ZUKO

THE FORMER PRINCE AND FORMER SOLDIER TOKUGAWA ZUKO HAD ONCE THOUGHT THAT NAVIGATING THE ARMY BUREAUCRACY WAS THE MOST FRUSTRATING EXPERIENCE HE WOULD EVER HAVE TO DEAL WITH. Oh, gods, how wrong I was…

He chuckled. A year with Katara, and you'd think I'd be used to being wrong… His smile turned to a frown. No, that's not right; she lets me be right all the time, because I often am. I just tend to be wrong about really stupid shit with alarming regularity…

He sighed. Which won't save me from this crazy old bat in front of me.

Aforementioned crazy old bat was the current cause of his steadily mounting frustration. In many ways, he couldn't help but feel that the woman encapsulated everything that was wrong with getting old. He suspected that, if he were to look up batty old woman in the Royal Dictionary, he would find her picture therein. She wasn't just weathered, she was wizened, complete with gnarled hands clutching the top of a gnarled cane onto which she leaned, even when sitting down. He was pretty sure that her teeth were either completely black, or nonexistent, and she was chewing betel nuts and kept spitting the red juice onto the deck of his ship, where he had set up shop. And as for her speech? She spoke a horribly mangled version of Hangugeo, which was so slurred and garbled that he could barely understand what she was saying.

Plus, he thought, settling his chin into his hand, tapping his pen on his rickety little work desk, whatever she's saying, she won't shut the fuck up about saying it. He sighed, shifting some fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose. Gods, I wish Katara was here. She'd either keep me from burning the woman alive, or help me hide the body. At that very moment, the woman stopped in mid-sentence, spewed a massive stream of betel nut juice to the deck, smacked her lips, and went right back to where she was in the sentence. Yup, he decided, she'd definitely help me hide the body.

He was snapped out of his thoughts (which largely revolved around whether the woman's very exhausted-looking granddaughter would help or hinder the woman, should Zuko decide to remove her from this world) by the sensation of his desk jumping up and down on the deck as the woman slammed her flattened hand on it. He reared back, blinking in confusion. "What now?"

If looks could kill, the one the woman was shooting at him would've brought his short life to abrupt close. It's like she knows I'm plotting her imminent demise. "Are you listening to me, young man?"

He bit down on a groan and did his best to smile. "Of course I am, ma'am."

She did not look convinced. "Well, then why aren't you writing?"

"I was," he offered, gesturing at a page littered with about a dozen crossed out sentences, "but since you kept stopping and starting, I figured I should wait a moment, let you figure things out."

The idea that she might need a moment for, well, anything, seemed to give her an incredible amount of offense. Zuko couldn't help but wonder if she would have been any more offended had he just dropped his pants and mooned her. Though, that would make for a good show. I'd be the talk of the village for weeks, and Katara would curse herself for not being here.

"Excuse me, young man, but I believe you're supposed to write down everything I say. That is the purpose of a scribe, is it not? That is what I'm paying you for?"

"It is," he admitted, "but I've already wasted a whole sheet of paper. I'm trying to save you money here."

Now it was her turn to rear back, her eyes so afire with indignation that he found himself wondering if she was, in fact, a firebender. "Why should I care about paper? I already paid you, didn't I? I brought you a whole pig-chicken."

Zuko's eye slid over to the side, where the thing was currently rolled on its back, snorting into the air. Yay for me. "Yes, ma'am, you did. But paper is expensive these days, and I have to be careful how I use it."

She scoffed. "That's not my problem, young man. Now write."

He found himself grinding his teeth. Katara's voice filled his ears. You're not in the Army anymore, babe; you can't bark orders and expect to be obeyed. You have to be nice to people. He remembered one particular reply he had made, after an especially trying day: What, even the pretty young girls who obviously only come to try and flirt with me? Which, he admitted, didn't tend to go well, since he was nothing if not completely oblivious. She had thrown her head back and laughed, bellowing, What, them? Hell no! They can go fuck themselves. It's everybody else you have to be nice to.

He sighed, closed his eye, and counted to ten before opening it again. The things I do for love. "Well, ma'am, if you would just tell me, very clearly, exactly what it is you want me to put in this letter, I'll be more than happy to do just that. I'll write it all out, sign and seal it, and you can be on your way."

The look she gave him reminded him rather uncomfortably of how his father used to look at him and his sister when they made the mistake of showing themselves to be human. "That's exactly what I've been doing, young man. Are you slow?"

Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen…

"My mother never did know what to do with me," he admitted, in an attempt at humor.

Needless to say, it didn't go over well. "I can only imagine, what with you gallivanting around the countryside, living in sin with some barbarian, all while being rude to an old woman."

Once more, Katara's voice came to him, as it so often did these days. And no, just because they insulted me, doesn't mean you should accidentally light their pants on fire. He sighed. She never lets me have any fun.

"I'm sorry you feel that way about my wife, ma'am. But, back to the matter at hand…"

Her eyes flew open in surprise. "Oh, you are married. That's something, I suppose. Not much, given the circumstances, but something."

Zuko and Katara actually weren't married, but at this point, it was only because they both knew that their friends would kill them if they got married in such a way that they weren't all able to go. But never mind that… "Well," he said, still doing his best to smile, "thank you for your approval; I don't know what we would've done without it."

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Are you mocking me, young man?"

Who, me? Never. "Of course not, ma'am. Hangugeo isn't my native tongue; things get garbled sometimes."

"Oh," she said, comprehension dawning on her face, "so you are a bit slow. Not your fault, I suppose."

Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six…

"Right, well, back to your letter…"

It took what was actually only about twenty minutes, but felt, to Zuko, like a decade, but eventually, he had written the old bat's letter in a manner that met her satisfaction, and then the most infuriating thing happened. She nodded at it, praised him for his handwriting (because the gods are assholes, he reflected, and cursed me with beautiful handwriting in everything but my native language), then handed the letter to her granddaughter and commanded her to read it. Dumbfounded, Zuko couldn't help but say, in annoyance, "But…your granddaughter reads?"

The woman looked at him like he'd grown another head. "Of course she does."

"Well…why didn't you just have her do it, rather than pay me?" A half-starved pig-chicken.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, she'd only mess it up. That's how she is, I'm afraid. Now, come on, Yoon, let's get a move on. And walk right; no man's going to bother with you if you don't walk like a human being. And one more thing…"

The next customer was a man who needed a tax bill explained. It was boring, written in excruciating legalese, and Zuko almost wept with joy when he saw it.

The last customer had finally come and gone, and Zuko was just lighting up a cigarette, when he heard a very welcome sound. It was a big, gravelly voice, booming from a tall, good-looking man about Zuko's age whose voice did not at all match the body producing it. Zuko felt his face light up as he leapt to his feet and went to the man bounding up the gangplank. They met at the top, just on the deck, and they exchanged half-hearted little bows before enveloping each other in bone-crushing hugs. They pulled apart, holding each other at arms' length, and Zuko, grinning wide and feeling very happy to be speaking Nihongo, said, "Toshiro! You have no idea how happy I am to see you."

Mifune Toshiro, late of His Majesty's Army, still limping from the injury that had cut his term-of-service short, laughed that rolling, slightly serrated laugh of his. "Haruki! Well, I'm glad to see you, too!"

Zuko chuckled, throwing an arm around his friend's shoulders and ushering him onto the ship. Of course, Toshiro knew exactly who Zuko was; they had been in the same class at the Academy, after all. Still, who knew what metsuke informers might be lurking about, so, out in the open, Zuko was, in fact, Murakami Haruki, just as his wife was not Katara, but, in fact, Kya. "Come in, come in. Where's Song?" That being Toshiro's Earth Kingdom wife.

Toshiro shrugged, in that massive, languid manner of his. "She shot off to go find Kya, of course. I assume she's off healing the sick and the injured and never charging what she should?"

Zuko shrugged. "It's a problem we both share; why else would we live on such a shitty boat?"

"Because you're a soldier, not a sailor, and didn't know any better?" The real reason, of course, was merely implied: Because shitty boats are a sen-a-dozen in this parts, and anything more would attract attention.

"Hey, if the price of never being in the Navy is being stuck on a shitty boat, I'll take it. Besides, Kya thinks it's quite nice." Which wasn't even a lie, Zuko thought with pride.

"Well, you're in it, I imagine that takes the sting off!" They laughed at the trade of barbs, Zuko letting Toshiro go so that he could finish closing up shop.

Looking up, his cigarette dangling from his lips, he asked, "So, how are things, Toshiro? Any news from the outside world?"

Toshiro was lighting his own cigarette. "Oh, just the usual, this and that. Ran into some old army buddies, including one who was in our class at the Academy."

"No shit? Which one?"

"Um…Morishige…? Yeah. Morishige Hisaya. With the Thirty-Second Cavalry these days."

"Good for him!" Zuko said, and meant it. He remembered Hisaya just enough to remember that the only thing he truly exceled at was riding. "Pick up any good gossip? If there's one thing I miss about the military, it's that."

Toshiro shrugged, neither of them bothering to look over their shoulders and check for listeners or watchers. Just assume they're there. The only solution is to act unworthy of notice. "Just this and that. You pick up more from the locals these days."

"Well," Zuko said, shouldering the pack with his work things in them and pausing a moment to seriously consider kicking the aforementioned half-starved pig-chicken over the side of the boat, because, seriously, it looked half dead, "I have a new bottle of baiju in the cabin. How about we crack it open and bullshit until our wives find us?"

Toshiro's smile was not in the least fake, which was why any watcher should have distrusted it immediately. "You took the words right out of my mouth, my friend."

Zuko jerked his head towards the cabin. "Well, come on then!"

Naturally, once inside and with the baiju opened and poured, cigarettes blazing, they agreed to save the really important stuff for when Katara returned.


Hey, it's Zuko! And not only is it Zuko, but it's Zuko being dry and sarcastic, which, I think we can all agree, is the best Zuko. The moments in the show when Zuko whipped out his Bitch, Please face were always my favorites.

I'm pretty sure I explained what Zuko and Katara have been up to; guys like Toshiro, discharged Fire Nation soldiers and officers who would like the war to end so they can, you know, not worry about dying, would be a big part of that. Zuko may not be able to pop in to various camps and units, but hey, a guy like Toshiro was just in the area, what do you know! Crazy how these things happen...

For those playing the home game, there's a lot of fun in this chapter. Hangugeo is the word for Korean in, well, Korean. I'd get into why the Northwest EK is like Korea, but that would make the note longer than the chapter, so, maybe next chapter. Toshiro is named for the great Japanese actor, Toshiro Mifune, and Zuko's assumed name, Haruki Murakami (which I've used before) is the name of my favorite Japanese author. Oh, and baiju is a kind of Chinese booze.

But I digress. In the next chapter, Katara does some healing, and runs into Song! Yes, that Song! Stay tuned!