InsaneJournal

The Song of Fire and Ice
Who: Zuko and Katara
What: Katara harasses Zuko again... with much different results
When: Night time
Where: In the internet cafe
Rating: R
Status: Complete

Zuko remained alone, in his room for most of the day. Every day since he got to this place, he'd been accosted by the waterbender peasant or her earth goon, usually both. This time, he had other plans. As soon as he'd awoken he took the metal dresser and propped the door closed with it, crossing his arms and glaring slightly in the direction of the door, as if daring Katara to come through it, half expecting any moment to hear a thump of her trying to open the door and then her cheery voice calling out to him as if they were long lost school pals reunited again. He had to give the water and earth bender one thing, they were at least sticking to their little act about him being their friends. It was probably considered a sacred mission by the Avatar... or maybe they were brain washed too, intentionally so, to deliver him to the Avatar, but not really knowing themselves his fate until the end.

Zuko sighed. He was starting to feel more and more paranoid about the whole thing, and as the hours passed on, he smelled food in his room. It'd not been there before, and for whatever reason the planet seemed to provide him with whatever seemed to be on his mind as something good to eat. If he were anything less than a prisoner here, he might have been a bit envious of not having that sort of treatment back home. But what was home to him any more? He'd been away from the Fire Nation for three years... an exile... charged with finding the Avatar, which was a fool's errand at best. And then the next thing he'd known his father had been willing to take him back... only to have himself whisked away to this place.

He was the banished prince again.

"DAMN IT!" Zuko growled and slammed his fist into the wall, sending a bright plume of flame flaring across the wall. If he could somehow find a way back, then the Avatar would be at his most vulnerable. His little water bender not there to protect him, then Zuko might finally have a chance at defeating him once and for all. Then... finally, his father would be proud of him... he wouldn't be the son who always needed help, the weak offspring. His sister had gone mad... now it was Zuko's chance to prove that he was, if not on par with Azula... at least more consistant then her... He could weather the things that she couldn't... if he were only back home. Gritting his teeth he turned and screamed at the top of his lungs in his room.

"If you're willing to give me whatever I want, then why won't you just let me go HOME??"

There was no reply.

A few hours later, Zuko finally decided that he might be free of the water bender, and decided to journey out for a while in the afternoon. He was rather sorry that he had. It was freezing outside, and the whole damned place had changed to be covered in snow. He could just see the twisted smile of satisfaction on the water bender's face when she'd woken up this morning to see something like that. She was probably out in it somewhere praying that Zuko would cross her path. He wasn't going to oblige her though, if he saw the peasant he'd just turn right around back inside and hole himself up in his room. He could survive in there, it seemed, until he could figure out a way home.

Hours later, Zuko found himself wandering through the building, looking for some clue as to how to go home or what this place was. As he wandered in to the internet cafe, he blinked a little and stared around at the computers there. They seemed like magical portals, to places that he couldn't even think of. But when he tried to touch them, they seemed solid. He stared at the computer for a few long minutes, trying to figure out where the light in it was coming from. But what was more strange to him was he seemed to feel a certain... afinity with it. It felt like this was somehow made out of... fire... like some of the 'glow bulbs' as he'd taken to calling them, were in some way related to his element. This felt... more strongly so though...

Pausing at the screen saver, he brought one of his hands close to the monitor and tried to bend it... only to jump back a little as the thing sparked and short circuited, causing a thick black smoke to rise up from it. Staring at it for a moment, Zuko was about to swear again when he heard an odd sound coming from within it. Peeking in to one of the vents on the monitor he saw a spark flickering now and again, and his golden eyes widened slowly. Lightning. These things had lightning in them... that explained why he felt an afinity with it... but lightning was dangerous, something only the most skilled fire benders were capable of meddling with... to weild it in a box... Zuko paused and frowned... how was it even possible?

Moving to the next one he was about to try to bend it too, when he bumped the mouse. It had some sort of odd little tutorial on how to use it. Zuko blinked a little, and then sat down in front of the computer. The keyboard seemed odd, and yet he recognized what the characters would mean, even though they seemed foreign to him. still when he tried typing in a greeting, nothing happened. This was stupid...

Starting to stand up his hand brushed the mouse again, and he noticed the little pointer went somewhere on the screen when he did it. Scratching his head he sat back down, and started to move the mouse around the screen, staring at it. Why would anyone use something like this... On the desktop though, an icon caught his eye... it was a little planet icon, or so it looked like... maybe this was info on the planet... but how to use it... he clicked on it, discovering that the mouse had buttons... but nothing... growling a little he clicked a whole bunch of times, and then something popped up. What was a fire fox? He sort of liked the name of it... but it didn't seem to make any sense.

"Go... Google." Zuko read aloud, not really understanding any of this. Still, there was a little box there... maybe he had to.... click on it? No, clicking on it didn't do anything... evne when he did it a bunch. But when he pushed a button on the keyboard, it appeared in the little box there. Zuko tried to think of what to type. He put in 'How to get to the fire nation'. There were a few results, but Zuko looked over them and there wasn't anything there that seemed to be very helpful. Taking a deep breath, he shook his head, this was stupid. Whatever this box thing was, it clearly was some sort of childs toy, as it didn't seem to do anything very practical... Then again, maybe he wasn't asking it the right question... or maybe the planet wouldn't let him answer that question...

So he tried something else. 'How do I deal with a water tribe girl'. When Zuko hit enter this time he noticed there were quite a few more results than last time, and he blinked at one of the results in the top. It was text in blue which said 'Want to know how to deal with wet girls, our studs can show you how!'. Looking skeptical, he touched the screen again. What did they mean to come in? he moved the mouse a little around, and noticed it changed over the text... maybe...

Zuko clicked on it, and his eyes shot open as a face full of what the Internet was known for suddenly sprung on the screen. Frantically, his eyes searched the keyboard for anything to help him. He tried typing 'stop', but nothing happened. The same happened with 'go away' and 'help'. What if someone saw him here looking at this? Quickly, Zuko stood up and started to awkwardly walk away from the computer...