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Prisoner of War	By : Looneyluna Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > Het - Male/Female Views: 8511 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 4
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- 6
Chapter Five –

If it weren’t for the fact that her stomach felt hollow, Azula probably would have vomited in the pot of sloop that she was currently stirring. All in all, this was much better than digging latrines… with the exception of dealing with Jin Dee, the cook.

The woman had made her opinion of Azula perfectly clear. She hated her. Of course, Jin Dee probably hated her because she was in her kitchen tent. Apparently, this was a domain that even Qiang dare not venture into.

“…My tent,” the older woman grumbled, slamming pots and pans around and glaring at Azula.

Biting the inside of her cheek to keep from telling the old hag off, Azula looked down and dutifully stirred the stew.

“Help?” Jin Dee railed. “More like a hindrance!”

Azula blew the hair out of her face and rolled her eyes. Hindrance? How could she be a hindrance? She was stirring a pot of garbage for Agni’s sake!

“I can’t believe he saddled me with you. I have men to feed. I don’t have time to baby-sit a spoiled princess,” hissed Jin Dee, gathering some chopped roots and tossing them into the stew.

The hot stew splashed onto Azula’s tunic, and she dropped the ladle into the pot. “Maybe feeding the men wouldn’t be so difficult if you would stop bitching and accept the help you have been offered.”

Jin Dee stared at Azula as if the Fire Nation princess had sprouted another head.

“That’s it!” the portly woman screeched, swinging a heavy pan toward Azula, who easily dodged the attempt on her life. “Get out!”

Running from the tent, Azula skidded to a halt. There was a small group of men huddled around a fire. The look in their eyes was predatory. She felt a shiver of trepidation crawl up her spine. A few of them even licked their lips as though she were on the menu for lunch.

“I’m not a your keeper!” Jin Dee screamed as she gave chase with a pan.

Azula wasn’t as lucky as before. The band of men moved toward her as she backed into the cook. She heard the swish of displaced air as Jin Dee swung the pot toward her heard. Surprisingly there was no pain or sound as she slumped to the ground.

--

“You didn’t even give her a chance!” a male voice boomed angrily, making Azula’s head throb even more. Her eyes felt as though they were weighed down with lead. She tried to sit up, but her body also felt like it was leaden.

“Bah!” a feminine voice retorted. “I am not a baby-sitter. She was incompetent. She dropped the ladle into the stew!”

“Was that before or after you bashed her upside the head with the pan?” Qiang asked.

“What difference does it make?” Jin Dee retorted.

Qiang sputtered at his cook’s irreverence. May the Goddess save him from the crazy woman! She was one of the few people he trusted, much less liked. He let Jin Dee get away with things other people wouldn’t dare.

The Fire Nation princess was too valuable to harm. Should the Earth King want Azula for himself, she would need to be brought before him unharmed. Was he the only person who realized this?

“The difference is our ticket out of exile, Jin Dee,” he growled softly.

Azula would have grinned as the knowledge sank in, but it hurt too much to do so.

“If you kill her, she is useless!” Qiang chastised.

“Bah!” Jin Dee scoffed. “If she were to die, there wouldn’t even be enough meat to add to the stew.”

With the patience of a benevolent monk, Qiang dismissed the crazed cook and cursed.

Azula could hear his movements through the half-delusional ramblings of her own thoughts.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asked, kneeling next to her and pressing a cold compress to large bump on her forehead.

Azula winced, opening her eyes and smiling weakly. “You could always let me go.”

Qiang chuckled softly. “I’m afraid I sealed your fate once I sent the messenger to the Earth King, little princess.”

“Careful,” she teased the delusion, closing her eyes to prevent seeing the two Earth Kingdom generals. “If you’re nice to me, I might take advantage of you.”

He cleared his throat, making no reply. Days were shorter this far north and the sun was already setting in the sky. His hunting expedition had been recalled due to Jin Dee’s attack on Azula. He had a cook that wouldn’t tolerate her, men that wanted to kill her, and men that wanted to brutalize her before killing her. Either way, he had come to the realization that he would just have to keep her with him at all times. He wouldn’t be able to let her out of his sight.

Her head hurt. It felt swollen, as if someone had hit… oh wait! Someone had hit her upside the head!

