Chapter Eight: Aang and Zuko Do Their Chores

Kuzon-not-Zuko wasn't bad at chores; he was completely incompetent. Crewman Teruko had learned, over the last two-and-a-half days of upriver steaming, that there was a difference. She'd also learned that somewhere under a prickly layer of shouting and a burned-on glare was a kid who couldn't insult anyone if he tried.

It was the times he wasn't trying the crew had to look out for.

Cases-in-point.

Kuzon-not-Zuko, upon tasting Assistant Cook Dekku's cooking: "It's like when Azula burns my fire flakes."

Then he'd asked for a second helping, and seemed baffled by the splatter as Dekku sloshed it into his bowl. "...But I like burned fire flakes."

Kuzon-not-Zuko, upon being lent a spare set of clothes to change into by Engineer Hanako, by default she was both the smallest and nicest and most likely to get covered in oil before her shift was half-way through and so had packed accordingly: "Wow. I thought only Ty Lee was smaller than me."

When she'd snatched her good shirt back and thrown one of her scrubbing-only-gets-out-so-much-grease duty shirts in his face, he'd looked at her like a kicked puppy-fox. Teruko had walked by this conversation in the kitchen, later:

"I thought girls liked being told they were small!"

"Thin, not small," Assistant Cook Dekku dropped a heavy hand on the prince's shoulder. "And definitely not women who might be, ah, sensitive about their height. And don't let a Fire Nation naval officer catch you calling her a girl."

"Why are girls so hard?"

"Zu—Kuzon, just take that word out of your vocabulary. There are places back on the Wani only you and she can fit. We will never find your body."

Kuzon-not-Zuko, upon the occasion of Lieutenant Jee's ill-fated asking of the question Did you sleep well after the first night bunking with the rest of them: "It's like sleeping with pets."

Which led to a lot of crew-wide stomping and snarking and thinly veiled insults all that second day, and Hanako smiling a toothy Sleep well, pet last night and the not-a-prince's sleepy You, too before he curled up like a panda-kitten under his pile of borrowed blankets, and was asleep before the engineer could snap a comeback. Assistant Cook Dekku dropped a hand (very far down) to Hanako's shoulder and said, very quietly, "He didn't have any nightmares last night." Which was a statement anyone who'd stood a night watch on the Wani understood.

Two-and-a-half days ago, Crewman Teruko had been ready to take everything the little royal said as an insult. Now she took it as a kid whose bedroom was too damn quiet, who'd been raised in a palace where fire flakes were probably made by gourmet chefs, but little hands might just be able to crisp them up as well as a proper festival vendor.

Teruko smiled down at his fuzzy head, just peeking out from his blankets. Readied the metal pan and spatula donated by Assistant Cook Dekku. And woke up their not-a-prince with the kind of ungodly crashing heard only in active combat or boot camp.

"Rise and shine, firefly-maggot! That coal won't shovel itself!"

Crewman Teruko had been a Sergeant before her demotion to the prince's ship.

The not-a-prince came awake, sputtering and scowling and eloquent as a dog-lizard with a mouth full of hazelnut-peanut butter. He was pretty bad at intentional insults, actually.

Still sucked at chores, though.

The short mouthy were-they-really-pretending-he-wasn't-a-prince shoveled coal like an earthbender. This was not a compliment. Engineer Hanako felt herself growing taller with each new dent the brat put in the casing of her furnace. She had Lieutenant Jee's permission to make her displeasure known, and given that the Dragon of the West was going to immolate them all when they got back anyway, she had a literal lifetime's worth of shouting to get in before her fiery end.

"Isn't it too early for you to be this loud?" the fuzzy-headed punk asked, with neither irony nor self-awareness.

Engineer Hanako drew in a deep, deep breath.

Aang looked at the King of Omashu's new outfit, and didn't say You look like someone dyed a tiger-seal purple and flattened it under Appa. "Great," he said instead. "It looks... great."

And so he passed the first test. Which wasn't one of the deadly ones, apparently.

He didn't see how getting a lunchbox key was any better.

"YOU HAVEN'T HEARD LOUD."

The shout reverberated through the hull. Lieutenant Jee could have worn earplugs and still understood that shout through his feet. He sipped at his tea, and regretted absolutely nothing about his life.

"DO NOT. CALL ME. A GIRL."

"She really is going to hide his body, isn't she?" Assistant Cook Dekku said, stirring a handful of raisin-berries into their breakfast congee.

Lieutenant Jee refilled his mug and went to get the prince started on laundry before they found out. Or delegate the Anti-Murder Watch to Teruko.

