Sokka brought his gaze up to meet the golden eyes of the woman who stared at him, it may have been a reflection the pale light of the Antarctic but he could swear he could see flames in her irises.
As he remarked upon this, the true gravity of the situation began to sink in. He was now destined to spend the rest of his life serving a nation he had be brought up to hate, the nation that had killed his mother simply because it was easier than taking her prisoner. Worse than that, as a soldier he would have to kill enemies of the fire nation, in other words his allies, perhaps even other water tribesman. Sokka's gut twisted painfully at the thought of this. Could he bring himself to do it? Sokka honestly didn't know what he would do if he was put in that situation. 'Well' Sokka thought to himself, there is no point in imagining every possible terrible situation that he could face during his new life. He would just start crying again and that was one thing he did not want the princess to see.
No matter how dire his situation became, Sokka knew he had to force himself to recall what his sacrifice had achieved. He knew that as long as he served the Fire Nation loyally, his entire tribe would be safe, provided they didn't do anything that could be conceived as rebellion. Fortunately that was something Sokka had forced his father to promise before he boarded the ship. As evil as he knew the Fire Nation was, this princess seemed like a pretty reasonable person to him, despite the rumours he had heard. She had accepted his proposal and in doing so had spared all but one family the pain of losing a son. Sokka believed her word could be trusted as long as she wasn't provoked. No, pissing Princess Azula off was not high on Sokka's list of things to do.
"What now, my Princess" said Sokka, unable to extinguish all notes of sarcasm from the last part. 'Great start Sokka, well done!' he thought.
"You will be taken to the Fire Nation Army training camp on Crescent Island and once you have completed the basic training course you will serve in the Army until retirement" said Azula. "Or your untimely death" the last part was added in retaliation to his earlier discrepancy. It had the desired effect; Sokka's face grew slightly paler in response.
"Oh, right" said Sokka, managing a weak smile and gulping at this most unwelcome news. "How long before we arrive at Crescent Island?" Sokka continued, trying not to show the effect that the Princess' words had caused.
"A week at most" replied Azula. She was slightly disappointed that her words had not caused more of a reaction. Then again, she was used to dealing with nobles who were particularly spineless.
"And what would you have me do during the journey?" said Sokka.
"Well I was expecting to return from the South Pole with 50 or so angry peasants, so I hadn't really thought of that" mused Azula out loud. "I suppose you had best start your duties as a soldier now, unless you would prefer to be locked up?" she asked rhetorically.
"Quartermaster Sergeant, show this man to the crew's quarters and issue him with some uniform. Then I'm sure you can assign him some duties for the week."
"Right away princess", replied a middle aged man standing behind Azula. "Follow me soldier" he continued as he turned and began to walk towards a door that must lead below deck. Despite his age, this man was more muscled than all of the younger soldiers on deck. Another person not to piss off, noted Sokka.
"And peasant, if you try to escape I will make sure that you and your entire tribe pay for it."
"Thought hadn't even crossed my mind" replied Sokka as he followed the Quartermaster below deck. He couldn't help the sarcasm with which he uttered these last words. Sokka could only remain serious for a limited period of time, even in situations such as this.
Azula couldn't help but smirk slightly at this last comment. Few people had the guts to attempt humour in her presence, even fewer succeeded. This water tribesman clearly wasn't as stupid as he seemed. She looked up just in time to see Sokka stub his toe on the doorframe and start cursing and hopping on the uninjured foot. Well perhaps he was close.
Azula turned to face her two friends who had so far remained silent during the conversation. "Sooooo, what happened to taking all the firstborn sons hostage?" asked Mai
"Yeah, I thought that was the plan" added Ty Lee.
"Will one hostage be enough to keep the Southern Water Tribe from rebelling?" continued Mai, looking slightly concerned.
"Although, that being said, what a hostage…" said Ty Lee, trailing off at the end of sentence as she glanced to her right to see Sokka disappearing below deck after having recovered from his injury.
"Ugh!" groaned Azula and Mai in unison.
"What, even you have got to admit he's pretty cute." said Ty Lee, sounding slightly wounded by the two girls' negative response.
"I do not have to do anything of the sort" replied Azula. She hadn't really thought of him in that way before Ty Lee had brought it up, but now she thought about it… No, she was a princess and he was a savage.
"Besides, I haven't had breakfast yet and I'm starving" continued Azula, partly trying to appease the rumbling noises her stomach had started making but mostly trying to change the subject of conversation.
"I was just saying …" replied Ty Lee.
"I think that might be your problem Ty" said Mai, "perhaps you shouldn't 'just say' things so much."