“What happened?” another familiar voice questioned in the foggy tunnel of her mind. It sounded like the Waterbender who had healed her hands the night before.

“Jin Dee –”

“Say no more,” Maduk responded, taking over care of the concussed royal. “I dared to enter her tent one time and met with one of her pans. I had double vision for a week. You should allow her on the battlefield, Qiang. Jin Dee would be a formidable foe with her pots and pans. They can be deadly weapons.”

Qiang grunted as he watched the Waterbender heal Azula.

The fog that had smothered her reality receded as the cold water coursed through the wound. The throbbing sensation stopped and the urge to vomit grew less. The heat and the swelling abated, and Azula opened her eyes. Aside from a little dizziness, she felt much better.

The healer looked down his hooked nose at her, his dispassionate gaze raking over her. Qiang stood behind him. “Is she going to be all right?”

Maduk arched his eyebrow. “Do you doubt my abilities?”

There was annoyed concern in the general’s green eyes. Concern? Ah yes. Concern for his captive… Concern for his “ticket out of exile.” Manipulative to the core, Azula smiled at her bastard captor.

“Wh-where am I?” she asked, blinking up at the healer and general.

“You’re in my tent,” Qiang answered quickly, stepping to the side and moving the bucket of water Maduk had used to heal her out of the way.

Azula stared at him, her gaze blank, giving nothing of her true self and motives away. “Who are you?”

The Waterbender sat back on his haunches and shook his head in disbelief.

“What do you mean, ‘who am I?’” Qiang set the bucket down and started getting ready for bed. The sun had set and the cruel winds of the mountains were howling outside. He yanked his belt off and started to undo his tunic.

Hiding her smirk behind the blanket of fur, she struggled not to laugh. She didn’t know if her acting skills were up to the challenge. She would bide her time to plan her escape, for time was not something she was afforded as a prisoner of war.

“Whoever you are, I would appreciate it if you would stop disrobing in my…” Azula scanned the contents of her surroundings and clutched the blanket like a timid virgin. Virgin yes. Timid never. “Tent? Why am I in a tent? Where am I?”

The healer knelt next to her, grabbed her face between his hands, and peered into eyes. She tried to jerk away, but he held firm. “Jin Dee must have hit her harder than we thought. She is healed. She won’t die from her injury, but there seems to be some unforeseen damage that even bending can’t fix.”

The general shouted a string of explicatives that would make a pirate cringe.

“Injury?” Azula did her best impression of playing dumb, which was difficult for her, seeing as it wasn’t something she was accustomed to. “Bending?”

Qiang pointed at her as if she were something distasteful. “She’s faking it! She’s lying!”

The general was right not be believe her. Given the chance, she would kill him with glee. He would never buy into her convenient memory loss. Maduk was still examining her. Sniffling, Azula called upon the years of practice she had and summoned tears. (Her mother had always been a sucker for tears.)

“Why does my husband look at me like that? Why does he yell?” She opened her eyes and let the crocodile tears flow down her cheeks.

“Husband?” Qiang shouted, as Maduk roared with laughter and let her go.

“I am no one’s husband, Princess Azula,” he hissed, advancing toward her and pulling her off the bed. “Now stop this foolishness at once or I will punish you.”

The sudden movement caused the room to spin, and the nauseous feeling returned to her with a vengeance. Her stomach churned, the meager contents in it refusing to yield to her command. The vomit was bitter tasting and burned. She watched in horror (and great satisfaction) as the contents of her stomach splattered onto the general’s chest and stomach.

Qiang jumped back, spitting a string of imaginative curses. She stumbled backwards, falling onto her backside and continuing to “cry.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. Agni! I really am going to be sick. Playing the part of a simpering fool is disgusting. “I didn’t mean… I didn’t mean to be sick all over you.”

Qiang grabbed a cloth, dipped it into the water, and started to clean himself off. He’d been splattered in blood. Had held the entrails of his enemy in his hands. But this was just disgusting! “You are going to pay for that.”

“General!” Maduk stepped between Azula and Qiang. “May I have a word with you in private, sir?”

Azula spit on the ground, trying her best to get rid of the taste of the vomit. She despised weakness. She hated being sick. She hated being helpless.

