To Honour the moment
There it is. At last, I managed to translate that thing. I would like to promise you that my next updates will come sooner, but I'm not that far into the French version, and I'm really slow at writing and translating. Thank you for your reviews. Special thanks to Avocadolove, who kindly accepted to be my beta-reader in spite of all her other works. I don't know what I would have done without her.
Just like the series, this fanfiction will be separated in three books, whose names I slightly twisted. Have a good reading!
First Book : The Cold
Chapter 1: May the cold wear you away
The sea is freezing, yet he keeps sailing…
To the bottom of his soul…On this pretty long road…
He is heading north…and has no crew…
The spectral voice kept reverberating within the silence of his mind; cold and painful against his cabin's ice-cold walls. It was dark.
Still trembling, Zuko straightened up on the cold brown mattress he had been using as a bed for nearly three years. His numb legs had instinctively tucked up against his body. The thin blanket had slipped down to his waist. The motionless air was eating into his exposed flesh to his very bones. So cold. He grasped his knees, and slowly let his fire-ravaged face drop into the crook of his arms.
Less out of tiredness, perhaps, than to shelter the hideous scar from the outside world.
The darkness was so deep he couldn't see his own hands. However he could make out every object laboriously furnishing the small room, with a spiteful accuracy. Those blood red tapestries scoffingly displaying his homeland's emblem (the scar was distorting his face like a huge target, he wouldn't see anything…) The four extinguished candles those never-ending failures in the other side of the room. And the Dao swords, crossed against the wall on his right, motionless in the dark. Cursed secrets.
The floor was slowly rocking to the rhythm of the waves. Trapped inside the ship's entrails, inside the great ribcage whose metal ribs were as sharp as frost. Just for a minute, he would have liked to keep reality at bay. The nightmare's horror had faded; he didn't understand any more why he had so desperately wished his eyes open. All that was left of his dream was the vague reminiscence of a golden light, a fragrant dawn whose warmth he couldn't forget completely.
A feeling of security, of comfort. Of guilty frustration. Of unbearable helplessness weighing like a stone in the pit of his stomach and overtightening his throat. Suffocating, the grief's gnawing hatred. He shivered a little, curling himself up without thinking about putting the thin blanket back over his shoulders.
He was at sea.
Banished as far as the South Pole's ice fields, roaming around like a ghost lost in the fog. Prostrated in the dark, inside this little metal box that couldn't even keep the rigours of winter at bay. Still at sea, hunting down that chimerical foe, the Avatar, the sarcastic shadow vanished long ago; letting his strengths slowly waste away, his heart die as he sank into this quest…(this absurd quest)… And for the second time he was repeating the same journey, like a fool, in the stupid hope that his searching would be less vain than last year.
Shameful and desperate, sickened, too far away from home for far too long. Agni, it is so very cold…
His blood wouldn't circulate all the way to his feet. Crushed to the bone, he would have felt them better. The cold was eating into his ankles already, clinging on to his back, creeping without haste into the nape of his neck. Grimacing in protest, the young man instinctively huddled up tighter in the dark, muscles tensed, but snow was gradually overstepping the barrier of his body and settling on his mind, heavy, haunting. Wake up, damn it.
Drawing some energy from his frustration, Zuko guided his body heat towards his limbs. Burn the frost. Several times he inspired the dead air, deeply, letting his inner fire consume the oxygen and rekindle between his ribs. A wisp of steam flew out of his nostrils, and he felt the warm ash fingers gently brush his skin. A few sparkles ran over his torso and slid on his temples, tiny glimmers already lost in the dark. From the depths of his lungs a forge breath was rising in waves. At first all the teenager could think of was withdrawing to this new body heat and ignoring all the rest.
But he was awake now. And alone. And it was getting annoying to stay still. What time was it? He couldn't hear anything from outside. Perhaps it wasn't even daylight yet… His eyes were gradually accustoming to the dark. In spite of himself, he lifted his head. He couldn't ignore his surroundings any more. The square outlines of the few pieces of furniture cluttering up that little square room whose damn angles wore his nerves a bit more down every passing day. Once again, the cold was eating into his face's exposed skin; flesh attacked by the crawling frost. I hate that filthy land! So he jumped on his feet to defy it all, doing one firebending set after another in sudden animosity.
Not caring any longer about the probably ungodly hour, nor about what his uncle was going to say upon realizing he practically hadn't slept at all, this night either.
He wasn't tired, anyway.
