A/N: The end of season 1, when Zuko dives into the Northern Water Tribe, got my imagination going. Freediving is my favorite thing to do and I cared a little too much about figuring out how Zuko learned the specialized skill of deep diving and extended breath holding, which meant figuring out how Iroh learned it, because obviously Iroh taught him.

I'm also using this story to tell a lot of my headcanon regarding Iroh's backstory. He's always been my favorite A:TLA character, and I'm interested in the tragedy and horror of the length of time he maintained the cognitive dissonance to lead a war on a culture he liked while having empathy and good people skills. You can probably guess already that this story doesn't have a happy ending, but there's going to be humor and fun on the way down.

Also you just have to accept my hypothesis that Iroh in his youth was a whole damn meal in order to read this story. It's rated M for a reason.

I'm not a fan of the comics or the supplemental material that we got for the A:TLA world and characters, so if anything I write in this contradicts those, I know, and I did it on purpose. We'll cross those bridges in author notes when we get to them.

The story begins 60years into the 100 Years War. Iroh is somewhere in his mid-late 20's, Ozai is about 5, Fire Lady Ilah has been dead for about 2 years, and the hunt for the Last Dragon has already happened. Our story begins on the mainland Earth Kingdom, but we won't stay there very long.

The title is taken from a poem by W.B. Yeats.


Forgot in Cruel Happiness

Chapter 1

Iroh had become accustomed to taking his morning tea overlooking the river. The floating bridge the engineers were building was already a marvel, even three-quarters done. Iroh could have sworn his second sight saw the bridge already completed, linking the road from Fort Iruka to the Guang-hua mines, ghostly carts of coal rolling back over the river to burn in Fire Nation ships instead of Earth Kingdom forges. The future was already so real that he might as well be looking at it.

And it was so pleasant to look upon in the honey-warm light of the summer morning sun, rising over the great rolling mountains that surrounded the Leijiang river valley, to shine on rows and rows of Fire Nation soldiers' tents. He barely even had to step out of his tent on the hill to observe the camp, nearly silent as the night guards changed their shifts and the engineers awoke to use the daylight. Soon the valley would be alive with the noise of industry and soldiers drilling, but for now, the river valley was at peace.

The hilltop where his tent had been pitched afforded Iroh some privacy from the men below for these morning meditations. He could have greeted the sun as disheveled as a common enlisted man, felt the sun on his bare shoulders perhaps as it peeked over the mountains, and barely anyone would have seen. But it wouldn't have done for any of them to glance upward and see their executive officer less than fully suited for the day, so he greeted each morning in full uniform, groomed without the assistance of enlisted men, and made his tea himself, over the river, before the mountains, beneath the brightening sky.

Every morning of this calmer face of conquest brought a lightness to his spirit after the brutal slog that had been their taking of the river. Turning back the Northern Water Tribesmen from the road south to Leijiang had cost them good men, but the northern barbarians had given up once the army made its way south instead of further East, where the Water Tribe had Earth Kingdom allies to defend. Now his scouts reported regularly that no Earth Kingdom troops had been mobilized in defense of the mine, nor was the Fire Nation's engineering discussed in the nearby towns. They had captured every rogue Earth Kingdom traveler who discovered their operation. They still had surprise on their side. The mine was all but theirs. All but his, the first truthful conquest he'd have to speak of to his father.

Certainly, public credit for now would go to the lieutenant-colonel who was technically the commanding officer of the battalion, but the CO was among the few who knew Iroh for who he was, and not simply a major young enough for his career to be speculated about. If any of the junior officers complained at not recalling him from the Academy, or tried to guess at the importance of his family, or even dared to whisper accurately of his lineage, they had the sense not to do it where the Dragon of the West could hear.

He'd laid the skull of the last dragon at Fire Lord Azulon's feet. That was enough to earn a young man an executive officer's position.

The lieutenant-colonel served technically as his second, but the captain who served publicly as the same knew his birthright as well. He spied that captain out of the corner of his eye ascending the hill to his tent, an unsealed message fresh from a messenger hawk in-hand.

