Lu Da upended the bottle of baijiu over his open mouth, staring out the window from the edge of his bed. The light of the weakening dusk was siphoning out the color like a thief, his cabin fading to shapes in monochrome.
Soft footsteps sounded and a small figure slipped through the door. A pause, like a held breath, and then Hiteo padded up beside him.
"What are you doing?"
Lu Da's elbows rested on his knees, broad shoulders bowed.
"Just thinking," he responded, eyes finally sliding from the horizon to meet Hiteo's. "What are you doing?"
"Marik said it was time for bed."
He nodded. Saw the boy's gaze fall to where his hands were idly turning the bottle in the gap between his knees.
"Why did that scary man with the scar yesterday call you Dirty Hands?" Hiteo asked, looking up again. "Your hands don't look that dirty to me."
"S'just a nickname," he replied, rings catching the washed out light as he took another swig, hoping to shake his curiosity.
"How'd you get it?"
Lu Da didn't want to answer. Wasn't sure that he would.
But the question was innocent, so he took a long breath, let it out again as he rested back down on his knees. "I've done some bad things." His voice the faintest roll of thunder, low and gravelly. "Some real bad things… it's not something I really like to talk about."
"You can tell me," pressed Hiteo, eyes soft. "I know you're not a bad person, Captain."
Lu Da's mouth tipped ruefully. "And I don't want to prove you wrong."
At that, he seemed to sag. Not just his small shoulders, but all of him, his gaze sliding to the floor as he slumped himself down beside Lu Da.
A stretch of silence, and then the boy said, "I have a nickname like that, too."
Lu Da lifted a brow. "Yeah?"
"Back home, I didn't have many friends," he began, "but this old couple who lived close were always really nice to me. I liked going by their house on my way home from school. Sometimes they'd even give me fresh fire cakes." A smile almost surfaced on Hiteo's face before being stillborn in a frown. "Then they got weak and had to live somewhere else, and a new couple moved in. I heard they hated kids, and they were always nasty to me, yelling and scolding for no reason. So, I collected a big bucketful of beetles and roaches, and while they were gone one day…"
Lu Da smirked knowingly, shaking his head.
"I'd only meant to scare them," Hiteo said. "But the bugs got in everything. They had to throw out all their food stuff. One of the roaches even laid eggs in the man's hair while he was asleep, and he had to shave it off." A sigh shrank Hiteo's frame like air escaping a balloon. He wrung the hands in his lap. "If I'd known how bad it would be…"
And it was, Lu Da knew. Not just the food part, which could have left them near penniless trying to replenish it, but the hair. Anyone even mildly acquainted with Fire Nation stigmas knew what a blow that would be, to be forced to shave it. He did his best convincing himself it wasn't funny.
"I was found out and flogged pretty hard," Hiteo grated. "Then the stupid kids at school heard and started calling me Pest and Plague Boy. I hated it." The threat of tears thickened his voice, brow furrowing. "I hate them, and I hate myself."
Lu Da took a slow, deep breath. Nodded, took a drink. It was getting dark, the room and their faces slowly dwindling to shadows. The dusklight limned the lantern casks mounted on either side of his desk. He would need to light them soon.
"You know," he said at length, "a soldier friend of mine told me something once. She said, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what people call you."
Hiteo gave him an incredulous look. "It doesn't?"
"Nah," he shook his head. "People are gonna call you all sortsa things in this life, some unfair, others maybe you deserve. But the only thing that should matter, that ever really matters, is the one who says it. The one whose opinion counts for more than half a shit, blast and burn the rest." He paused. "Well, she didn't say that last part exactly, I improvised, but you get the gist."
Hiteo sat with this new insight for a moment. "Your soldier friend sounds pretty smart."
Lu Da smiled. "She is. More than some give her credit for."
Dim light reflected in his eyes as the boy stared out at the grey sea.
"My parents used to tell me that when I grew up, I could be a soldier, fighting for the honor of my nation." His gaze traveled from the rolling swells back to Lu Da. "But I think, instead, someday I want to be a pirate like you. Maybe I could captain my own ship and we could sail together."
Hiteo glowed with ambition and Lu Da huffed a laugh, scrubbing knuckles over his head.
"It's your bed time, isn't it?" he said, angling him toward it. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
️ ️ ️+️++
Something woke him.
Lu Da wasn't sure what, at first. He lied still, leaning his focus into the dark. Listening.
Then it came again. A soft hiccupping from behind the screen that sounded an awful lot like stifled crying.
His stomach clenched faintly and he sat up, waited to be sure it wasn't just sleep noises. Then, when another pitiful whimper came, he climbed out of bed, rounded the screen.
