The Fire nation prince walked around the metal halls of the destroyer. The layout was similar to his war ship. He was trying to find less inhabited barracks, one with low ranking soldiers that he could blend in with. He would have to remain as unseen as possible, but he also had to sleep sometime. The North pole was still a few weeks journey to reach. His uncle was with him and helping in as many ways as he could, but people would get suspicious if a general was spending all of his time with a supposedly new recruit.
Zuko found himself on one of the lower levels and found the barracks, shared by engineers and additional soldiers with no where else to go. Zuko found the male room with three of the four bunks taken, two of them were of ship engineers. That was good engineers would be in the ship's inner workings all day and when they returned at night they would be too exhausted to question if he was a bit off from everyone else. So he only had to worry about one soldier, who didn't seem to be in the room at the moment.
Dropping his stuff on the remaining bunk, on the top so he would have to climb up to it, he left with his mask on, it covered his scar so no one would get suspicious. He wandered the halls in a seemingly unfocused way. However he was searching for escape routes and the best way to commandeer a small canoe as well as when to do it. Then once he had that planned he started he casual search for any other materials he could use to assist him in capturing the avatar.
He neared the rec-room in his travels. He could hear it as soon as he turned the corner. Soldiers on missions such as these didn't have many duties until they reached their destination. They had rotating guard duty, but on a voyage that was only two weeks long and with over two hundred soldiers on the ship everyone would only have to be on guard duty once maybe twice. So the three most inhabited places on the ship were the rec-room, the work out center and the mess hall. Zuko was trying to avoid all of these places unless he absolutely had to. The prince groaned softly as he realized where he was, he would have turned and gone back the way he had come, that is if he didn't need to be on the other side to check in the storage room for supplies.
Trying to blend in he planned on just walking past the room and no one would care. The universe seemed to be mocking him, when did his plans ever go accordingly anyway? As he passed the open doorway to the rec-room he kept his eyes straight forward not even looking in. Later, he wished that he did turn to look because then he would have seen the body thrown out the door and directly towards him.
Yeah, he really wished that he had looked into that stupid rec-room. He was just walking, just trying to do his own thing, then he was face first into the wall with a heavy weight on top of him causing him to fall to the ground with all of the air pushed out of his lungs.
He tried to get up, but the weight on top of him still hadn't moved. It was a person, a soldier in robes, the casual clothes that they were allowed when not on duty. The figure on top of him groaned in pain. Then a shadow crossed over the two, sneering at them was a taller and bulky soldier, obviously the one that had thrown the still unknown person into Zuko.
"Ha that will teach you for beating me in Fire Puck, Chen," he said in a deep voice as a group behind him laughed and the man turned and slammed the door of the rec-room.
"Will you get off of me now," Zuko said through gritted teeth, honestly he didn't know how he had managed to not scorch the imbecile on top of him yet.
The man, Chen, groaned and rolled off of him falling to the floor with a thud, "I'm sorry man, I'm Chen."
Zuko got up as soon as he was free, rubbing his helmet, "yeah I figured."
The teen tried to walk away with no further interaction, but this Chen character had different ideas and ran after him, matching his quick pace with long strides. Chen was taller than Zuko, but skinnier making it easy for him to stay with Zuko, much to the younger boy's dismay.
"Let me buy you a drink for your troubles," he tried to make amends.
"No," was the armored boy's response.
"Really? I've never encountered a soldier who didn't want a drink. What's your name?"
"None of your business," he snapped curtly as he quickened his pace and saw that his barracks were just up ahead. He dove into the room and quickly shut the door to get away from the young man. Luckily there was no one else in the room so no one could see the childish way Zuko clenched his fists in anger shaking them at the ceiling.
He just about spit fire when there was a knock at the door, "What?!"
"Well I'm actually not trying to bother you, but you just locked me out of my bunk room. I guess our bunk room, plus two others," the man said.
Zuko almost felt guilty, almost, he wordlessly unlocked the door and started to take off his armor, he stripped down to his dark red trousers, his back to the guy that had been thrown on top of him. He put on the red robes that he had found that matched the rest of the soldiers. Then he climbed up to his bunk and laid down his left side facing the wall and out of view to anyone and he stared up at the ceiling. He just wanted to be left alone, his head hurt.
Chen had other ideas, he entered the room and laid on his bunk which was directly below Zuko's, but he didn't stay quiet, "boy I really hate Zarik, that guy from earlier, ya know he only threw me out of the door because he was mad that he lost a game of pai sho. Can you believe that? He is so angry all of the time and he blows up about everything. You would expect that out of a fire bender more, but he can't even bend. He lacks the knack if you know what I mean. I really wish I lit his hair on fire, that would have been great, but then he probably would have thrown me through a wall and I still would have gotten in trouble. That's how it always works on ships like these, the higher ups don't care about the problem and just blame the lowest ranking soldier involved," Zuko, who had been glaring the whole time Chen spoke, furrowed his eyebrows at that statement, but he didn't interrupt.
