Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Zuko was so, so close.

Like every other chance of success, this one slipped through his fingers. He screamed at his crew and stormed off, pretending to ignore the quiet footsteps following after him.

The Wani was a wreck.

The Fire Navy did not provide South Pole-appropriate clothes to their troops. This was especially true of the Wani, which did not receive provisions that were up to code to begin with. Normally, this was not an issue because the firebender crew could channel their energy towards warming themselves and the decks while the nonbenders hoarded extra layers. This was not an option now.

Because several crew members had been frozen. To the deck. By a teenage waterbender. Backwards. 

You’d think the crew wouldn’t underestimate teenagers. After all, the Prince was only sixteen, and several crew members were nineteen and… okay, that might be why they had underestimated the waterbender. And her brother who was also there, apparently. And the Avatar. Who was twelve, not a teenager.

Oh yeah, and the Avatar was real. And alive. And was the reason their ship was wrecked.

Third Engineer Shen had to hear about all this after the fucking Avatar flew away , because he was in the boiler shoveling coal for the benders to light and preparing for this latest sighting to have been another lost cause. Oh well. At least he stayed warm. If faced with a scary waterbender girl Shen might have actually frozen to death. That’s probably why most nonbenders were drafted as foot soldiers, rather than Navy. Probably. Though he hadn’t actually seen many waterbenders at sea either. Point being, he was, objectively, kinda useless in this fight.

(Kinda useless in most fights. Actually, now that he thinks about it, that must have been purposeful. Nonbenders, or at least people registered as such, could volunteer and be trained up to fight, but they were drafted infrequently and it was no revelation that they weren’t given high positions. Why waste good resources on suicide missions? Even the firebenders tended to be weak for their age group. Shen had been so excited about how many nonbenders and colonial kids were in the 41st. He’d even met someone else  like him for the first time, though it hadn’t saved her. Maybe they should have caught on sooner that they were all koalalambs to the slaughter. But Shen had signed the papers and marched right in, gleefully ignoring all the warning signs.)

Anyway. The Avatar. Agni-dammit, Shen lost the bet with Li Jie. He really didn’t think this weird ice light thing would be it, and he normally always bet in the Prince's favor. Weren’t the poles supposed to have weird lights anyway? How was he supposed to know it was spirit stuff?!

Listen. Listen. He loved the Prince. He believed in the Prince. He was the one who tracked down the Prince three years ago, joined him on this hunt, young and bright eyed. Let it never be said that Shen gave up on the mission. He didn’t care about any grand rebellion or glory or whatever. He gave up on that when he saw the rest of the 41st crushed like ants into the Earth, incapable of doing anything but shielding himself. What Shen cared about now was staying by Zuko’s side, repaying his debts, socializing that boy like a feral octokitten, and maybe, hopefully, eventually, returning to his family. The Avatar being alive? That was a good first step to at least a few of those goals.

Shen couldn’t wait to annoy Zuko about all this. If the other boy ever came out of his room.

Li Jie had entered Prince Zuko’s room five minutes ago, and they had yet to say a single word to each other.

Officially, Li Jie was an assistant cook and crewman. Unofficially, Li Jie’s job was to keep the Prince from making impulsive self-sacrificial choices. Even less officially, Li Jie was Prince Zuko’s Avatar-hunting consultant. It was an important job, and one he took seriously. 

His grandmother was head librarian of the Capital Library, before there was a “tragic and mysterious” fire that burned through the Air Nomad History and Culture section at the start of the war. His family was always a bit stubborn when it came to letting knowledge go. Even treasonous knowledge that could end in all their deaths. Before today, all Li Jie’s important Avatar information was… objectively trivial and pointless for the mission. Mostly, Air Nomad funeral rites. But Prince Zuko, young and burning to know all things airbender, had listened, and kept listening, and with no one with real political power around Li Jie could talk to him. It was all harmless, when the Avatar was gone. 

Then a blast of light exploded from the South Pole, they had found him, but the Avatar had escaped. Li Jie wondered if Prince Zuko would accept a hug, if offered. Li Jie wondered if he was about to be killed right now. He hoped that his throat would be slit, instead of being burned or thrown overboard, but… no. Li Jie knows that Zuko would never have it in him to kill his own crew. All that anger was likely turned inwards right now. Well, that wouldn’t do.

“I’m sorry,” Li Jie said, and oh, no, he’s crying, when did that start? Prince Zuko finally looks up at him, shocked. “I am so, so , sorry, Your Highness, I failed you.”

“You-”

“I didn’t give you good enough advice, and I tried my best but I let him escape, and I’m a bad soldier, and-”

“Shut up! Stop!” Prince Zuko looked frantic now. He quickly glossed over it with his usual anger, as though they weren’t both aware it was a mask. “ You did not fail. We’d be on our way home if the rest of the crew had listened to your tactics or when I said to keep him away from his staff.”

That was not true, Li Jie knew shit about actual airbending tactics, but one of Li Jie’s guiding principles was that he would never contradict the Prince without Shen there for backup. Why hadn’t he dragged Shen out of the engines for backup?

