Saraiyu
It was a simple prayer, one that a long-forgotten Avatar had written a hundred centuries ago; in the old language, it was an example of perfect linguistic symmetry. And so her tutor made her copy it, countless times, until she'd memorized the words:
My father is the sun; my mother is the moon; my sister is the wind; I am beloved of the earth.
Over and over, until each character was perfect, each word forever impressed upon her memory, her being.
My father is the sun, she thought each morning, when she ran across the sun-warmed courtyard to the bath house.
My mother is the moon, she said, leaving the shutters open on moonlit nights so that she could sleep in peace.
My sister is the wind, she knew, when a breeze sent her papers flying, and even her tutor had to agree that the gods were not smiling upon lessons that day.
I am beloved of the earth, she concluded, when a hailstorm destroyed the formal gardens but left one perfect early spring violet intact.
My father is the sun; my mother is the moon; my sister is the wind; I am beloved of the earth, she thought, and never forgot to add the second line (although her tutor had not made her learn it): I am a child of the four elements, and of the balance I was born.
Zuko
The Fire Lord was never a terribly attentive parent.
He made rare appearances—to scold or give to give grudging, cold praise—but for the most part he stayed out of the nursery. He so rarely darkened his children's door, in fact, that as babies both Zuko and Azula often cried and tried to crawl away from him when he did come to visit.
They didn't recognize him.
But even though he was never a constant presence in their lives, they both felt a strong desire to please him, to be like him. Zuko can remember that, as a young child, he would watch his father like a hawk during his rare visits. If Ozai drank a certain kind of tea, Zuko would insist that it was his own favorite. If Ozai said that he'd been reading a particular book, Zuko would get ahold of a copy (even if it were wildly inappropriate for a child his age). Whatever Ozai seemed to like, Zuko adopted with a near-religious fervor.
But no matter how closely he mimicked the Fire Lord's tastes and attitudes, he was never the favorite. It was never enough. He was never…
But this is not a truth that Zuko allows himself to think about much; in fact, it is merely one of a very long list of things that he refuses to dwell on. Instead, he redirects his energy and trains feverishly, intensely (but not, as his Uncle would be quick to point out, with the kind of patience and focus truly required). He chases hundred-year-old leads about the Avatar, certain each time that this is the one…
After two long years, he still does not handle disappointment well.
But he trains. For hours. Over and over again, the same moves, until he's ready to go insane. "I've got it, Uncle," he finally says, exasperated because Iroh is clearly just torturing him by this point. "Teach me the next set."
His Uncle—maddening old man—shakes his head. "Fire should come from the breath, not the muscles—" he begins, but Zuko cuts him off.
"Teach me," Zuko grits out, "the next set."
Iroh sighs, and begins explaining the new movements. Zuko listens impatiently, waiting for the important part—what the moves look like—until his Uncle breaks off abruptly. It's always something with him, Zuko fumes. He is only just beginning to realize that when Iroh doesn't want to do something, he always finds a way not to do it. It is an exceptionally irritating realization. "What is it now, Uncle?" Zuko snaps.
"Oh, nothing," Iroh says, unperturbed by his nephew's harsh (verging on disrespectful) tone. "The engineer's daughter is watching us again," he adds casually, nodding in the girl's direction.
Zuko looks over at the small sooty figure, barely visible against the smokestack. "…And?" he sighs. "Why do you care if that unwashed peasant is gawking?" The second he says it, he knows he'll have reason to regret it. And indeed, Iroh's lips press down together into one flat line, making Zuko feel ashamed (although he doesn't know why he should feel guilty about calling a peasant a peasant…)
"I'm tired," Iroh finally says after a long, awkward moment. "There will be no more practice today." Zuko starts to protest, but Iroh silences him with a look.
"Until tomorrow," Zuko agrees, grudgingly. Iroh nods, and retires to his quarters.
Dammit, I was finally about to actually learn something, Zuko fumes, and turns towards the smokestack. He cannot yell at his Uncle—not when he's out of earshot, anyway—but venting some of his spleen on the girl should serve as an adequate substitute. When Zuko looks toward the place where she had been standing, though, she's already gone.
He howls, releasing an eight-foot flame from his throat, but it's just not the same.
River
River does not, in all honesty, feel particularly bad that Prince Zuko never refers to her by her actual name. Before he finally had enough and became an engineer, her father served in a number of noble households; River was the same age as the children in two or three of those households, and was therefore forced to "play" with the aforementioned little monsters. The other children never bothered to learn her name: it was always "Hey you!" or "Servant girl!" or—most hatefully—"Peasant whelp!" Thus, the fact that Prince Zuko never calls her River does not really bother her; she would expect nothing better from a petty nobleman's child, let alone a prince.
But the day she overhears Zuko asking his uncle why he should care that a "filthy peasant"is gawking at him, she nearly brains him with her coal shovel, prince or no prince.
She knows she'll keep going back to watch him train, though, in spite of the threats, the insults, and her own nagging desire to hit him with blunt objects. It is not, as he has probably contested outside of her hearing, because she wants to overpower him with her stench, or distract him with her unspeakable physical filth. She watches him train for the same reason she used to wriggle her loose teeth when she was a child: she enjoys the dull ache, the delicious pain of seeing someone else do—beautifully—what she cannot. And if the price she pays for that pain/pleasure is a little name-calling and a deeper, more complex unhappiness that she can't quite articulate, well—she'll just have to pay it. Pleasures are few and far between in the middle of the sea and in the bowels of a Fire Nation boat, she thinks, and heads back to the noise and the dark and the unbearable heat of the engines.
