I've officially lost track of time. We've spent a few days as fugitives hiding out in some remote part of the Earth Kingdom, but beyond that, I knew nothing.

Right now, Zuko and I are trying to find food, to no avail. Zuko is losing patience quickly.

"Hey, Zuko. Maybe it would help if we split up." I pointed in a direction that looked promising. "I'll go this way-" He cut me off with a sigh of annoyance.

"I'm tired of this. I'm going back to camp." He walked off grumbling about how this was a waste of time.

I rolled my eyes and followed after him. "Zuko, we're in the wilderness. Things aren't going to come to you on a silver platter from some servant. You have to work for things now, and you need patience; we've only been searching for half an hour."

He huffed, but said nothing as he continued walking. As we reached the clearing, where Iroh was, Zuko stumbled through a bush, causing me to laugh at him. He just sent me a glare and snapped at his Uncle.

"I didn't find anything to eat. I can't live like this! I wasn't meant to be a fugitive! This is impossible!" He threw his arms up in frustration. When he noticed that his uncle wasn't replying to him, he turned to see his uncle staring at a plant.

I walked over to where Iroh was crouched in front of the plant. "Um... What are you doing?" I asked.

"You're looking at the rare White Dragon bush. Its leaves make a tea so delicious, it's heartbreaking." He informed dreamily, before looking back at it with a discerning look. "That, or it's the White Jade plant, which is poisonous."

"We need food, not tea. I'm going fishing. Eden, you coming?" Zuko sighed from behind us. I nodded and followed after him.

"Don't, under any circumstances, touch that plant. It's not a bush." I called back, before he was out of ear shot.

Zuko looked at with a raised eyebrow. "How do you know?"

I smiled knowingly. "Please, all I have to do is know Iroh, to know that he would end up drinking it, and just happened to find the poisonous one."

He nodded in agreement. "Good point."

"Well, that and I've seen this event play out before. Remember you guys are a story, where I'm from." I smiled.

Zuko rolled his eyes. "I find it hard to forget, when all you do is talk about it." He teased.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I just miss my air conditioning right now. It's hot."

"You are strange."

The rest of the trip followed in silence. Once we made it to the pond, I thought of a question that I feel like I should already know the answer to. "You don't know how to fish, do you?"

He glanced at the water. "No... but how hard can it be?" I shook my head, amused.

He searched for a stick long enough to use as a spear. Once he found a reasonably sized one, he pulled out his dagger and began to sharpen it.

He knew how to handle himself with a blade at least, let's see how he does with a spear.

I watched amusedly as he attempted multiple times to stab the spear through fish. No matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't get it.

After several more failed tries, I walked up behind him, and hijacked the spear from his hands. "Alright, Zuko. My turn."

He growled in frustration and annoyance, but made no move to take it back. He knew when he was beat. Instead he sat back with his arms crossed over his chest in anger and watched.

I aimed for one of the slower moving, large fish that appeared farther out in the water. When I reared my hand back, I calculated the distance it would travel in the time it took for my hand to reach the water.

I aimed for the spot and stabbed the spear down into the water, catching the fish by the back of its body. I got a pretty good shot.

I held it up to him, triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you? I'm a whiz at math." He just glared jealously at me. "Whatever."

I smiled mischieviously, before exagerrating a pout. "Aww... Is wittle Zuzu angwy because he couldn't catch anything?"

His glared deepened. "Don't call me that!" He shouted.

I rolled my eyes, amused. "Calm down, Zuko. I'm just messing with you. No need to be so hot-headed about it."

I laughed at my own bad pun. He shook his head. "No, don't start that."

I smiled, an evil idea came to me. "You don't like fire puns? Oh, this'll be fun."

He looked at me with something between playful regret and legitimate fear. It was priceless. "What have I done? I've made a major mistake, haven't I?"

I nodded. "Doesn't anger just burn within you at the thought of you doing this to yourself? Doesn't it just make your temper flare?"

He glared at me, but instead of saying anything, he just started to head back to camp.

I followed him, of course, making up bad puns as we walked.

"Alright, alright. I'm done. Sheesh. I can't think of anymore, anyways." I laughed as we finally reached the campsite.

"Finally." Zuko sighed in relief.

"Wait, wait. One more. You'll like this one, I promise. You just need to to let off some steam."

The two of us stopped talking when we noticed Uncle Iroh not paying us any attention. Most of the time, he would give us sly smirks when we began bickering.

I'm certain it was his way of telling us we were acting like children. Instead, this time, he had his back turned to us.

"Uncle...?" I asked cautiously.

