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That day had started out completely fine.

I worked at the farm from before dawn to late afternoon, then delivered a few orders of food around the city. Finally the last thing on my list was only to collect the money for the month from the owners of the farm. If I had only walked fast enough, not stopped to give the homeless kid some silver, I would have made it home to eat. But instead…

“Iwa!”

The sun beat down on my back with a ferocity I had gotten used to over the years, the crowd was beginning to thin as shopping families and traders started slowing their pace to start homeward. I was one of them- a pocket of 24 silver pieces for the month, a satchel of rice and chicken curry I’d bought from a quick-meal shop about half an hour back. My stomach grumbled in anticipation for the quickly-cooling food. Then I had to hear that name said by that voice, and the many years of servitude ignited the fear of punishment in my gut and forced me to stop dead in my tracks in the midst of the moving people. Beads of sweat formed on my brow, partially from the heat and partially from nerves.

A few moments of huffing and puffing later and a thick hand on my shoulder and the man who had both killed my family and saved my life was standing behind me, closer than he had been in a long time. I turned to face him and it felt like a dream- surreal, fake, the lights too bright all of a sudden. He was as short as ever, a little pudgier around the waist and his beard longer than I remembered and greyer. Older. More burdened. I almost felt sorry for him. “Iwa, you must help me!” he said once he managed to catch his breath enough. My face remained steeled, just naturally on guard. “Zuko is sick and I need someone to watch him while I go buy herbs. I know how uncomfortable it may be for you, but I need to make sure that I get the correct leaves. I cannot pay you, but I hope you could please do this as a favour.”

As soon as I nodded, his face lightened up, he patted me solidly on the back, and with a quick “The door’s open,” he pushed his way through the mass of bodies.

I stood there a minute longer, letting the reality of my speaking directly with the General sink in. And now I’m supposed to go babysit the Prince. Finally I released a sigh and turned back to make the trek to the tea shop. I guess my dinner would have to wait.

Maybe twenty minutes later I opened the backdoor to the shop and trudged up the stairs, dreading the interaction bound to take place.

I opened the door to the upstairs living area to find two temp beds on the floor, one of which was occupied. A mess of sweaty black hair that looked chopped by hand rested on the cloth pillow, the covers pulled back to reveal an ebony-white and muscly-lean back drenched in sweat. The silence in the room was encompassed by the bustling noise of outside, occasionally broken by a groan from the body in the bed. I gently shut the door and set my satchel down before walking ever-so-slowly towards the other end of the room to kneel down by the bowl of warm water. A wet rag hung on the edge, and a flashback to when Lu-Ten would get sick came to mind. We were in the same position as now- only this time he was replaced by a much more egotistical and violent human being. I subconsciously played with my fingers, contemplating the requirements of “watching Zuko”. When he writhed in pain, I suddenly felt as though I were spying on him. He seemed to be asleep, but it felt wrong to be here while he wasn’t aware I was here. Nothing I could do about it.

I sighed in defeat. “Again I’m catering to some prince,” I muttered as I wrung the cloth out over the bowl. “I guess I’ll always be doing it in some way or another.” I wiped down the sweat on his face and chest as best I could, then set it down and leaned against the wall to wait out my babysitting session. After a moment of uncomfortable shifting against the tough wall, I bended the rock to the shape of my body and relaxed, closing my eyes to take a nap.

I’m not sure what time it was when I woke next, but the sun had long gone down from what I could tell through the window. Soft snores came from the second bed where the General lay in a house robe. I first wondered how long he had been here, then noticed that the sleeping arrangements were not very comfortable-looking. So I gently bended the rock of the floor up into a bed off the ground that bent to support their bodies in the best possible way. The prince groaned a little bit and flipped to lay on the opposite side. I forced myself up to scoot to the water bowl again. My cold food smells so good, I thought as I squeezed the majority of the water out of the cloth yet again. But there was no way I would eat in someone’s home when I was supposed to be taking care of someone sick-

“I’ve heard about you.”

I froze and looked down at the hazy boy before me. His dark eyes were clouded over and the sweat had reformed on his overheating skin. I didn’t know what he was going to elaborate about his statement, but I suddenly felt very self-conscious about my previous station. I had only seen him maybe five or six times when they visited Lu-Ten and it’s not likely that he would have noticed me, but either way my station was obviously miles below his. That life was long behind me, and I wasn’t about to start it back up again. So I stopped him short. “I don’t want to hear what you’ve heard,” I said, surprised at how quiet my voice was. Probably from the sleep.

He actually kept his mouth shut. But he seemed to glare at me while I wiped him down. Then his eyes would wander around the room, across the ceiling, up my arms, and back to my face, only to repeat the cycle. He eventually saw the beds that had been created, but didn’t comment. Once I finished, I grabbed my dinner and pulled it out of the bag, setting it up by his raised bed. He watched me the whole time, not questioning why I had this dinner ready, whose it was in the first place. The frustration grew when I bended the rock to sit him up and fed him the first bite. He just opened his mouth and took it. I hated this, this act of servitude, and the way he just accepted it like he was entitled to it. Like it’s something he deserved. He finished and I packed up the empty bowls and plates, leaning his bed back again. I stood, deciding I was done here. I began feeling sick just remembering my old life.

“They weren’t bad things.”

My hand hovered over the doorknob when he muttered those words. But I didn’t turn around. It’s just his fever talking. So I left quietly while the General’s snores continued echoing through the room.

The half-moon hung in the sky like an ornament, bright and almost blindingly white. The only creatures still out at this hour were the stray cats that either stalked the city rats or lazily waltzed up windowsills to sleep. I bended a thin layer of earth around my tired legs to control them instead of using the muscles that had begun to ache. Still another 15 minutes until I get home.

A shadowed figure stepped slightly out from around a nearby corner. I froze in my tracks, but relaxed my shoulders when I identified it. “Long time no see.” I just continued walking past him, raising a brow when I saw a much shorter shadow and a tall, shaggy-haired swordsman beside him. “You brought your friends?”

“We need somewhere to stay for the night,” the shorter guy said in a scratchy voice. The features were young enough to be interchangeably male or female, the voice to rough to tell. Longshot nodded his head in agreement, the hat casting a large shadow on the floor.

“Longshot said you might be able to house us for a little bit.” The tall male stepped forward, twisting a cud between his teeth and smirking at me. I frowned when I recognized him and his cocky attitude. “He’s the only one who sort of knew where you lived. Sorry that this is so out of the blue and this late at night, but we just arrived a while ago and have been roaming around trying to find you.” He scratched the back of his neck, something I had once found attractive in a masculine way. Now I knew better. He was just bad news all around, and this was probably going to end poorly.

I sighed and shrugged, giving in just because I was too tired to rationalize myself out of it. And Longshot’s pretty much as close to a friend to me as one could get. I guess I could do him a favour. “Man, I’m giving out a lot of favours tonight, aren’t I?” I chuckled humourlously to myself. They trailed behind, cracking jokes about camp and updating me on the Freedom Fighters (though I had no interest in it whatsoever) and Jet making sure to get close to me during the walk back. I didn’t join the conversation, feeling a little more dead than alive because I was so tired. I pulled open the hatch to my basement home and ushered them inside, quickly and haphazardly waving rock beds into existence before plopping onto my own. It was now pretty squished, but I couldn’t care less at this point. I dropped the satchel off the side and almost immediately fell asleep, not bothering to change out of my dayclothes.

What an exhausting day.