The tension in the poorly lighted room was palpable,the consequences of her mistakes where displayed in front of her, she had ran out of options, she was cornered. The man had lied to her, he showed no mercy. With a swiftly movement from his hand, she was out.
"Oh come on Pao! That was the fifth time, give me a break!" Liang mei complained almost throwing the Pai Sho board in frustation.
The cook laughed "It's been almost three years already, one would think you already got the hang of it."
Before the girl could complain Litenuant Jee entered the command cabin, where they were playing. "Liang Mei, your time off its over, you need to get back to work." The girl nooded and after smiling politely to her oponent, she walked to the service room to get the cleaning items needed.
Stepping on deck with a bucket filled with water in her hand and a mop in the other, Liang Mei found a very frustrated Prince Zuko walking towards her. "Your Highness..."she bowed her head and stepped out of his way.
Taking care of the deck was simple, most of the time she would earthbend away the dirt that covered it just before they left the harbours and throw it into the water, other times she would just mopped the salty water from the ocean, but now was one of those times that she had to sweep, mop and scrub because everything was covered in ash and there were several recent burn marks dispersed all over deck. She sighed defeated and got to work.
As time passed the girl found herself lost in her trail of thought cursing the day Jee had decided that to train zuko with several practice dummies. "Actually," she thought to herself "I blame this stupid prince's fixtation with capturing the Avatar, and the Avatar himself for not letting Zuko catch him." She swept the ash and small pieces of wood, piling them up in a corner near the door that conected deck with the control tower. "Ever since that kid showed up he started training twice as hard," She swept the trails more and more forcibly "cleaning this twice a week was hard enough, now I have to do it every day, sometimes more than once." As she was finishing the sweeping and she start to get the mop ready the heavy metal door flung open, making the dirt and ash pile scatter all over the recently clean deck. The girl let out a low growl.
"Speak of the Devil and the Devil shall apear" Thought the girl. There, standing under the door frame was Zuko himself, as usually, a frown crossed his face. Coincidentally, some men were loading the last supplies to the ship thus the Prince walked up to them "Where is my Uncle?" he asked them in a rude manner. The men looked at each other before shaking their heads to the teenager and resuming their work.
"He went out a couple of hours ago, while you were still training" Liang Mei informed while she started to sweep all over again.
Zuko turned to her as if he had just noticed her presence "And where did he go?" He spitted the words walking up to her. "He mentioned something about hot springs" She answered, never looking up from her job.
Zuko was starting to get annoyed with her attitude towards him, how dare this girl, a peasant, a servant, to talk to him like that, not even looking at him.
"You are expected to look at your superiors when they address to you." He expressed bitterly. She stopped working and look up to him.
"Here on this ship, your title doesn't give you the right to order me since I'm a crew member, hence, I'm under Captain Jee's command, and he commanded me to clean up your mess." She pointed at the floor "which by the way I was doing greatly before you stormed in and decided to mess it all up!" Just then Zuko took a moment to look at his surroundings, noticing at the mess he had made.
Before he could answer, Captain Jee, who had heard the commotion, interrupted them. "Prince Zuko, we are ready to set sail. Should we send someone to fetch General Iroh?" Liang Mei resumed to her work quickly.
Zuko just sighed in frustration "No, leave it, I'll go find him by myself..." He turned to get off the ship but quickly realized that he didn't know where this hot springs where. "Do you, by any chance know where are the hot springs near this area?" Jee looked confused but shook his head. Zuko start to walking again but was stopped. "Wait, Prince Zuko!" It was Jee again "I know who could help," He turned to the girl, who was trying to focus on her job pretending she wasnt hearing their conversation. "Liang Mei, come here," She cursed under her breath and walk up to them. "you are dismissed from your duties until Prince Zuko finds General Iroh, go with him" Noticing that she was about to complain he added "that's an order."
Zuko, who wasn't happy with the captain's decition, tried to talk his way out of getting companionship. "I don't need a servant's help, I can find my uncle on my own!"
