Chapter 16: Dead Man Sailing
Zuko had searched the surrounding area for the better part of two days and was unable to find any trace of the Avatar and his friends. He sighed. They'd left him behind.
He tried not to take it personally, even as visions of his mother leaving flashed through his mind.
His Mother had left him. His Uncle hadn't tried to protect him from Ozai. His Company had died, leaving him to carry the weight of it all.
Now the Avatar and his friends had, literally, left him behind.
He sighed again, trying not to think about it. People left. It wasn't necessarily personal; it was just what they did. He shook his head and began walking west, towards the coast. He wasn't far from Yulai, an Earth Kingdom port town. He had enough gold to buy passage on a ship heading north. Maybe it was time to drop in on the Northern Air Temple, see what they'd done to the place?
The Staunch wasn't the best ship Zuko had ever been on, but it was heading in the direction he wanted to go. He stood out on deck, leaning on the starboard rail.
He kept shifting his shoulders, tensing and relaxing. There was something wrong, he could feel it.
A squawk echoed through the calm. He looked up.
An iguana-parrot perched on the main mast, peering down at him with its beady eyes.
He frowned. There was something familiar about—
His eye widened. He shouted a warning towards the helmsman just as the Idle Omen appeared from behind a pillar of rock, cannons primed and ready to fire.
They didn't hesitate, there was no warning. They had no intention of boarding. They just opened fire.
The Staunch shook as cannon fire riddled the hull with holes.
The Staunch's Captain was barking orders at his men, but they were panicking. They were merchant sailors, not Navy-men. The ship had no guns to fire back with.
Zuko grabbed the man's arm and shouted, "You have to abandon ship! It's our only chance."
The man frowned but nodded. He cried, "Abandon ship! Abandon ship!"
Zuko watched as crewmen piled into the solitary life-raft. There wasn't enough room for them all. He glanced out to the horizon, where the shore of the Earth Kingdom awaited.
He sighed and made sure his sword-belt was fastened tight, along with the straps of his pack. Then he placed his hand on the rail and vaulted overboard, into the icy water of the ocean.
Moments after he jumped, the Staunch's hull cracked down the middle, and it began to sink beneath the waves.
Seeing the destruction that they'd wrought, the Idle Omen turned their sails south, satisfied with a job well done.