“Remember everyone, we're on a really tight schedule so we can only stay here for a day.” Reminded Sokka for the fourth time that morning after they'd landed a little outside a Fire Nation town. All things considered, they'd had a relatively easy time so far since their fight at Ba Sing Se, but Katara still found herself hoping for more than just a day’s pit stop.
“Come on, Sokka, we have plenty of time before the eclipse. Do we really need to rush so much?” She moaned as they headed towards the town for supplies.
“Yes! It's always better to be early than late anyway, plus knowing us we'll get into trouble halfway there and be stuck for a month.” Okay, Sokka had a point.
They kept walking towards the town until they came across some small, mouldy rafts and a man named Doc. He offered them a way across and Aang excitedly agreed. It was a mucky, depressing place to say the least with brown, sickly looking water and houses falling apart. The town was elevated on wooded, rotting planks and looked close to collapsing. Even the people had an air of mellow sadness, with skin paler than Zuko's and hair greasy enough to cook seal-bacon with. Their clothes were dirty right down to the seams and the children they passed had pants that barely reached halfway down their calves, and were ripped almost to pieces. It tugged at Katara’s heart how the skin hung of their faces, reminding her painfully of how her own villagers looked when it was too cold to collect sufficient food for weeks.
“This place…” Katara trailed off quietly, trying not to let Doc hear her.
“It's awful.” Zuko finished grimly, whilst playing with the hem of his red shirt. Sokka, who was sat extremely close to the Prince, placed his hand on his thigh.
“I… Always thought everyone in the Fire Nation had more money than they had morals. But this place- it's just as bad as the Earth Kingdom.” Admitted her brother, leaning back so far that he would have fallen out of the raft if it wasn't for Zuko's quick reflexes.
“What's that about the Earth Kingdom?” Asked Doc cheerily, making the group freeze.
“We're from the colonies.” Toph replied simply, before elbowing Sokka hard enough to crack a rib. Thankfully, he bit back his wince of pain.
They'd chosen to let Zuko tag along, mostly because the ramshackle town didn't look like it would have anyone capable of reading the words on a wanted poster. It was also falling apart to the point that, even if the town tried to arrest Zuko, it would probably take the measliest flame in existence to destroy the entire place. Yet there was a factory a short distance away that could prove problematic if Zuko was recognised, but he'd probably have less chance of getting noticed when surrounded by other Fire Nation citizens than he would weirdly alone on some hill with a sky bison and a lemur.
“Now, let me just grab my brother, Shop, so he can sell you some food!” Doc smiled before entering a small stall, ducking under the counter and reappearing again, only this time with a straw hat on his head. “Hello, kids, I'm Shop! So, what’ll it be? Fish, clams or, get this, two headed fish!”.
“... What?! You're Doc!” Remarked Sokka in shock, before Katara could tell him to leave the crazy man alone so they could get some disgusting and probably disease-ridden fish.
“No, that's my brother. I'm Shop.” Doc/Shop grinned and held out a fish that was leaking green mucus, and suddenly Katara considered joining Aang in being a vegetarian.
Zuko ended up having to physically wrench Sokka away from his argument with Shop, after they'd wasted over half an hour going back and forth over how a new hat didn't make you a new person. All the way back to Appa and their camp, Katara just couldn't shake the feeling that she had to help the villagers somehow; so many were dying from illness and were in poverty, whilst the nearby factory turned a blind eye to innocent people's suffering. Perhaps not everyone in the Fire Nation was a murderous monster, but the leadership and much of the military were clearly indifferent to their own citizens’ struggles.
That's what made them cruel.
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Never one to watch as others struggled, that night Katara decided to do something that would probably bite her in the ass later if Sokka found out. Whilst her group slept soundly in the individual, large earth tents Toph had made them all, the waterbender crept silently into the night with nothing more than a dark shawl over her stark red outfit to hide her in the shadows. She made her way out of their camp and internally remarked that they should probably have nightly surveillance since it was almost ridiculous how easy it was to sneak around under their noses. Using waterbending, Katara then glided across the stinking water with what she hoped was covert elegance, before finding herself back in the small town.
Now she just had to get to work- easy enough, right? Clearly what the villagers needed was money, clean food and water that wasn’t 90% cholera, however she simply didn’t have the resources to give them that. Yet she could, quite easily if she was careful, steal some resources from the nearby factory for them. The waterbender also figured that she’d be able to heal some of the sick children just with her bending.
Katara carried out her plan as quickly as she could, thankful that everyone else in a ten mile radius seemed to be sound asleep; she seriously didn’t want to run into any suspicious firebenders that night. Then, once she’d accomplished all she fisably could in one night, she took in her handiwork. The villagers already looked happier as they slept and there was a budding feeling of contentment residing in the heart of the place, only… It wasn’t enough.
Deciding Sokka and his schedule could be damned, Katara picked some (okay, many) purple berries that she figured were the type to turn one’s tongue violet and shovelled them into Appa’s snoring mouth. Not one to pass up on food, even when he was asleep, the bison chewed them up appreciatively between tired grunts before falling back into a deeper sleep.
Well, at least now she’d have more time to help the villagers.
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Zuko sat impatiently in his messy pile of blankets, waiting for a suitable time to sneak out of his tent and beginning to curse himself for wanting this relationship to be secret. Well, he didn’t want it to be just between him and Sokka forever, they’d tell their friends at some point, but for now he couldn’t make out with his boyfriend whenever he wanted and that was almost as difficult as getting over being the avatar! Okay, so perhaps he was exaggerating just slightly.
Yet it was tricky; ever since they’d gotten together they’d had to steal quiet moments in the dead of night to kiss and talk and to do, hopefully tonight, other stuff as well… Which was what Zuko had been thinking about for most of the day, especially when Sokka had gotten all hot and bothered arguing with Shop (or Doc or whatever)- somehow his boyfriend’s ‘I’m so stressed and frustrated right now’ expression was one of his most attractive.
Finally, about an hour after they’d turned in for the night, Zuko figured it was the right time for him to sneak into Sokka’s earth tent. At that moment he decided Toph was his best friend for giving the firebender and non-bender adjoining tents, though she probably did it as part of a not-so-sneaky plot to get them in bed together. Well, Zuko hoped it worked for both their sakes.
He earthbended a doorway into Sokka’s tent, slipping through so quickly that he didn’t even have time to regard what was on the other side before closing it back up. When he did properly concentrate on Sokka, he got quite the sight indeed; the other boy was stretched out on top of some nicely arranged blankets (that Zuko was sorry to say he wasn’t paying much attention to) holding some sort of flower in his mouth. He was also not wearing any pants.