Aang reminded her of boy she knew in the Fire Nation. His name was Yun, and he was weak looking and shy. She had been very attracted to him. He was understated and had always admired her. He had good shoulders and nice hair. She liked how weak he was, although she didn't care about how he sometimes blushed when she was around, or how sweet he was, although she liked that. When they were alone, she planted her mouth to his. It happened twice. She went to him both times – she didn't play the games that most women and men played with each other. Because she wanted him, she went after him. He had a shy smile she liked to see. And she liked his eyes very much. Aang reminded her of the quality Yun had, although Yun had been older and slightly stronger looking than Aang did right now.
She swept the Avatar boy onto his feet and they were taken aboard the ship…
Back in the present, Kori was eagerly anticipating the future. She was now seated on her bed in her new room, thinking excitedly about what she was going to do next. She checked her shoulder bag to make sure she had everything. She did.
She had just arrived in her room, but she got up and left through the door, closing it behind her, and walked back the way she came.
After Kori came back from her round on the ship to make herself familiar with things, she went back to her room. Sitting on the bed, she checked if all her things were still in her shoulder bag. They were. She heard a knock on the door and turned towards it.
Zuko sighed as he walked. In his hand was a steaming bowl of rice and vegetables for his guest. He walked down the red tinted, metal hallway and stopped by her door, knocking twice with his knuckles.
"Come in." He heard.
He opened her door and stepped into her room. She seemed surprised that he brought dinner for her.
She stood up from her bed, still made, leaving a slight crinkle in the cover. She wrung her hands, then put them down by her side, stepping towards him in one large step.
"You didn't have to bring me anything. I would have come out on deck sooner or later, for dinner," She accepted the bowl from him, which he handed her surprisingly gently. She took the warm wooden bowl, not very hungry, and put it on the desk next to her. "Thank you, though."
Next she looked up at him, standing facing him.
"Um," He began. "I'm sorry for shouting… in your face, earlier…"
He was apologizing to her?
Kori shook her head. "It's fine."
Zuko was intrigued by the girl, she stood a few inches shorter than him. She was so different to any of the other girls he'd known in the fire nation, in every way. She was a mystery to him.
"The Avatar has his own room," He said, to keep the conversation going. She looked at him. "Heavily guarded, all the time."
She blinked, then nodded. She smiled. "Alright, thank you for not putting him in a cell."
He nodded, feeling uncomfortable. He palmed the back of his neck.
"Well, I'll get going then."
She nodded, turning back to her bed as he shut the door behind him with a sigh of relief.
Aang sat miserably on his bed on the Fire Nation ship. He worried about Sokka, Katara and Appa. He hoped to get to them soon, or that they find him.
He was so lost in his thoughts he didn't notice the door open behind him. But when he noticed the light on the wall and a silhouette, he whirled around on the bed to see his previous captor leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed, looking more amiable than before with a slight smirk on her lips.
Aang got off the bed, stumbling back. He looked around for Fire Nation soldiers.
"The soldiers are changing shifts," She said, as if reading his mind. "My name is Kori Ikuma."
Not knowing what to do, Aang nodded. His eyes widened as the name reached home. The guards had been talking about her, so the twelve year old boy heard her story of betraying the Fire Nation, although now it looked like she was working with Zuko. But then, when they got on Zuko's ship, she'd spoken to him like she was on his side, and that led Aang to be hopeful that maybe she would accept an invitation to escape with him. That night. She deserved more than to be a slave to the Fire Nation, or anyone.
She entered the room with wide strides, looking around it.
"Are you gonna help me escape?" He asked. She had walked over to his small backpack and staff leaning against the wall. "Will my friends find me?" She looked up from where she was looking through his belongings, expression and eyes mysterious and unfathomable.
"There is no telling, Avatar, at this point." She said tonelessly. She fisted a hand in his discarded shirt that he had taken off, gripping it tight. He stood shirtless on the other side of the room. After she had touched all of his things, she left that side of the room and walked into the center, her hands in dutiful fists.
