Dangerous Bounty

I have no idea what sick muses thrust this story into my brain, but I had to write it. I just had to . I'm Zutara 'til the bitter end, so this is no ship fic. Just a nice little "what if," alternate universe, PWP...whatever you want to call it. Let's just pretend, for the sake of this story, that Zuzu is a nice solid legal 18, and go from there.

Disclaimer: I don't own them, 'cause if I did, I'd get censored right off the damn television.


A Chance Encounter

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

The young man was hardly recognizable as the spoiled prince who had demanded her services once before, but Jun had no trouble spotting him. There was just something about his posture, his walk, his entire attitude that screamed "bad boy firebending prince," despite the ragged clothing he now wore in place of his immaculate armor. With a rice paddy hat and a filthy brown cloak, he looked like any other patron in this ale-house.

But Jun's was a more discerning eye. To her, he looked like easy money.

She sipped carefully at her glass of whiskey, feeling it burn all the way down, like warm liquid fire. Jun had always liked to play with fire. She had wondered what had become of the demanding brat after the whole Avatar business. She frowned as she recalled the aftermath of that little fiasco.

The stupid water tribe peasants had gotten the bright idea to attack her xirxiu with perfume, of all things. Jun gave a short, mirthless laugh as she remembered the end result. Her beast had gone insane, whipping it's paralyzing tongue in every direction. First, it had nailed the princeling. That was pretty damn funny, as far as she was concerned. But then the tongue had snapped back around to stun her, and she experienced for the first time the chilling shock of being completely and hopelessly defenseless. To add insult to injury, that perverted old firebender, the boy's 'Uncle Iroh,' had faked being paralyzed as well, caught Jun as she fell, and forced her to spend an hour reclining on his paunch while the old man got all sorts of sick thrills out of the situation. Now, if it had been the boy she had fallen on...

Jun smiled, a feral show of teeth. She was perilously close to breaking one of the cardinal rules of the bounty hunter; never fall for your prey. And prey he was. That disfigured prince was worth a small fortune in the right hands, now that he had broken with Daddy Ozai and was on the run with his fat, lazy uncle. If Jun could snag even one of the two men, she could sell her xirxiu and live out her days in luxury.

The bounty hunter watched as her prince-in-disguise spoke curtly to the bartender. Some coins were exchanged, and a small bottle of fire whiskey passed from under the bar to be concealed in the boy's clothing. Jun was surprised. The boy hadn't struck her as a drinker. He practically reeked of self-discipline and ascetic living. She idly wondered what the result of a firebender drinking a highly flammable liquid might be, then dismissed the notion.

The prince was leaving now. Jun rose from her seat and tossed a few coppers onto the table. She exited the bar quickly and watched as the prince disappeared down the road, heading for the forest. Perfect. The fewer witnesses the better. Moving silently, she ran towards the stable, where she had quartered her xirxiu, mounted the beast, and turned him towards the wood. She didn't have an item of the prince's for her creature to track from, but there weren't likely to be too many travellers at this time of night. She would find him.

Jun cracked her whip, and the beast was off and running. Her eyes strained in the darkness for any sign of her victim. Even with his head start, she should have located him quickly, but there was no sign of his passing. Cursing to herself, she drew the xirxiu up and began straining to make out any signs of footprints on the ground.

As she leaned over the side of her mount, there was a hissing noise, and a bright light exploded where her head had been moments ago. Fireball. Jun snapped upright and turned to face her opponent, who had summoned more flames to his hands.

"Looking for me?" Oh, yes. She knew that soft, superior voice. Prince Zuko had discarded his peasant hat. His amber eyes shone in the light of his bended fire. Even that scar, which she had once thought ugly, only served to make him more menacing, like some sort of beautiful demon, framed in hellfire. Jun's blood began to boil in the light of that heated gaze.

She decided to play coy. "If you're the exiled prince with a price on his head big enough to buy the kingdom of Omashu, then I am, indeed, looking for you." She smiled coldly at her bounty. "I don't suppose you would be kind enough to just hop on the back of my saddle and let me collect my reward, hmm?"

Zuko snorted. "Not likely." He began to circle her and her xirxiu, hands flaming. "So, who's paying to get their hands on me?"

