Leiutenant Jee was not an idiot.

Being assigned Captain of the soon-to-be-late Banished Prince's ship was in no way, shape, or form an honor.

If anything, it was a death sentence.

Well, slightly better than whatever the Fire Lord had been planning before he shipped his dying former heir out to sea. Jee was not an idiot, but he could be faulted for occasionally mumbling about specific naval-based policies, and he just happened to have been overheard by the wrong person this time.

But Jee's on a ship instead of dead. He'll make it work, provided the rest of the crew doesn't get ambitious.

Somehow he doesn't think they will. None of them are here as a reward.

At least it's an older ship. A smaller ship. Easier to run on so few people, although Jee suspects that the number of people on this ship was not an oversight.

There's eight of them, not including the royalty. And the royalty does not count, not even if the retired Dragon of the West is one of them, because the Dragon of the West was never an Agni-damned sailor, so what the hell does he know about sailing a ship?

The other one is dying. They've all heard the screams, the delirious raving. They all know that once the infection sets in, it's only a matter of time.

They don't have the medical supplies necessary to treat his injury. Or the personnel.

He has a helmsman, which is more than he could have hoped for, really. Rojuk is young, and impressionable, and far too friendly, but has so far managed to keep them from running into anything important.

And he has a cook. Even if the man's tastes are...eccentric, to say the least. Still, he hasn't managed to poison anyone yet, and he never fails to provide second helpings. Or snacks in between meals. In fact, On always seems to have something available for a hungry firebender.

They have four. Jee is one of them. Rojuk is another, but he's a shit bender and he knows it, so Jee doesn't really include the man in his count. His helmsman's greatest achievement in that area so far has been consistently not setting anything on fire. Thank Agni the ship's made of metal.

Sun is their engineer. Not a firebender. Also terrifyingly normal, for an engineer. A consumate professional. Most likely the only reason their ship is moving at all.

He's also a murderer/rapist who was offered this as an alternative to lifetime imprisonment. Jee makes a mental note to keep an eye on him, if and when they hit land again. He's pretty sure Aizomi will help.

Aizomi. Firebender. Former Guardswoman. Former body-guard. Former bounty hunter. Knows how to kill a man in a hundred different ways. Alcoholic. Rages against society in general and the war specifically when drunk.

Lost one parent, two siblings, one spouse, and four children to the war.

Taram and Nisi. Both Firebenders and common, petty thieves. This was easier than a trial. They were offered the Firelord's 'mercy' and took it.

They all know what the Firelord's mercy looks like, now.

It looks like a Spirits-damned child, out of his mind with fever, begging for his father to stop hurting him.

Ezake, former soldier of the fire nation. As bad at soldiering as Rojuk is at firebending. Essentially a joke. Someone asked the Firelord to tuck her safe out of harm's way. This is as out of the way as a Fire Nation soldier can get.

Jee wonders, when the exiled prince dies, if the Dragon of the West will drag them all back to the Fire Nation, or if he could be persuaded to let them just-wander around as long as they stayed out of trouble.

Their former lives are over. They've already been forgotten. They're never going home.


The banished prince doesn't die.

Aizomi holds him down while The Dragon of the West literally burns the infection out of an already badly burned child. The screams can be heard all over the ship.

They can also hear him begging his father for forgiveness. Not the Dragon. His father.

Aizomi drinks herself into a stupor after that one and doesn't sober up again for three days.

A month passes and the exiled son doesn't die. They take off the bandages to reveal eyes that don't respond to the light, and one ear that doesn't respond to sound on that side. He's useless. Helpless.

If they killed him, would the Firelord let them go home, or simply have them all executed? Jee doesn't know, but it doesn't matter. The Dragon would kill them. No doubt about that.

They've been out to sea for a month, with as few stops to resupply as possible, when the nearly blind banished prince drags himself out of bed only to give himself a concussion when he collapses on the floor.

The next day they find him unconscious in the doorway.

The day after that he's hanging off the railing as if his life depends on it.

Jee figures they aren't lucky enough for him to just die, but he wonders what the former heir will do.

Aizomi overhears their fate by accident. The banished prince is hanging off the railing, and the Dragon is explaining the conditions of his return-to find the Avatar, and not return without him, on pain of death.