"Do you two remember the plant I thought might be tea?" That's when I noticed the lack of flower on the plant from earlier.

"You didn't?" The two of us asked in a mixture of horror and annoyance

"I did." Uncle Iroh turned around and both of us could see the rash on his face, as he was itching it. "And it wasn't."

I shook my head in mock shame, while Zuko jumped back in shock. "I told you not to touch it, didn't I?"

"When the rash spreads to my throat, I will stop breathing." He continued to scratch himself relentlessly, ignoring my question completely.

"But look at what I found!" He pulled out a branch with light red berries on it. "These are Paccui berries, known to cure the poison of the White Jade Plant. That, or Macca'oli berries, which cause blindness."

That caused Zuko to snap. He snatched the branch from his uncle and chucked it as far as he could from the three of us.

"We're not taking anymore chances with these plants! We need help."

I gasped in amusement. "Did the almighty Zuko just admit that he needed help?" I sighed in mock defeat. "I'm sorry, but I'm not a trained psychiatrist. You'll have to find someone else."

Zuko glared at me as darkly as he was capable of. "You can be so infuriating, you know that? I can't imagine how bad the rest of your people are." He growled in irritance.

My people... My world... My family. I wonder how mom is doing.

Uncle Iroh coughed to get our attention. "But where would we even go? We're enemies of the Earth Kingdom and fugitives of the Fire Nation."

Zuko rested his hand on his chin in thought. "If the Earth Kingdom discovers us, they'll have us killed."

"But if the Fire Nation discovers us, then we'll be turned over to Azula." Iroh added in.

With an almost unnoticeable glance at me, they nodded to each other simultaneously.

"Earth Kingom, it is." Zuko announced as he started walking in a seemingly random direction.

☆¤☆¤☆

We were lucky enough to find another rest stop-like place. It was in a small town this time. There we were greeted by a woman about 18 or 19.

We didn't even need to say anything. The moment she saw Uncle Iroh's rash, she hurried us inside where we explained what happened while she tended to Uncle.

Zuko and I sat down on a bench by the wall. I decided to use his shoulder as a head rest- Not in a romantic way, or anything, he just refused to be a foot rest, and I needed something of mild comfort on the bamboo.

"You three must not be from around here. We know better than to touch the White Jade plant, much less make it into a tea and drink it." The young woman observed, as rubbed the ointment on his rashes. "Where are you travelling from?"

Zuko stood quickly, causing me to fall over without my head rest. I shot him a quick glare. He ignored me and replied as awkward as I'm sure he could possibly make it. "Yes, We're travellers!"

I rose an amused eyebrow at him, and I'm certain the woman was trying to refrain from laughing. "Do you have names?"

"Of course we have names!" If you want to know how reach ultimate awkward levels, come to Zuko everyone. "I'm... Lee. And this is my Uncle... uh... Mushi?"

Iroh shot an irritated glare at his nephew. He then had a mischievous smile. He was going to get revenge for his name. "Yes, my nephew was named after his father, so we just called him Junior."

Zuko tried to sign for him to cut it out, but she turned to him, so he quickly regained his composure. "Mushi and Junior, huh? What about her, doesn't she have a name?" She gestured to me.

"Why wouldn't she have a name? She's my sister... Aiko." Iroh seemed to get whiplash from the name. Like he wanted to rewind to make sure he heard right.

"Aiko? That's a lovely name. My name's Song. You three look like you could use some food. Why don't you stay for dinner?" She offered politely.

"That would be most appreciated-" I began, but Zuko cut me off with a late.

"But we really should be going." He intercepted.

"That's too bad, my mom always makes too much roast duck." She shrugged. I haven't had roast duck before, but I knew she had Uncle's attention.

"Where do you live, exactly?" He smiled. Typical Iroh.

☆¤☆¤☆

That night, we met them at their house for dinner. The place was quaint; although, one thing that I had issue with was the lack of chairs. Sitting on your knees is apparently the proper thing to do, but I find it highly uncomfortable.

Every time I moved into a more comfortable position, both Zuko and Uncle would nudge me slightly to remind me to show respect. A gesture that I found strange coming from Zuko.

"My daughter tells me that you are refugees. We were once refugees ourselves." An elderly woman explained.

"When I was a little girl, the Fire Nation raided our farming village. All the men were taken away.- that was the last time I saw my father." We turned our attention to Song as she spoke.

I was affiliated with the Fire Nation now, which almost made me feel guilty. Almost. I had nothing to do with the Fire Nation, I just happen to look like its princess.

