When Leilani awoke for the fifth or sixth time, she took a moment before she realised that she wasn’t going to pass out again.  Carefully, she got to her feet, testing her balance and her head.  She was a little wobbly, but otherwise steady on her feet; her mind was as clear as it normally was.  Which meant she’d been allowed to sleep the drug off, whatever it had been.

Leilani had undergone tranquilisation before when she was younger as a test to see how long it would take her to recover.  The genius behind that had gotten in serious trouble, as she recalled.  However, it had also enabled to recognise what had happened to her now, and so she turned to take in her surroundings.

She was in a basement room, from the look of things — the floor was dirt, though the door was metal.  Light filtered in through a window that was out of her reach — and barred, in case she got any ideas.

There was no sign of the Firelord.

Nothing happened for nearly two hours after the islander healer woke up, then something outside rattled, like keys in a lock.

Leilani whirled to the door, her blue eyes wide as she fell into a fighting stance.  Not that it would do her much good; she knew maybe four fighting forms total.

The door was pulled open, and Zuko was tossed in, rather roughly, at her feet. “Keep him alive. But don’t do any more than that,” the man who’d brought him said curtly, then the door was slammed and locked again.

“Zuko!”  She knelt next to her lord to ascertain precisely what damage had been done to him.

The damage was extensive — there was little of him she could see that wasn’t injured, and they weren’t surface injuries. He was unconscious.  Immediately she drew water from the air and set about to healing him.  She consciously ignored the directive to do only enough to keep him alive.

After a few moments, he stirred, with a faint, pained noise.

“Shh,” she soothed him, gently stroking  his hair.  “I’m here.”

He tried to sit up, and fell back with another cry of pain.

“Don’t move,” Leilani urged.  “I’ll fix it.”

“Want me… start again…” he choked out.

“…What?  Start what?”

“War…”

Her eyes went wide again.  “No…”

He gave her a tiny, fierce, agonized smile. “That’s what… I said…”

She nodded and continued to heal the damage that had been done to him, ignoring the headache forming in the back of her mind.

A few hours later, the door opened again, and the man from before came in for Zuko.

Quickly, the exhausted healer stood and stepped between him and the Firelord.  Another man followed him into the cell and roughly pulled her aside.  Quietly she fought them, trying to protect Zuko.  Unfortunately, the man holding her vastly outweighed her, and knew what he was doing. When his companion had dragged Zuko out of the cell, he let her go, and left, locking the door behind him.

About a half hour later, someone brought food by for her.  She ate ravenously, then curled up in a corner and fell asleep again.  I can’t keep doing this, was her last conscious thought.

She was woken by the door opening a third time.  Quickly she rose, hoping to catch Zuko if they were throwing him in again.  “Come with me,” the man who opened the door said. “And don’t even think about trying anything.”

She glared at him, but followed.  Disobediently, she did think of trying something, but immediately discarded the idea.  All it would do was get her hurt.  He led her the room where he and his companions had been hurting Zuko. The young Firelord was suspended from the ceiling by his wrists, bound and gagged. If he was breathing, it was shallow enough that she couldn’t tell from the doorway.

“Zuko!” she cried, starting to run for him.

The man who’d brought her restrained her. “Sir?”

One of the other men, the apparent leader, looked up from where he was cleaning what looked to be a knife. “Wake him up,” he told her.

“I’ll need water,” she said.

The man restraining her let go, and brought her a bucket.

Briefly she toyed with the thought of using the water to attack the men, but she only moved to Zuko and began healing him again.  Bastards, she thought furiously.  After a few minutes, he stirred slightly, and rough hands pulled her away. “That’s enough,” the man with the knife said.

“Let go!” she yelled, fighting to get back to the Firelord.  “Zuko!”

He slapped her. “Take her back to her cell,” he ordered the man holding her, then turned back to Zuko, who’s eyes were just flickering open. “Now then, milord. Where were we?”

