I opened my eyes blearily, vaguely aware that I had awoken for a reason. However, I had no idea what that could have been. A sharp rap came on my cabin door, obviously for the second or third time, and I groaned. Climbing down, the sharp sting of my heels on the wood jolted me to some semblance of consciousness, I looked around.
The knocking came again. "Wake up, my lord!" a cry came; the last word was spat, and that confused me. None of my men treated me with such disrespect. What was more, the voice was female. Who was it?
I rubbed my scar, a habit of mine, and sighed. Of course – Amara. I had bought her the night before, and officially made her my steward. Generally the position was reserved for a man, but I had nowhere else to put her. To be honest, none of my men could cook worth a waterbender's promise as it was.
The door reverberated with the force of her next blow. "Open your eyes!" Amara yelled from behind it, and then burst in. Caught unawares, I stood bent over from the low ceiling and stared stupidly at her, mildly amused to see her fully dressed, as opposed to my current attire, which was only loose-fitting trousers. Well, at least hers was a pleasant face to see first thing in the morning.
Her fair cheeks turned from pink to pinker in very quick succession, and she stammered out what I presumed was an apology (for whose benefit, I couldn't guess) and slammed the door shut as she left. From out in the corridor, she said, "Y-your breakfast is ready…Prince." She obviously hesitated over what to call me, and understandably so.
"I'm no prince of yours." Somewhere it had registered that a girl had seen me as close to naked as a girl my age ever had, and I hurriedly dressed. I opened the door, to see her with her eyes squeezed shut, and suppressed an eye roll. "I'm dressed now. Feel free to just call me Zuko, though no one ever has before."
She opened her eyes, and scowled. "That will only feed the already rampant rumors about why you purchased us." She was trying very hard to burn my uniform with a glare. I had nearly forgotten what the Fire nation army had down to her town. I decided to ignore it, for now.
"And what rumors would those be?" I made my way past her to go up on deck, and saw that no one was there, save for the few men ordered to remain. I had also forgotten that I had granted the men leave for another two days. There would be no one to command.
Amara walked up behind me and pushed a tin plate into my hands. On it were four pancakes, the likes of which I had rarely seen. Amara cut into my hungry reverie by saying, "I know it's not much…"
Anything that didn't involve that awful gruel was a slice of heaven at that point, for all intents and purposes. I hurriedly began eating.
She gave me a withering look, and finished with, "…but I could have made better with more stores."
"Well," I admit, I had absolutely zero inspiration when cooking was involved, "what kind of things would you need? I could go into town and purchase anything. There is nothing to be done on the ship."
"It would be better if I got them myself…Zuko. You would get lost looking for an apple." She looked gloomy for a moment, and added, "It would be like saying goodbye to our old life."
"But Kiri's leg is broken; she's staying in the infirmary. It wouldn't be fair to her, would it?" I was silently praying that I wouldn't have to take this girl shopping. She was hard enough to keep track of as it was, always trying to get away.
"You can carry her, can't you?" She gave me a bright, hopeful smile, and started going below. I brushed my scar quickly, annoyed. When only her head was visible, I caved.
"Wait," I called. She turned to look at me, with what I suspect was a look of triumph in her eyes. "Do you promise not to run, Amara?"
She gave me a slow nod, saying thoughtfully, "Kiri's leg is broken, so I couldn't make it far with her. I'm not going anywhere that's she's not, either. And I wouldn't have a place to go in the first place. It looks like you're stuck with me," again, a slight hesitation, "Zuko."
"Alright, all I need is a chicken and I'll bet set," Amara said after racing around the town for an hour. I held in a sigh of relief, and set Kiri down on the edge of a demolished fountain. Despite the fact that it was bustling with people, the Earth nation village was still a war zone. Catching my eye, the older sister motioned for me to join her. I pushed myself back up, and made my way over to her.
"What is it?" I asked, keeping one eye on Kiri the whole time. She happily fiddled with a piece of paper, folding it into a model of an airbender's gliding contraption. It reminded me of the avatar, and I realized that there was no other way for one as young as she was to know what a glider even looked like. I would have to ask her about it.