The Avatar. That no one has seen in a hundred years. That his father looked for and failed to find. That his grandfather looked for and never found.

He is not meant to return.

This time it takes nearly a week for her to sober up.


The former son of the Firelord takes to prowling the ship. He knows nothing about ships. Nothing about the sea. Nothing about anything.

He's weak, and unsteady, and runs out of energy and passes out in the worst possible places.

He snaps at anyone who looks at him. Yells at anyone who doesn't.

Hyperventilates when someone gets too close.

He pretends he isn't blind on that side. That he can see. That he can hear. And he's their commanding officer, at least on paper, so they go along with it.

They also train themselves to stay out of his blind spot. Not to get too close. Not to approach unannounced.

He may not have his honor, but he still has his dignity.

He joins them for sunrise meditation. His breath is shallow, but it's there. If he inhales too deeply, it sets off a coughing fit.

His throat was ruined along with his face.

He joins them for breakfast. They rise when he enters the room, and for a moment he looks ready to run.

Then he looks to the Dragon-his uncle.

And proceeds to give the worst commanding officer to crew speech in the history of speeches in that agonizingly raspy voice, stopping for no less than four different coughing fits, but the important thing to note is that he has a plan.

Capture the Avatar. Restore his honor. Return to the Fire Nation.

It's ridiculous. And stupid. It's not even a plan.

But they can already tell, by the fragile way he's carrying himself, that this plan is the only thing standing between him and utter despair.


It's not a plan.

Aizomi, drunk off her ass, tells him so.

"How do we capture him? Where do we look that your father" they all ignore how he flinches "and your grandfather haven't looked? How do you expect to find him when you can't even dress yourself, you soft, pampered child? You know nothing."

And really, it's a cruel thing to say to a child whose father burned half his face off just a little over a month ago, but that's why she's here in the first place. Drunk Aizomi has absolutely no filter.

He flinches, and beside him the Dragon is preparing to put Aizomi out of her misery until he says, his voice low and quiet, "I know."

"You don't know the first thing about life on a ship," she adds, because drunk Aizomi also doesn't know when she's about to be killed by Prince Iroh, Dragon of the West, uncle to a banished prince.

"Then teach me!" he snaps, and it's the first sign of life they've seen from him.

And the first sign of temper.

He's serious about learning. The boy finds Jee first, and just follows him around, watching. Since Jee doesn't want to be the one to spook him, he lets him be. It takes three Agni-damned hours for the kid to calm down enough for the captain to feel like he can start explaining everything he's doing to the nearest available wall, because he knows that if he addresses the exiled prince directly, the kid's going to shut down.


He's supposed to be recovering, which is why Prince Iroh is apparently not helping him take over command of the ship. So far Jee's been doing all the work involved in keeping the ship running.

He doesn't mind, because before they thought the boy was dying.

Now the Dragon's too busy trying to keep his nephew from killing himself.

They find the former prince hanging off railways, hanging off handrails, collapsed at the bottom of stairs, collapsed in doorways, and everywhere in between. He won't stay in bed, but he also doesn't seem to understand that he has limits, because he gets up and moves around and pushes himself until his body just stops.

Or until the anxiety attacks hit, and thank the Spirits they're on a metal ship.

They ignore the anxiety attacks too. Any hint of weakness, they ruthlessly ignore. Because there's a thirteen-year-old child in their midst with a badge of shame literally burned into his face, and none of them have it in their hearts to dishonor him further by acknowledging the tears that he can't always stop from running down only one side of his face.

Jee continues teaching him what he needs to know about life on a ship. The kid follows him around like a lost little duckling. Eventually he starts asking questions.

He asks why Aizomi is allowed to drink when she's supposed to be working.

He asks why the firebenders never train.

He asks why nobody ever trains.

And why they're basically sailing in a circle instead of looking for the Avatar.

And why Nisi never does any work.

"Because I'm just here to captain the ship," Jee finally says, and if his tone is sharp enough to make the banished prince flinch, neither of them acknowledge it.

"You command the crew," the boy says, after several long minutes.

