to be heard over the storm, startled Zuko and snapped him to attention. Whirling about wildly, he desperately searched for the source, and- was that a light!?
Unholy shrieking sounds emitting from his throat, he rushed -as fast as he could in his state, anyway- towards the faint flicker out in the distance, still ever so slightly visible amongst the chaos. And after what felt like cold, lonely eons, he reached it.
It was… a hollow tree stump? Was someone living in there? But who cares what it was? Right now, there where signs of a fire coming somewhere within it, and that meant it was warm and dry inside. He hurriedly invaded the building.
“Listen up, peasants!” He wanted so badly to sound intimidating, but his voice came out in a pitiable squawk. “I am commandeering…” It was just as well. The shelter, while housing a fire and other clear signs of life, was empty of other lifeforms, at the time.
Snatching the patchy blanket from the simple bed without hesitation, he flung himself towards the fireplace, nearly setting said blanket (and himself) on fire as he forcibly enlarged the flame. But he didn’t, and he was safe, and that was all that mattered. Not one more
single
thought entered his head between that one, and the time that he
finally
fell asleep.