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Chapter 2: Stowaways
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Ty Lee was confused. For the longest time, her friend Azula had done nothing but complain about her older brother. Zuzu is such a loser when it comes to firebending, she would say after lessons were over. Or, My idiot brother just embarrassed himself in front of Grandfather. The only thing she had ever said about Zuko that wasn't negative was that he was adequate when it came to the dao swords. Of course, she had then ruined it by stating that it was nice for her dolt of a sibling to have something to fall back on when his firebending inevitably gave out.
But now, Azula had not only shown immense concern for Zuko's wellbeing, but she'd also gushed about his incredible firebending skills against her father and cried (Azula had cried) over the unconscious form of her brother as the royal physician had done all she could to help Zuko's injuries heal.
And now...well, now, Ty Lee was confused. Somehow, with her insane charisma, Azula had convinced her and Mai to accompany the princess in stowing away on the ancient ship that they had seen a group of Fire Nation marines carry Zuko onto shortly after Ozai's proclamation of banishment.
It had been nearly two days since they'd sneaked up the gangplank and hid in the lower deck. And Ty Lee was hungry. "Azula, when are we going to get something to eat?" she asked hesitantly. The golden eyes of the Fire princess turned sharp as she glared at her bubbly friend.
"I don't know," Azula snapped. "We will have to be patient." Truth be told, this was the first time she had done something so impulsive and rash, and she hadn't truly thought out her plans. All she wanted-all she needed was to know that her stupid brother was safe. Yet they still hadn't confirmed Zuko's wellbeing, and all three girls were hungrier than they had ever been in their lives.
Azula's stomach growled, which in turn caused her frown to deepen. Dum-dum's foolhardy nature was starting to rub off on her.
"Well, we're going to have to do something about it," Mai supplied morosely. "We haven't eaten in two days. It feels like my stomach is starting to digest itself."
"Let's go, then," Azula said decisively. "If we don't, we'll starve." She crept away from the crates they'd taken refuge behind, and the other two girls followed. Mai's long skirts snagged on a loose nail, however, and the highest box in the stack toppled to the ground, spilling its contents of Fire Nation shock troop armor.
The three girls stared at the vestments, then glanced up at each other. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Azula asked deviously.
"Dress-up!" squealed Ty Lee.
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Zuko and Iroh had been sequestered in the prince's room for almost the entire two days since they'd left port, planning and plotting on what to do with the opportunity the Spirits had given them. The only time they'd left was for bathroom breaks and for a bit of firebending to ease their stiff muscles.
They were interrupted by Lieutenant Jee, who knocked lightly before entering the 'royal' quarters. "Forgive me, my Prince, General," he began, "but we found three stow-aways masquerading as shock troops."
"What?" Zuko asked, thoroughly bewildered. This hadn't happened the first time around. "Where are they?"
"They are being held in the brig, Prince Zuko," Jee replied. "Would you like us to dispose of them?"
Zuko shook his head emphatically. "No, Lieutenant. I shall go see them myself."
"My lord, you are still recovering from your injuries," Jee said. He had not been present at the Agni Kai, and Ozai had made sure that no one spoke of what had transpired, so Jee had assumed that he had gained his wounds from a firebending accident. "Allow General Iroh and I to handle them."
"I appreciate your concern," Zuko said quietly as he stood up, throwing a simple, open-chested shirt over his shoulders. "But I am well aware of my capabilities, and visiting stow-aways in the brig is hardly a strain."
Jee frowned, but bowed nevertheless and said, "Yes, Prince Zuko. Follow me, and I will escort you to them."
A short walk into the bowels of the steamer found Jee, Zuko, and Iroh staring at the three forms in baggy underclothes and ill-fitting armor. They still wore the bone-white mask and pointed helm of the Fire Nation shock troops, so their identities were still hidden.
"I hear that you stowed away on this ship," Zuko began in a commanding voice that was entirely ruined when it cracked and squeaked up an octave. "A ship with several decades of service under its belt that has been out of commission for five years. A ship that has been taken from the scrap yards and given to an exiled prince by a vicious, soulless Firelord. I have only one question: What are you drinking and where would I go to procure some?"
A muffled 'tee-hee' flew from behind the mask of the figure to the right, and the other two turned to face the perpetrator of such a heinous noise. Zuko, having only heard one person in his entire life make that sound, resisted the urge to rub his nose in irritation.
"Ty Lee, what are you doing on a boat full of disgraced marines?" he asked in exasperation. The figure straightened up in surprise.
"How'd you know it was me?" Ty Lee asked, taking her mask off to reveal her big gray eyes and eternal smile. The other two imposters palmed their faces.
"Because you're the only person in the world who giggles like that," Zuko replied evenly. Despite the frustration the talented acrobat caused him on an almost daily basis back in his old timeline, Zuko had always felt protective of the girl. Unflappable innocence like hers was rare in a war-torn world such as theirs, and Zuko felt that it should be guarded like the most precious of gems.
