"Do I divide and fall apart? Cause my bright is too slight
to hold back all my dark." Jesus Christ, Brand New
Xx
Zuko had never been on a ship like this. All the Fire Nation's vessels were big, hulking things made entirely of metal, powered by coal, fire, and muscle. This was something else entirely; the boat was made of polished wood that was bent and shaped to fit perfectly together. Large canvas sails caught the wind and pushed the ship along, with no need for any coal or fire. Smaller sails could be raised and lowered depending on the strength of the wind, requiring men to climb up the tall spire that held the sails to manually reel them in. The water tribe people used the stars for navigation, positioning their ship during the night and marking their location on a map, putting their faith in the heavens to guide them. It was beautiful in its simplicity, elegant in a way that Fire Nation ships would never be. Building something like this clearly took the touch of a master craftsman, and the evidence of the hands that made it were left imprinted in the wood and design of the ship.
At first, all the Water Tribe men had let Zuko and Iroh do was clean, and understandably so. They wanted to keep the two outsiders where they could see them, and he could respect that. Zuko was no stranger to physical labor; although he was technically still a prince, he did have a ship to run at one point, and understood that things had to be kept clean in order to keep them working properly. On a ship like this, however, there was no need to oil any gears or replace small metal screws or take care of rust. Surprisingly, the most important thing they had to do was make sure the boat was dry. It seemed strange to Zuko at first, but the friendlier man who had helped fetch him and his uncle off of the ice floe, Kuruk, explained that rotting wood on a boat was one of the worst possibilities on a ship like this, and keeping the wood dry prevented rot. Keeping the ship clean prevented rot as well; dirt would attract moisture, which would cause rot. Zuko and Iroh were ordered many times to find a dark corner and clean out the dirt with a small bristle brush, and Zuko did his best not to complain. There were plenty of other things for them to be ordered to clean too, so they were always busy. Occasionally the sails needed to be cleaned, the deck and anchor lines were cleaned each day to prevent build up from the salt water, and in the case of the anchor lines, they needed to scrape off any barnacles that appeared (Zuko hated this the most).
They also had to frequently touch up areas on the boat with a water sealant made from animal fat; sometimes this meant dangling over the edge of the boat to touch up spots on the outer hull, which Zuko actually found exciting. Maybe he was an adrenaline junkie— some of the Water Tribe men had certainly joked about it when Zuko had started volunteering for the more dangerous jobs like climbing up the mast to make quick repairs on the sails, or jumping off the ship to break up any ice that the boat could not smash through. Really, he didn't think he was interested in adrenaline, but he was worried that he had a little bit of a death wish. He and his uncle were fugitives of the Fire Nation, his whole life having been turned upside down at the North Pole, and he hadn't the faintest idea of what he was supposed to do with himself now. He couldn't stay on this boat forever, as much as he kind of enjoyed the manual labor and drinking casually with the Water Tribe warriors.
Once the people on the ship warmed up to Zuko and his uncle, he had learned a lot about Water Tribe craftsmanship. Their weapons were made out of the bone taken from their hunts, and they were stunning and deadly. They used all of the animal; the bone for weapons and things like sewing needles and jewelry, the meat was smoked and stored for the darker months if it wasn't eaten immediately, the fat was used for lamps and also made into varnish for the boats, and a bunch of other things Zuko couldn't remember. He had never thought of the people of the Water Tribes as resourceful, but now he was quite embarrassed by his biases. Of course they have to be resourceful, they live on the literal ends of the Earth.
When they had boarded the boat, the first thing Zuko noticed was that there were women and children aboard. People of all ages, it seemed, had crammed together on the large vessel. Zuko was later told that they were refugees; their homes had been destroyed by the giant fish spirit and the fiery battle, and since the Fire Nation had attacked the North Pole once, they thought it might be safer somewhere in the Earth Kingdom. Zuko knew some places in the Earth Kingdom were relatively safe and had little to no involvement with the war, but he didn't think anywhere was truly safe anymore, although he never said that to the people of the Water Tribe. It had taken a few weeks, but he and Iroh had won the trust of the people on board, and he had to admit that it felt good to sit with these people and not feel judged. They appreciated his hard work and his uncle's bright humor, and they had melded with the group surprisingly well despite their physical differences. Uncle even convinced them to hold music night some nights; they didn't have any instruments except for a bone flute that one of the women had taken with her, but that didn't stop them from dancing and singing while banging out beats on barrels and crates. Zuko found it endearing how these people could live in this violent world and still be so jovial; they had survived a massive Fire Nation invasion only weeks before, but they laughed and sang and smiled and loved, and it stirred up a strange feeling of contentment in him.
He often found himself sitting on deck with the other men at the end of the day listening to their stories and drinking. Sometimes they told ghost stories; his uncle had gotten in on the fun one night and scared half the crew into staying up all night. They asked Zuko on more than one occasion if he had a lady back home, to which he always said no, but it seemed that they never believed him.
"I see the way you stare off into the sea when nobody's looking," Kuruk had said with a wink. "That's the look of someone in love." Zuko refused to believe that he was in love, and denied it every time, just for the other men (and sometimes his uncle) to burst into laughter.
Many of them talked about their families, some of which were on board, some who were not. He learned that Kuruk had been betrothed, but the woman he was to marry had been killed in the invasion. There was silence after the man's confession, but somehow Kuruk was still hopeful. It was obvious that he was hurting; many times Zuko would wander out onto the deck at night after a nightmare to see Kuruk standing silently at the prow, but he never said anything. A pain like that could never be understood by someone who hadn't experienced it themselves, and seeing someone he considered an ally mourn because of the Fire Nation stoked a violent guilt in his gut.