"I need to ask a favor…please." Amara had trouble with asking for help, I noted distractedly. Mayhap it would come in handy, but I generally tried to remember as much as I could about people as it was. "Can I get a gift for my sister?"
Confused, I demanded, "Why would you need to?"
"It's her birthday in about one week. I want to have something for her, from home." She put her hands together in a symbol of begging, but opened one eye to look at me, like a small child. I tossed her a few coins, resigned to the idea that she would never leave me alone otherwise. She merely looked at them incredulously, until she said, "My own parents wouldn't let me buy a gift for Kiri! Zuko, thank you." She met my eyes with a fleeting glance, and hurried away.
I stood there, awed. She had looked so different when she was grateful for something. I had the distinct feeling that she would look at me like that if I helped her sister in any way. My sister certainly would never feel that way; she and I didn't see eye to eye on any subject.
"Um…" Kiri murmured, on the edge of my hearing. I turned to her, and she quailed under my gaze. She really was a very frail girl, and I hadn't really spoken to her yet. Reminding myself to think pleasant, non-violent thoughts, I attempted – and failed miserably at – a smile. "Z-Zuko…my leg hurts like this…" I quickly resettled her splinted leg and took a seat beside her. We must have made quite a sight, a small, slight little girl like her next to a disfigured boy like me. I rubbed my scar, remembering all the different range of shocked looks I had gotten since my defeat at my father's hands.
Staring along her tiny model glider, to check how straight she had made it perhaps, she blew on it and the wind lifted the thin frame. There was a flash of joy at her success – the most emotion I had seen from her yet – and she blew more vigorously. The thing floated off her hand, and continued forward for a good twenty feet before diving to the stony ground. Unprompted, I went to retrieve it, and gave it back to her.
"It's bent on the front, I think," I said. "But, it did well on its maiden voyage. Tell me, Kiri," it had been preying on my mind the entire time I had watched her with the glider, "Where did you see something like this?"
Her eyes grew wide, and she whispered reverently, "I was told not to tell, especially not anyone form the Fire nation."
Now I grew serious, and said, "Was the avatar here, in this village?"
Color flushed her cheeks, and she looked at the broken toy she had made. "He told me never to tell. I had to swear it, on the Earth herself. I can't break a promise like that, Zuko. Please don't ask anymore." I didn't say anything else, but I knew the avatar had come by her words alone. I would have to ask Amara, then, much though I dreaded it. She would be difficult to interrogate.
Remembering that I had bought something specifically for her, I pulled out a bag of sugared mint leaves, and put one on my tongue. I offered the bag to her, and she smiled hesitantly, but she took one as well. We sat in silence for a spell, sucking the candies. "Kiri, how did you break your leg?" I asked suddenly, furrowing my brow. I looked over at her, and she had an expression of abject horror on her face.
"It was a soldier," Amara broke in loudly, startling me. She was holding a chicken in its cage, though it had to have been fairly heavy. "After our parents were slaughtered in our home – we had been out – I pulled Kiri to a hiding place. It didn't last for long." She sighed, and sat down on the other side of Kiri than me, and the younger leaned onto the older easily. "When we were found, he said that, if we were very good and didn't scream, then he'd get us all to himself. So, I dropped roughly a ton of earth on him. We both tried to run, but his friend slowed us down by throwing a truncheon at a little girl's leg. I held them off, by eventually there were too many of the firebenders, and they captured us."
I stared deeply at my hands. If they had been purchased by anyone else at that auction, Kiri's leg most likely would never have been splinted, and she would have healed crippled. Amara would have been used too many times in a very lewd way, and I shivered to think of it. "You were fortunate not to have been bought by someone else," I said thoughtfully.
"Fortunate? Fortunate? Is that what we are?" Amara gave a snort of disbelief. "I'm not even all that sure I would have been worse off with some leering, demented fool, to be honest."