She was scarcely out of the room when she heard him screaming.

“No!”  She fought to get back to the Firelord now, to protect him, to save him from these warmongering bastards.

The man “escorting’ her roughly dragged her back to her cell. “Look, miss, we don’t want to hurt you. If you just behave…”

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded, glaring up at him with tear-filled blue eyes.

“Because it’s what has to be done,” he replied, unconsciously echoing the way Zuko had justified taking part in his father’s assassination. Then he locked the door and returned to what he’d been doing.

All Leilani wanted to do was crumble to the floor and sob.  However, she’d learned long ago that tears would do nothing — and falling apart wouldn’t help the Firelord now.  She had to hold herself together and find a way to rescue both of them.  To that end, she began prowling around the cell, testing for weak points and ways she might be able to get out.

It became apparent quickly that the window would be the only way out.  Careful testing showed that she’d be able to rust the bars, but she would need much more water than she could currently draw on to do it.

If only it would rain.

Zuko was dumped in on her to repair twice more, with the damage each time running just a little deeper, before she got her wish.  Luck was with her — and so was the Firelord.  Immediately she began bending, first creating a barrier of ice at the door to prevent entry, then she got to work on rusting the iron bars on the window to nothing.  It was not fast going, and she used every trick to weakening metal that she knew, but eventually she had cleared enough space for both of them to get out.

Now for the hard part.

Once the bars had been rusted through, Zuko stirred a little.

Leilani was building steps of ice by this point.  “Zuko?”

“Y-yeah…?” he whispered, trying to sit up.

She moved to his side and knelt, helping him up and getting one of his arms around her shoulders.  “Are you up for travelling?”

“S-sure,” he replied, hoarsely, going several shades paler with the effort of keeping himself upright.

“Good.  We’re leaving.”  Carefully, she got him to his feet, supporting as much of his weight as she could, and started climbing the ice steps.  Hopefully, the rain would continue while they made their escape — it would cover their tracks.

Whey-faced, he staggered along with her, trusting to stubbornness and adrenaline to keep him upright. But even he was willing to admit it wouldn’t carry him very far.  She seemed to realise it as well; as soon as the building they had been held in was out of sight, she turned her attention to the surrounding forest, looking for a tall, sturdy tree.

There was one — a rainsoaked giant of a tree, with a heavy screen of branches that would keep anyone hiding up there hidden, at least for a little while.

“Zuko, I need you to wrap your arms around my shoulders and lean on my back,” she told him.  “I need both my arms for this.”

“Kay…” he whispered, and painfully shifted position to do as she’d asked.

Once he was settled, she began bending again, forming a circle of ice under their feet and then using the water she was gathering to send them soaring high up into the branches.  Carefully, she unloaded the Firelord onto one of them — and froze him there — before stepping onto it herself and drawing the water towards her.  “I’m going to try and heal you as long as we’re up here,” she told him.

“Can’t… stay long…,” he whispered, colourless, sagging against the trunk.

“I know,” she replied.  “But this will do as a hiding place for now.”

He nodded, then closed his eyes, focusing on staying conscious.

For the duration of the rainfall, she healed Zuko, hoping he’d be able to move on his own by the time they had to find other shelter.

He could — but barely, and was again propelled and held up by little more than adrenaline and sheer pigheadedness. Luckily for them both, however, he found a tiny cave, barely more than an indentation in the ground, that could easily be screened off from view from the road. “In here…?” he whispered.

Leilani nodded, on her last reserves of strength.  “Yes.  As far back as we can.”

He led the way, not trusting himself to make a light in his current condition in such a cramped space. It didn’t take long to find the back, and he half-collapsed into a little pile on the floor.  The waterbender lasted just long enough to create a wall of ice a handspan thick before following the Firelord to the ground.

“You ‘kay…?” he gasped out, barely clinging to consciousness.

“Overdid it,” she whispered.  “Need sleep…”

“Oh. ‘Kay…”