"Good morning, Jeong Jeong," he greeted. "Have you had your tea yet?"

"A message came for you, sir," the captain responded, with the trace of irony he only ever let slip when no other soldier was nearby. Jeong Jeong was never happy to call him by a title other than "Prince." But he did it, happily or not, and what was that if not loyalty?

"You can tell it to me seated. Don't you think this sunrise wants company?" Iroh asked, gesturing to the light blooming behind the round black mountains, the puffy clouds as pink as flowers.

Jeong Jeong ignored the offer, lifting the unsealed message. "It's about the voyage, back to the Capital for the Anniversary," he pressed. "Direct from the Tephra."

He'd backed his urgency up effectively. Iroh left off filling the captain's cup. "Is the ship delayed?" It could only be so, for a message to come from the ship that had been slated to take him back to the Fire Nation for a trip prepared years in advance.

"I'm afraid it is," Jeong Jeong said, handing over the message with a frown so anxious he might actually be feeling fear. "The Tephra met with an Earth Kingdom warship."

Iroh took the scroll. "Oh?"

"In shallow water."

Iroh didn't bother to finish unrolling the scroll. "Oh."

"It will be in drydock at least a month," Jeong Jeong clarified. "We'll have to find other passage to the Fire Nation."

"The Citrine is on patrol in the Colonies," Iroh remembered. "It should be a simple matter to charter a ship there."

A Gem class ship was not nearly as ostentatious as one of the Volcano classes. It wouldn't appear nearly as impressive sailing through the Gates of Azulon for the ceremonial return parade, but war demanded flexibility.

"Which of the men knows Earth Kingdom vessels best?" Iroh asked, standing up with his unfinished tea.

"There are men who enlisted from the colonies in the 55th."

"Pick a whichever Colonial soldier can tell you the most about sailing ships," Iroh decided. "We'll have to pare down the number of guards that come with us. We shouldn't travel in more than a group of five."

"Sir," Jeong Jeong said, with some force, always as if he were trying to convey the meaning of Prince without being able to say it. "We can't travel through lands this hostile without a full royal guard."

"We can, and we're about to," Iroh insisted. "A royal guard would attract a royal quantity of attention. We'll remain undercover at least to the Colonies. Select an appropriate guard for the arrival there, Captain. Until we're back on Fire Nation soil, I continue to be safest anonymously."

He worked to contain his grin. A little more time in the anonymity of his own merit was a much more pleasant prospect than he'd expected to begin his morning with. Certainly it would be nice to return to the adulation his citizens gave him for nothing but being born, but there was so much pleasure to be found in traveling as a common soldier, and finding out that even without his title, people liked him plenty. "Cheer up, Captain," he said, as Jeong Jeong clearly struggled with the respectful politics of not disobeying all the direct orders he'd just been given. "A voyage by sail will be as good as leave after all this battle."

"I get seasick on anything smaller than a Gem class," Jeong Jeong admitted, sounding preemptively miserable.

"Then we'll be certain to find the most stable vessel the Earth Kingdom has to offer," Iroh said, no longer bothering to restrain his grin. "I could justify no lesser expense for the health and safety of my personal guard."


The road past the Guang-hua mine south to the Earth Kingdom port of Turtleray Bay was too conspicuous to risk, but a goatboar path up and over a nearby mountain cut the journey short a day anyway. The rivet valley, full of yellow and purple flowers, smelled far sweeter than a camp full of fighting men, and the sounds of construction were not missed once replaced by the men's companionable laughter. If the enlisted men suffered nerves over traveling with their executive officer, they got over them after the first day's walk. If they speculated about why a mere major would be summoned to the Fire Nation for the 60th anniversary of Sozin's Comet when their commanding officer was not, they kept those speculations to themselves.

The band of six - three additional enlisted men had turned out to be too few for Jeong Jeong's anxiety - consisted of their quartermaster, Huaji, a middle-aged sergeant who knew how to provision a journey by foot with barely a moment to plan it, and three infantrymen. Loto, a private from the colonies, had volunteered information about every sort of boat from a vinta to a tongkang (whatever those were). Gen and Saburo served as royal guards without being told their charge was royal. The corporals both specialized daily in humbling their fellow soldiers, enlisted and officers alike, at close combat drills.