It was Jun's turn to snort. "Who isn't? There's a few Earth Kingdom generals who'd like to meet you in person, your darling little sister's offered money for information about your whereabouts....presumably to aid her in her hunt for the Avatar..." Zuko mumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "fuck her," which made Jun throw back her head and laugh. "Oh, and let's not forget, Firelord Ozai has a price on your head large enough to put me up in style for a very long time." She smirked at the enraged look on his face, and continued to bait him. "All I have to do is decide how far I want to travel to get rid of you, and whether you'd be easier to bring in dead or alive, and I'm set for life. So tell me, my handsome little prince, do you want to go in alive? Or dead?"

His response was an enraged snarl, just as Jun had known it would be. In the next moment, Jun was clinging to the saddle as her xirxiu dodged two enormous fireballs from the prince's hands.

The hunt was on. Jun had never felt so alive.

Her creature had his scent now. The barbed tongue whipped out, missing Zuko's face by inches. The fire prince crouched, then sailed effortlessly halfway across the clearing in an acrobatic move that made Jun catch her breath. This boy couldn't be more than eighteen years at the oldest, nearly a decade younger than she. How had he learned to fight so well, to move as gracefully and effortlessly as...well...fire? Jun felt another heat course through her blood, one that had less to do with monetary rewards and more to do with physical ones.

Her bemusement was cut short when she heard her xirxiu cry out in rage and pain. Zuko had somehow ended up behind the creature and was exploding fire blasts into its tail, no doubt attempting to make the creature stampede and give himself time to escape into the woods. That simply wouldn't do. Jun twisted in the saddle and cracked her whip at the prince, missing him once again as he darted to the side. She ducked as a long ribbon of fire snapped over her head. The boy was good, but Jun suspected he was holding back. Almost as though he didn't want to cause any permanent harm with his fire blasts. There had been heat, but no searing agony.

Well, if the foolish boy wanted to be compassionate, he would just have to take his lumps. Jun had no time for this particular game. Pulling on her animal's reins, she redirected the xirxiu towards Zuko, only to find that the boy had moved with the beast, staying behind him and just out of range of the debilitating tongue. Jun cursed, earning an evil laugh from her prey. She'd thought it once, and she'd keep thinking it; the boy was good. Time to end this.

Jun placed her feet in the saddle and turned, crouching and holding onto the saddle back for balance. Now she was facing Zuko, holding on tightly as her creature plunged and turned, blindly seeking his quarry. Zuko continued to blister the beast with fireballs. If she didn't stop this now, she was going to have to spend yet another week hunting her mount down. Jun cracked her whip again, and got lucky. The braided leather snapped around Zuko's left wrist, drawing a surprised yelp from the boy. She immediately pulled, and he stumbled forward, off balance. In the next few seconds, the xirxiu turned, let fly with it's paralyzing tongue, and took the prince in the side of the neck. The boy stiffened, his face pale with shock, and fell over, face forward, in the soft dirt.

She exhaled, releasing a breath she hadn't even known she was holding. By the gods, that boy could put up a fight! The xirxiu lunged towards the fallen prince, and Jun pulled back hard on the reins. "No! You're not eating the merchandise!" The creature put up a fight, but relented after a few moments and whined softly. Jun jumped out of the saddle and led the cowed beast over to a large cedar tree. She quickly tied the reins to the trunk, leaving the creature just enough slack to lick his wounds, and walked back across the clearing to check on her prize.

He wasn't moving, of course. No one moved after being stunned by a xirxiu. Jun crouched down beside him and rolled him over. He lay rigid, staring up at her with eyes that smoldered with the fire he could not bend. At least, she hoped he couldn't bend like this. She wasn't particularly fond of burns. A smiled curved across her lips. "Not so cocky now, are we my prince?" she purred, reaching out a hand to stroke his unblemished cheek. He could not speak, not yet. Speech returned quickly, but it would still be several minutes before he would be able to make his numb lips work again.

"No snappy comebacks? I expected better of you, Angry Boy." Jun shook her head in mock disappointment. "This was almost too easy. I think you still owe me a challenge." The look in his eyes shifted suddenly, and Jun thought for just a moment that she could see...fear. It was a delicious thought, quickly followed by other delicious thoughts, such as how attractive the boy was, despite his scar, and how athletic he must be, and how wonderfully young and tender he was, and how he was completely at her mercy.

"Yes," she said softly. "You owe me, little prince." The hand that had stroked his cheek slid down his chest, to rest on his hard, taut abdomen. "And before I collect my reward, I think I'll collect on your debt."


Next Chapter: Ah, heck. You know what's coming. (Ha! I made a pun!)