More and more he thought about where he belonged in this world, and more and more he felt like it wasn't in the Fire Nation. He had known what his father was doing was wrong; he had learned first hand when he was thirteen that the Fire Nation was ruled by a group of cold, cruel men. For so long he had been in denial, but Katara had imbued him with a small, fragile hope. Now, spending time on the ship with the Water Tribe men and women, he understood even greater what the Fire Nation had wrought upon this world. Many of them had stories about relatives or in-laws or friends who had their villages burned, their loved ones killed, or their sons and daughters sent off to fight in a war that they would never return from. Even Iroh had opened up about Lu Ten at one point, albeit in an abridged sort of way, and too many of the people on board were able to commiserate with him. It made Zuko sick to his stomach to think that his family had tainted the world in such a way, and an undeniable feeling started to grow in his chest; he had to do something. There had to be some way that he could right the wrongs his family had brought upon the world in the name of false glory.
Halfway through the journey, when they had just crossed out of the polar waters, Zuko had awoken in the night to a peculiar tugging sensation in his chest. He left his hammock and padded out onto the deck. It was still cold, but not frigid enough for Zuko to bother with stopping to grab a heavier shirt. The tugging sensation continued as he found himself staring up at the moon and thinking about Katara. She had changed his life in a matter of months, taken everything he had thought he knew and flipped it on its head with such grace and beauty that it startled him. He thought of her blue eyes, her soft dark hair, her embrace that was sturdy and gentle at the same time, and he felt the tug again in his chest, stronger this time. Katara. A feeling of longing so intense washed over him like a tidal wave, and the desire to have her in his arms again was overwhelming. His good eye welled with tears for a reason he couldn't begin to understand, but as soon as it started, it was over. He hadn't slept at all that night.
Iroh had taken it upon himself to be the friendliest old man aboard the ship, and wooed a handful of older women with his cooking and willingness to do chores for them. One night he had convinced everyone to take part in a pai sho tournament, and Zuko had to admit that it had been kind of fun. He hadn't participated, but watching all the different people on the boat mingle as the few children aboard ran around deck had him thinking about everything the Fire Nation taught the children about the Water Tribes in their schools. They were taught that they were barbarians, violent and stupid. But Zuko had realized during his time on the ship that none of that was true at all. The Water Tribe people treated each other like they were all one big family, like nothing Zuko had ever seen before. In the Fire Nations, at least among the nobles, having distinct families was extremely important, and most of them had some animosity towards at least two other families. There always seemed to be a feud or plot among the noble Fire Nation families, but there was none of that here. Maybe things were different in the colonies, but he would never know. And they definitely weren't stupid; on the contrary, Zuko found the Water Tribe peoples to be incredibly clever, able to adapt to any obstacle, just like their element. They ran into storms a few times, which were extremely different on a boat with sails than they were on a boat like Zuko's, but the men always kept their cool and had a solution for every problem that came up. It was impressive, and Zuko had to admit that he could learn a thing or twelve about flexibility from these men and women.
He found himself enjoying his time, and that worried him. Good things never lasted for Zuko, and the closer he got to Kuruk and the other men, the more nervous he became. It was just a matter of time before they found out his secret, and then what? He did his best to balance being friendly and keeping his secrets close to his chest, trying to be open and closed off at the same time. Iroh, on the other hand, went all out on the friendliness— but that was his uncle's comfort zone. A fair amount of the men had jokingly asked Zuko how he and his uncle could possibly be related, and he never really had an answer. He tried to be like his uncle, to be kind and fair and good, but he wasn't the best at it. Despite all he had done to remedy it, he still held anger inside of him; anger at his father for abusing him his whole life, for using him as a punching bag and encouraging Azula to use him as a verbal punching bag, for molding his little sister into someone he couldn't recognize, someone warped by her trauma and abuse. He thought of Azula a surprising amount on the Water Tribe ship. Seeing all of the sibling-like relationships on board made him yearn for the days when Azula was carefree and happy, when she chased him around the palace garden and he'd let her catch him and tackle him to the ground. He thought of his cousin Lu Ten and the relationship he wishes he could have had with him. This war had robbed him of so much, and he hadn't even let himself think about it until he got on this ship and saw just what he had been missing.
After a month on the ship with nothing bad happening, Zuko should have known that bullshit was due at his doorstep any minute. The bullshit in this instance took the form of a band of pirates wishing to capture the beautiful Water Tribe ship. They had all fought valiantly, but in the end, Zuko had been in a do or die situation, and instinct had kicked in, flames bursting from his fist. Needless to say, the Water Tribe peoples were enraged; they had wanted to leave him on the pirate ship, but his uncle had convinced them to lock the two of them up in the brig instead. It was a long two weeks out of the sun, and more than once Zuko wondered if he should have just let himself die. But each time he had those thoughts, he looked over at this uncle, and was glad that he was still around, even if just for Iroh's sake.
Six weeks after they had been picked up on the ship, they were tossed out at the first Earth Kingdom port the boat had come to, and left to their own devices. Kuruk had given Zuko a look that combined hurt and anger as he tossed his swords and a small bag of food towards them, the guilt like rocks in his stomach as he watched the boat sail away. Without a map and without a clue of where to go, his uncle decided that Ba Sing Se was their best bet to start a new life, and they set out on foot.