Jeong Jeong admitted to liking the men but his tension increased as the end of their week's walk drew close, until he was snapping even at polite young Loto, at which point Iroh could not help but pull him aside for a conversation the men should not hear.

"You're not excited to return home," he pointed out, when the evening's camp had been made and Jeong Jeong sat meditating, an open flame burning continuously and erratically in his upturned palms. The captain cracked an eye as the prince sat beside him, and since he could not possibly snap at his future Fire Lord, he let his flame burn out with an exhale. "Don't tell me some trouble awaits you," Iroh teased, at Jeong Jeong's discontent. "Did you leave a woman scorned? A rival with an insult to settle? Will I get first row seats to the Agni Kai?"

"It is nothing, sir." Jeong Jeong exhaled. "I just don't look forward to the end of nights like these."

Stars glittering into the endless sky everywhere they turned their eyes, and the rushing of the river rose up from the black valley below.

"I am ashamed that I showed enough unhappiness that you thought to ask," Jeong Jeong admitted. "You must have mixed feelings about returning home again."

He chose his words carefully, saying by NOT saying what he meant. That Iroh must not have been excited to return to the Fire Nation for the first time since the Fire Lady died.

"It will be bittersweet," Iroh admitted, touched that Jeong Jeong thought to ask, pausing as he still did these days, thinking of his mother. "But what better homecoming than for a celebration? Perhaps my younger brother is even old enough to hold a decent conversation by now."

"The celebration will be glorious," Jeong Jeong agreed. "But I'm not made for court life. Out here, at least I'm doing something with myself besides minding my manners and being careful not to be too short with the wrong sensitive old fool. In the field I direct my energy somewhere useful, but the longer I stay in the field, the more I feel as if every time I go back to the capital I'm going to explode."

Iroh nodded. There were days he, too, was glad that custom allowed him occasionally to respond to an insult by ripping his stiff robes off and fighting a man in public. "You're an asset to our nation, no matter how far you like to be from it," he chuckled. "I'll see that we both spend as much time doing real work in the middle of nowhere as we're able. Think of the luxury that awaits us, though," he said. Silk sheets and roast duck every day he asked for it, hot towels in the morning and massages before his muscles even grew tight. "Don't you miss it, in the field?"

"A bit," Jeong Jeong agreed, smiling slightly, no doubt thinking of his own noble house. "Not enough to want to stay as long as we must."

"Think what the men with us would say, if they knew you turned up your nose at luxury," Iroh said, but without really scolding. "When I wake up in the field chilled or hungry, the warm bed and servants waiting back home seem sweeter than I ever knew they were before I left the Fire Nation at all."

"Every man we command should have the same waiting for them at home," Jeong Jeong agreed. "Perhaps then they'd enjoy the free air as much as I do."

Iroh exhaled a long, satisfied breath, at the pleasure that was his - to live a life of indulgence back home, and the thrill of exploration and conquest here on the other side of the sea. "And yet I never feel I'm going to explode truly," he said, eyeing Jeong Jeong. "Not even when the oldest fool is sawing through my last nerve as they try to tell me how to conquer the Earth Kingdom with tactics they learned capturing waterbenders off the ice in the south." He paused. "Someday, when we're old men, I'll take you back to the island," he said, now not even daring to use specifics where the men could hear - "So you can learn from the Masters what you missed the first time."

Jeong Jeong shuddered. "I will never go back to that place. You shouldn't even mention it."

"I won't to anyone else," Iroh chuckled. "No one needs to know how when the masters shared their secrets, you fainted in terror -"

"No one needs to know you left them alive," Jeong Jeong hissed, listening that the noise from the men at the fire was still uninterrupted.

"Of course not," Iroh agreed. "One day. Agni willing, you'll understand their lesson." He stood up. "Well, after all this walking, will you be ready for a sea journey?"

Jeong Jeong closed his eyes. "Hardly."