Small flames were sliding between his fingers, drawing again his moves in the dark, his arms and feet stretching out as the sequence of movements grew more and more fluid and precise. The cabin was flickering sporadically, on and off. He hated that cabin. It wasn't home; it would never be home. His fists were slicing faster through the air, and it was the hideous frozen setting, three full years of his existence he was trying to reduce to ashes. The hatred was burning like rotten wood. All of a sudden his body caught fire, briefly revealing an angry move.
For a mere second, the scarlet motion blazing against the ivory white of his own skin. Then the exiled prince went on silently with his wild dance, teeth clenched, engulfed in the dark until his next offensive.
The fire was reviving his body, flowing into his veins, purging him from his frustrations, driving away the feverishness his nightmare had led him into. It persisted in his breath when Zuko finished his training, setting the dead air ablaze as he adjusted his armour. His mind was sharper. A hot rage was already heating up his blood.
At first, it was directed at himself. It had really been stupid of him to dream about his homeland like that. And pointless. What had he been thinking? He asked himself, now that he had managed to push aside his scarlet room's image, bathed in sunlight. Forbidden memory, so vivid a few minutes ago. So painful…stop it, you idiot. It would get him nowhere to stay here, prostrated, turning over memories and shivering like an old man. As for the Avatar, he really didn't need to doubt his existence: the crew was taking care of that for him already. Their zeal for once completely impeccable. So at least not to have to agree with the lieutenant Jee, his enemy was going to exist, he would be persuaded of it as long as necessary. All those fools and their wise advices could get lost for all he cared!
He left his cabin. That tin box was already driving him crazy. The air inside was as cold and rigid as a grave's. His steps were echoing vehemently in the metal corridors, all of them empty, all of them silent. It really had to be early. The young exiled prince was finding his way in the dark with assurance, accustomed to it by now, and he was approaching the fore deck without taking notice.
He had been ordered to hunt the Avatar down, and darn it, those wearing that unbearable smirk, as if they were the only ones knowing he would have been hardly more led on if they had sent him to track down the abominable snowman (what if…) Neither Zhao nor Azula nor anyone would be able to say he hadn't tried his hardest to obey, (…it was to go on that way…) to the point of exhaustion (…forever…)
Salt crystals shattered the course of his reflections. The door had been opened, and the ice-cold wind outside, whistling a high pitched moaning in the dark, was whipping his face as if to scratch his flesh out. Biting frost. Breathing had become painful. He had to make himself step across the doorway.
Of course the night was black as ink.
Ignoring the arctic cold scorching his lips, Zuko kept moving forward on the deserted deck. The sound of his boots against the unstable ground was covered by the ocean's constant roar, muffled in the frozen air. Strange land, where the silence screamed. Strips of whispering fog were ripping in his wake; the teenager reached the ship's prow as if surrounded by ghosts. Rocking slowly, the black horn was extending its metal point towards the horizon, where a thin strip of white light didn't make the sea look brighter yet.
The iron-grey waves were struggling weakly down below. The road was clear, very dark, yet one could make out the ghostly shadows of icebergs from a distance; blinding white in the night. Massive sentries slowly marching past the boat, making it look unpleasantly frail. To Zuko, it was as if those still shapes were radiating their own cold, a huge and bitter cold settling on his neck like the breath of a corpse. There were no stars to be seen.
He had knitted his unburned brow, contracting the liquid gold pupil as if to reproduce for a second the hateful glint of the left eye, distorted by the horrid scar. The cold and cloudy sky, the black sky just like that black ocean, the white icebergs and the dull grey all around them… There never were any colours in this ice desert. Not even at dawn…
Yet the sea air was keeping him awake. The forge breath in his chest was warming up his blood; it was better here than inside. The wind, reckless and damp, was biting the scar on his eye: the cold expression, somewhat cruel, seemed to have solidified on his face. Crystallized by salt. What did he care? It had been more painful before. During the first weeks of his exile, he had been incapable of going on the deck, so sharp had been the sea spray's bite against his burned flesh. Two years later he still hated the sea. Sometimes.
And waiting for dawn, alone beside the black horn, rigid, his fists clenched on the guardrail so as to maintain an illusion of warmth, he looked at this huge expanse of water and fog. This hostile surface which, very far away, warm and shining, was crashing against his homeland's shores. A hint of reproach and bitterness in his eyes, picturing the countless war ships splitting the ocean, the waves indifferently crossing the frontier; why wasn't he allowed to come back…
His nails were biting into the flesh of his hands. He hadn't noticed he had become so tense. A wild hatred had seized him by the throat, nauseating: impulsively he punched the air several times, jerking into a fight stance. His lungs caught fire; a torrent of flames came from between his fingers, lighting up his ship's too black deck. Fleeting orange glints twinkled on the water. Some color, at last. A thin, bitter smile was dancing in the prince's golden eyes. His nerves were as tight as ropes. It would see, that awful lifeless land lost in the fog, how you greeted the sunrise.
