"The Ship of Dreams, they called it. And it was. It really was…" Over five days, the lives of Kai Wen and Jinora Gyatso became irreversibly entwined. But their adventure was not the typical love story, for the ship they met on was the RMS Titanic. From the moment the ship set sail from the Earth Kingdom in 177 AG, it was destined for disaster. [Kai/Jinora] Titanic!AU.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Korra, or any of its trademarked characters. I also do not own the plot of the movie Titanic: that belongs to James Cameron and his associates. I only own the story that you see written, and hope that you enjoy my spin on things.

Those in Peril on the Sea by boasamishipper

Chapter Five

177 AG

Once they ascended the stairwell and made it onto the promenade deck, Jinora exchanged a quick look with her walking companion, who appeared blasé and a bit frightened. His hands were shoved in the pockets of his torn trousers, and Jinora couldn't help but remember last night, when his hands had been the only thing keeping her from plummeting to her untimely death.

"Shall we take a walk, then?" she found herself saying, her arms dangling limply at her sides. The idea she'd had to just speak with him in private had vanished in the wind now that they were in public. "It won't be long."

Kai nodded. "Yeah, alright," he said with a nod, and they set off, their shoes tapping an odd pattern on the wooden deck. They passed old and young people reading and talking in steamer chairs, all in first class attire. Jinora even recognized some of them from dinner the night before. Some of them glanced curiously between her and Kai, obviously wondering how such a mismatched couple came to be.

"So..." Kai's voice was curious as they came to a full halt, overlooking the ocean from the aft railing. "What did you want to talk to me about, exactly?"

Despite herself, she chuckled. "You cut right to the chase, don't you?"

"No, I—I'm fine with talking to you. All I'm asking is why you want to talk on the promenade deck. If privacy is what you want, you're not going to get it up here." Kai paused. "Or down in steerage for that matter, now that I think about it. Skoochy and Tahno would've had it all over the ship by lunchtime."

Ignoring the mention of the two names she didn't recognize (but she would've bet any number of yuans that Skoochy and Tahno were the two boys sitting next to him on the bench in the dining hall—even if she didn't know which was which), Jinora pressed on, clasping her hands together. "Privacy's not what I'm after," she said. "Well, not completely, anyways. I just needed to speak with you...more specifically about your actions last night."

Kai, for some reason, seemed to be disgruntled by that. "Why? Is this about money? Because I already said I won't accept any—"

"No, no, it's not about money," Jinora said hastily, shaking her head. A few tendrils of her black hair escaped from behind her ears, and she tucked them back impatiently. "Although believe me, Mr. Wen, you're entirely deserving of money from your heroic actions. I...I just wanted to thank you. Not just for—for pulling me back. But for your discretion."

Kai appeared taken aback at that, something that Jinora could understand. It wasn't every day you met someone without an ulterior motive. "Oh," he said. "Well. Uh. You're welcome."

She could feel her face heating up—luckily it was warm enough outside that the flush in her cheeks could be attributed to the heat from the sun. "Mr. Wen—"

"Kai," he instantly corrected, wrinkling his nose slightly. "Just Kai."

"Yes, uh, Kai. I feel like such an idiot. It took me all morning and most of last night to get up the nerve to face you." She didn't know whether it was proper to say so, but couldn't help herself as the words slipped out of her mouth without her control. "And, well, here I am." She punctuated the end of her statement with a vague wave, luckily not decapitating anyone while she was at it.

"Here you are, yeah." Kai nodded, his grip tight on the book he carried as if he were afraid that it was going to fly away from him. "Can I ask you something?"

She nodded, unable to speak for a moment.

"Why did you..." He stumbled over the words as though he wasn't sure how to phrase it. "Why did you want to kill yourself?"

Jinora winced at the gruff wording of his question, knowing that she'd have to answer it at some point. She'd just been hoping that he wouldn't press it. "I don't...it wasn't just one thing. It was everything. It was them, it was their whole world. It was my whole world. And I was trapped in it, like an insect in amber. I had to get away from it all, and I thought that, well, that jumping was the only way to do so." She avoided eye contact with Kai. "Spirits, I'm such a fool."

Kai changed the subject. "That one guy last night, is he one of them? The one who insulted me."

"What?" Jinora had no clue what he was talking about, and then she understood. Unless he was referencing the Master-at-Arms, then he had to mean LingShi. "Oh, you mean LingShi. Yes, he is."

"You're his fiancée, right?"

"Unfortunately, yes." She showed him the ring adorning her finger, and he let out a piercing whistle, his eyes widening at the size of the rock. Jinora had been amazed the first time she'd laid eyes on it, so she understood his shock.

