Zuko hovered around Lu Ten as they disembarked till his cousin started to snap at him. Not wanting to interact too much with either Katara or Sokka, Zuko retreated to his cabin. The room was small, and Zuko promptly began to pace. It was only four anxious strides from end to end, and he changed his fidgeting with every turn.

He had collected pieces that he thought must be important, but ultimately meant nothing at the moment. Azulon was dead, the siege of Ba Sing Se had failed before Lu Ten had died, his sister and Mai were in Omashu for some reason.

Zuko stopped and put a hand out, as if his thoughts were another person.

Was Omashu a colony already?

With a loud groan, Zuko sat down hard on his bed and held his face in his hands. Something had happened, something that had kept his uncle as the Dragon of the West and caused his father to be pushed to the fringe. What that meant, or what portend that was supposed to be, Zuko simply didn't know. There was still talk of world domination, Lu Ten had said so explicitly, but why bother making peace with the Water Tribe?

Why was it a Fire Nation cause to have Waterbenders be trained?

Zuko had first thought to follow threads to understand his place in this world. But know he saw that he was entangled, nearly strung up by the numerous strands he couldn't even see. And he was entirely alone.

The friends he had in this world he could not trust. The ones he could trust were not his friends.

Yet.

Rubbing his face, Zuko tried to calm himself. Letting out a slow breath, Zuko then stood and tried to walk as confidently as he could to the door. It was late in the evening now, and the crew would be eating dinner. With the hopes that he could move unseen, Zuko moved out into the cramped hall and back to the ladder he had taken the night before. This time, he didn't let the door fall back onto the deck, and clambered out quietly.

For nearly night, it threw him off that it was still fully daylight. The move from darkness below deck to the sun above almost made him sick. Zuko focused on closing the doorway and then walked about the deck, trying to find the other entrance.

Instead, he found Katara.

She sat on the edge of the deck, her legs dangling between the rails and her face pressed into the space of two bars. Zuko snorted in amusement and walked to her. As he neared, she popped her face out and looked at him, staying quiet while he sat next to her.

"Nervous?" He asked. Katara smiled and shook her head.

"I just can't be below. All of our boats are open and we can see, well, everything." She said.

"I'm not used to this much water." Zuko said, thinking back to how he felt when his journey first began. He had seen the ocean many times, from all of their visits to Ember Island. But he had never been on the water till the day he was exiled.

"My whole world has been water." Katara said, sounding wistful. Zuko watched her for a moment, wondering what she saw as she looked out over the open ocean. There was a coastline still, they wouldn't break away from it completely until they turned toward the old Air Nation lands. But the whole of the Sharptooth Sea was laid out on the other side, heading toward the gently curving horizon.

"Why are you leaving?" Zuko asked.

He knew why she had originally left, to help the Avatar master all four elements. But Aang wasn't here, and the Ice Raids had cut off all contact between the two tribes for decades.

"I'm going to find my father." Katara said.

Zuko startled and his spine straightened.

"Your father is in the North Pole?" He repeated. Katara scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"Obviously he used to live in the South Pole, since my brother and I were born there." She replied. Zuko tried to hide his confusion, wondering what else Hakoda could have been doing if there wasn't an active war going on in the world.

Was there an active war?

"What is he doing in the North Pole?" Zuko asked.

"Looking for help. I don't know how big the villages are in your country, but my tribe has certainly had more people in it."

"I didn't realize." Zuko said, still thinking about the implications of war. Lu Ten had talked about global domination, so obviously there was no peace.

"My father wanted to get assistance, to rebuild or to go back North. My grandmother was born there, so we know that they know about us." Katara sighed and leaned her head against the bars of the rail. "But we haven't heard from him in months."

"Are you scared?"

"For him or of the travel? Doesn't matter," Katara said quickly. "both are terrifying."

She and Zuko laughed. He leaned back on his hands and looked up at the sky.

"It is terrifying to be so far from home." He remarked.

"What is your home like?" Katara asked. Zuko puffed out his cheeks and let out the burst of air.

"Different." He said and Katara laughed. When she didn't say anything else, Zuko sat back up and wrapped his hands around the railing bars.

"The palace is, a lot. I don't like it very much to be honest. But I always loved the gardens. My mother, she, well, she took me there a lot. To feed the turtleducks." Zuko said and smiled sadly at the memory. "I miss her."

"I miss my mother too." Katara said wistfully. Zuko was quiet but put a hand out on the deck between them.

"Kya was an amazing woman, who did the best she could for her family." He said. When he saw Katara stiffen, he took back his hand, gripping the rails. After the Southern Raiders, they had never discussed her mother. They hadn't really discussed much on that level ever again and now Zuko wondered if he had transgressed.

"How," Katara's voice was suddenly raspy and distant. "How did you know her name?"