His grey eyes narrowed and she stared back with little emotion into them. She didn't seem so concerned with his escape plans.
"You ARE working with Zuko. I was wrong to think that you would help me. You're a traitor to the Avatar."
"Think what you want, Avatar." She tilted her head. "All things come right in the end." For all his implied anger and emotion in his voice, she answered with hardly any.
She flashed him a cunning grin, creating a stunning image that would imprint on the back of his eyelids that night and the rest of the nights to come. She had cunning promise in her eyes, and it was burningly deep, and aimed at him. The room felt like it drew all its warmth and light from where she stood. This all happened in a stunning split moment before she turned and left. She looked over her shoulder before she got to the doorway, and the way her sleek hair fell down her back and her deep eyes were shaped and her sharp grin etched on her pale face, he would never forget that moment in his life.
"Turn left, two doors down." She said, and he was confused. But she vanished, and two soldiers appeared by his door and looked in to make sure the Avatar was still there, then they closed the door and left him alone. Aang stood in the same spot, stunned.
When Aang escaped that night, the monk angrier than he'd been in a long time, and met up with his friends and Appa and Momo, Katara worried over him and he pushed her away, needing to think. The only reason he hadn't escaped sooner was because he was debating whether to save Kori or not and take her with him. But it looked like she was working with Zuko now and she would be staying with him. He now had two people to worry about chasing him. And yet, when he followed Kori's directions he found his staff in the room that it led him too. He was so confused. He felt guilty for calling her a traitor to him and thinking she was working with Zuko. He wanted to believe the good in her, though, and he didn't discuss it with the Gang.
Aang didn't like lying, it was against his upbringing as well, so when he avoided Katara's worried questions and Sokka's concerned gaze and he mumbled something about escaping from Prince Zuko who captured him, they weren't entirely convinced, but they dropped it.
The more Aang thought about it, the more his young mind couldn't come up with anything concrete to understand the girl who caught him. She was entirely magnetic, and yet extremely distant. He couldn't figure it out. He found himself drawn to Kori. There was no defining feature or attribute he could name, it was just… everything. And although she was pretty, in some odd angles she wasn't, but how drawn he was to her never wavered. But what was he thinking! She kidnapped him in the first place! How did this even make sense? Where was the seeing good in her? She abducted him and drugged him and then gave him to Zuko. But he couldn't ignore that she gave him the directions to his staff and hinted when she handed him over to the Fire Nation Prince that she didn't care if he escaped…
The more Aang thought of her, the less he noticed he was falling asleep. And the cunning image she made stayed with him in his dreams.
"The Avatar escaped!"
"Oh dear, did you see where he went?"
The Prince was frustrated, pacing about the deck, fire blowing out of his hands and his nose. She watched him move about unfeelingly.
"No! I was hoping you did!" He suddenly whirled on her. "Did you see or hear anything that could indicate where he went?"
The sixteen year old stood there silently, pondering over his question.
"Well, I heard some unusual wind last night heading west." At this Zuko already stormed to his captain and commanded him to direct his course that way, not hearing the rest of the sentence. "I thought it was strange because it was an unusual wind yet our ship didn't get any choppier indicating choppy waves… so I thought it must be a single occurrence and the only thing that can make that happen in nature is the Avatar. Since there's no airbenders anymore except him."
Iroh stroked his short, white beard contemplatively.
"Hmm… yes, I recall hearing it too."
"You did?" Zuko asked hopefully, stepping towards his Uncle.
"Yes, but, it might have just been my stomach, I don't know." He grinned, holding his rounded belly.
Kori swiveled in her spot a full 180 degrees.
"I'm going to bed." She announced lowly, walking towards the door. It was before dawn, she had another hour of sleep before she woke up with the sun. Zuko gripped his head and paced.
"Nephew…." Iroh said in a teasing voice, turning his eyes to Kori's back pointedly. Zuko glared at his uncle, then resigned himself. He straightened with a small blush on his cheeks, and then just as Kori disappeared out the door Zuko ran up to catch up with her and escort her to her room before dawn.