"Spirits. From the size of that thing, you'd have sank straight to the bottom," Kai remarked, and they both released a faint chuckle at her expense. A passing steward scowled at Kai, who was clearly not a first class passenger, but Jinora just glared at him until he went away. Kai didn't notice. "Were you also upset because you have to marry this guy?"

She said nothing.

"You don't have to marry him, you know. Not if you don't want to."

Jinora sighed, already growing weary of this point in the conversation. She already spoke about LingShi enough with the first class members—all she wanted was one day where no one spoke to her regarding her fiancé. "Kai, please don't judge me until you've seen the world I have to live in."

He shrugged. "Well, I will tonight, at any rate." Jinora smiled slightly, thinking that at least tonight's dinner wouldn't be so dreadfully boring. At least she would have someone to talk to. "You know," Kai said, "I figured your fiancé wouldn't want you to speak with me at all. Wouldn't want you to mingle with vermin like me, I mean."

Her jaw clenched in irritation. It still made her a bit angry in the back of her mind to remember what LingShi had said to Kai. "The opinions of my fiancé are not my own and I would greatly thank you to not get them confused again, Mr. Wen."

Kai held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, looking mollified. "No, no, I know that! What I mean is—well, I know—I know you're not anything...you and LingShi...your opinions aren't the same. I know. Sorry for that."

"That's alright, I suppose." Jinora decided to let it go. After all, it was plain to her that Kai meant nothing by his statement. "Just...please don't mention his viewpoints again. They've always been a bit—well, skewed, if you don't mind my saying so."

"Not at all. That much was clear last night." She watched as Kai took out a cigarette and reached into his pocket for a lighter. Her addiction getting the best of her, Jinora asked, "May I?"

To his credit, Kai didn't even look taken aback. "Sure." Kai handed her a cigarette, pulled out his lighter and lit his, then leaned over to light hers. "How long have you been smoking?"

"Hm." Jinora took a long drag from her cigarette, relishing in the familiar taste. The nicotine began to calm her almost instantly, and she blew out a misshapen grey smoke ring through pursed lips. It was only when she was watching the smoke dissipate in the wind that she realized Kai had asked her a question. "I've smoked on and off since I was about thirteen."

Kai wrinkled his nose as he thought. "So, six years now?"

"Only four. I'm seventeen."

"Seventeen?" Kai looked appropriately amazed. "Really? I figured you were at least nineteen."

"No, I'm seventeen." With the cigarette burnt nearly down to the nub, she dropped it into the ocean and watched it fall. "How old are you?"

"I'm, uh, eighteen." Kai rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, then shifted the book that he was carrying up to the crook of his elbow. Jinora couldn't help but wonder what was so special about that book of his. "I'll be nineteen in a few months."

Looking for another topic, any other topic than the awkward repetition of their ages, she indicated his book, which she'd been curious about since she'd noticed him carrying it. "What's that?" Perhaps her question hadn't been particularly well-worded, but at least it got them off the subject of their age.

"Oh." Kai looked down at the book in surprise, like he'd forgotten it was there. "Just my sketchbook. I've had it for ages. I st—I borrowed it without asking when I was around fifteen. I was too poor to even feed myself, but I had a sketchbook and some pencils. I drew portraits in the Lower Ring for a couple of yuans. Found a way to feed myself."

"May I take a look?" Jinora asked, moving closer and grabbing it from his hands. Kai laughed and gestured for her to go ahead as she sat down on a deck chair, smoothing the folds of her skirt down before opening the sketchbook to the first page. It was a rather simple drawing of a woman from the back, her dress flapping in the wind. She waved to someone in the distance, and one hand was clamped on top of her head to keep a large hat from flying away in the wind. As she turned the pages, she noticed a small, half-finished sketch of an old man's hands, a sleeping polar bear dog, and a father and daughter at the rail of the Titanic. The details were intricate; the faces were luminous and alive. Jinora almost wanted to touch them, but couldn't make herself do it. She was afraid of smearing the charcoal and ruining the image.

"I know they're not spectacular, but..."

"No, they're wonderful!" Jinora immediately said, completely genuine. "Kai, this book is amazing. These sketches are a celebration of the human condition."

"Thank you." Kai gave her a tentative, crooked smile, and she felt something strange settle into her stomach. "People didn't think much of them in the Earth Kingdom, though..."

"How could they not?" Jinora said. "These are wonderful." Eager to see more of his creations, she flipped forward a few pages, marveling at the details until she stopped in her tracks. "Well, well, what do we have here?"