And thus, his senses heightened by the upcoming daylight, he carried on his struggling against nothingness with a renewed energy.
The boat was pitching under his steps, slow and unconcerned, dragging him under after each blow as if inviting him to destroy the ocean. The sea and the sky were paling; a layer of fog was faintly shining on the horizon. Around him, the deck had become visible again. He hadn't seen the darkness part its claws. It was strange to be free.
His movements were gradually losing their aggressiveness now that the fire in his blood and breath allowed him to ignore the polar cold. Finally purified from the latent snow against his soul and flesh, his training was becoming slower and slower. Meditative.
The scar was pulsing like a living being over his face; the morning light was rushing up to his veins.
Free.
For a short while he forgot his hatred towards this foreign land, too white, too pale; he forgot his hostility towards those sumptuous iceberg shapes in the fog, looking like great frozen ladies. And he walked to the guardrail, gazing at the sun to starboard whose pale form was hardly visible through the mist.
It still was the sun. It still was dawn. And he, Zuko, was still alive, banished and scarred, still alone facing the gaping void dawn was imprinting in the black, forever open sky, and like every morning the young firebender got the same impression that he had just understood, a too brief revelation which sucked his breath before evaporating from his mind, like a dream, leaving him empty and confused in the heart of daylight.
Still giddy, he kept on staring at the horizon. His eyebrows were slightly furrowed as he looked in the landscape for the source of another foreboding. Odd… The wind had died down; the South Pole was limpid and silent like a marble floor. The mist was clearing on the horizon, slowly revealing the never-ending ice desert, as far as his eyes could see, along with the poor pale shivering sun, on his right. Something was definitely wrong. For instance, wasn't it a little bit strange that they weren't heading towards the…
Zuko grit his teeth, the vague suspicion in his eyes turning instantly into anger.
The sun was on the starboard side.
Theoretically, if they intended to do their job with a minimum efficiency, the sailors were supposed to be able to locate the cardinal points by looking at the stars or sun's position.
Therefore, even taking into account the not inconsiderable thickness of their skull, the handful of incompetent fools acting as his crew should, according to the most elementary logic, be aware that when travelling eastwards, the sun ought to be facing them and not on the starboard side!
"What the heck are those idiots doing?" he exclaimed as he gave the guardrail a violent kick. "Are you crazy? We're heading north, there are icebergs over there!"
The sound of his boot striking the iron resonated a long time on the empty deck. Layers of fog were fraying around his legs, as if to drag him along before vanishing. For the moment, Zuko only felt anger. It was daylight. What were they up to? He rushed towards the superstructure as loudly as he could: there was no reason he should be the only one getting landed with the devil of a headache from the morning! Steam was coming from his nostrils and immediately vanishing in the frozen air, among the sky's indifferent greyness. The lookout wasn't at his post. Another one to yell at. The door of the control room slammed savagely against the wall.
Inside the cabin, the cold seemed to have crystallized as one coating of ice. It was bathed in a white muted light, similar to the hazy landscape distorting behind the portholes. Maybe it was this numbing cold, the feeling to have entered a mortuary, that froze him to the spot at first. Empty. No movement except for the ghostly dance of his own exhalations, hardly stirring the dead atmosphere. Nothing but the navigation tools, almost weld together by frost.
There was no sound to be heard, except for the rudder's slight grating every time it lazily oscillated, right or left, obviously enjoying its independence.
Brought out of his torpor, the young prince grabbed the wheel to keep it still. There was a hoarse wail, the handle shook slightly between his fingers, and then everything was silent. The frozen metal almost stuck to his skin: it had been a while since anyone had touched it. Exasperated, Zuko glared at the compass unused since the day before, the map in the middle of the room where they hadn't reproduced the distance covered during the night. Tiny flames went out of his clenched teeth.
"Is everyone sleeping or something?" He was still screaming, struggling with the rudder. "We're drifting, bunch of fools, hurry up and get back to your posts! Where is lieutenant Jee?"