"I have two commanding officers on board, neither of whom have given any orders." Jee's reply is pointed. The boy frowns. Jee decides to add just a tiny bit of fuel to the fire. "If one of them has a problem with the way I run things, it's their responsibility to speak up."

For a moment the kid looks terrified. His breath hitches, and he looks as if he's going to pass out.

The moment passes, and the kid starts breathing again. He's still very pale.

"I expect this ship to be run in a manner befitting any other Fire Nation ship," he finally says.

Jee nods. "Understood. Do you have a heading in mind?"

The boy falters.

"I have maps available in my cabin, if you would like to study them before choosing our next destination."

The exiled prince nods before moving on to the next subject. "I expect our firebenders to be in fighting shape."

"I am not a firebending master." Jee tells him. "No one on board is."

The kid frowns. "Uncle is."

Jee flinches. "I will have them start practicing in the morning."

"I expect everyone else to be in fighting shape as well."

Jee raises an eyebrow at the boy. "You expect there to be weapons training?"

He scowls. "We have at least one soldier."

"You have exactly one soldier."

"They can still train."

Jee gives in. The boy is going to have to learn for himself that he is no longer in the capital, with unlimited resources and a multitude of servants ready to indulge his every whim.

"First thing tomorrow."

He nods, satisfied. At least for the moment.

Jee doesn't know if this is a good thing, him encouraging the boy like this. But the kid has actually had an opinion on something for the first time since coming aboard this Agni-cursed ship, and surely that has to be an improvement.


Jee informs Aizomi that her drinking while on duty will no longer be tolerated. She flips him off and takes another swig.

"Why do you care?" she wants to know.

"The banished prince has noticed. He does not approve."

Aizomi looks up, interested. "He said something?" Jee nods.

"He expects this ship to be run in a manner befitting any other Fire Nation ship," he tells her. Aizomi snorts. "Weapons training. Firebending training. We're plotting a course in the morning."

"And the Dragon?" Jee shrugs.

"Hasn't said a damn thing about anything. Honestly, I think he's still surprised the kid survived. I don't think he's figured out what to do with him yet."

Aizomi slides her drink away from her and pushes herself up from the table.

"Where are you going?" Jee asks.

"To talk to the former prince."


Aizomi arranges for morning firebending practice to take place after sunrise meditation. She also stops drinking.

When she suggests that the prince joins them, the Dragon of the West insists that he's still recovering. The boy flushes, ducks his head, and scowls.

The former heir joins them for sunrise meditation the next morning. His uncle does not.

The Dragon of the West isn't there to watch his nephew nervously join firebending practice.

He also doesn't see the way the boy panics at the first flame and ends up on his knees, gasping for breath, clutching at a still-healing scar while tears run freely down one side of his face.

They all know, by now, that acknowledging a thing does not always make it better. They ignore him, continuing their practice as he pants and cries on the deck.

He's still there when they finish.

He comes back the next day. It goes much the same way.

As does the next day.

And the day after that.

And the day after that.

A week later he's doing the forms, even if there's no flame, and even if tears track down the side of his face the entire time.

He's only a boy. A child.

Pity will get them nowhere.


Ezake stands by herself, sword in hand, uncertain. She's the only soldier on board and has no idea how to run her own drills.

The boy is there too, watching.

Jee wonders if the exiled prince will react as badly to perceived disobedience as his father does.

His hand goes to his side, and Agni, he's found a sword somewhere. He pulls it out, and Ezake startles.

He holds it out to her awkwardly.

The woman settles, and reaches out to adjust his grip on the hilt.

Everyone on deck is watching. Everyone ignores the way he flinches when she touches him. Ezake then shows him how to stand properly. It takes him a minute to follow suit.

She shows him a basic attack, and a basic block. They practice the two moves, back and forth, for an hour until the banished prince finally seems to be getting the hang of it. Ezake looks more comfortable with the moves by the end as well.


Neither the Dragon nor his banished nephew ever talk about what happened. The crew pretends not to know.

Jee isn't stupid.

Even shit firebenders don't burn that easily, or Rojuk would have accidentally burned himself to death a long time ago. The prince, for all the rumors they've heard about him being a terrible firebender, could not have done this to himself.