A flush rose up her cheeks as she noticed that she'd stumbled upon a series of nudes. As much as she wanted to turn the page and forget that she'd seen them, she couldn't. Jinora slowly became transfixed by the languid beauty Kai had created. His nudes were soulful, real, with expressive hands and eyes. They felt more like portraits than studies of the human form, almost uncomfortably intimate. Jinora raised the book higher as some strollers went by, not wanting them to see what she was looking at.

"I warned you," Kai said, blushing furiously. His left eye twitched and he bit his lip, unable to make eye contact with her. Jinora noticed how close they were to one another, and couldn't help but think that Kai's eyes were the most beautiful shade of green she'd ever seen. "They, um...that's the good thing about the Lower Ring, you know. Lots of girls willing to take their clothes off. The Fire Nation ones were pretty adamant about it."

"These were drawn from life?" Jinora asked, completely stunned. She couldn't help but wonder how that had come to be. Had Kai approached a girl on the street and simply asked her to pose for a portrait in the nude? "Did you like this woman? You used her several times."

"Yeah, um, that's Xiong." Kai pointed at the sketch of Xiong standing near a window in nothing but a pair of lace underwear. "She...she was perfectly fine with sitting still for hours on end, or stripping down to nothing just for the fun of it. She had a beautiful smile."

The corners of Jinora's mouth quirked upwards in a devilish smirk. "I think you must have had a love affair with her, Kai."

"No, no!" Kai denied. "Just with her smile."

She looked up from the drawings, placing a hand on his. "You're very talented, Kai. You...you really see people the way they are."

"I see you," he said simply, his green eyes on her brown ones.

Her stomach tingled again. She closed the book and gave it back to him. "And?"

"And nothing," Kai said, standing up. He offered Jinora his hand, which she took, and pulled her to her feet. "But you wouldn't have jumped."

Jinora and Kai strolled past the few people still lounging on deck chairs in the slanting late-afternoon light. Stewards scurried to serve tea or hot cocoa to those who'd asked for it, and the ship cut across the hungry, black-blue waves like a knife through a piece of paper. "You know," Jinora said, relaxed and excited and feeling more free than she had in years. "It's always been a dream of mine to just chuck everything away and live in a garret, poor and free. To start over, fresh and new!" She twirled around the deck like a ballerina, her skirts swirling behind her.

"It's not all it's cracked up to be," Kai warned, although he was smiling as wide as she was. "No place to sleep, no hot water...food is scarce and shelter is even more hard to come by."

Jinora was chagrined, but still pressed on. "Yes, I suppose that is difficult. But there's something in me, Kai. I feel it. I don't belong in this world, it's not cut out for me. But I don't know what I should do, whether I should be an artist, or, I don't know...a dancer. Or like Ginger Zhang, the mover actress!" She leapt forward, landed deftly and whirled like a dervish. Then her face lit up as she thought of the perfect career. "Or a historian!"

Kai snickered, and she glared at him. "Hey, I'm not making fun of you!" he assured her. "I'm just wondering how you leapt from a mover actress to a historian. Lofty career goals, that's all."

"I've always loved history," she admitted. "It's always fascinated me, every bit of it. And some people didn't even know they were making history when they made it, they were just fighting for what they believed it! And a historian could just spend days poring over historical artifacts and making notes about them and interviewing people and, well, it just sounds absolutely fascinating."

"Well, from what I hear, Ba Sing Se is a great place to study history," Kai said, his hands in his pockets again. "I know a guy who knows a guy whose cousin went to the university there and studied history. Jin Fei, I think his name is. But I heard through the grapevine that it's a good school, near the WanShiTong Library..." His words were drowned out by Jinora's gasp.

"The WanShiTong Library?" Jinora inquired, bouncing up and down in excitement. Her hands were clasped together. "I've always wanted to go there! It's said to be the greatest library in the world! Is it true that they have books about the locations of the ancient Spirit portals?"

"I, uh, I wouldn't know," Kai said slowly, looking ashamed. "I—I can't read. I never learned how."

"Oh." Jinora was taken aback—she'd always thought that everyone was granted the amazing ability to read. The thought of someone not knowing how startled her beyond compare. But she recovered. "That's alright, I can teach you! Maybe if we see each other again after tonight, I can..." She trailed off, knowing that that probably wasn't going to happen. Her mother and LingShi would keep her on a tight leash until her wedding, and then she'd cross the ocean again in Titanic's sister ship, the Olympic, as Jinora Zhang.

She hated the sound of it more than anything.