Normally Aang would be all aboard petting Flopsie, but Sokka and Katara were starting to look really unhappy (and really heavy) and Momo was trying to pluck feathers from Hawky's tail who was trying to bite off Momo's tail who was trying to pluck— and Aang was this close to doing something drastic, like maybe raising his voice.

"Next challenge, please," he smiled, like he was grinding rocks between his teeth.

Former Sergeant Teruko was half-way convinced that Kuzon-not-Zuko was developing a secret love for laundry. The twelve-year-old sat on the floor and dangled his bare arms into the tub and swished the water around as steam started to rise.

"You can put the clothes in now, Mailboy."

"Probably."

She wondered if princes were allowed to splash around during bathtime at the palace.

"Anytime now, Mailboy."

"Mmm-hmm."

Probably not, she decided. And wondered if she could rustle up a wooden turtleduck or a carved navy ship to toss in the tub on the way back.

"If you wait any longer, Mailboy, we'll have to hang the clothes in the boiler room to dry."

Kuzon-not-Zuko splashed a lot when he was panicking.

Aang was not panicking he was tactically retreating left right up wait no not up oh gods rocks why were they flying rocks should not fly.

He could have picked anyone up on that balcony. Why hadn't he pointed at Sokka, or Momo, or—ROCK!

Lieutenant Jee supervised the prince's packing as they got ready to disembark. Since his highness had stowed away with only the clothes on his back and a poorly constructed alibi, he considered this a reasonable precaution.

"How do you expect me to carry all this." The prince staggered under a typical supply pack and the weight of the smallest mail duffle.

Engineer Hanako strode past, with her own bag and two duffles slung over her shoulders. Lieutenant Jee watched her go, and watched Zuko watching her go, and watched the determined scowl grow over his face.

"...Give me another bag."

"Bumi!" Aang's hug was fierce and tight and almost perfect. He just wished Kuzon was here, too. And all their other friends. And Gyatso. And—

"And now," his old friend said (literally old, when had that happened?), "for your fourth challenge!"

Aang drew back. A little. "Wait, wasn't the fourth challenge your name?" He did a mental recount. "Or the fight? Isn't this more like the sixth challenge? Can't I be done with challenges?"

"This one's extra credit. Your fourth challenge," Bumi said, and Aang's hopes of his extra credit being a trip down the mail chutes died with the twinkling in Bumi's eyes, "is… to defeat the Fire Army hiding in our woods!"

"WHAT?"

"Well I could send in the elite unit of earthbenders we have stationed nearby—"

"Yes!" Sokka shouted, still picking pieces of rock candy out of his clothes. "Do that!"

"—But the Avatar could use some practice! Don't worry, they seem to be raw recruits. Very easy to squish. Definitely not a trap." Bumi laugh-snorted.

Aang finally broke off their hug. He needed his arms for flailing. "I don't want to squish anyone!"

"Oh? So what will you do?"

"Not squish!"

"Well if you don't want to, I could call in those troops—"

"No no no, I'll think of something! Like a mad genius!"

Aang had to save those troops. And Bumi's troops. And everyone, somehow.

Zuko panted, and took a step, and didn't die yet. Panted, took a step, still alive. Panted— And finally, through a break in the forest, they came to the camp of the 41st Division. Their banner hung outside the command tent, and new recruits were getting yelled at to straighten their uniforms and their tent lines and their everything by people who sounded a lot like Crewman Teruko, and they were here and they were alive.

Zuko's last chore was to keep them that way. Somehow. But a prince protected his own, even when no one else would.

Uncle sat on the deck of the Wani, pai sho board set up the same way it had been all morning, and watched Commander Zhao's ship signal their intent to board.

It really was too bad that Zuko had come down with dragon pox, and could not meet the Commander himself. Highly infectious, dragon pox was, and he'd heard that Commander Zhao had never had it as a child.

Uncle practiced his own sickly cough as the Commander came aboard. He practiced his sincerest wave as the man retreated back across the ramp to his own ship. Then he went back to sitting in front of a pai sho board that was set up the same as it had been all morning, and yesterday, and the day before, and practiced in his mind all the ways he would have his vengeance on Lieutenant Jee. The Dragon of the West might have killed the man; the Retired General could think of much worse.

Whether Prince Zuko had stowed away or commandeered the steamboat outright, the result was much the same: his nephew had taken their only river transport into an active war zone to save a division the Fire Lord himself had as good as ordered destroyed.

His nephew had done this, and left him behind. As if he had not expected his own Uncle to support him, if this truly was a task he must do.

Uncle reserved the worst punishment for the boy himself. Uncle sat in the afternoon sunlight, and practiced proverbs for when his nephew returned to him. Safely, and soon. And hopefully without ruining his alibi.