He would never exactly know how much time he spent vociferating like this, creating strangely hollow echoes against the metal walls. His calls were weak among the ocean's constant roar outside, and he received no response. Muttering swears, he resigned himself to releasing the rudder and raced towards the cabins, letting the irregular grating fill the room's emptiness (I'm tilting to the right…) and purchase him all the way to the corridors with its grotesque sniggering. (I'm tilting to the left… There's no one in any more…)
Dead.
If his uncle had yet again organized a music night and they were all out of it in their cabins, sleeping off that disgusting, almost pure alcohol which had been moulding for a year and a half at the back of a storeroom, they were all dead!
The young prince was now foaming flames. The clatter of his boots was deafening inside the empty corridors; the fire's hissing all around his face. He hadn't stopped screaming: You think we have time to drift in this hell? Maybe you wanted to take a closer look at the icebergs? The first to appear is getting thrown overboard! All those angry sounds almost succeeded in drowning out the sardonic lapping of the frozen sea surrounding his ship.
Carried away by his blind rage, Zuko didn't tire out remembering the way that led him to the lieutenant's cabin, nor checking whether he was still asleep. Anyway, given the racket the young man had been conscientiously making in his path for nearly a quarter of an hour, if Lieutenant Jee wasn't already awake, it meant he had gone into a coma and would stay that way until midday at least.
And since Lieutenant Jee was a sober individual, the most likely explanation was that he was being completely led on. With that thought, Zuko broke the door open.
It hadn't been locked; his momentum nearly threw him on the floor. A tongue of flames licked the ceiling with a sort of growl; the fire scent accompanying his anger. The prince had just found his balance again, had already screamed his subordinate's name along with the first insult that went through his head, when his voice died away in his throat.
And suddenly there was nothing.
No clatter of boots against the metal floor, no screams, no growling of his home element, not even the sea's gloomy voice. Nothing to fill the silence which, since his waking, had been weighing over the ship like a giant corpse. He felt his fingers grasp the door frame, the rough edges imprinting on his flesh.
The cabin was empty.
The blanket had been thrown randomly on the brown mattress. There was an open chest in a corner: a crumpled shirt was letting a sleeve hang inches above the ground. The veteran's armour was lying not far away. It was pretty messy, for such a bare room. He had never cared about the way lieutenant Jee dealt with his quarters, but still…he had always seemed meticulous to him. A little too meticulous, perhaps. He didn't forget the unpleasant feeling, sometimes, of that man watching him with a muted disapproval, like some object left in the wrong place, you fool, what business is it of yours…
And where the hell was he?
His heartbeats were reverberating all the way to his clenched fists. His breathing was halting from having run so much. The floor pitched sluggishly to the rhythm of the waves, the cold and unmoving air weighed like a shroud. It was so silent.
What on earth was going on here…
His blood was buzzing against his temples, louder and louder, so much that he thought he could hear the rudder's sardonic grating once again. There is no one in… Shut up!
Convulsively, he slammed the door shut, without precisely knowing why it had to be closed. Maybe in order to trap inside the anxiety lurking behind his consciousness' threshold, and he started running again inside the ship's entrails. His breathing was accelerating; sparks were dancing between his teeth, and their furious heat seemed to unfreeze his voice:
"You think that's clever to play hide-and-seek? If nobody has come to handle the rudder in twenty seconds, we'll get it settled with an Agni Kai!"
The corridors were passing him by in a blur, a never-ending succession of doors, all the same. And as he went past he opened them all angrily, slowing down just long enough to see that there was no one in, yet again. Where…were they? The Fire Nation armour felt heavier against his chest than it had been at dawn, and despite the fire raging between his ribs, little by little, a strange coldness was worming its way inside his bones. He tore down stairs, raced along a low and dark corridor; it is warmer in the engine room. Perhaps… He jumped into the void, ignoring the ladder separating the two levels. He also ignored the pain of his burning legs as they took the impact, kept on running, incessantly screaming, haunted by a multitude of plaintive echoes, the only things bothering to answer.
It was warmer in the engine room alright. Some three-quarters-emptied bottle set on a box beside a tea kettle and the chipped cups even indicated that they had gathered there quite recently. The young prince stayed still for a moment, out of breath, watching the makeshift installation as if he expected to see his men appear from between the planks. Finally he was able to move again, and he stretched out his hand, oddly hesitating before touching the tea kettle's side. The ceramic was cold. It had probably been used the day before.
Just like the navigation tools, in the control room…But they couldn't have all vanished into thin air during the night, damn it!