Kai beamed and nodded. "That'd be great, Jinora," he said kindly. "I've always wanted to learn, and you seem like you'd be a good teacher."

Jinora flushed. "Thank you," she whispered. The strange feeling in her stomach grew stronger, but it almost felt pleasant—the way that she felt sometimes after reading a good book or drinking a nice cup of cocoa. And she didn't know why Kai made her feel that way.

"You're welcome. And like I said, I think the Ba Sing Se University would be a great place for you to go to," Kai continued. "You could become a historian, like you want to, and I can come visit you from time to time. I'll show you the city, if you want. It takes a street rat to know all of the really good places."

"I've been to Ba Sing Se before," Jinora answered. "We'd go to visit some of Mother's friends, and my brothers and sister would accompany us when they got older. My brother Rohan—he's seven now—he just started going. Although I'd like to see what you like—the last thing I'd like would be to go to a party or somewhere that advertises the best food in Ba Sing Se when it really just means the most expensive and bland."

"No, no," Kai said, shaking his head fervently, "no, there's way more than that! In one of the shops in the Lower Ring, there's this really nice restaurant that has the best tea in the Four Nations, and another shop that sells this coconut-flavored candy that is just to die for, me and Skoochy—"

"Skoochy and I," Jinora jokingly corrected, her years of finishing school coming back to haunt her.

"Excuse me, Sifu," Kai replied with a sarcastic bow, grinning. "Skoochy and I had like four dozen of them before moving on the next day. The people are amazing, you'll never know what stories someone has to tell. I'll show you, if you like."

Jinora smiled at him, excited just from his excitement, as though her emotions were connected to his by puppet strings. "I think I would, actually. I'd like that very much."

The ship's lights suddenly came on, and Jinora couldn't help but revel in the perfection of the moment. "You know, I'm amazed I escaped detection for so long," she said, still smiling. They leaned on the A-deck raft, standing shoulder to shoulder with one another, and she noticed just how comfortable she was with him. In a literal floating zoo, she'd found a friend in Kai Wen, and for that she was infinitely thankful.

"Pretty impressive," Kai said seriously, his green eyes sparkling.

"What's impressive?"

Jinora whirled around so fast that she nearly cricked her neck. Putting a fake smile on her face with ease, she nodded at her mother, who looked disapproving. She was with three other women—Suyin Beifong, Asami Sato, and the 'new money' woman, Korra Lieng. Korra was at the back of the group, obviously unwelcome in their social circle, and she smiled at Jinora and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, 'Wow, what a coincidence'.

"Never mind," Jinora said quickly. Kai cleared his throat from behind her, and her cheeks reddened. "Mother, may I introduce Kai Wen? He'll be coming to dinner tonight, as a reward for saving my life last night." Then, because she felt particularly rebellious, she said, "LingShi invited him."

"Did he?" Mother obviously didn't believe her for a heartbeat. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Wen."

"How brave you must've been last night," Suyin cooed, "to rescue Jinora like that."

Kai rubbed the back of his neck. "It, uh, it was nothing, really," he mumbled.

Jinora knew that her mother was not impressed with her companion, and she knew Kai could tell. It was hard not to notice when someone was staring at you as though they wanted to squash you under their foot like an insect.

They all jumped as a bugler sounded the meal call right behind them, alerting the secret signal for the women to go and change. Jinora had become attuned to all of these things since her engagement had gone through.

Korra rolled her eyes. "Why do they insist on always announcing dinner like it's a cavalry charge?" she inquired of no one. Not that anyone would answer her in the first place.

"Shall we go and dress, Mother?" Jinora asked, desperate to change the subject. Mother nodded and looped her arm through Jinora's. As they walked down the corridor, Jinora looked back. "See you at dinner, Kai," she managed to say before Mother yanked at her arm and they continued to walk down the deck.

The tingling in her stomach hadn't stopped. She was beginning to wonder if it ever would, and if it even bothered her anymore.

"Hey, kid? Kid."

Kai looked up from Jinora and her mother's retreating figures to meet a pair of bright blue eyes, belonging to the woman who had remarked on how the dinner announcements sounded like a cavalry charge. She was now about a foot from him, leaning against the railing and giving him an amused stare, like this was the most interesting thing she'd seen all day. Judging by what Jinora had told him about other first class people, he was probably right.

"Yes?" he asked, the tips of his ears flushing when his voice cracked in the middle of his sentence. He cleared his throat."Can I help you?"

"Do you have the slightest idea of what you're about to walk into, kid?"