Qiang growled and stomped out of the tent. Maduk followed.

Crawling toward the water bucket, Azula scooped some up and swished it around in her mouth.

“What!” she heard Qiang bark and leaned closer to overhear the “private” conversation. They were right outside the tent. It wasn’t like anything was really private here anyway.

“I think her injury and obvious confusion are genuine,” Maduk stated, his inflection flat and matter-of-fact.

“She is scheming,” Qiang countered. “She’s a manipulative royal who has seized upon an opportunity to make us think she is impaired. And if she is still injured, why haven’t you healed her? You should heal her! There’s work to be done. I won’t tolerate her lazing about as if we are her royal subjects.”

Azula grinned. She had to give him credit. Qiang wasn’t stupid.

“I have healed her,” Maduk retorted. “Head wounds are always difficult. It isn’t as though I can open up her head and pour water on her brain. Frankly, I’m sick of healing her.”

Qiang exhaled in frustration.

“She still has a mild concussion. Once all the swelling goes down, maybe she’ll be all right.” The Waterbender tried to calm the general.

“She better be all right,” Qiang replied. She could see his shadow through the wall as it paced back and forth. “She’s our ticket out of this place. If the Earth King wants her for himself, how am I going to explain this? ‘Please accept my humble apologies your Highness. The woman that you want as your concubine doesn’t remember who she is. My cook hit her upside the head with a pan, and she hasn’t been the same sense.’”

Azula smothered a laugh. She was so going to make the bastard suffer.

Maduk’s shadow shifted. “You could always execute her.”

Just when she thought she was starting to like the healer…

“That’s probably what the Earth King will do with her anyway. It isn’t like she’s attractive. Her figure is passable, but her eyes are too close together.”

Qiang stopped pacing. “What are you going on about, old man?”

“Or you could execute her and tell the Earth King that she died while trying to escape,” Maduk continued. “Or you could say you didn’t get the reply. Chances are the messenger hawk got lost anyway. It isn’t like they are the most reliable form of communication.”

“I’m not going to kill her,” Qiang insisted.

Azula heaved a sigh of relief.

“What I don’t understand is why she thinks you are her husband,” Maduk theorized. “Why not me? I’m much more attractive than you.”

Azula snorted in disgust. The Waterbender was delusional.

“Quiet!” Qiang hissed. His shadow was like a lethal statue, frozen as if to strike the enemy.

She crawled away from the tent wall, her heart pounding. She had come too far to blow her ruse now. She needed to think of something quickly. Looking around the tent, she made her way toward the bucket of water and the large tub that her “husband” was sure to bathe in tonight. Standing on shaky legs, she poured a small amount of water into the tub and the rest of it onto the ground. She sat down and started to “weep.”

The general entered his tent, unprepared for the sight before him.

“I’m so sorry,” the once-petulant princess sniveled. “I didn’t mean to spill the water. I’ll fetch more. I thought you might like a bath since I was sick all over you. I’m just so dizzy. Everything is so fuzzy.”

Qiang rolled his eyes. The puddle on the floor was testament to her “attempt” to serve him. The Fire Nation princess clutched her stomach and gagged. At least he was across the room this time. She gathered the hem of her shirt and started to dab at the puddle.

“For the Goddess’ sake! Stop!” he yelled, walking toward one of his trunks and tearing through its contents. “I’ll have one of the men clean that up. Shit!”

Azula “cowered” before him, touching her forehead to the cold ground. “I’m sorry, husband.”

He ignored her, digging through another trunk and cursing again. “There isn’t anything left. You’ve soiled everything I have. You’ll just have to sleep without clothes.”

She snapped to attention. “I can sleep in this. It isn’t soiled. I –”

Inwardly, Qiang smiled and wondered how long it would take for the princess to show her true colors. “It is wet, and I do not wish to sleep with a wet wife.”

He crossed the room slowly, like an animal scenting its prey. Running the back of his fingertips along her cheek and column of her throat, he smiled. “Don’t worry, Azula. I know that you are ill. I would never demand that you attend to your wifely duties while you aren’t feeling well. When you are well, you will serve me well.”

--

TBC
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Prisoner of War