XVI.
A week passed, then two. As the days glowed and faded, Lenara remained in the cell hold. The soldiers on guard watched her meditate for hours. She would practice water bending when the sun rose and more than one curious Fire Nation crewman could be seen glancing into her cell. This never bothered Lenara. She was more concerned about controlling her emotions. The anger that welled inside her had tried to escape that first month on the ship. Lenara vowed never to let it happen again.
The soldiers began to see her up on the ship's deck more frequently to trainbefore dusk. She tried to remain discrete, but a young water bender on a ship full of Fire Nation men couldn't help being singled out. Every now and again, however, she borrowed a fiddle from Bajü, the ship's wiry musician. The music coaxed from the old instrument was captivating in it's foreign way. General Iroh would frequently listen from the helmsman's tower. The crew pretended to have duties on deck in order to hear the next song. And every so often, Prince Zuko practiced his training to the tune of the water bender's music. Music that soothed the savage beast, the men said.
The soldiers noticed a change in Prince Zuko the moment the water bender girl was brought aboard-he was angrier. He snapped at the slightest hint of bad news. More than once, General Iroh had to come between his nephew and a crewmember, holding back two warriors ready to fight. It seemed like the Prince was battling with himself, his rage cut clean to the bone. Whispers began floating in the ship of the Fire Prince harboring a secret that ate him alive.
The crew and soldiers on the ship were a unique band of Fire Nation; richer than some, poorer than most, just common folk. They had their drinks at night and laughs during the day while hard at work, repairing and running the ship. They didn't hate the water bender, but they didn't defend her, until the night of the storm.
Two months after she was captured, a sudden storm broke out, washing out the deck with monstrous waves. Lenara ran to the deck just in time to see the crew rush past, trying to restrain a snapped cable that helped support the helmsman's tower. Lenara felt the ship shift direction under her feet and the crew heaved as one, losing their balance as they grappled with the cable. The sea rolled, tipping the ship the other way and Lenara watched in horror as one of the crewmen hit the rail and was thrown over the side into the abyss.
"MAN OVERBOARD!" the helmsman yelled. Lenara raced to the side and grabbed the rail. The man bobbed to the surface and flailed, then sunk below the black waves. Iroh appeared at her side. She met the old Fire bender's eyes.
"Be careful," he said as she rolled up her sleeves. Her foot echoed like thunder as she brought it down on the deck to brace herself. She moved her arms across her body and pulled the water to her. The man in the water gasped for breath as the sea drifted him towards the boat, but it wasn't enough. The water was too irrational to control.
"I can't…it's too wild…" Lenara's arms buckled and she lost her connection with the water. Zuko approached them as a bolt of lightning arced across the sky.
"Man overboard," Iroh explained, "She tried to bend the waves back, but it was too strong. You've done all you can," he said to Lenara. She stared at the waves. Thunder rumbled and the crew's shouts were drowned out by the roar of the sea. Lenara could feel the man's struggle in the water. Fire Nation or no, this man was drowning. She and Zuko shared a glance. He read the intent in her eyes.
"No." But before he could stop her, Lenara threw off her robe, sprinted to the edge of the ship and dived into the frantic waters, never looking back. The crewmen had watched the girl launch herself from the ship like an arrow from the bow and waited, strained from fighting the water and the cable they still clung to. Iroh and Zuko searched the waters in vain. Iroh sighed. Zuko hung his head.
A spiral of water shot up from the choppy waves, curving towards the ship. It broke upon the steel deck and receded, revealing the lost crewman and Lenara, both soaking wet. Iroh smiled.
"Well done, young water bender!" He clapped her on the back and she staggered, coughing the sea from her lungs. Zuko shook his head.
"Fool. A dead water bender's no good to me."
Suddenly, a loud pop broke from the tower and the audible groan of metal bending drew the group to the alarmed crewmen. The other cable on the starboard side had snapped from the deck. Zuko grabbed the line between two crewmen and pulled. The men shouted in frustration as the tower slowly leaned portside.
