Katara followed Gua down a narrow set of wooden steps; they descended two flights before reaching the galley area; she could tell by the smell of stew in the air. She was a little surprised at the size and quality of the ship. Afterall, it was bigger than most of the homes she had seen in town, though she guessed that made sense for a merchant. Likely one operating out of a town this size had one or two max. Guessing from the size of this one, most of the funds had gone into it. Smart move, many merchants just setting out are more concerned with having a large fleet in their company.

While that works fine and well during fair weather, smaller ships are quicker than larger ones, and having an entire fleet at the will of one merchant or a handful, meant more opportunities for trading. But these smaller ships often found themselves at the bottom of the seas, crews aboard as they weren't meant to withstand strong winds.

Many entrepreneurial merchants, just starting out, had found their wealth slip away faster than a drunk at the gambling tables. All their investments and wealth gone, these merchants often found themselves in a dark new position. Having previously lived comfortable lives of middle class men, many lost their homes and were forced into jobs as laborers just to feed their families.

Kang had played things smart, sure a larger fleet may have been more flashy but he could transport far more cargo. Katara figured that someone in the Earth Kingdom had to be starting a new project, maybe a military venture. She briefly thought of the Mechanist the Gaang had met on their way to the Northern Air Temple.

While their time at the Northern Temple had been far from relaxing Katara felt a pang in her chest as she longed for those days. She had faced pirates, angry electricity-wielding fire benders, and earth benders twice her size. If you had told the little girl who had set out from the Southern Water Tribe with Sokka all those months ago, she would've been shaking in her sealskin boots.

But now Katara wanted nothing more than to feel the Gaang around her. She missed her brother's incessant commentary and constant skepticism. She missed Aang and the way he would find new ways to make her laugh every day, whether it by turning himself into a living snowman or taking her penguin sledding.

She even missed Toph's dirt.

With the Gaang behind her, Katara felt like they would take on the world.

But they didn't.

Now she was what felt like a million miles away from her brother and everyone else. With no one of even knowing if they're okay.

"Uh hey are you feeling alright?" Gua asked, giving her a concerned look. Her face must have given away just how lost in thought she was. All she could do was muster a nod in response.

Gua's expression softened as though he could tell Katara wasn't letting on how bad she was really doing right now. She saw his arm twitch as though he were going to move towards her, but he quickly corrected himself. If she wasn't always on her toes from everything that she'd been through, she might have missed the small movement.

Reluctantly she felt a rush of gratitude towards Gua. It was the first moment he had dropped his unbothered facade. While he had been pleasant the entire time she had interacted with him, right up to the point of her smashing a pitcher in front of him. He seemed to be interacting with her more like an angry co-worker. But in that moment, she could see the worry on his face.

"Right- uh, just wait here a second. I'll grab us something and we can go eat up on the desk. When you've spent as much time as I have down here chasing the rats out and cleaning up, you take every second you can up top." He said, glancing towards the ceiling.

Katara gave him a confused look, but he shrugged her off and disappeared around the corner.

She glanced around hoping that no one would pass her in the hall. She almost wished she had gone with him, afterall, what was she going to say if one of the other sailors walked by her. "Hi, it's nice to meet you! Sorry I panicked for a second and sent you all jumping over the side of the ship, but hopefully we can be friends now!" Katara pushed the thought away in horror, realizing how stupid it sounded and just prayed to the spirits that no one came by.

A few moments later there was a clash and a bang of metal, it sounded like a pot or a whole lot of dishware falling to the ground. There were angry shouts and Gua whipped around the corner like a viper bat straight out of hell, a sack overflowing with different food in one hand with the other he grabbed Katara by the wrist and pulled her back up the stairs.

"What's going-" Before she could finish her sentence, an older woman rounded the corner Gua had just come from brandishing what looked to be a rolling pin.

"Gua! You little brat, you're too good to show up to mealtimes then you want to come into my kitchen and make an utter mess! I will not have it anymore, come around here again and I'll beat some respect for your elders into you!"

Katara was mildly concerned, the older woman sounded like she meant it. It seemed that this wasn't the first time Gua had bothered the woman.

But he showed it was all in good nature when he called over his shoulder, "You know I love you know Auntie Yanyu. I'll bring some fresh lychee fruit from the market for you as soon as we set ashore later this week!"

Katara heard the older woman sigh dramatically in reply as they turned the corner.

—-

Gua didn't stop when they reached the deck, instead he pulled her towards one of the three of the large masts. He stopped when they reached the base. "If you're up for a little adventure I know the best place for lunch with a view." and pointed towards the sky.

Katara felt her breath catch for a moment as she glanced upward. The crows nest had to be at least 30 feet off the ground, the only way up being rope net that had been secured top to bottom the mast. While it looked as secure as it could be, it wasn't exactly stairs.

Sensing her hesitation, "Look, I know we got off to a rocky start" he put extra emphasis on the word rocky and paused for a moment waiting for Katara to laugh. She just rolled her eyes. He smiled at her good naturedly, undeterred by her response. "But I promise I wish you no is completely safe, even if you don't have my perfect balance you'll be safe if you fall."

He reached around her and grabbed some sort of harness contraption. "That's going to catch me?" she said, looking at the bundle of ropes and cords in his hands.