He then turned to the other two. His mind raced. It was obviously Mai and Azula, but why the trio of girls had tried to infiltrate his ship was beyond him. Perhaps, having shown a degree of firebending far beyond what he'd been capable of before coming back in time, he had drawn the notice of his father, who had sent the three girls to spy on him. But it wasn't too well thought out, and if Ozai was nothing else, he was a meticulous planner. He drew out every plausible situation and planned for it. It was one of the only mannerisms Zuko had inherited from his father.
So if not on a mission from Ozai, what in the world were they doing here?
"Azula, Mai, I know it's you under those masks," he said in an attempt to discover the point of them boarding the steamer. "What are you up to?"
"Well, it looks like you've grown another brain cell to keep your other one company, Dum-dum," Azula said as she removed her helmet. Mai followed suit, and Zuko was left staring at the two females in his previous life who had caused him so much stress.
The last time he had seen Azula before his ethereal jaunt through time, it had been as a visitor to the Ba Sing Se University's mental medicine institution. After her loss at the hands of Katara during Sozin's Comet, Azula had succumbed to her mental breakdown completely, and had never truly recovered. As the Earth Kingdom doctors were much more advanced in medical treatment that involved injuries of the mind, Zuko spared no expense in order to find a way to help his sister regain her calm, collected manner, but to no avail.
"You didn't answer my question, Azula," Zuko pointed out.
"Your knowledge of the obvious is astounding, brother," Azula shot back with a smirk. Zuko resisted the urge to grind his teeth while at the same time feeling a sense of nostalgia at reliving some of their old arguments and banter.
"As is your ability to irritate the living hell out of me," Zuko spat out through clenched teeth. "But at the moment, it seems that I've got the advantage. Your allies consist of Ty Lee and Mai, while I've got an entire ship full of Marines. You also seem to be locked up in the brig of said ship while I stand before you, free as a bird."
"Ah, but I can still firebend," Azula observed while simultaneously shooting a gout of bright blue flame from her fingers. Jee moved to intercept the blast, but Iroh held him back with a gently reprimanding smile that said, 'my nephew can handle this.'
And indeed, he did. With a simple swirling motion of his left hand and a few quick, backpedaling steps, Zuko took control of the flame and shaped it into the form of a phoenix, sending it flapping gracefully back toward Azula. When the burning construct reached the princess, she blew it out with an irritated huff.
"How did you get so good at firebending so suddenly?" she asked, a crease forming between her eyebrows as she frowned.
"An answer for an answer," Zuko proposed. Azula hesitated, then nodded. "So, why did you come aboard the F.N.S. Zuko Is Awesome and impersonate shock troops?"
"You named your ship Zuko Is Awesome?" Azula replied incredulously, to which Zuko simply smiled.
"I think it's a great name," Ty Lee chose that moment to pipe up. "And Azula was worried about you, that's why we sneaked onto the Zuko is Awesome." Zuko was surprised at this. If Azula had said that she'd been worried, he would have disregarded it as a lie as a rule of thumb, but Ty Lee, he knew from experience, seemed to be physically incapable of lying.
"You were worried about me?" he asked, stunned.
"Of course not," Azula snapped, a little too quickly and forcefully. "I just wanted to know if you were dead or not, so that I could properly take my place as the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation!"
"Methinks she doth protest too much, Prince Zuko," Iroh muttered conspiratorially. "And here I thought that my only niece was a crazy person. My dear Azula, you do have a heart! Perhaps we could discuss your new-found conscience over a nice game of pai-sho and a cup of tea?"
Azula was about to rant and rave to the Spirit Realms about how she did not have a soul, but Mai's deadpan tone beat her out. "There's no use denying it, Azula. Just own up to it and move on." Mai was usually a great source of pragmatic advice, and Azula decided that it would be best to listen to her sensible friend's words.
So she sighed and said, "Very well, I was worried about you, Zuzu. You are my only brother, after all. And you do occasionally come in handy sometimes." Zuko smiled despite himself. Even when faced with the daunting task of having to tell the truth about how she actually had feelings, she still managed to make it sound condescending.
"She was more than worried, Zuko," Ty Lee offered helpfully. "Azula was literally in tears! And I've never seen her cry before in my life!" Azula shot her bubbly friend a dirty look at spilling her deepest, darkest secret.
"You cried!?" Zuko couldn't quite wrap his mind around that one. He'd only seen Azula cry in her very early years, and the last time he saw her shed tears before the Agni Kai during Sozin's Comet was when she fell and scraped her knee and told her father about it. Ozai had sneered down at the then-three year old and told her to stop whining, as it wasn't befitting of Fire Nation royalty.
"I wasn't crying," Azula insisted vigorously. "I was simply laughing so hard it looked like I was sobbing uncontrollably."
"Whatever you say, Azula," Zuko said, making placating gestures with his hands. "So, what are you going to do now that you've seen that I'm fine?"
"I hardly call your condition 'fine,'" Mai muttered, staring at his bandaged chest with a faint blush on her pale features.