"Hey" responded Ty Lee sounding even more hurt
Azula sighed as she walked off towards her chambers with the two squabbling girls following behind her.
Once Sokka had been issued with a uniform, the Quartermaster showed him to an empty bunk room in which Sokka dumped his meagre possessions. He hadn't brought much, anticipating that everything would be confiscated upon his boarding the ship. All that he had with him were his boomerang, a hunting knife and changes of underwear (although he wouldn't need those as he now had army issue boxers. He wondered if there was anything special about these military boxers, maybe they were fireproof?). Sokka was told to report to the duty officer in 15 minutes to receive his duties and with that the quartermaster left.
Quickly Sokka stripped of his dirty Water Tribe garments and changed into his new uniform. 'Not bad' he thought as he looked into the small mirror just above the sink in the corner of the room. The uniform fitted him surprisingly well given that the quartermaster had adopted the 'one size fits all' policy. It consisted of a sleeveless top which was then covered by a red and black tunic which came to just above his knees. There was also a pair of khaki trousers which tucked into the black leather boots he had struggled to put on. The only piece of armour he had been given was a set of pauldrons that covered his shoulders and some of his upper arms. 'Apparently his safety wasn't that important' Sokka thought. He had also been given a helmet but Sokka didn't think it necessary to wear since he wasn't planning to engage in combat. Once he had hooked his boomerang and knife on to his belt and retied his wolf's tail, which had started to look ragged as a result of the day's events, Sokka made his way back up on to the deck with the hopes of finding directions to the duty officer from there.
After quite a few wrong turns and even more swearing, Sokka finally made his way to the main deck. He caught the attention of a soldier who was patrolling the edge of the deck and asked directions. Needless to say Sokka was rather embarrassed when the soldier pointed towards a door with the words 'DUTY OFFICER' engraved into it which was just behind Sokka. After thanking the soldier who only gave a disapproving head shake as a response, he knocked on the door and a voice bade him to enter. Sokka had to use both hands to wrench the heavy door open and stepped inside, trying to close the door behind him with a little more grace than he had opened it. He failed.
"So you are the man that saved the Princess' life." began the man who sat behind a large desk in the centre of room. "I was expecting you to be a little more …"
"Coordinated?" offered Sokka.
"I was going to say impressive but that is also true" replied the officer, chuckling slightly at Sokka's self-depreciating joke. "You didn't seem so uncoordinated when you caught that boomerang" he continued.
"I didn't really think about what I was doing, it was more like a reflex than anything" replied Sokka.
"No matter, I am grateful for what you did" said the officer. "You have no idea how much trouble I would be in if the Princess had been injured on my watch."
"I can imagine." replied Sokka, eager to stay on the good side of the officer.
"Anyway, back to the matter at hand." said the Officer, becoming serious once again. "The princess has asked me to assign you duties despite you not being an official member of the crew."
"The alternative was for me to be locked in the brig for the entire journey, so I am happy to help in any way I can" said Sokka. Honestly he didn't mind helping out as long as it kept him out of chains. Chains would only reinforce the fact that he truly was imprisoned.
"Well, to be honest, there isn't really much to be done" said the officer. "Royal convoys don't tend to be that eventful. The most exciting thing to happen is the occasional pirate attack, but they run away with their tail between their legs at the first sign of fire bending." he continued. "The princess' royal guard deal with all matters of her security, all that the Navy provides is a helmsman, a navigator, a few engineers and myself, oh and some cooks. So, in fact, there aren't actually any duties for you."
Sokka started to smile. No duties, his situation was starting to sound better than the thought it would be.
"But" said the officer, interrupting Sokka's optimistic thoughts, "I know better than to disobey a direct order from the princess and so I have assigned you to my service, I hope you like admin soldier because that's what a duty officer lives for." continued the officer, the second half of his sentence was said with mock enthusiasm.
Several hours later Sokka left the duty officer's office. The man was Commander Li and had served as an enlisted soldier before being given a commission. Sokka presumed this was why he seemed friendlier than expected. Li had warned that most other officers were pretty arrogant, especially the younger ones. His advice had been to salute them and say 'sir' as many times as possible and they shouldn't cause him too much bother. Li had allowed Sokka to finish for the day since he they had got through the mountain of paperwork quicker than expected. Sokka felt his stomach rumble and remembered that he hadn't had lunch. He would have to remedy that. 'Finding the damned galley would be a good start' thought Sokka as he once again descended the stairs that led below deck. Despite the gravity of this whole situation, Sokka couldn't help but feel a little bit hopeful. Hopeful that his time as a soldier may not be as terrible as it had first seemed. Then again this was only the start of his journey; the number of things that could go wrong from here onwards was infinite.