Iroh chuckled as he walked away. "Then you should get your rest now, before we reach the port."

"I'll do my best, sir."


They burned their traveling rags the next morning before stepping onto the main road to Turtleray Bay. The clothing they'd brought, confiscated from Earth Kingdom travelers who'd wandered too close to camp, disguised them well enough as merchants and entourage. Huaji was unquestionable as a cranky beancounter with Loto, his apprentice, while Gen and Saburo were effortless mercenaries, but Jeong Jeong, never a skilled actor, only ever appeared as stiff as a soldier no matter how many jokes Iroh told him.

And Iroh had the chance to try many jokes out, leaving Gen and Saburo snickering red-faced as they struggled not to lose their military bearing while they waited in a tea house by the bay for the quartermaster and Loto to return with passage to the colonies. They had longer to wait than Iroh had expected, for when they returned, Huaji was red-faced with anger and Loto looked as pale as a bled fish.

"This priv - young clerk has no concept of the value of money," Huaji announced, without even greeting his superiors properly. "But I've found a boat. The Hoshimaru departs for the colonies tomorrow."

"Sergeant," Loto said, tentative.

"I've heard enough from you today for all of us," Huaji interrupted, rounding on the boy.

"I'd like to hear what Loto has to say," Iroh cut in, lightly. "I brought him along to hear his opinion."

He knew Huaji bristled under a younger man's command, even a younger man of noble birth, but there was nothing he could do about his age or Huaji's peasant pride.

Loto glanced from the angry sergeant to Iroh, and gave in to authority's offer of a listening ear. "Sir, the Hoshimaru is cheap because it's a bad boat with a bad crew." Iroh waited for him to go on. The boy went on talking, as boys with nerves often did, given the invitation of silence. "It's an old fishing boat, but the crew aren't fishermen," Loto said. "They might not be smugglers, but - even if they are, they're not caring for the ship well. All the metal's rust-warped, no one's scraped the hull in too long, and it needs repainting -"

"You hear that! He wants to spend all the money we have over a little bit of chipped paint," Huaji burst out. "He wants to squander the Fire Lord's wealth so he can sit in a pretty boat."

"Sergeant, I asked the young man to speak."

"The caulk is crawling in the hull," Loto went on. Iroh had no idea what that meant, but it sounded bad. "The ship's not being maintained. And I heard -" he pressed his lips together. "I heard the cook arguing with the captain over provisions. The cook wants to feed the crew better, but the captain wants to save money and just give them cabbage and broth. They're about to mutiny. I can feel it, sir."

Iroh shuddered. "I can feel it too."

"And it's typhoon season, sir," Loto said. "There are better boats to take, especially when it's typhoon season."

"You sound like you have a better boat in mind."

Loto nodded vigorously. "The Swordfish, Major."

"The Swordfish is a pleasure craft for spoiled heirs, and it doesn't even go to the Colonies," Huaji cut in. "It's barely more than a bamboo raft!"

A pleasure craft for spoiled heirs sounded more than fine to Iroh, especially after two years in the field at battle or at command. "What is its port?" he asked Loto, not Huaji.

"Changbao," said Loto. "Ferries go from there to the Colonies every day. We can get off the Swordfish and right onto a ferry that would take us straight to the Citrine -"

"Tell him the difference in cost," Huaji interrupted again.

"What does the Swordfish have to recommend it?" Iroh asked instead.

"Oh it's a well-maintained ship, sir. All their rigging is in good condition. The harbormaster said the crew's worked together for years without a problem. Three lifeboats. They have a band, for entertainment." He hesitated again. "Some of the crew are women."

"You had me at 'they have a band,' Iroh said, draining the dregs of his tea and standing up.

"Sir! The cost!" Huaji tried.

"Whatever the difference, I'll make up," Iroh assured him. "The Fire Lord won't be angry with you, I can assure you of that."

"You haven't heard the cost yet," said Huaji, but for women and song, Iroh could not have cared at that point what the actual cost was.