Nor could it have been a training accident. There's a reason only master firebenders take on students. Burns are expected, a natural consequence of learning to control fire, but a teacher is also expected to have the control necessary to protect a student.

The boy had not been meant to live. There was no healer when he came aboard. They still don't have one.

Nobody acknowledges the scar. They ignore it as if their lives depend on it, and maybe they do.


The Dragon is both over-indulgent and over-protective.

He did nearly lose his nephew.

Rojuk nearly loses his job (and possibly his life) when he accidentally swears in front of the nearly blind, nearly deaf thirteen-year-old in front of Prince Iroh.

Taram catches the boy practicing the words Rojuk let slip later that day, after lunch while the Dragon is taking a nap, of all things.

The kid is supposed to be napping as well, but has a habit of sneaking out after his uncle settles and finding something else to do until his body gives out on him and forces him to rest.

Taram invites him below deck, and he and Nisi teach the child to swear. And gamble.

Sun nearly loses his job (and again, possibly his life) when he offers the boy a taste of the shit wine they're using to celebrate the anniversary of his arrest. He nearly gets tossed overboard when the kid asks what he did and he settles back like he's getting ready to share the entire story in all its less-than-appropriate-for-children glory.

When the Dragon retires for the night but the exiled prince does not, Aizomi breaks out whiskey from her own private stash and pours the kid a glass. Sun finishes the story.

Taram and Nisi share theirs.

On, the cook, continues the exiled prince's education in profanity.


They never talk about any of it. Jee teaches him to read maps and navigate by the stars the way they used to. On teaches him how to make porridge; he nearly poisons them before he finally gets it right. Taram teaches him how to pick pockets, and Nisi teaches him how to juggle. Aizomi teaches him how to shout-really shout, so that his voice carries clearly across the ship and (theoretically) through battle-and they all come to regret it. Ezake continues to "teach" him how to use a sword, even after he slips and blocks an off-balance attack that should have sunk deep into his shoulder blade, and they all pretend like they don't know that he actually knows what he's doing.

His uncle finally gives in to the boy's need to be doing something-anything-and starts teaching him firebending. The kid only knows the most basic forms, but what he does know, he can do with his eyes closed. He gradually starts using fire with his forms again, and eventually starts making them practice with him, even though it scares the hell out of him every time one of them sends a blast of fire his way.

He finds more swords, somewhere, and insists that everyone is expected to learn. The same goes for unarmed combat. They need every advantage they can make for themselves, if they hope to have a chance against the Avatar when they find him.

Nobody argues. Not even the Dragon of the West, though sometimes, when the prince isn't looking, he slips. The sorrow in his eyes is heartbreaking, but no one ever says anything about that either.

Everyone is expected to work. It's a small ship with an even smaller crew. Even the banished prince works. They're pretty sure his uncle doesn't know.

None of them are going to tell him.


He gains strength, day by day. Gets better at pretending the flames don't frighten him. Gets better at pretending he can see out of his left eye. That he can hear out of his left ear.

They still stay out of his blind spot. Nobody approaches unannounced.

With strength comes anger. He gets angrier every day. Soon he shouts more than he speaks. His firebending is full of rage and what on the surface looks like barely controlled fury.

His anger pushes him to make mistakes in practice. His feet aren't always grounded. His movements aren't always precise.

His fire is always controlled.

He's never burned them. Not once. Not a hair singed. Not a mark on their clothing. His forms are sometimes rough, driven by anger, and that should be dangerous, but his fire is always ruthlessly precise and controlled.

It's terrifying, knowing that the kid has enough rage boiling in his veins that he could easily kill them all, proper form be damned, if he wanted.

It's one more thing they never talk about.


They're already banished. Exiled as surely as their ex-prince. There is no returning home for them.

They're doomed to spend the rest of their lives on this ship, chasing an impossible task.

The Firelord is an absolute bastard.

He's ruined this kid. Scarred and maimed and twisted and tormented this child and convinced him it was all for his own good.

He's convinced the boy he's weak. And stupid. A coward with no honor.

He has done nothing but hurt this child who loves him so much.