A low sizzling noise made him lift his head. The furnace was filled with ashes, and Zuko noticed with exasperation that the fire inside, glowing red between the metal fangs without bringing light into the room, was hardly strong enough to keep the ship moving onwards. They didn't even bother taking care of that… He hatefully punched the air once, twice, with an odd feverishness, and then dozen of times, ripping the heat from his arms as if to hold back a scream, until the temperature given off by the machine had become unbearable.
That was at least one job done.
Beads of sweat were running down his temples. His arms fell by his sides. He staggered back a few paces, each of his breaths letting out a hissing noise. As if hypnotised, he didn't take his eyes off the fuming mouth, off the embers kindling a nefarious glow in the dark. A vague nauseous feeling was eating into his stomach. His legs were trembling under the weigh of his own body.
Lieutenant Jee, the lookout, the cartographer, the machinists…
Where could they be?
…And could it mean that…
A spasm, and he was moving again, running back up the ship's levels as fast as he could, as if in order to escape his own thoughts. The clatter of his boots was deafening among the metal. His armour was too tight round his chest; he was suffocating. There was one cabin, just one he hadn't opened in his wake. Out of respect, perhaps. Or out of some ridiculous superstition. Breathing erratically, he stopped in the middle of a corridor.
The square door, squat and without ornament, wasn't any different from the previous ones. The teenager put a pale hand over the iron partition. Cold. Just like everything here. There was no sound to be heard: even the ocean had stopped whispering around the ship. For a moment, he considered knocking. Yet all he was able to do was lick his chapped lips, painfully: the taste of salt and metal burned his throat and stomach like an acid. With the palm of his hand, he pushed the door open.
-…Uncle?
His voice was hoarse from having screamed too long. Through the darkness engulfing the cabin, he could vaguely make out a crouched form on the bed, unmoving. For a horrible moment Zuko strived to believe that it was his firebending master, still asleep, but safe, this indolent old man who since almost three years was all the family he had left.
However a mocking flame had just bloomed in his open palm, almost without his knowing, and brought light to the empty blanket, chaotically rolled up in the mattress' corner. Everything else was fine. Warm shadows were stretching on the crimson tapestries, moving like his candlelight. Some of Iroh's awful smell even lingered inside the room; that smell the young prince had never had the guts to complain about out loud. But still, it couldn't be normal that the feet of Ozai's brother, the feet of the Firelord's brother, stunk more than any peasant's stable, could it?
Outside, the ship was making headway among the icebergs, to the north. Without any crew to navigate it. Zuko couldn't breathe any more; something was squashing his chest, crushing his lungs. His hands had slowly started moving, loosening the buckles keeping his armour in place. It hit the floor with a clear sound, heavy with echoes, like a giant shell. The young prince had let himself slid down the wall, overcome by vertigo. That sick feeling lingered in the pit of his stomach. The metal was cold against his back and the nape of his neck. His eyes kept searching the small room, stupidly.
There was nothing. Nothing at all. The flame had died between his half-parted fingers; the cabin was once again plunged in darkness. Steam formed with each one of his exhalations, almost translucent; the vault-like cold was slowly crawling up to his spine. His fingers were trembling, he felt queasy, he didn't understand anything. Agni, where were they all?
…Where was his uncle?
Several levels below, the fuming furnace was making the whole ship drone; yet thesubdued vibration against his arms and legs only succeeded in emphasizing the awful silence beating down on his shoulders; dreadful and crushing silence reverberating in several tons of empty metal…
There's no one in…
The rudder!
Zuko clenched his fists, fire flickering at the pit of his nails. The ship was still drifting! They were going to crash into an iceberg! He feverishly searched the cabin. Those fools couldn't stay hidden, not in such a situation. However all the room was showing him were frozen shadows, and his uncle's foul scent. His heart was pounding wildly against his temples, exploding up to his phalanx. Sick.
What the hell were they all up to?
This last question kept coming back to torment him, simmering at the back of his mind, quiet, painfully sardonic, not unlike a threat. The firebender conceived a genuine hatred for it; he jerked on his feet and punched blindly the ice-cold wall which had supported him, screaming as loud as his scratched voice would allow him:
"What's come over you to disappear, bunch of fools? You think we have time for this? Someone has to handle that damn rudder!"
But in the empty cabin, Iroh didn't answer; the penetrating silence sounded like a lecture. As if his uncle had been able to watch him taking it out on the harmless wall, arms crossed a few feet away from him, the disapproval on his serious face mingled with a slight amusement he could never totally part from his kind features, it seemed.