I started to argue, totally not understanding her resistance. "Now, be fair, I haven't even touched you, and by now you would have been-"
"Raped," she interjected bluntly. "Several times. The soldiers guarding all of us were kind enough to describe it to us. And, true, you haven't touched me – yet. My sister and I have been given a gracious home on board a ship with hundreds of sex-starved soldiers, all of whom barely consider us worthy enough to consider their attentions harassment." Amara stood up quickly, and piled all of our purchases on me, opting to carry Kiri, the lighter of the two loads, herself. She gave me an appraising look. "Do not think I am deaf to the men's rumors."
She headed back to where the ship lay in dock, and I hurried to walk beside her. "What rumors, then?"
"They say that their prince has become a man, and has opted to find his pleasures chained to a bedpost, rather than roaming free and elusive. They say that I have bewitched you into taking us away from our ruined village. At least three swear on Fire's heat that they heard us awake half the night with our games. And, that worst of all is those that say you only bought the both of us for a youthful ménage a trois." She looked at me from the corner of her eye, as though she couldn't believe that I hadn't known. "There are high stake on which can seduce me first. I believe the favorite is a young man that had every girl at home weeping for his return."
I blinked, and blinked again, completely surprised. I knew that the men talked, naturally; one could tell of unrest by the volume and high spirits. I had never thought of exactly what they spoke of in the first place. Now I knew; they were more of chatterboxes then women at a chore. With a sort of mortified fascination, I asked, "Is that all they say about me?"
"I have heard at least five different reasons for that scar of yours." I automatically tried to raise my hand to rub it, but I was holding too many things. "Three of them involve women. One involves a man, actually, and that's fairly entertaining, but you didn't strike me as having the airbender's disease (A/n there were ten very old men in a temple, alone, with hundreds of boys. Honestly). And the last…is a tale of a child, who was forced to become a man at the wrong end of a flame."
"Oh," was all I said, as I fought a tide of blood rushing to my cheeks. "If anything, it's that last one."
"I thought it might have been. You don't strike me as the type to court many women." She threw a laughing glance, and whispered something to Kiri, who hadn't said anything at all for a while. They both started giggling, most likely at my expense.
We had reached the edge of the pier, and I focused solely on getting aboard without blushing embarrassingly. I had to be perfect; it wouldn't do to seem weak in front of my men. I deposited the purchases as directed, and took Kiri below decks to the infirmary once again. As I left again, I passed Amara in the tight corridor, and put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
"What exactly did you mean by what you said on the pier?" I said quietly, mindful of Kiri on the other sid of a door. Amara looked confused, until I said, "I'm not the type to court many women?"
"Oh, that was just a joke. I'm sure there are plenty of anal, uptight girls just dying to throw themselves at your feet back home, Zuko." Her eyes flashed sarcastically. I was not amused; taunts and slanders were not permissible on my ship or in my company.
"You tread on unsteady ground, earthbender." I passed her more awkwardly than I had hoped to, but still I attempted to walk with dignity. I heard the infirmary door open and close, and looked back slowly. I could hear, faintly, the muffled voices of both girls. Careful not to make a sound, I crept back to listen.
"Is something wrong, Ama?" Kiri asked softly. There was a creak as someone sat down on a chair that was bolted there for visiting purposes.
"It's that damned 'owner' of ours. He's such a prude. He can't even take one joke with a smile!" Amara sounded exceedingly furious.
"He shouldn't have to," I pressed my ear closer, barely able to hear the quiet girl, "he's a commander."
"Commander of what, pray tell? You saw him. He doesn't even know what his men are up to. How could he ever manage them properly?"
"He was nice to me…"
"You think everyone's nice if they're not kicking you. I saw your face when you two were talking."
"That's just because-"
"Don't make it lighter than it was, Kiri."
"He asked me about the avatar." All movement and sound ceased. I felt that my heartbeats alone would give me away, but nothing happened.
Finally, Amara murmured, "Who is this boy? Who is he, to seek the avatar here, of all places?"
Silently, I slipped down the corridor before I could be found out.