The Swordfish was a good-looking ship, even men who'd only ever sailed on Fire Nation naval ships could see. The bright green ship stood just a little taller at the mast than others at anchorage in the bay, with long floats outrigged on either side. When they arrived at the dock in anticipation of their boarding time, two men in pale green sleeveless uniforms were already waiting for them with a long canoe, fitted with two outriggers and painted the same emerald green as the Swordfish. The two rowers weren't even winded after ferrying the band of six the half-mile to the side of the ship. Judging by the size of their heavily tattooed arms, they could have rowed all afternoon and not been tired.

The crew hauled their luggage aboard and a stewardess in the same light, sleeveless uniform as the rowers ushered them to their guest quarters. The single lower deck was for cargo and crew quarters, while the airy superstructure on the top deck housed the guests in screened privacy. The men's cabins were narrow, but very clean, and much breezier than Fire Nation naval ships. Iroh still planned to spend as much time as possible on the ship's bow, where the musicians were positioned under shade and the stewardesses and the female deckhands might pass by, laughing pleasantly, or just smelling sweeter and fresher than soldiers in camp ever did.

A sharp whistle pierced the air. Iroh heard knocking on the door of a cabin farther down from his. He poked his head into the passageway to see the dark-eyed stewardess already addressing Loto, who looked seconds from proposing marriage to the first clean woman he'd been so close to in a year.

" - back top deck, please," the stewardess said, and Loto nodded along, not appearing to actually comprehend what she said. The young woman raised her eyebrows. It was clear she was having to work hard not to roll her eyes. "All right sir. Well I have to tell the rest of our guests -"

"Back deck, you said?" Iroh asked, striding down the corridor to grip Loto by the shoulder. The boy jolted out of his fugue, reddening quickly as the stewardess grasped this lifeline.

"Yes sir," she said. "For the embarking safety brief."

"How sensible!" Iroh said, leaning over to pound on Jeong Jeong's door. A groan issued from within. "Loto, go with this young lady, and see that Huaji receives his orders. I'll get Gen and Saburo." Better to leave Jeong Jeong and Huaji for the young lady and Loto to brief, so Loto had only cranky older men to be compared to for as long as possible before he had the competition of the two handsome corporals. Loto mumbled his thanks, divining the intent. As Iroh walked towards the corporals rooms and the stern exit, Loto managed to say something in a wavering voice that made the girl laugh. He grinned at the boy's success.

On the back deck, Iroh identified the other passengers - a pair of real merchants and an Earth Kingdom family of nobles, young enough to appear newlywed, an infant in the woman's arms. The family had surely claimed the stateroom cabin at the very stern of the superstructure, which he would have claimed were he sailing under his true identity, if this vessel were not sailing under the flag of a technical enemy. The crew were at work carrying cargo belowdeck, industrious as ants.

At the very stern of the vessel, the captain, a tall woman with short-cropped hair going grey at the temples, raised her hand for attention. "We do this every voyage," she announced, to the standing passengers. "In the event an emergency is piped -" she nodded towards a short sailor with hair so faded brown by the sun that its dark brown showed auburn highlights. He blew five piercing, short blasts on a long silver whistle - "guests will don their float vests and assemble at the lifeboat located on the side of the deck corresponding to their cabin."

The two canoes that served as life and working boats hung on either side of the vessel. At each boat a team of sailors held bright yellow-painted cork vests out to the passengers, and showed them where more were lashed down inside the lifeboats.

"In the event of a man overboard -" the captain nodded towards the back of the ship, where a small, flat-decked sailing craft with three slim hulls was mounted off the back on a small ramp, ready to be dropped into the ocean. "Keep eyes on the person in the water and do not stop shouting. Our fastboat will follow your direction to the man overboard." The only sailor assigned to the fastboat, a darkly tanned woman, beamed at the guests from beneath her wide hat and adjusted her wooden slitted eye protection.

The guests were all made to practice donning the floatvests and finding the emergency flares tied inside. Iroh was surprised to see the Earth Kingdom had adopted the Fire Nation's design for emergency flares, and he pretended not to already know to hold one at an angle so the molten fuel would drip into the water instead of onto his hand. The Captain watched them each identify their assigned lifeboat, and instructed them not to risk the time to rescue any material good in the event that the captain announced Abandon Ship.