The kid just wants to make his father proud, even after the son-of-a-bitch burned half his face off.

And the Dragon of the West does absolutely nothing about any of this. Never tells the boy his father was wrong. Never tells the boy that he's enough. Never tells the kid that he's proud of him, and that his father is an asshole and not worth his devotion.

Jee's not an idiot. Prince Iroh could easily say all of this. His crew cannot.


On his fourteenth birthday, they pull into port.

Taram and Nisi drag to him a whorehouse after his uncle's gone to bed. The boy is surprisingly not as horrified as they would have expected, but is thoroughly uninterested. He sits with a young woman and they exchange stories about spirits and myths and whatever else for an hour, and when she gets up to leave she pats him on the head and wishes him luck on finding the Avatar.

Jee can feel a headache coming on.

Aizomi orders him a drink. He doesn't argue about it. Or the second drink. Or the next, and Jee suddenly realizes that she's trying to get their always very, very angry firebender who has probably not melted their ship yet only because of an almost unnatural control over his fire drunk.

By the time Jee reaches them, there are far too many empty glasses on the table and the former prince is looser than he's been since he first managed to climb out of bed on his own. His hands are also on fire.

People are keeping a respectful, if wary, distance. The kid is waving hands that are on fire around as he talks. Aizomi doesn't seem to care.

"You cannot give him firewhiskey." Jee intercepts the drink.

"Why not?" Aizomi smiles sweetly up at him in a way that suggests he's going to die fairly soon.

The boy blinks and stops ranting about-Love Among the Dragons? He, too, looks up at Jee.

"Why not?" he echoes.

Jee forces back a sigh, because drunk or not, exiled or not, this child is still his commanding officer. He says nothing, simply shifting his gaze to the boy's still flaming hands.

The kid looks down. And blinks before immediately shaking his hands until the flames go out.

"Oops." He looks more sheepish than alarmed. Jee takes a deep breath.

"Are you aware of the effects alcohol has on the body?" he asks, hoping for all he's worth that the boy doesn't take offense.

"Some," the boy admits, but doesn't look as if he knows where this is going.

Aizomi scoffs. "He's not going to accidentally set the bar on fire. He'd have done that already if he were going to."

The brat actually has the nerve to look confused. "Why would I set the bar on fire?" he asks.

Aizomi nearly snorts whiskey out her nose. Jee feels his face reddening. He doesn't want to have to explain to someone who's had half his face burnt off why it's a bad idea for a firebender to lose control of their bending.

He doesn't realize he's looking at the kid's scar until the ex-prince's eyes widen.

"If you have something to say, then I suggest you say it," he spits, in that way that says he wants nothing less than to have this conversation but he's going to do it anyway.

"Alcohol affects control," Jee says, because he can't back out now. "Most firebenders don't drink much. We can't afford to lose control."

The kid's face goes white, but his voice stays even. "You were looking at my scar," he says pointedly. "It wasn't an accident. There was no loss of control involved." He can read leftover terror and shame in the fourteen-year-old's eyes, but the boy does not look away. "I'm not going to set anything on fire," he adds, his voice less harsh.

"Forgive me," Jee says, bowing slightly. For what, he does not clarify, at least not out loud.

He has broken the unspoken rule. Failed to ignore one of those things they do not talk about.

The boy sighs, and his breath steams in an already warm room. "My uncle would thank you for looking out for me," he says, and it is as close to an acknowledgement as he will ever get.

Because he knows.

He knows what they do not say. What they pretend not to see. Pretend not to hear. He knows exactly which things they do not talk about.

He, too, ignores them. He cannot do otherwise, not if he wants to survive this hell they've all been damned to.

Jee nods. "Of course," he says.

He looks at Aizomi, who is refilling the boy's cup, then at Taram, who is pointing out various attractive women-and men-around the bar, trying to figure out the young former prince's type (Nisi left with the prostitute), and bows.

"If you will excuse me," he says. Looking at Taram he adds, "Don't let either of them burn the bar down, and make sure he makes it back to the ship safely. I don't want to have to explain any of this to the Dragon of the West tomorrow."

He privately revels in the look of utter horror that crosses the teenager's face at the very idea before he leaves.