Where To Wander
Chapter Two: Lady
Taking a deep breath, Zuko squared his shoulders. He had been standing and waiting outside that door for twenty minutes now and now that he realized it, he felt quite stupid.
This was his ship afterall. He had the right to go into any and every which room he pleased. No crying girl would stop him from doing so.
A frown grace his face as he made up his resolve. He'd show Katara who was the boss around here.
She couldn't just break their daily routine. It was a routine afterall. He had waited in his study room for fifty minutes after his training, slowly incensing.
"Kata—" he began angrily, opening the door, but stopped hesitantly once she caught sight of him.
The door was opened slightly ajar, and once again those morbane feelings came over him; the ones he had been contemplating outside the door for the past twenty minutes, when her eyes landed on his.
The slight mote of resolve which he had summed off dissipated before himself as he saw her sitting ontop of her bed.
Hearing her cry and seeing her were two different things, he realized; the latter was too real for him. The sight left him a bit speechless—mostly because he had no notion why.
So he didn't walk further into the room.
Her eyes looked like they were bleeding from the inside out, rimmed red. Her brown face, tear-stained. The large blue eyes.. looked.. vindicated.
And at seeing him in her doorway, if anything, more tears began to spill out. Her face crumpled up into sadness from surprised once again and she burrowed her head back into her raised knees.
The fear swelled up within him, but then he decided that it was stupid. She was stupid.
And he was in charge here. What he says goes.
"What's your problem?" his forced, yet child-like voice, roughly got out.
If anything, she began to cry even harder now. And it was annoying him. Was it too much to ask to just stick to their normal schedule? Why was she so upset—its not like he had done anything bad recently or messed with her stuff. He was above that; he was a prince, afterall.
To his mite infuriation, she didn't respond. Some part of him told himself that he should be getting angrier right now—ignoring him while in a room that he had given her on his own ship.
(Sure, Iroh had been in charge of room distribution and stuff, but still—the idea of it).
"Gosh Katara, stop being so girly," he finally commanded, his voice rising as he stared at her form sitting ontop of the bed.
At that, the sobbing stopped.
She looked up at him and the sorry face made him feel sad for shouting but after a while, high-pitched voice spoke.
"Please get out Zuko," Katara said in a quiet and sad voice he'd never heard before, before turning away with a shamed look on her face.
Dumbfounded at the idea that Katara was commanding him to do something, the contrived anger on his face dropped along with a lower lip and he stared at her for shamed look for a moment longer.
Having nothing to say, and left speechless, Zuko found himself aquiescing to her quiet and intense request and then gently closed the door in front of him. Back in the hallway and by himself, he frowned furiously and looked down.
Something was wrong.
Hoped to run into Uncle Iroh before reaching his room, Zuko turned three corners and walked down a hallway before reaching a wall with a gold brass door on it.
Knocking crisply on the equally antiquated but heavier door, Zuko forwent the formal processes of arduous rituals and just opened it. In the back of his brash eleven-year-old mind, he knew he wasn't supposed to barge into an elders' room, no matter how royal he was, but this was an urgent matter, the answers to which he needed precisely now.
He found his uncle sitting in front of a low table, working steadly to brew a curiously-smelling elixir of his new volition. His uncle hadn't always been such a tea connosieur, but this recent development had formed somewhere along the way during their journey. Crinkling his nose at the sudden onslaught of mixed and exotic aroma, Zuko walked in, withholding the urge to block off his nostrils.
"Uncle," he directed suddenly, walking in with a regality that was rarely ever seen coming from a boy only 61 ½ inches tall, "Why the hell is Katara crying ontop of her bed?" he demanded.
"Language, Zuko," his Uncle admonished, before allowing surprise to manifest itself on a form on his face, "And she is crying? For what reason?"
"Thats what I'm asking you," Zuko all but growled.
He was getting impatient, and furious.
Concern did less than overwhelm the old man and he curiously thought back to why.
Katara had gotten her period this morning, but that did not explain why she would be crying now.
A man of some considerable number of years, Iroh was fairly certain that a young girl's first menstruel cycle did nothing to substantially pain her in any way. At least not to bring to tears. She was fairly undeveloped, so cramps could not be afflicting her yet either.
Tapping his chin thoughtfully over his new tea, Iroh considered the possibilities and wondered for a moment, if water-tribe (or perhaps, eastern Earth kingdom, as Katara also may be) girls had some other standards by which to follow.
But quickly, the Dragon of the West called this intimation off, as he had his fair share bit of worldly knowledge to refute this momentary glance.