Hiteo was sitting up in bed, wilted shoulders shaking as he cried into the pillow he was hugging.
"Hey, kid," Lu Da said softly, and his wet face lifted up. "What's the matter?"
"I miss my mom," he choked through a sob, opening the floodgates. "And my dad."
"Ah," he breathed, lowering himself down on the edge of the makeshift bed. The crates creaked under his weight and the heap of blankets sagged, tipping the kid toward him.
"I'm afraid I'll never see them again." He sniveled, turning his drowning eyes on him. "Do you think I will?"
Lu Da leaned his elbows on his knees. He twisted a ring around one finger, staring down at his hands as if they might sprout answers.
"I don't know."
After a while, Hiteo sniffled and asked, "Where are your parents?"
"My mother died a long time ago. And my father, well, I'm not exactly sure." His gaze met him sidelong. "Haven't seen him since I was a little older than you."
"Do you miss them?"
Lu Da weighed the question, the many possible answers, most of them lies, and settled on something closer to the truth.
"No…" he began. "But I think, sometimes, I miss what I never had, y'know? The age-old 'what if.' One thing that never fails to screw us up in life is that picture in our heads of how it should have been."
"I'm scared. What if I forget what they look like, or can't remember their voices anymore?" asked the boy, voice quaking. "What am I supposed to do without them, when everything feels wrong and I'm not even sure I'll be okay?"
Lu Da hesitated, exhaled. "You get up each day and make a choice, whether to give up and give in, or to keep going. In desperation, in defiance, however you can. You paint laughter over the bad stuff, or try to, and the more times you have to pick yourself back up, the more you gotta laugh or you'll be eaten away, skin and bone."
Hiteo wiped his nose on the pillow he hugged and went quiet for a while, staring at the floor. His eyes were still charting a path between the flecks in the iron when he asked, "Do you think destiny is a real thing?"
Lu Da tilted his head. An odd question for a scamp his age.
"What d'you mean?"
"My teacher talked about destiny sometimes," he explained, kneading the pillow, "and she said it can't be changed. Like, whatever the future has for you is what you're stuck with, but…" His head turned, gaze not quite rising. "That seems so scary. Cause what if your destiny's just more and more bad stuff?"
Lu Da had never believed in destiny, not really. At least he didn't want to believe in it, because it was too close to believing in fate, and fate meant that everything happened for a reason, and there were too many things he wished never had. Besides, it was hard to believe in a grand design when you killed people for a living, or part of it.
"Lemme let you in on a little secret. That stuff some grown-ups love to say about destiny?" He shook his head. "It's all bullshit."
Hiteo's voice lifted on a breath. "Really?"
"I mean, sure, we're all destined for something, like it or not," Lu Da granted. "But nothing's set in stone." He poked a finger gently into his chest. "You rise and fall on your own terms, you shape your own destiny. You get to decide when challenge it, change it. And if you ever find yourself unhappy with the path you're on, I hope you find the courage to forge a new one."
And it must have been something in the way he said it, the undertones of defiant hope and resilience, the obvious fact it meant more than just a few pretty words, that made the boy look him in the eyes. There was something new, searching in his gaze, but whatever he saw when he looked at him, it was enough to draw him into his side with a sniffle, one tear-damp cheek burying itself in his tunic.
Lu Da's throat threatened to close up. A hot, stinging prickle he did his best to swallow back. It was so easy to forget, between the boldness and impudence and fearless independence, how young the boy was, only eight summers to his name, but in that moment, Hiteo looked so small and sad and afraid.
However awkwardly, Lu Da shifted to bring a brawny arm around his shoulders, hugging him closer.
They sat that way until the boy's tears dried to salty stains and he began to slump against the pirate's chest with a yawn.
"You better get some sleep," said Lu Da, pulling away. "Got a new family to meet tomorrow. We should be there by early morning."
There was a creak again as he got to his feet, twisting back to tuck the blankets up over the boy's shoulders.
️ ️ ️+️++
The harbor town of Taichun was small and unassuming, the buildings jostling against one another as if pressing their shoulders together.
Boots thudded out of sync on the wharf's planks as they debarked, the captain and his stowaway. An older couple stood at the other end, waiting expectantly.
Lu Da stopped to help Hiteo shoulder the bag. But the boy made no move to resume walking. Lu Da didn't rush him, straightening out the twisted collar of his tunic.
"Got everything?" he asked.
"Yeah," he replied, fiddling with the ties on the bag.
"How bout the Hazard set Marik gave you?"
Hiteo nodded.