Sometimes, during training, when Zuko found another reason to complain, Iroh could stay still in that way for hours. Letting his nephew's anger subside from itself, like a spatter of lava, until there was nothing left before him but the essentials.
"You already know what you have to do, don't you?"
His fist had come to a halt against the metal, trembling a little, clenched so tightly that his fingernails threatened to cut into the flesh of his palm. He breathed in and out, several times. Let the simple sentence slowly fill his mind, until his heartbeats ceased to shake his whole body, until the shivers running down his limbs and the suffocating pain in his stomach died down. Until the fear (for it was well and truly fear) loosened at last the hold it had over his senses.
The words were resonating softly between his ribs. Iroh's voice was gradually becoming recognizable. It even felt like he actually could sense the old man's presence by his side, his smile lit up by a triumphant yet serene expression. So when the young prince turned around at last, he was almost surprised to find nothing but a cold empty room, plunged in darkness.
The muscles of his arms tensed up. Why… but this time Zuko didn't take his rage out on his surroundings, and he didn't call upon his fire but to relight the corridors' torches as he quickly went up the ship's levels, ignoring the little glowing eyes following him like as many nocturnal creatures.
He had always followed his uncle's advices better when he wasn't there, anyway…
His cabin's door was still half-open. Zuko stopped inside just long enough to search one of his chests, pulling from under a clothes pile several ropes, as thin and sturdy as adders, along with some hooks of different sizes; pushing away with a feverish impatience the other objects more or less licit that were hiding there.
If he really was to correct this giant skeleton's trajectory all by himself, he couldn't spend the whole day glued to the rudder.
The hooks were clinking against his waist, punctuating his step with a monotonous rhythm. The torch kept lighting themselves before him, unveiling a long succession of desert corridors. He was trying hard not to think. There were other things to do than think. He had to calculate the new trajectory and reproduce on the map the distance covered during the drift: the last thing he needed was getting lost in the middle of the polar ocean. Watch around in search of a ship, send out a distress signal. Inspect the machinery to make sure nothing had frozen since the day before… Then what?
The control room, bathed in a sickly, bluish light, was colder than ever. The rudder seemed to be taunting him with its tinny grating: Zuko's first impulse was to rush at it and tie it to shut it up. This time again, his uncle's voice stopped his gesture; calm and reasonable, unbearably reasonable, yet he let it express itself at the back of his mind.
He couldn't take the risk of getting lost. He had to reproduce the route on the map first. And before that, to calculate where exactly they were heading. The hooks hit the ground with an exasperated clinking.
That was the cartographer's job…
He grabbed the compass, half-frozen on an instrument panel. The metal was so cold it scratched his skin, so he pinned it spitefully before him. A whole quarter of an hour to remember how they used that thing (fifteen degrees northwards. Or was it seventeen?); fifteen more minutes to draw the distance covered on the map (they had gotten closer to the land; didn't they risk colliding with submerged icebergs without even noticing?), clinging all this time to the imaginary voice of his uncle. It was the only thing that was still keeping him from cracking up completely and reducing the whole cabin to ashes.
Then, seize the rudder and push it away with all his might, as if driven by a personal grievance. That kind of fierce satisfaction at hearing the ship's terrific moan as it cleaved through the ocean to face the sun, the shower of foam lashing against the portholes, the jolt that almost threw him against a wall. With a sour smile, he wound the rope a twentieth time round the wheel and handles, strengthening his work with hooks he wedged among the knots. Acting, at least; being able to put an end to this awful grating, scoffing at his helplessness… His hands were moving relentlessly, frantic yet precise, as if in a trance.
…Where had they all gone? He gritted his teeth. Watch around for a ship, send out a distress signal. There were other things to do than thinking.
…They couldn't have just vanished… Don't think, you idiot!
The rudder was only moving in small jerks now, barely shaking the net of ropes. That would do for the moment. Zuko broke off just long enough to blow on his numb fingers, letting the tiny flames between his lips revive his knuckles.
Then he started running once again.
His echoing steps were resounding in all the empty boat. Gloomy and violent. Too insistent in the huge, attentive silence. For an absurd second, the young prince seriously considered taking off his boots. Stupid, really. Did he think it clever, in the situation he was in, to pace barefoot a ship travelling across the South Pole in the depths of winter? His running was leading him almost mechanically to the room the telescope was stored in (perhaps one of the things he had used the most in three years, that damn metal tube which never showed him anything). He was dragging it outside, as fast as he could, but the thoughts, the doubts and tortuous questionings kept appearing and vanishing at the back of his mind. Even his uncle's calm voice couldn't completely dismiss them.