But one thing she said did stick out to me. She hadn't seen her father in many years. I haven't seen my mother in weeks and I still havent really shown that I miss her. That made me feel as though I had wronged her.

She deserved better. I wonder if she misses me, or simply what happened to me in my world, at all. Was I erased from existence there, or did I die? Does she even care?

The last question struck a chord. All other conversation ceased to exist, and I walked outside.

I sat on the porch in sorrow. I stared at the field with fireflies dancing in the dark. "Why did I leave mom? Why now? And most importantly, why am I here?"

"Because Uncle thought dinner with strangers was a good idea." I jumped at the sudden appearance of Zuko.

"Geez, for the last time- will you stop sneaking up on me like that?!" I seethe.

He turned in fake thought for a moment. "No."

"Rude child." I retorted. He simply shrugged.

"What do you want, a penny for my thoughts?" I asked as I turned back to the fireflies dance.

"I'm not sure what that means, but I would like to know what's bothering my sister." Zuko replied.

"I'm not really your sister, you know that." I sighed.

"Maybe not, but you are like one to me. You're the closest thing I have to family other than Uncle. Why don't you talk to me? Without sarcasm, just this once?" Zuko continued.

It was nice to think that he thought of me like a sibling. "Alright, I think I can manage that. Just this once." I smiled.

"It's this whole ordeal. I think it's finally getting to me. She mentioned not seeing her father in a long time, and that's how I feel. I haven't seen my mom in weeks, perhaps months. I haven't even showed that it bothered me.

"She loved and cared for me. She took me in when no one else would. What does she get in return? A daughter that doesn't even miss her. I'll bet that you haven't even noticed that I even had a family in my world." I sighed as silent tears finally made their way down my cheeks. "I haven't even stopped to think how this would affect her."

He sighed. "Is that all? You're afraid you don't miss her enough? You may not think it, but I promise you that with the way you talk about your world, it's obvious that you love it and miss it. And when you sleep, it's hard to sleep for the rest of us. You mumble and cry and scream for your mother." He smirked slightly when he saw my cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

"Is that true? Sorry about that." I laughed nervously. The conversation fell into a comfortable silence from there.

Even though I feel so out of place here, his existence next to me simply feels so natural. Like I had known him my whole life. He truly feels like family.

I lied my head on his shoulder.

The door opened and I saw Song walk up to us. "Can I join you two?

"I know what you've been through. We've all been through it." I had to hold back a spiteful chuckle.

She couldn't possibly know what I've been through, but something tells me she isn't trying to console me. I'll bet you anything that she has a crush on him. She turned to face Zuko.

"The Fire Nation has hurt you." She slowly reached up to touch his scar. I knew she wasn't going to get anywhere by doing that.

Without even looking at her, he grabbed her wrist to stop her.

She placed her hand back in her lap. "It's okay, they've hurt me, too."

She rolled up her pant leg to reveal burn marks going all the way up her leg. Zuko looked at the scar is shock.

It wasn't much longer before Iroh and Song's mother came outside.

I took my place beside Uncle Iroh and Zuko followed. Song and her mother stood on their porch. "Thank you for the duck. It was excellent." Iroh thanked them.

She smiled and handed him the small basket of food. "Your welcome. It brings me joy to see someone eat my food with such... gusto."

He patted his stomach lightly. "Much practice." I shook my head slightly at his antics.

"Thank you, ma'am." I smiled with a slight bow. Zuko walked away without a word.

"Junior, where are your manners?" Uncle scolded. I'm still getting use to the name, so I nearly laughed when he called him Junior. "You need to thank these nice people."

He turned and quickly bowed. "Thank you." And he turned and began to walk away again.

"I know you don't think there's any hope left in the world, but there is hope- the Avatar has returned." Song called after him.

I could almost feel Zuko tense up. "I know."

We began to walk away, but an animal looking like an ostrich caught Zuko's attention. He grabbed it by the reigns and I looked at him astonished. "What are you doing?"

"These people have showed you great kindness." Iroh scolded.

"They're about to show us a little more kindness." Zuko held out his hand for Uncle and I.

Uncle looked saddened, but took the offer anyways. "You coming or what?" Zuko asked me.

I sighed. "I'm coming." I hopped on the back, behind both Iroh and Zuko.

I didn't like the idea of stealing at all, but I suppose desperate times comes desperate measures. I just hope mom never learns of this, she'd be furious.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hi, one person who's probably reading this. I just have one question. Does Zuko seen a bit out of character in this chapter? I feel like he is but I'm not sure how to fix it without taking out the sibling-like bond here. Comment suggestions if you can. Thank you! 😊