Iroh
The engineer's daughter—her name is River, he reminds himself—is walking slowly towards the engine room, as if every step brought her a little closer to a terrible, unspeakable fate. Unbeknownst to her (she's already passed beyond his doorway), Iroh recognizes that sort of walk: he's seen Zuko employ it many a time, when forced to attend a boring state function. Criminals on the way to the scaffold walk with less conscious doom.
The girl—River—interrupts his musings by snorting softly, and Iroh seizes the opening. "May I ask what's so funny?" he inquires politely enough.
It's interesting, he thinks, how she goes completely rigid at the sound of his voice.
She turns to face him, slowly. Her face is shuttered, her eyes remarkably blank. "I'm sorry," she says quietly, her voice hoarse. "I didn't mean to disturb your rest." Iroh's mid-afternoon nap is well known to the crew (although not to Zuko, who still hasn't figured out that his Uncle always manages to find a reason to break from training around 2 pm).
"Oh, you didn't disturb me," Iroh assures her. "I was just wondering what you found so amusing." Her eyes, if it is possible, go even blanker—and for a moment he feels sorry for her. She is only a child, after all, and he's obviously causing her some kind of inner turmoil.
Which is precisely what he means to do, but he doesn't have to take pleasure in the results.
Especially not, he notes wryly, when she seems bent on making this as difficult for him as he's making it for her. She's a stubborn one, he thinks with some admiration as the silence stretches out between them. No finesse, probably a terrible liar, but stubborn. "You laugh so rarely," he finally prods—making sure there's a smile on his face as he speaks.
An angry line appears between her eyebrows; she knows she can't avoid his question any longer, and it pisses her off. Excellent, Iroh thinks, mentally rubbing his hands together. Perhaps she'll say something unwise. His hopes of an angry outburst are, however, dashed. "I was thinking," she says carefully, obviously measuring the meanings and nuances of each word exactly, "that if I have to go back to the engine room for even another hour today, I will go stark raving mad."
Interesting, but hardly useful, Iroh sighs inwardly. "That seems more unfortunate than entertaining," he frowns. The girl just shrugs in response.
And remains there, staring at him.
Iroh realizes that she probably believes her silence will annoy him into dismissing her; he can feel her willing him to get sick of her rudeness and send her scampering back to the engine room (although he cannot, in all honesty, imagine her ever scampering). But a battle of wills is rarely won by brute determination, and this is not an exception. Instead of curtly telling her to be on her way, Iroh smiles gently and says, "Well, if you are so eager to stay out of the engine room, then how about a nice relaxing game of pai sho?"
He has the dubious satisfaction of watching the furious line between her eyebrows appear once again as she realizes that she's been outmaneuvered.
Iroh (Later)
The girl is an absolutely awful player, Iroh realizes five minutes into their game. He's rarely seen anyone more inattentive, easily distracted, and downright apathetic. Of course, she's playing against her will, he realizes—but that's hardly an excuse.
"I'm sorry," she says when she manages to lose a game that ordinarily lasts around two hours in under thirty minutes. "I'm really terrible at this."
"You are," Iroh agrees with horrified wonder. The girl smiles faintly and gets up, bowing respectfully and making ready to go. "Oh, please stay," he begs. "There's plenty of time for another game." The line between her eyebrows—Iroh is becoming rather fond of that line—snaps back into place when she realizes that he's trying to foil her escape.
"Sir, this cannot be an enjoyable experience for you," she protests with a bare minimum of politeness. "I'm an unbelievably awful pai sho player." Iroh just smiles gently in response and assures her (with patently false diplomacy) that he always welcomes the chance to help an opponent brush up on her skills. "Really, sir," the girl objects, "grown men have been moved to tears by my ineptitude. People hide their pai sho sets when I come to visit. My father has threatened to disown me three times, each time after a game of pai sho." Iroh looks at her with obviously manufactured sympathy; the line between her eyebrows grows ever deeper as she realizes that she will not be able to escape him. "Perhaps we should quit while we're ahead," she concludes, backing towards the doorway (she knows she can't escape, but means to try nonetheless).
"Oh, but you're teaching me new and fascinating ways to lose," Iroh objects.
The girl stops in front of the door, head cocked to one side as she considers what he's said. Her face is blank once again, and he realizes that—completely without intending to—he's truly hit a nerve. "There are no new ways to lose," she says, with an awful calm. "You run out of food. You run out of weapons. You run out of men. You run out of hope." She smiles, a strangely expressionless little smile. "No, there are no new ways to lose. You—of all people—should know that," she accuses, even as she bows respectfully towards him.
Her words hang in the air for a moment, irrevocable, and then he dismisses her. He's learned all he can for today—learned more than he has in the last three months, trying to pry information out of her father.
Earth Kingdom, he thinks grimly once she's gone. They're here for the Earth Kingdom. He stares blindly at the pai sho board, too absorbed by international politics to shudder at the shambles in which she left the game.
They're here for the Earth Kingdom, he thinks. But what do they want?