All the cabins had been in an unusual mess. But they couldn't have fought there, not without him hearing them. It was another kind of mess.
Hurry.
Don't think, I tell you!
His fingers were shaking now, and he nearly destroyed the device while adjusting it to the south. A pale sun had risen above the horizon. The sky was the colour of ice. The sea was as still as a mirror, as far as he could see, only disturbed by a few icebergs outlines, far away. He slowly lowered his face to the telescope's mask. His eyes were tightly shut.
He hadn't checked whether the smaller, easier to manoeuvre motor boats they used for emergency withdrawals were all still in the holds… STOP THAT!
Suddenly angry, he made himself part his eyelids and feverishly search the strips of fog undulating above the waves. To the south. Then to the west. Then to the east and to the north, where he could make out the land among huge ice blocks. His hands were convulsively clenched on the device. Nothing but snow and water…
He had gone to sleep around midnight. Had been up way before sunrise.
If they had intended to…leave the ship during his sleep…if they had intended to flee…Their boat should have still been visible, shouldn't it?
He was cold again. This was absurd. This wasn't possible. And yet, there hadn't been any attack… The ship was vibrating dully under his boots, sardonic, as if reminding him that several yards underneath there still were dark rooms bore in iron. Empty, ice-cold, similar to the multiple compartments of a gigantic mortuary. The holds…
In his haste, he nearly forgot to send out the distress signal. The red rocket cut through the sky, like a giant star; but who could see it from such a distance?
Once again, he was tearing down the stairs. His stomach was churning with anxiety, making him feel giddy. Sick. A cold sweat drenched his forehead and the back of his neck; shivers were running down his spine. He would have liked to remember his uncle's words once again, to know what to do, but he was now afraid of hearing him. Like the mouth of a nightmare, the corridors were swallowing and throwing him down, down to the bottom of the ship.
He wasn't sure he wanted to be there. Agni, he wasn't sure of anything, any more. He stopped, and the exhaustion crashed on him like a wave, darkening his eyesight. For a few seconds he stayed disorientated in the dark, lost among the beatings of blood against his temples.
He almost forgot he was about to verify whether his men and his uncle had abandoned him in the midst of the polar ocean…
A little flame was quivering in the crook of his palm. Very slowly, he looked round the holds, inspecting every room; six boats stored there, none of them missing. They hadn't been used for several days.
It was particularly cold, inside those rooms. And dark. Only the hull separated him from the freezing, moving ocean; the irregular rocking of the waves was beginning to make him feel seasick.
No attack. No flight. No other ships around. The young prince was peering into the dark corners, exasperated. The absurdity of the whole thing was getting on his nerves. Yet the silence's pressure was weighing like a vice against his temples: he couldn't scream.
Where did those darn idiots manage to get lost? At the bottom of the ocean?
This was a stupid hypothesis, of course, not worth taking into account. Zuko spent the rest of the day chaotically searching the whole ship, inspecting even some tiny disused rooms, stuck at the far bottom of the holds, whose existence he had never suspected in three years. He must have been really keyed up, for ice-cold shivers were still running down his spine, making his teeth chatter, intensifying every time that same absurd idea crossed his mind, at the bottom of the ocean… So he was trying his hardest not to think at all.
Many hours had passed in that way when, as he opened yet another door, he was greeted by a chorus of raucous roaring. The komodo rhinos, whipping their tail moodily against the wall, were waging their heavy horned heads in front of the empty mangers and loudly moaning about him.
Zuko immediately made it his duty to bellow louder than them all, listing all the insults that came into his head, for as long as he could, even trying out a few flowery swears he had heard in some ports and whose meaning he wasn't really sure of. Screaming loud enough to chafe his vocal cords that he was not some darn farmhand, that it was the last of his concerns to know whether a bunch of moronic creatures would die of thirst or starve, and that for all he cared, they could as well imitate the other traitors and throw themselves overboard the next night!
When the door shut at last with a fierce slam, there was nothing to be heard inside but the conscientious sound of chewing, as the rhinos tore big cuts of meat to pieces. Steam was coming out from between the young prince's lips with every breath; he couldn't quite suppress an imperceptible smile.
Too relieved to know he wasn't the only living being trapped in this ice-cold prison drifting in the middle of the seas.