"They don't even bother looking into it, it would interrupt their lunch meetings and admiral parties even though that is what their job is. That's why I want to become a Lieutenant of my own ship, a small ship, but one that is mine. It will be the best ship in the Fire Nation, I will make sure to look into every problem and sort it out. Everything will run smoothly and I will actually acknowledge my crew instead of treating them like garbage. I won't treat them like they are expendable. What about you, what would you do?"
Zuko didn't even mean to respond, but the easy nature of the other man had the words flowing out of him before he could stop himself, "on my last ship my commander wasn't like that. He was rude and arrogant, but he actually did care. He would make it sound like he didn't when he spoke, or more of yelled, but his actions proved differently. One day we were stuck in a horrible storm out at sea and a helmsman who had been climbing the ladder of the main tower had lost his grip and was dangling by one hand. Most everyone expected the commander to do nothing even though he was closest, but he was faster than everyone else. He actually saved the helmsman, then the crew started to treat him different. In a good way, didn't whisper mean things about him behind his back anymore, they were nicer."
Zuko wanted to face palm at how long his monologue was, and in the third person just made it worse. Luckily Chen didn't find anything out of the ordinary about his story, "man, that is a one of a kind ship right there. I've heard stories from ships all over the fleet and that sure is a rarity. Not the screaming commander part, but a commander willing to save a crew member."
There was a silence as they both just laid on their bunks thinking. After a few minutes Chen spoke again, "whose ship did you say you were on again? Eastern or Western fleet?"
"Neither, we went all over the place looking for stuff. I don't really know exactly what we were looking for but the commander was obsessed. Our Lieutenant's name was Jee."
"I've heard of your ship, you guys just joined the armada heading North yesterday. You're commander was Prince Zuko right? You must have some crazy stories from that kid. He certainly is determined from what I've heard," Chen rambled.
"Yeah," the aforementioned prince muttered, closing his eyes and ending the conversation. In the silence that followed he dozed off into sleep even though it was only midday. He knew he would have better luck in his search for a way off this ship when they reached the North pole if he went out at night when there were less people to interfere.
~...~
Zuko woke with a start, even though nothing had triggered him to wake. It was black in the metal room aside from the warm glow from the torches lining the hallways. There was the soft noise of the other sleeping men breathing. He was actually quite surprised that these commoner soldiers weren't snoring like savages. He slipped down from his bunk and landed, feather light, on the cold metal floor. Dawning his cloak, he lifted the hood over his head and slipped out of the door. He scoured the metal maze of corridors until he reached the weapons and transportation bay. This is where the small steamboats and the extra catapult parts where stored. He slunk around the edges of the giant room, searching until he found what he was looking for. A small cold weather canoe, used for stealth operations, it was half covered in a tarp.
He pulled it into a small cove in the wall, covering it and the oar completely in the dark tarp. This would be he way out of the ship and on his way to capture the Avatar. Once he was satisfied with his work he turned to go back to his room. He saw a figure walking through the center of the dim hangar. They didn't seem to be walking in any particular direction, but this forced him to stay in the shadows as he tried to edge out of the hangar.
He stopped in his tracks as the figure let out a growl-like noise, a snore. The person had stopped moving and was just standing there, head slumped. Zuko rolled his eyes as he realized that it was a sleepwalking soldier. Agitated, he stalked over to the person, because obviously he didn't want to be responsible if the idiot walked over the edge and fell into the freezing water.
As the prince approached he made sure that his hood was up, scar covered by the shadows it provided. Shaking the sleeping soldier, she muttered sleepily but opened her eyes. When that wasn't quite fast enough for the hot headed prince he whisper-shouted, "hey, wake up! You're sleepwalking."
"Whaaa….ahhhh," she started to ask but was cut off by a yawn, then as if she was shocked by electricity, she was suddenly wide awake, "MY PROJECT!"
And with that she sprinted back out of the hangar, not even acknowledging the teen in front of her. Zuko, somewhat confused, shrugged his shoulders and left as well. Clearing his head, and to avoid suspicion if anyone saw him, he walked around the top deck. He stopped at the front tip and sensed that the sun would rise soon. His inner fire warmed him, calling for the sun. He waited and watched as the sky melded from inky purple to the first fiery threads of dawn. Then as more and more commotion started he returned to his cabin so no one could question him.
As he returned he saw that the other crew member, who was still a mystery, had already left. Chen was still asleep, Zuko donned his armor and helmet. Just as he was sliding in his face plate, Chen woke up, "Good morning! Hey I never got your name yesterday."
The prince let out a huff, he just said the first name that popped into his head, "Kian."
Chen nodded, "nice to meet you, Kian. You on duty again today? Didn't you just have patrol yesterday?"
"Doesn't everyone patrol everyday?" he feigned confusion.
"Oh yeah you are new, no my friend. We have far more people than needed on this ship because of the invasion. Lets go consult the all knowing one"