Zuko waved off the comment. "I suppose we could set a course for Ember Island and drop you off," he postulated. "You could send a messenger hawk to Caldera City, or commandeer a boat yourself; you've got the clout and power to back up any resistance."
"And get sent back to where that...that man is?" Azula answered with surprising ferocity springing up like a fire in the princess' eyes. "After what he did to you? One does not simply shoot a lightning bolt at a child, much less the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation! And to mark you permanently right after? He deserves to burn slowly, one limb at a time."
Zuko and Iroh shared a look. Well, she was still a bit of a psychopath, having been raised primarily by Ozai, but they could work on it. "So, would you like to join us in ending this war and restoring the Fire Nation's honor, then?"
"As long as you let me take a crack at that evil man, then yes," Azula said firmly.
"Ooh, can we help, too?" Ty Lee asked, indicating herself and Mai.
"Of course you can help," Zuko agreed readily. "I can move to one of the smaller cabins and let you three take the biggest one." He turned to the guard on duty. "Release these fine young women at once."
"Aye, sir," the guard said hurriedly, rushing forward and fumbling a bit with the keys before opening the cell and allowing the girls to once again taste freedom.
"Lieutenant Jee," Zuko said, heading toward the hatch that led to the upper deck. The others followed him, and Jee was at his shoulder at once. "Tell the helmsman to set a course for the North Pole immediately. We've got some inroads to lay and only about three years to do it in."
"The North Pole?" Jee repeated blankly. "Sir, the Northern Water Tribe is one of our most powerful enemies. I highly doubt that they would welcome us with open arms."
"Jee, I think you might be onto something there," Zuko said dryly. "That's why I am going to offer myself up as a willing prisoner of war to them to earn their trust. The rest of the crew will take the F.N.S. Zuko Is Awesome to a nearby island where you will await further orders and relax."
"Sir, with all due respect, that is the stupidest idea I have ever heard," Jee said. Azula hissed behind them.
"You should watch that tone of voice when speaking to my brother, Lieutenant," she snapped, and Jee recoiled slightly from her.
"I find his candor refreshing, Azula," Zuko said, waving a hand behind him. "If I surrounded myself with brown-nosers and yes-men, then I would be no better than Firelord Ozai. I hope to distance myself from his shadow as much as I can." Then he turned back to Jee. "Sometimes, a show of trust is the only way to foster trust, Lieutenant. I appreciate your concern, but this is something that I will go through with, regardless of anything. And perhaps the lauded healers of the Northern Water Tribe can do something about this lightning wound."
"And your scar?" Azula asked bluntly.
"I think I'll keep it just the way it is," Zuko answered with a shrug. "Who knows, it could come in handy when I present my case to the leaders of the Fire Nation's enemies. Besides," he added as he struck a debonair pose. "I think it makes me look rugged and manly."
Azula smacked her forehead while Iroh and Jee laughed heartily. Mai simply blushed faintly, and Ty Lee couldn't help but agree silently with his observation.
"My prince," Iroh said after the merriment passed, "I do believe we should head toward the west coast of the Fire Nation before we test the northern waters."
"Why, Uncle?" Zuko asked in confusion.
"In centuries past, it was customary for Fire Nation ships to be blessed by the original firebenders before embarking on a voyage of any kind," Iroh responded. "Would you humor an old man's wish to see his friends again?"
Zuko's mind raced. Maybe if they could obtain help from the Sun Warriors as well as fighters from other nations, they would have a more well-balanced fighting force. And if Ran and Shaw, the last two living dragons, deigned to assist them as well...
A fierce smile pulled at his lips. "That is an excellent idea, Uncle. Lieutenant, belay the previous order and have the helmsman set a course instead for Sunburst Island instead."
A/N: So, we meet again. Haha. Anyway, thank you for all those who have reviewed so far, including the incredible author who goes by Kimberly T (if you don't know who she is, then you obviously don't know good fanfiction. Check her out! She's much better than I am!). Anyway, a few things that may seem out of the ordinary happened in this chapter.
Yes, I know that Azula crying is like, entirely unbelievable, but taking into consideration the fact that she still isn't the Crazy McPsychobitch that we all know and love in the series, I figured that maybe there's still a bit of compassion and empathy in her enough to cry. Also, her brother showed a level of firebending that surpasses even her vaunted abilities, which would skew her point of view just enough to get her a little emotionally unbalanced. There's also the fact that she just watched her father shoot her brother with freakin' lightning, which can be traumatic to just about anyone, even Azula.
Also, yeah, Azula's sneaking on-board isn't the most well-thought-out plan, something that is wildly out-of-character for the brilliant, meticulous Fire Nation princess, but in times of emotional and mental stress, people do really stupid things. Trust.
Um, I think that's it. Oh, yeah, as they've never stated specifically where the Sun Warriors civilization is located, I figured Sunburst Island seemed like an appropriate name for their hideaway. So...yeah, that's it.
Anyway, review, please, and have a nice day!