But the night was falling outside. The trajectory… Once again, he had to struggle against the compass which, impervious to his fits of rage, never seemed to indicate quite the expected direction. He had to make three attempts before he could draw the correct distance. Fists clenching on the table's edge, he glared at the little black line which had just wormed its way between two branches of land. They were too close to the coasts.
The faint grating of the rudder sounded like an unbearable roar of laughter. They had to move over to south-east.
So he made himself move again, untie the ropes, battle the frozen metal sticking to his pale hands, endeavouring not to communicate too abrupt movements to the rudder, for fear of throwing the whole ship against an iceberg.
Then Zuko went outside to check the land's proximity, a bit slower: his boots had become strangely heavy. The moon brought a dismal light on the deck; salty sea spray was crystallizing on his skin. The ship was creaking; the never-ending ocean, as black as ink, still calm, revealed a thin ribbon of snow on the horizon. There were no clouds left above him, nothing to keep what little warmth might have accumulated during the day. It seemed to the young firebender that his strengths themselves were coming out of his body to go up to the cold, bright stars, so numerous in the depths of darkness…
Overcome by vertigo, he had to grasp the guardrail in order to hold himself up. His legs were shaking; his throat was burning, clammy, as if he was going to throw up overboard any minute. Breathing deeply the ice-cold air, he spitefully glared at the twisting waves: he had no time to fall sick, darn it! Why on earth was he in such a state?
The thought occurred to him, then, that he hadn't eaten nor slept since dawn, when he had started running all over the ship's levels.
However, before he could ponder over it, he remembered that he should have inspected the machinery and searched for frost marks hours ago already. He immediately rushed inside, fire licking his fingers to revive his numb muscles.
He wasn't hungry anyway; nor tired.
He wasn't hungry either the next day at dawn, when he had finally made sure that all the machines were operational, exasperated by the never-ending length of piping that had passed before his eyes during the night. His stomach was in too tight of knots to eat anything. And he had to take care of the trajectory once again; had to note that, despite all his efforts, the boat was inexorably getting closer to the land, and that if he didn't hurry to make the skeleton slow down, he would soon be unable to direct it among the labyrinth that was now formed by the icebergs. So he must run to the furnace, and on the way rack his brains to remember how the crew usually carried out the decelerations.
Maybe it was better that way, after all: he felt lighter on an empty stomach. Quicker to react, even, his movements feverish yet strangely precise, as if fasting had plunged him into some kind of trance.
What's more the vertigo overcoming him every now and then prevented him from having too many unpleasant thoughts.
So he wasn't hungry all the second day long, until the sun set once again behind the ship. The young prince had just fed the komodo rhinos, incapable of yelling at them because his parched throat couldn't produce a single sound any longer; he had had to force himself to drink. He was cold now, terribly cold. And maybe, he was starting to feel a little bit tired.
The ship was still droning around him, taunting him with its tons of empty metal, with those thousands of hollow echoes following each of his steps, with the gruesome mystery surrounding those disappearances, with the oppressing silence gnawing at his nerves. Zuko had hurried along the reddish corridors, and had shut himself away in his cabin.
The only room where it seemed somewhat normal to be alone…
In silence he rekindled all of the torches, until the darkness had been lighted up with orange glints and had lost its distant hostility. Once again he rummaged in his chest, this time ignoring the ropes, the knives, the gloves and the dark clothes populating the bottom like outcasts, and he pulled out the warmest fabric he could find: a scarlet winter cloak trimmed with gold, which undulated around his ankles when he clasped it over his shoulders.
He couldn't rest for long, he decided as he knelt to struggle against his boots. Two, three hours at the most. Then, he would have to keep a check on the surroundings once again, and rectify the trajectory. And everything else…
He couldn't risk letting the boat get lost among the ice floes, after all.
But you won't be able to put yourself under such a pace forever, Prince Zuko, his uncle was calmly retorting, in his reasonable tone. The teenager groaned, pushing away his boots and letting himself drop on the brown mattress.
Shut up, you old fool, he thought as hard as he could, his eyes tightly shut. Considering the situation he was in, slipping into schizophrenia was really the least of his worries. You should have been there to tell me what to do…
The air was cold, as still as a grave, worming its way up to his bones. Shivering, he tucked his legs close to his body and wrapped the cloak around his knees. Sitting in that way, he momentarily forgot all about his dignity as a prince, or the fact that he was supposed to sleep, and he curled himself up inside the silent cabin, like a child trying to escape from a nightmare.
He was already counting the minutes left in his head before he would have to get up yet again, and struggle against a ship lost at sea and against a hundred lugubrious questionings.