It wasn't an easy thing to do, hiding myself from Prince Zuko. Hiding myself from his uncle was near impossible. There were guards and workers all over his ship, each man having his own duties to fulfill for the fire nation's Prince. I, however, was a special case. I was no man, nor did I have an easy task.
At the age of fifteen both of my older brothers were killed for not joining the army, right in front of my mother, father and myself. They were twins, eighteen years of age, perfectly ready to join the fire nation's army. My parents, however, refused to let them go, claiming that they were school-bound to study the art of fire-bending. I was to learn from my father, one of the three greatest benders in my village. Upon refusal, the messengers of the Fire Nation Army gave my brothers two days to rethink their answers. On the third day when they came again, and my brother's answers had not changed, they were killed, and my parents and I mercifully spared, though given the undying memory of the agony on my brothers' faces as they burned to death.
On the fourth day, I decided to cut my hair.
It was a tradition (more or less a law) that a woman should not cut her hair until the age of sixteen, when she was able to live on her own and start a family with a man who her father approved of. I was just barely fifteen, cutting off my long, black, silky hair was positively unheard of; yet unknown to my parents, I sneaked away in the middle of the night, and by firebent light, cropped my hair above my ears and bound my chest down with bandage, using some of the clothes that my brothers had from travels to other villages to pass for a traveling young scholar. I scarred my smooth, feminine cheeks with firebent scars. I created an alias, recited my story time and time again through the night, and left the village, hiding away in the trees until dawn.
When dawn came, I walked back into my village as a complete stranger, following directions to my father's house, where I was greeted by my grief-stricken mother. I remembered I had not bothered to leave a note to her, feeling that the pain of leaving was too hard to explain to someone who would not understand in the first place. My mother led me into the home I was born in but was now a complete alien to, she sat me down and made me tea, telling me that I must be weary from my travels and that I needed to rest. I took the tea gratefully, waiting while she explained that my father would not be awake until much later, and that I could rest in an empty room.
She took me to my brother's room.
Instead of resting, I lay in my brother's bed, soundlessly and without shedding tears, weeping for the loss of my two brothers, and the loss of myself.
I lived, once again, with my parents for the next three years, keeping my hair short and learning under my father's wing as I should have were I a woman. The only regrets that I had was on my birthday, when my mother would cook a special meal all day, and my father would say the most beautiful Fire Nation song called Ma-ey, my namesake. Mae.
No more armies of the fire nation came to our home until I was at the age of eighteen, starting to fill out in womanhood and having to take drastic measures to hide any evidence of this. Men of a different caliber, however, were starting to arrive at our small village. When they arrived in the village they did not have the ease and grace that the imperial guards had. They were brash and bold and looked at us as if we were made out of choice cut meat. We were lined up by age, boys that were too young were shown away, men that were too old faced the same fate. Soon, there were only five of us, each at the ripe age of eighteen.
The men on their mounts cleared away, and down a path that they had cleared walked a round old man, graceful though he was small and heavyset, with long gray hair and a matching beard. I recognized him immediately as General Iroh, Dragon of the West. Beside him walked a much younger man, around my age and the age of the others lined up next to me. This could be none other than the banished Prince Zuko. What these men were doing here, I had no idea.
Prince Zuko spoke to us first, his voice was commanding, the scar on his face danced with the movement of his jaw, creating an undulating motion that I could barely take my eyes away from, only when he drew closer to me, pacing down the line of the five of us, did I manage to look away, into his eyes and not into his scar. "I have come for the recruitment of new men," He called out, looking us all up and down as he passed each and every one of us. "Most of your friends-" he spit the word, "-have been recruited for my father's army, but you five will come with me for a different reason." He stopped pacing in front of the person in the middle: myself. "I have a little mission for each and every one of you."
Without warning a blaze of heat was coming at me, he had bent fire in my direction and the only thing that I could do was either shoot it back or shoot it at one of my childhood friends. On reflex, I shot the flame back toward the attacker, who dodged and kicked out at me, once again sending a rush of flame my way. He had a similar attack style to my father's who I had been training under so far. I matched every one of his moves with one of my own, each of them just a little changed from what I had fought back with my father. When the skirmish was finished, both of us were left panting, sweating, neither of us harmed.
Zuko looked up at me, met me in the eye and said: "What is your name?" Truthfully I had been expecting something more harsh and demanding to come from his mouth, but my answer was still simple.
"Lee." I stated, giving the name of my brother, a good, strong Fire Nation name, no matter how generic it may have been.
"Who is your master, Lee?" Prince Zuko asked, glancing around at the group of older men that had gathered earlier and were staying huddled in an area not far from where I had been fighting the Prince. "Who taught you such a fighting skill?"
"I have trained in many countries, I have no one true trainer." I bowed my head slightly, hoping to save my father from interrogation from Prince Zuko, possibly even a fight, or perhaps, if things went bad, death. "I can barely remember the names of my own mother and father, let alone the names of my teachers."
"Very well." Zuko admitted, frowning at me. "Go pack your things then, you'll be leaving with us shortly, move quickly." He turned away, waving his hand in dismissal.
I saluted before moving as told, practically running to pack the few things that I had that were still mine after I had changed my identity. I packed quickly and before long, left with Prince Zuko and his uncle Iroh.
And that was how I became personal guard for the Dragon of the West.