"I know I keep saying this but trust me. I've seen these catch men being during the height of a particularly nasty storm. Almost had the whole ship on its side, I thought it was the end of us. We had all tied ourselves to the deck and were holding on for dear life. I swear some men were peeing themselves, others crying out for their mothers or muttering prayers to Yang Chen. Then I saw old man Chang take a tumble right off the side of the guardrails, but before he could hit the watch."

Gua paused for dramatic effect and clearly to gauge Katara's reaction to the tale. She could tell if he had grown up in her tribe, he would've been the center of attention at all the great feasts with the way he was with words. On the short journey to the ship from town, he had managed to regale her with several tales of his journeys. All of which just so happened to feature him as the hero.

The fact of the matter was everything he said was likely true, those kinds of people just had something about them. A certain thirst for adrenaline and risk in their lives that they often got themselves into situations that ended yielding such adventurous stories.

She decided to indulge him. She didn't really have a good reason not to, and with hunger gnawing at her stomach she likely would've sat down at a table with the Fire Lord himself at this point.

"Alright. Help me into this contraption."

—-

Gua's hands moved with the experience of an expert and in no time he had he safely harnessed up. "Okay, I know it can kind of be unnerving the first time, just try not to look down, sometimes it can make people freak out. And know that even if you do freak out, the harness will catch you."

Katara moved her head in acknowledgement, internally steeling herself for the task at hand. While she didn't have a specific fear of heights, she did have certain conditions in which she wanted to be that high off the ground - like on Appa.

She thought back for a moment to what it had felt like using one of the gliders the Mechanist had tricked out at the Northern Air Temple. She remembered feeling so terrified that she didn't know if she'd be able to move her legs to take those last steps of the ledge. But she thought of Aang, how he described the feeling of soaring through the air on his glider like nothing else from this earth.

When gliding through the air, you no longer feel like a singular person exists in this world. Rather, you as you know yourself slips away as the ground does, and you become one with the winds and sky. But without a glider, Katara wasn't too keen about becoming one with the winds.

"I'll go first so I can show you how to do it, sometimes it can take a few tries to get your balance on the ropes." In a few easy movements Gua, slung the sack of food over his arm, and leapt from where he was standing next to Katara, skipping the first several feet of rope ladder then quickly made his way up the rest.

Katara felt like perhaps Gua had gone first more to show off than show her how it was done. But she refused to call up to him for take a moment to look out at the skies in front of her. While she had seen many things from the air, having traveled with Appa so much, this was different. When she was on Appa it was almost like gliding, in the sense that you didn't feel much connected to the earth any more. High above the clouds riding Appa, at times Katara had felt bigger than the whole sky.

But atop the crows nest things were different, there wasn't much room to move around. Just enough for 3-4 people to sit down comfortably. But she felt like she could see for miles up there, while she knew it was a product of her imagination, she felt like if she squinted hard enough she could see the specs of ice towers, indicating the Northern Tribe. But they were much too far away for that. Chen Bao might be the closest Earth Kingdom city to the water tribe but it was still leagues away from the icy capital.

"Didn't I tell ya?" Guad said, pulling Katara away from her thoughts. "Best lunch spot ever."

She smiled at him and sat down by the food.

—-

To Katara's surprise Gua didn't launch into a barrage of questions or storytelling the moment she sat down. Instead they sat in a comfortable silence, Katara wolfing down several steamed buns before speaking.

They had a few hours to kill before the ship would be completely loaded and ready to go, the earlier fiasco with the boulder and Katara almost throwing the crew overboard had set them back schedule wise. She had thought this would upset Kang who seemed to be in a time crunch, but he didn't appear to be worried. Likely after her display of waterbending, he was more than certain she could make a few waves to speed up their journey.

She looked over at Gua who was no longer paying any attention to her, looking all around them. There was a flock of seagulls flying just off to her right. With the time to kill and now having fed herself, Katara figured it was about time to learn a little more about Gua.

"So you seem to be a little young to be working for the captain full-time, is he kin of yours?" She knew it was likely, in villages most everyone was related and everyone supported each other to survive. Even so, only being about her age, she had figured his parents would likely protest Gua being gone for days if not weeks at a time on delivery trips.

Gua shook his head but didn't immediately respond, and for s second Katara was worried she had offended him. After a long moment he sighed and said, "No but he might as well be."

He stopped again, and she raised an eyebrow at him waiting for him to continue. Instead he forced a smile and said, "Now I'm not sure if a story that dark suits a view like this. Plus conversation like that isn't suitable to talk about with women."

Katara had to make a conscious effort to not punch Gua straight in the mouth. Boys could be so pig headed sometimes. In that moment he reminded her of Sokka trying to explain fishing to her for the forty-seventh time, like she couldn't quite follow such complex mechanisms like speak fishing.

Without meaning to, the next words were out of her mouth before she could think about or stop them. She said it lightly, not wanting to start an argument, but took care to say each word deliberately. "You don't need to censor things for me. I saw my mother's burnt corpse just minutes after a Fire Nation soldier took her life. I can take it."

She had expected him to react with sympathy or awkwardness, after all this wasn't your typical lunchtime discussion. But his gaze was steady, his eyes like dark sea glass boring into her.

"Then maybe you will understand. My story isn't the same but I've found two people can be connected by loss even if they are of different kinds."

She nodded in agreement, waiting for him to continue.

"My family ended the day I let my little sister die."