Zuko, meanwhile, his nephew, was still standing over him in a furious rage, demanding to know why. His fists were clenched tight, and he could tell his basically-adopted son did not like the new aroma of his latest concoction.
The thought disturbed him... maybe he should reconsider taking the ginger out. Bad aroma gives practice to a bad tea. Iroh frowned substantially as he was looking down at this brew.
Oh well, this batch would have to be a brass.
"WELL?" his nephew shouted at him once again.
For an 11-year-old, Iroh slyly noted in his mind, he sure had developed quite a bit of a temper.
No doubt the spoiling superiority had helped cultivate it in the prince of the fire nation—and Iroh had yet to assert whether such cultures in raising princely children of the court were becoming of a future ruler, or rather detrimental to their developing—but even so, he lamentedly thought back to the notion that perhaps his banishment had helped contribute to it.
Nonetheless, he thought he might as well explain to his son the monthly afflictions of girls.
By the end of the discussion, Zuko was staring down at his knees, his fists clenched and leaning against his thighs as he sat on the ground, across the low tea table from Iroh. He refused to look up at Iroh—it would be too embarrassing. His face was now tinged a curious shade of slighted pink.
He looked away to the side. And then after a while cleared his throat.
"So..." Zuko began, still refusing to look directly at his uncle, "That still doesnt explain why she's crying. Unless it... hurts?"
The thought suddenly struck him at that moment and embelled him with fear.
Maybe thats why she'd wanted him to get out?
"No... I don't think thats the reason," his Uncle thoughtfully considered.
"Then? What's the problem?"
"Perhaps she just does not feel like playing toda—"
"It's not playing," Zuko interrupted, "It's battle planning."
"Yes.. battle planning, today. My sincere apologies, Prince Zuko."
"You're forgiven."
"Perhaps you might go about as to inquire for yourself, why she is upset today?"
The flush from faded from Zuko's face.
Walking back out from his Uncle's quarters at a considerably slower and delayed pace from the one with which he initially had entered them with, Zuko tried even harder to drag out the walk longer.
His Uncle, Prince Iroh, had just told him to go find out why Katara was crying. He couldn't disobey an order, and according to court teachings, it was, indeed, a discretionary order from a member of royalty higher than him. His lessons taught him to understand from speech of royalty, hidden with euphamisms and politeness, and decipher which ones were orders, connotations, commands, suggestions and... jokes.
But all this did not change the fact that he really did not want to. He dreaded the notion, after hearing about what had happened to Katara this morning.
At those thoughts, red rose up in his face again.
Katara... Katara had gotten her first...
And before he knew it, he was standing in the doorway of her room once again and staring at her blankly.
Except this time, he couldn't stop thinking about... a furious red blush graced his face as he looked off to the side to hide it.
It was gross. But he was a prince—he couldn't be grossed out. His uncle told him that men think of it as maturity.
"What are you doing here?" she asked with some anger. She seemed a bit less sad and bit more bitter this time. And he wasn't sure about whether that was a good or bad thing—Katara got pretty crazy when she was angry..
Not that he knew what he had done to deserve anger right now. He suspected that perhaps it had something to do with that shouting before.. Katara didn't happen to consider standing him when he put on vibes of superiority. It had especially surprised him when had told her to get out, please politely last time instead of getting angry.
He had shouted to half incite anger within her and knock some sense back into her to get her to stop crying. But it had lashed around back at him and she had gotten sadder.
So now, he was utterly more at a loss of what to do. Eleven year old boys shouldn't have to deal with this, he thought. But he was a Prince.
Obviously, he had more troubles in life than normal eleven-year-old boys. So he must undoubtedly deal with this tumultuous circumstance.
Because, afterall, he was a prince. Noble, perpetually learning, and ready to vindicate validication on anyone and any whom asked. That was his job.
"Why are you crying?" he asked, thinking he'd suddenly just get to the point.
As if an ocean was hidden within her, the tears came flooding out again with a new and fresh poignancy.
Oh, great. Now he was sure that he was part of the problem. Even if he wasn't though, he was at the very least, sure that he was exacerbating the problem.
And his uncle's great idea had been for him to investigate why she was crying? Great.
He needed a ship therapist or something of that sort. He didn't know how to talk at all.
"C'mon," he gruffly got out, looking further off to the side and refusing to meet her eyes, "It's... not y'know... that bad..."
Silence consumed them. She curiously looked up to him, an awkward boy standing strangely near the door in the middle of her room and looking off to the side.. with a furiously red face that was heated.
A shocked and disgusted look that came over her face and Katara became scandalized. After the mere the moment it took her to assume, she was nearly incited her to scream: HE TOLD YOU? GENERAL IROH FREAKING TOLD YOU?