"We can't weld it!" shouted a crewman to Iroh, "It won't cool quickly enough for the weld to hold!" Lenara stepped over to a broken mount that once held a cable. She frowned, an idea forming.
"Iroh, can you get another fire bender on that other line? If you make the first weld, then we can have the other fire bender start on the second cable! Make sure to stand clear immediately after you're done!"
"Why?" Iroh yelled over the storm.
"Because it's going to get a little cold up here." Iroh divided the crewmen into two teams that stretched the cables taunt to the deck. Zuko stood with the first team, who used their remaining strength to hold the cable. Iroh shot a stream of white hot fire, melting the end of the cable and the deck below it. A crewman carefully applied more iron ore to the weld. Lenara passed her hand over the weld and exhaled, a blast of ice cooling the weld instantly. The second cable was welded, cooled and intact. The crew released their grip on the cables and stood silently. A calmer rain fell from the storm soaked sky. Dripping wet and exhausted, they turned their eyes to the girl who had saved their ship and one of their own from the sea. She stood, shaking with exhaustion, but satisfied. The silence broke and the crew surrounded her, expressing relief and gratitude.
Iroh rung out the sleeves of his robe as Zuko approached his mentor.
"A water bender has the respect of a crew of fire benders in one day."
"Yes, one grain of rice, no matter how small, can tip the scales, Prince Zuko. Perhaps she was meant to be with us on this journey as more than a prisoner, hmm?" Zuko looked up at the girl, frail in her small body, but strong enough to conquer the sea and cold steel. Just when he thought he could make himself indifferent to her, she proved him wrong.
After that storm, nothing was ever the same again.
XVII.
The day arrived when two enemies would sit and reveal their pasts. Lenara draped her hands over the ship's rail, watching the sun come up. She had meditated most of the last night over this meeting today. It still felt strange to reveal her past to someone she only knew for a few months. But she was short on allies and it was time this burden was lifted. Besides, what better person to explain the Fire Nation mark on her arm to than the Prince of the Fire Nation? The wind whisked the stray hairs from her face. The air was beginning to warm up, a sign that she had left her home for good. Warm air meant the Earth Kingdom; warm water meant the Fire Nation.
Lenara skipped breakfast, the month long fast having ruined her appetite. She headed down into the bowels of the ship. Since the storm, Zuko had released her from the prison hold below and she had a small dorm to herself on the main hallway, still heavily guarded at night, but she was able to enjoy the night sky again. There was no explanation, but she had a feeling Iroh was involved.
She heard voices approaching down the hall. One of them sounded like the Fire Prince. Not eager to confront him this early in the morning, she ducked into the nearest room, quietly shutting the door. Zuko's voice faded, as did Iroh's as they passed the room. Lenara released her breath. She was becoming spineless over nothing.
The room was dark, but strange shapes were silhouetted against a chink of light from a small porthole, almost blocked by the objects crammed in the room. She didn't have a candle with her, but there was no use for it if she did-no flint to strike a spark existed on a ship full of fire benders. She reached in the pocket of her shorts and closed her hand around the crystal she had shown Aang. The crystal let off a dull violet glow, giving Lenara enough light to be nosy with. She was in the ship's store room. She poked into a couple of random crates, finding rope and wax, coal and dried meats. Ordinary supplies. Another crate revealed the white candles Iroh has collected for her. She peaked into the top crate of a large stack and inhaled. Jasmine tea.
"Innocent until proven guilty, huh, Iroh?" she shook her head with a smile. As she wound her way to the back of the store room, she noticed the air felt cooler. A soft breeze, barely a whisper, tickled the hairs on her arm. She turned to the right and touched the metal wall. Nothing strange here. Her fingers ran down the length of the wall. No seams, no opening to push air through. Then she passed her fingers over a small gap. It was hardly noticeable. She crouched down by the imperfection near the bottom of the wall. Slowly crawling her fingers over it, she made the shape of a square in the dust. A piece of metal had been cut from the wall, like a cooling duct. But someone had welded it shut.