"I know you're perfectly capable, Prince Zuko, but people from the earth kindom will be more keen to help if you aproach with someone who looks more familiar"
Zuko grunted, but took a moment to consider his options, and after gazing at the girl for a moment, he answered "Well, fine! But I still believe she will not help at all" And with that said, started walking away, Liang Mei following behind.
After a couple of minutes of walking down the harbor, Zuko decided to stop and ask for directions to a woman who was selling some vegetables. He cleared his throat and walked up to her "You!" He pointed, the woman jumped on her sit behind the counter. "eh .." He stopped to compose himself, he did not expect her to react that way "Have you ... do you know where are ..." But the stuttering Prince was interrupted by a sloppy looking child that jumped infront of him armed with a wooden sword.
"Get away from my mom, you nasty fire nation soldier! You'll never take our fruits and vegetables!" The mother changed her frightend look to a terrified one.
"Jian no!" The mother spoke, fear on her voice. "I'm so sorry ... He's just a child, here," she motioned to the vegetables "take whatever you please, but dont take my child ..." Noticing things were getting out of hand, Liang Mei decided to step in.
"Ma'am, we are not going to take the child ... or your vegetables," she said with a soft tone. "Please forgive my friend's rude mannerism ... he is not that good with people" Zuko gave her an annoyed glare, that she dismissed with a handwave "We would like to know where are the hot springs"
The woman took at the teen, who despite wearing fire nation clothing, had the eyes and skin tone of an earth nation citizen. Then, looking more calm, sat again and pointed at her right. "Walk down the harbor then to the right, and then follow the path until you reach bamboo wall, cross it and you'll find them." Liang Mei flashed a smile to her and before bowing goodbye, reached into her pocket to grab some copper pieces to lend the boy.
"... Thanks ..." Muttered Zuko to the woman before following Liang Mei.
They had been walking down the path for a few minutes now. The silence between them was not ummcomfortable since both of them where thinking in each other's actions. She could not believed how he had aproached to that woman, did not he know people were terrified of the fire nation? "Wow," she thought "Considering his father wants to rule the world, he does not know anything about his soon-to-be-let's-hope-not-people ... Though, in his defense, we were mostly out of touch with the war ... Most of the time was spent traveling to remote locations in search for the avatar, it's just now that we'd found him that we go from port to port, and even then he does not get off the ship that much ... "She was so lost in her thoughts that she did not hear what Zuko asked him. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I asked why did you give her that money" He exclaimed exasperated. "We did not take any vegetables and she only gave us directions"
"Well ... It's a custom." She answered "I was trying to be polite, they looked like they needed it ... And you did frighten her, I bet she won't let her son be away from her side for another twenty years." She chuckled.
Zuko did not know how to answer so he just muttered "Ah ... Nice ..."
After some awkward silence, they saw the bamboo wall at the distance. "There!" The prince said trying to get away from the situation, he hastened his step, crossing the wall first.
When Liang Mei finally reached the hot springs, she found a very relaxed Iroh, heating the water.
"Enough! We need to leave now. Get out of the water!" She walked up to the annoyed Prince Zuko and Iroh.
"Very well!" The old man says getting up, exposing himself.
"Whoa" Exclaims the girl covering her eyes.
"On second thought, why do not you take another few minutes? But be back at the ship in a half-hour or I'm leaving without you!" Saying that Zuko and the girl leave the old man to relax, and hopefully put on some clothing.
After more unwelcome silence during the walk back and once the ship, Liang Mei started to laugh uncontrollable.
"What are you laughing about?" Snapped Zuko, who was still red faced from what happend.
Between laughs, the girl manages to say "We ... we almost ... we almost saw General Iroh ... your uncle, naked" she burst out laughing.
I'll try to write the second part this week, Im uploading in two parts so you dont think that i abandoned it.
I had to write this chapter from zero because I noticed that chapter one it starts right in season two, and it didn't made much sense. So yeah. Hope you enjoy.
I fixed that 'completed'/'in progress' business that some of you weren't fond of.