HOW COULD YOU TELL HIM?
ZUKO! Of all people!
But for some strange reason, instead of the angry thoughts whispering in the back of her mind and the anger instilled at his words brushing the back of her through, she instead got upset.
The desire to scream ebbed away and those thoughts came up inside her mind again and quelled the anger as it turned into sadness.
And started crying even harder. Because now he knew. Great.
Those other thoughts quickly came up in her head all over again. The ones that had been coming up for ages and all day in her mind. The ones that had bolstered that ability to cry all day. A remarkable feat.
The one that had gotten her so upset in the first place.
The undeniable fact that she was a girl now.
After the tense moment passed between them—Katara having gone from mad, to furious, to upset and sobbing—Zuko sighed an exasperated sigh. Now she was back to her arms, hugging her knees and crying into them ontop of the bed, and seemingly ignoring his presence as she drowned her face in tears.
What was the big deal anyway? She wasn't even saying anything.
His brow twitched. She seemed to be ignoring him right now.
Somehow, the knowledge seemed to both relieve and annoy him.
The relief allowed him to walk a few steps closer, closer to the bed ontop of which Katara was lying. The annoyance made him gruffly talk out to her.
"What's your problem Katara, lets just go back to the study room."
Katara, her face covered by her arms, her eyes looking down at her thighs, frowned.
She couldn't go play with him anymore.
"I can't," her muffled voice sounded out. Zuko frowned furiously. Imperiously, staring down at her a foot away from the side of her bed.
"WHY not?" he demanded.
Katara frowned even deeper, but it had nothing to do with herself and more with the arrogance in his voice. She hated it and admonished him when he acted petty and spoiled. She was appalled that that was a part of his upbringing, but she had worked hard to train him to not speak to other people like hogs when he was around her.
It was disrespectful.
"I'm a girl."
She brought her head up to look at him. Head cocked, he stared at her a while longer trying to decipher her meaning.
"You can't come in here," an arrogant eight year old voice had said to her. The young boy was glaring at her with bright yellow eyes that seemed to exhude anger and set the standards decorum.
"Why not?"
"You're a girl. I don't allow girls in here." Thoughts of Azula and those horrible friends of hers came flooding back to Zuko's mind.
He hated playing with girls. Why did Uncle let this girl on board? He should know by now that they were all freaking crazy!
"I'm not a girl," Katara said vehemently and frowned. A distant memory of a young boy with a wolf's tail tied on the tip of his head came back to her. He told her that she couldn't play because she was a girl.
Then, she convinced him that she should be allowed to play and threw snowballs at him until she beat him.
"Yeah you are," the young fire nation boy said with convinction, pointing an accusatory finger at her, "You look like one. I'll never let you into my study room. Girls are all crazy. Go tell Uncle that you want to leave so that you can finally get off this ship."
"I'm not a girl! Let me prove it!"
And then several weeks had commenced during which Zuko and Katara had played some trial and true tests and he had finally decided that Katara, indeed, wasn't in fact a girl so that he could continue to play with her.
Zuko groaned and slapped his palm onto his forehead.
She was thinking about that, wasn't she? He had nearly forgotten.
And three years later, he had most definitely stopped caring and conceded to the fact that Katara was a good companion and amused him greatly. He looked forward to their afternoons in his study—precisely the reason he was incensed that she hadn't shown up that day.
But she was thinking about that?
"I'm a girl now," she sniffled.
If anything, Zuko groaned even harder in his head, his palm still sticking to his forehead.
But Katara continued crying.
At least now he knew the reasoning behind her behavior, but how to fix this? He had no experience with crying girls.
He couldn't say, 'no, you're not a girl. I said so,' like he usually might..because. Well.
She had just gotten her first... Zuko's face turned red once again and he looked away from her. And no doubt Uncle had explained the whole 'being-a-girl' thing to her.
He grimaced mentally, wondering how poorly he'd twisted it and explained it to her as he'd explained.
But then, suddenly, admist his thoughts, other notions came up in Zuko's mind. Thoughts that came back from Iroh's discussion with him.
Iroh had not only... explained the logistics of how men and women differ in their monthly cycles..but had also enlightened him as to why they look different.
It was because women had to go through.. this.. and men did not. Men had different problems, Iroh had said, that he said he would tell Zuko some other time.
Zuko had been relieved that Iroh wasn't trying to explain anything more to him and just nodded, hoping to Agni that Iroh would hurry up and finish the discussion.
But.. Iroh had also gone on a rant. A tirade that, coupled with his teachings from Teacher Liu, was about manners and ettiquette and how men differed from women.