"Why would someone do that on a small, enclosed ship?" Lenara wondered. If it was a duct, it had to have two openings. Where did the other lead? She stood up. Curiosity had taken its hold of her like Fire opium. Best bet was to begin with the room on the other side.
Lenara cautiously opened the door, listening for approaching voices. The hall was silent like the womb, and she slipped out of the store room, pocketing the crystal. Hand to the wall, she felt her way through the dark hallway until she came to the door of the neighboring room. She nudged it open with her foot, scanned the room for occupants, and finding none, stepped inside.
When the door was shut, Lenara let her eyes take in the room-and her heart froze as only a water bender's can. It was Zuko's chambers. His meditation candles were lined up in a neat row, his armor hung in an ornamentally carved wardrobe. The Fire Nation flag dominated one wall of the room. A blue mask hung on a corner of the wardrobe door. Lenara approached it and touched the grinning face on the mask. There was a shallow dent under the left eye hole.
"The Blue Spirit…strange choice for a fire bender. What have you been up to, Prince Zuko?" She smelled something familiar on the mask, the scent of someone she knew…Aang? When was Zuko in the company of the Avatar? Something smelled rotten in the city of Ozai…
Lenara turned from the mask to the scan the floor. This could be her chance to find out the Fire Nation's plans, perhaps find the supplies for her mission. At the least, the hole in the wall probably had the Prince's darkest and most important secrets and she'd be damned if she would leave without knowing them.
The hole was located behind the Prince's bed. Lenara moved the corner of the bed and pressed her back against the wall, using her legs to push the heavy pallet away from the wall. She crawled into the wedge of space behind the bed and felt for the welded square. The square panel fell right into her hands as soon as she touched it. Strange, so the hole was open on this side. What secrets awaited? Maps? Plans? A horde of Jasmine tea?
A few random objects were clustered together at the back of the duct. Lenara reached into the hole and pulled out a couple of medals, old and worn; past Iroh's time when the Fire Nation was just starting to reward cruelty. She set them aside and found an old book, several stones, things that made no sense to anyone except Zuko. 'Talk about anticlimactic…what a load of junk!' she thought.
A tarnished necklace with a firestone locked in its center lay in a scrap of cloth bearing an old family crest. Was this his mother's? As she set the necklace down, something caught her eye. Lenara hesitantly reached into the hole again and pulled out a faded and fragile ink washed portrait. The boy in the painting had light brown hair and beautiful eyes that shone with excitement and innocence. He had a guarded smile on his face. The edges were torn at the top where more of the picture should have been. Another person had been standing with the boy, a hand on the young man's shoulder was all that remained.
Lenara turned the picture over for a clue to the identity of the man or the boy. Nothing. She flipped the portrait over again and searched the boy's face. There had to be a connection, otherwise why would Zuko have this in his trove of personal effects? For some unexplained reason, she thought of the time her father described the little Fire Prince he saw during one of his journeys. He had told her the young man had dark brown hair and eyes that shone with pride and fearless devotion.
"No way," she whispered, but the resemblance was clear. She was not used to seeing him without his scar. It was Zuko; this is what he looked like before the scar, before the anger appeared and the demons descended into his soul. She sat amongst Zuko's most private treasures and for the first time felt a little sorry for him. Like the crystal she had shown Aang, the Prince had some facets that she wasn't expecting. He was someone's son once, innocent and full of potential. He was the Fire Nation's hope once, too, before tragedy descended upon him.
'What in the world happened to him?' she wondered. The sound of footsteps broke her thoughts and she quickly set the objects back in the hole and slotted the metal plate into the duct. It didn't fit, so she wiggled the metal, the sharp edge slicing her palm open. She didn't dare stop. She tapped the center of the square with her fist and it sealed smoothly back into the wall. Lenara shoved the bed back with a solid kick and turned for the door. She threw the door open and ran right into Prince Zuko.