"This is your only job as my guests," the Captain concluded the brief, "but don't worry. No guest sailing under my flag has had to do their job yet."


The guests were ushered to cushions at the shaded bow for the embarking of the Swordfish. With the wind low, the sailors were only lowering and trimming one sail, and all the men but Loto were surprised to see the rowers hopping over the side of the top deck to seat themselves by the outrigged floats, barely out of the water, to row out of the harbor. That two dozen sailors could row a ship large enough for the comfortable carriage of cargo and passengers was a surprise to the Fire Nation soldiers, who'd never voyaged in boats not powered by coal and made of metal.

"How can they expect to make it to Changbao in a week at this crawl?" Jeong Jeong growled, even as the young stewardess poured embarking sake into his cup.

"The wind will probably pick up after we leave the wind shield of the bay," Loto said, following the stewardess with stricken eyes. "Sir," he added, coming back to himself enough to remember propriety. The boy picked up his sake and sipped it overeagerly, nervous now from military propriety on one side and romantic longing from the other.

The sake sloshed in Jeong Jeong's cup. "Will the ride be smoother then?" he asked, a little weakly.

Loto did not have an answer Jeong Jeong would have liked, so the boy hurriedly finished his sake and didn't say anything, breathing heavily against the burn of the liquor.

Iroh found in a few moments of eavesdropping that the Earth Kingdom nobleman and women were on their way to the bride's family's tea plantation, and so immediately decided that a diplomatic friendship was not only a possibility but his responsibility. However, as he chatted with the young mother and her groomsman about the mountain geography and weather conditions that went into the growing of the finest oolong, Jeong Jeong only continued to look worse, eventually leaning to pinch the bridge of his nose in his hand, his eyes screwed tight against a headache.

Before Iroh could suggest that it was time for the captain to take himself somewhere less enclosed, though, the fastboat sailor from the safety brief paused beside their party. She still had her eye protection on, and a thick smear of pale yellow paste covering her nose and cheekbones, stark against her dark skin.

"Honey, how you doin'?" she asked Jeong Jeong, in the thickest, most rural Earth Kingdom accent Iroh had ever heard. "You're lookin' pretty seasick."

"I'm not your honey," Jeong Jeong growled, yet groaned at the same time, without lifting his head from his hand.

The sailor pressed her lips together, her eye protection concealing the extent of her expression. Iroh suspected she was rolling her eyes. "Well you are seasick. You'll feel better amidships in the fresh air. C'mon, I'll take you."

Jeong Jeong lurched to his feet. "Please be right," he groaned, as the woman gave him her shoulder to lean on.

Gen reached for the captain's cup of sake. "Well, if he's not going to drink it -"

Iroh stood up to go on his own quick journey. "Miss," he addressed the stewardess, "Could I get something from your kitchen stores?"

A few moments to follow the stewardess - Kirakira - to the galley, she corrected him, with cheeky pertness that no girl would have dared address him with if he were traveling under his own identity - to retrieve a ginger root, and then a few moments more to take the ginger root to his cabin and heat water for the tea that he'd used to settle his own stomach on more than one naval passage. On the top deck, Jeong Jeong was easy to find, for he had the sound of the fastboat sailor's peculiar accent to follow, as she finished telling Jeong Jeong a story the captain was clearly not appreciating.

"- So I pulled the catgator out of my pants, right? You remember I had the catgator hidden there? He was just a kittengator then. Anyway things started to get real weird after that-"

"Started?" Jeong Jeong echoed, sounding as if the fresh air had done nothing for his headache.

"I would like to hear every part of that story from start to finish," Iroh said, sitting down beside his second. "But first, you could use this," he said, pressing a cup into Jeong Jeong's hands.

"Is that ginger?" the sailor leaned around Jeong Jeong, looking through her eyewear at the pouring tea. "Good idea!"

"I am not putting anything in my stomach," Jeong Jeong objected.