He had, afterall, had to learn female mannernisms in court society as part of his tutelage. It was just a formality, but still required.
And then Zuko looked down at the wooden floor on the ship, observing his toes and blushed furiously as the thought came to him.
Katara was sad and embarrassed about being a girl.
Sad and embarrassed—those two feelings, he could sympathize and empathize with clearly.
He had hated feeling sad and embarrassed; had always felt sad and embarrassed at the palace. His sister, Azula, his friends, his father, his grandfather... they were always the ones that had made him feel sad and embarrassed.
But Katara never made him feel that way.
And it made him feel bad that he was now suddenly the one making her this way. He could just imagine how bad she felt. And he wanted to fix it.
And he didn't know any way how, so he racked his mind for all of his teachings.
Katara was a girl now... what could he do about that?
It was his fault that she was feeling embarrassed now, but he couldn't very well go back in time and fix saying those mean words to her. If anything, he wouldn't do it even if he had the choice. Afterall, he still did believe that all girls were crazy.
Even Katara showed semblances of craziness sometimes. But not like Azula, and she was never mean.
Zuko frowned.
What had his Uncle told him? His tutor.
He was a prince. He was noble, learning, proud, and strove to nurture honor and respect.
"You're not just any girl, Katara," Zuko finally said, frowning. "You're my girl."
She was, afterall, not crazy. And that had to be an oddball anomaly. Katara was his girl, which was why he enjoyed having her as a companion. She wasn't crazy, and that was okay. That was why he got along with her. It just made sense.
She didn't ever make him feel sad or embarrassed, and the only other girl who had ever not done this was his mother, Princess and Lady Ursa.
"From now on, you are Lady Katara," Zuko decided to pronounce regally, "And you are my girl now, so it's okay that you are a girl."
Katara looked up to him, only slightly sniffling and Zuko noticed how sleepy she looked.
She must've been worn out with all that crying—plus her.. womenly problems...
He felt like blushing again, but then shook off the thought.
If she was Lady Katara, he should not be embarrassed by anything having to do with it.
So he slid into the covers beside her and patted her shoulder gently with one hand. Slowly, her eyelids drifted down and she fell into a light sleep.
Turning over onto his back once he was done patting her shoulder to sleep, Zuko stared up at her ceiling, the canopy of the young girl sitting beside him's bed.
Katara.. Katara would grow all those womenly parts now, his Uncle had said. Now that she had gotten her period.
And women, his tutor had said and taught him, were more delicate and should be treated as well. They were fragile and were to be protected and comforted and supported.
And a good Prince did all those things, his tutor had told him.
Well, he'd comforted Katara right now. So he was doing well.
And he was protecting her right now too, since he was lying right here beside her and protecting any outsiders from coming in.
Girls were annoying—Katara was annoying, but he couldn't help it. If he had to do all this to make sure he had a play mate during his daily afternoon lulls, then it wasn't worth that big of a sacrifice.
When Iroh sneaked a peak into Katara's room, he found the one prince lying on his side on one edge of the bed and Katara facing towards him from the other side. There was a good foot between them, but still the sight warmed his heart.
He hoped Zuko might have been able to soften his heart to her. But what he hadn't expected was the young boy frowning and calling everyone up to the deck before breakfast and a bit before sunrise, Katara still in the lull of sleep in her room.
Neither had he expected the young boy frowning and standing ontop of a barrel to look over and address the entire crew before commanding:
"From now on, you will address Lady Katara as so. Anyone who dares to defy this axiom will have swabbing duty for three months at a time."
No, he had not expected that.
"Lady Katara is my lady, so you will treat her just as you would Lady Ursa."
Iroh could see the astonished looks behind the metal helmets of each and every member of the crew, and had snickered a little bit behind his sleeve in response.
They were all quite surprised at what young Zuko was saying—he had never commanded the crew or ship in such a way and above his demands, but it was what he was saying that left them all dumbfounded.
An 11-year-old boy is pronouncing Katara as his lady?
The astonished silence soon loosened up as they sunk this phrase in and smiled quietly to themselves behind their covered masks.
The young prince Zuko just called Katara his lady.
Iroh snickered even louder as he felt the mood change on the deck. Zuko was still glaring at all of them fiercely, willing each of them to defy his protocols.
He wasn't aware at all of what he had said.
Iroh snickered full out loudly this time. Zuko wasn't aware at all about what his declaration said. Or how... cute... it seemed coming from an 11-year-old boy.
Iroh wondered what had transpired between Zuko and Katara in her room last afternoon, but pushed it to the back of his mind as Zuko's further actions began to furthur surprise him.
The young boy began to take his duties as Katara's patron seriously.