Overhead, the sea birds wheeled and sang. The morning sun burned the sky clear, limning his small raven topknot.
"Well, there's one most thing. Here."
Lu Da pressed a humble sack of coin into the boy's chest.
"What's this?" he asked as his arm rose to cradle it.
"Your mother asked me to give it to you," said Lu Da, lips tugging. "A little rainy-day security."
The boy hugged it to his chest as if it were some kind of protective charm, his eyes rising to the deck, where the crew extended an array of farewells. Then his head turned to where his family stood, their gazes sliding between the two of them with a mix of unease and anticipation.
Hiteo's throat dipped. His voice was small, choked. "I don't want to go."
The way he said it carved something out of him.
"C'mon, you don't mean that," said Lu Da, keeping his voice light. "Don't wanna get stuck scrubbing the latrine again, do you?"
Hiteo laughed, a brittle thing that didn't reach his eyes, and slid another diffident look at the waiting faces.
"What if they don't like me?" he asked.
"They will."
That didn't appear to offer much reassurance, and Lu Da blew out a breath, knowing it was less than honest comfort. There was no one in the world who could guarantee that for another.
He knelt down, drawing Hiteo's gaze.
"Truth is, not everyone's going to like you in life," he conceded, "and sometimes not even the ones who should. But no matter what, you'll find the ones who do. Family's blood and nothing you can do about that, but blood isn't always family." He knocked a curled knuckle under his chin, prompting him to lift his face. "There will always be someone out there who likes you."
A smile perked at the corners of Hiteo's lips and Lu Da returned it.
"Go on, now," he encouraged with a jut of his chin. "They're waiting for you."
Hiteo hesitated, picked at a nail, his feet shuffling in place. And then the coin purse jangled as he flung his gangly arms around the pirate's neck, holding tightly. It almost tipped his balance and Lu Da breathed a laugh, wrapping his large, inked arms around the small frame in turn until he pulled away.
As he stood to watch him go, something nipped him in the side and Lu Da remembered one last thing.
"Hey, kid," he called after him, reaching into a fold of his tunic.
Turning, Hiteo raised a brow then started as Lu Da tossed him a roll of parchment tied to a single crossbow bolt.
"When you get a little older, if you still think you wanna be a pirate…" He smirked as Hiteo fumbled and then caught it. "Look me up, huh? I'll be around."
The smile that split the boy's impish face was delight and affection, pure and unrestrained, crinkling his eyes and flashing teeth in the sun's bright gleam.
Waiting arms enfolded him, all tender words and gentle touches, and as his aunt and uncle led him away, the woman glanced up. A wariness hung in her eyes. There was no weeping thank you—not that he expected one—but there was gratitude nonetheless in the soft lines of her mouth, the polite nod of her head. Lu Da returned it, along with his warmest grin, and took pleasure in her expression as it tripped, and then lightened.
Back on the ship, the wind whipped his mohawk as he leaned forward on the bow. The land shrank to a dark smear where sea met sky, a foreign sort of void worming its way into his chest, as if he had left some part of himself in Taichun. Something he hadn't even known mattered, intangible as smoke.
Doing his best to banish it, he rechanneled his focus with the gears already shifting in his head.
Climbing the stairs to his quarters, he shrugged off his cloak, picked up the worn leather-bound ledger on his desk, and opened it to the page marked by a flattened scroll. Ozai's directive for the mission at hand. Lu Da started skimming the notes he had jotted down on the page, absently pulling the chair out and sinking himself down, when there was a splintering crack.
He went down hard, landing on his ass with the chair's tumble.
He wasn't sure what had happened, at first. Picking up one half of the broken chair leg, it was clear now that it had been shaved down thin in one area, and had snapped clean under his weight.
Lu Da set his teeth and tossed it back to the rubble, raking a hand through his hair, trying to work out when that little punk could have had the time. How a kid could whittle a solid chunk of wood down so thin in the morning's few waking hours. It would have taken days…
Oh. That little bugger.
Hiteo hadn't shaved it down this morning. He had been working at it, little by little, this entire time.
And that was when Lu Da noticed something peeking out from beneath the seat. He tipped it over. A folded-up piece of paper was nailed to the underside of his crippled chair. On it, a stick drawing of a boy grinned back at him, waving, and Lu Da could already feel a tug at his lips in spite of himself as he tore it off, unfolded it.
A treasure map looped a path over the parchment, an X marking the spot where he would find the spare parts and tools to repair it.
The pirate sat back, annoyance and approval at war as he shook his head, breathed out a laugh, warm and husky.
"I'll have to remember that one."