"It'll help," Iroh insisted. "Try it. I made it myself."

"Better that you do," counseled the sailor. "Ever try to throw up on an empty stomach? Much better to have somethin' down there, believe you me."

"Care for some?" Iroh asked, digging in his pocket for another cup. "I brought a spare."

"Ain't you sweet!" she said, holding out her hand for the cup. Between the hat and the eye protection, he couldn't tell much about her appearance, but she had a nice smile. Her accent, while strange, was honey-slow and charming. Iroh decided he wouldn't mind hearing it more.

"Don't worry," he consoled his captain, as he filled a cup for the lady and handed it over, sure to catch her eye (as well as he could catch them through the slits in her wooden eyewear) and smile, slower than when he wasn't trying to charm. "You'll have your sea legs in no time." He jostled Jeong Jeong's shoulder. "Once you're feeling better, you'll be back to as joyful as you ever were. And I'm sure the band will let you join them, to pass the time."

"Oh, the band?" the fastboat sailor pressed, interested.

"Yes, the band," Iroh said, repressing a chuckle. "Because you're a musician, Jeong Jeong. Isn't that right?"

He wondered if the captain would dare to contradict him.

A beat passed as Jeong Jeong picked up, very disdainfully, what Iroh was putting down.

"Certainly," Jeong Jeong agreed, in the flattest of tones. "It is as you say, sir. I am . . . a musician."

"You'll get your sea legs sooner than later," the sailor reassured him. "You'll be playing the dizidu again in no time."

"I don't play the dizidu."

"Oh are you sayin' you dizi-don't?"

She cracked up at her own joke as quickly as Iroh did.

"No one advertised that this ship had a comedian as well!" he said, when he could speak without laughing again.

"No one should have," Jeong Jeong muttered.

"I am begging you to begin your story again," Iroh pressed, pleased as the woman drank her tea. "The one about the catgator."

"Oh honey I'd love to," she said, with real regret. "But I gotta go pull an oar now." She sounded resigned as she stood up. "If your friend don't feel better soon, just ask around for Bei Vil. She's the medic."

She bowed to both of them, sloppily, but at least she bowed before leaving.

"If I had to listen to you flirt with that commoner one more minute I was going to throw up after all," Jeong Jeong groaned.

"She was funny," Iroh said, settling back on the locker. "I'd like to see what's under her mud mask."

"Sure, her mud mask."

"Drink your tea," he instructed. "That's an order."

Jeong Jeong sipped his tea. Already, he did look slightly less sallow in the face as he stared out to the horizon. A very slight breeze over the front of the boat dried the sweat from his forehead.

"What are we going to do with the men, for a week at sea?" he asked. "Nowhere to walk, nowhere to . . . practice." He said the word so meaningfully he could only mean 'firebend.' "The men will be burning up inside by the time we reach Changbao."

"You'll be burning up inside."

"I will." Jeong Jeong exhaled a long, hot breath, that rippled in the air. "Our journey's just begun and I already can't wait for it to be ended."

"The men are professionals," Iroh said, with little concern. Huaji and Loto were not firebenders, and Saburo and Gen could expend their energy sparring with practice knives, as mercenaries would be expected. "They'll find something to occupy themselves."

"And you'll find entertainment, I'm sure," Jeong Jeong murmured, but he kept sipping his tea, a sure sign his seasickness was diminished.

"The ship has two pai sho sets and about a dozen board games besides," Iroh agreed, eager for the chance to sit and take all his men's money with strategy (then generously spend it on them in the colonies). "If you learn anything on this voyage, may it be how to relax."

"I'll do my best, sir," Jeong Jeong said, with another long exhale, cool enough not to be visible this time.

Iroh missed the conversation with the tea heiress and her groom. He stood up. "This voyage will be good for you," he said, with no real reason to say it. He hadn't foreseen anything about the voyage, nor did he feel one way or the other, but things had a way of coming true more often if they were spoken aloud. "I'm sure of it."

He returned to his cabin believing wholly that this voyage could, indeed, go very well for them all.


A/N: Up next: the voyage does not go well for anyone at all.