Chuckling nervously, he licked his lips and rubbed the back of his neck again, a nervous habit that he thought he'd outgrown. "Um, no."

She shrugged and said, "Well, you get points for your honesty." Then, wrinkling her nose, she pointed at his outfit and said, "You realize you can't walk into a first-class dinner looking like that, right?"

Kai glanced down at himself, realized the woman was right, and said, "Um, yeah. I tried to mention that, but there was never a good moment."

"Well, kid, if you go into the dining room dressed the way you are, then they're going to lose whatever crumbs of respect they had for you just like that." To accentuate her point, she snapped her fingers. Then, leaning back against the railing with her long brown hair flowing in the wind, she said, "I'm Korra, by the way. Korra Lieng."

"Kai Wen," he said.

"I'm about to make you very glad you met me, Mr. Wen."

For lack of a better comment, he remarked, "Really?"

She smirked and put an arm around his shoulders, leading him down the corridor. "Yep." She popped the 'p', and he grinned. He could get used to her. "I'm gonna stop you from making a fool of yourself in front of some of the Four Nation's finest."

Korra Lieng, Kai decided, was a woman of strange taste. She'd waited for him to drop off his sketchbook in steerage, then led him into her quarters without a moment of hesitation, sat him down on her bed, left the room briefly and returned with an armful of suits and jackets that he was surprised she'd been able to carry. While he tried them on, she changed into her own dinner clothes, a light blue dress than popped against her tan skin and perfectly matched her eyes. She was much, much older than him, but she was still an attractive young woman.

Strange, yes, but attractive.

After a while, men's suits and jackets and formal wear were strewn all over the place, including the floor and one of the lampshades. And Kai still didn't know what to wear.

"No," Korra declared, wrenching the suit jacket away from Kai. "You're not wearing that, Kai. That barely fits you anyways, and hasn't been in style for about ten years."

"Then why did you even give it to me?"

"Looking stuffy in a suit is Mako's style, Kai, and I'd prefer it to not be yours," she said firmly, evading his question as she threw the jacket behind her. "Take off those trousers too, they're not your color. Try this one."

"Well, you're having a fine time, at least," Kai muttered petulantly under his breath, pulling off his trousers one leg at a time. "So we've sort of settled on clothes. What am I supposed to talk about? I don't own stocks, I'm not rich, and I doubt Jinora will even be able to look at me without her fiancé glaring at her."

"Kai, listen close, will you? You have to look like one of them, and then they'll probably think you're one of them…but if they realize you're not, they'll eat you alive. Besides, you'll have Jinora on your arm, and if you listen to my advice, no one will question you." Korra picked up a suit jacket. "It's much harder for the women to adapt in these situations. You're gonna do fine, I promise."

"Thanks, Mrs. Lieng."

"Korra," she corrected. "Mrs. Lieng was my mother-in-law. Just call me Korra."

"Good to know. Thanks, Korra." Korra grinned at him once he was finally dressed, except for his jacket, which she gave to him. Kai looked down at himself. "Shouldn't I have a tie or something?"

Korra nodded. "Right, right, I forgot," she said, reaching down and grabbing a white bow tie off the floor. After watching him struggle for a few minutes, she snorted at him. "Relax, I can do it." She pulled him to face her, untangled the bow tie, and began to tie it around his neck. "Don't feel bad about it. My husband still can't tie one of these damn things after ten years." After a moment, she stepped away. "There you go."

She started picking up the stuff from the bed. "You know," she said, "I've always got to buy everything in three sizes because I never know how much he's been eating while I'm away. Lucky he's here with me, or I'd drive myself insane wondering."

She turned the mirror toward him again, and he startled backwards, nearly tripping over his own feet in surprise. The very sight of himself in such an expensive suit was incredibly strange. Korra had even put something in his hair that had tamed his messy undercut. He pulled the jacket closer to himself and attempted to examine himself from every possible position.

He doubted that Skoochy or his own mother would've recognized him in this getup. He barely recognized himself.

"I don't even recognize myself," he said, unable to believe it.

Korra grinned like the owl-cat that had eaten the mouse-canary. "That's what I was hoping for, kid." She moved over to grab her bag from the bedside table. "Are you ready for this?"

"As I'll ever be." Kai sighed, trying to prepare himself for this. He'd have Jinora on his side, at least. And Korra too. At least they'd be witnesses to his murder if he screwed anything up. And with that in mind, he followed Korra out the door.

Well, I had to end it somewhere, didn't I? :) This is getting to be longer than I expected—and I am very much enjoying my ride in this 'verse.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and don't forget to review! I hope you all have a happy holiday! :)