Li Jie took as deep a breath as he could, felt a practiced calm resettle, and rose his body temperature a few degrees to let the tears dry without wiping them. “If I could make some comments, Your Highness?”

Prince Zuko nods for him to continue, familiar glare in place now that they were back to pretending they were Important Leaders who were Good at Avatar Hunting.

“Our strategy might have to change a little,” Li Jie said as delicately as he could. Prince Zuko still flinched as though he had been slapped.

“Why?”

“We were prepared for either an ancient airbender or someone untrained in airbending. The Avatar is a kid, but… he has his tattoos.”

“So what?”

“Well… he's young for a master, so his forms might be less traditional. But he was also trained somewhere where enough Air Nomad culture wasn't lost that the tattoos were a preserved practice, so he can't have trained alone."

Li Jie gets lost in his thoughts again for a bit there, because the only thing he didn't directly state was the obvious conclusion, the one the Prince and the rest of the crew came to themselves. That this "new" Avatar was just the old one, the one who disappeared. Li Jie didn't didn't want to face what that simple explanation meant. If he could pretend that the Avatar was a reincarnation, that meant airbenders could have been out there somewhere, that the cycle was impossible to break. That enough old masters survived to pass on tattoos to kids. That the horrors of their nation were slightly lesser. Prince Zuko interrupted this train of thought, as he often did. 

“So, he will be… weirder and stronger?”

“Right, so…”

After an emotionally draining discussion where Li Jie pretended to know more about combat and less about children’s games, he escaped the room. He collapsed in the hallway, feeling heavy, dense, like all the air left his tissues. Because he had lied to Prince Zuko. Not about his info, or his advice, or about being a bad firebender and soldier. He lied when he said he tried his best to capture the Avatar. Li Jie had looked into the Avatars bright, childish, gray eyes, and his naturally weak fire refused to light at all. 

Here’s a secret: even when drafted in the 41st, Li Jie hadn’t fought. He’d hid and dodged, and let friends fall around him because he couldn’t bear to take a life. Now, on the Wani , he strategized instead, and he did well. Well enough to lead his Prince to the actual Avatar, apparently. But what good was strategy if he couldn't help where it counted?

(What good is strategy if I have to hurt people?, he did not let himself think. He knew about the rebellion, knew there were greater goals in mind than just the Prince’s wellbeing, knew that capturing the Avatar went against peace. He also knew he would always, always, put Prince Zuko before those ideals.)

He just wanted to go home, and get the Prince home too. But Li Jie had never had a home in the Fire Nation. Sometimes he looked at the Prince and thought he may not have had one either.

2nd Mate Maho walked down the corridor and Li Jie forced himself to his feet, trying to apply stoicism like his cousin applied lipstick. Maho didn’t even look at him, only shoved a scroll in his hand as she passed. He couldn’t blame Maho for being brusque with him. It was his fault her brother died. Though, he didn't know if she knew that.

He looked down at the scroll. It was from his cousin. He considered reading it, but then he saw her face, heard the words she spit at him before he went to go search for the Prince. He was Fire enough for this, at least.

Maho could barely resist punching the wall when she heard paper spark and catch behind her. That jerk’s family was trying so hard to reach him and he did this every time. She wanted to force him to sit down, shake off that annoying blank face he put on and explain to him that being better at lying than Zuko didn’t make him good at it. Those two were bad influences on each other. If Maho wasn’t so busy, she’d lecture him so hard. Didn’t he get that some people, like the Prince, were better off without their families? Didn’t he get that some people would never get to talk to their families again?  The only kinds of mail Maho got nowadays were death threats, supply maps, and orders from eccentric old men. Her brother’s hawk, Sunshower, wasn’t even housed in the aviary, useless, trained only to fly on one path with a missing end. She stayed in Maho’s bunk instead, annoying the shit out of her and stealing affection from the other female crew. Sometimes Sunshower’d fly in circles above the ship before returning to Maho and pecking at her in confusion and anger.

Maho was a sailor by blood, helping on her family’s fishing boat and diving into rivers since she could hold her breath. She was utterly indifferent to the military, but when the draft came for her it was easy enough to be shipped off to the Navy. She stayed there for two years, in love with the sea and anchored to home only by the letters to Tsukiyo. 

Tsukiyo, little her brother, the boy she practically raised, the other half of her being, was sent away before Maho's shore leave. He should have been exempt for the draft; the same weak lungs that kept him from swimming keeping him from fighting earthbenders on dusty terrain. But Tsukiyo, her foolish, lovely brother had not been quiet enough in his criticism of their Town Guard, and so away he went. In his last letter he said, “ I miss the coast, but I’ll tell you all about the Earth Kingdom when we both get home.”

Letters stopped coming. The hawk stayed with her. She knew he was dead before official word was sent out. She did not know why until later.

Maho was a nonbender, born on the hottest summer solstice on record in twenty years. She’d laughed at age fifteen, when she heard the Fire Prince was born on the winter solstice. Guessed that she'd stolen all the world's luck. Maho was 31 now. She wasn’t laughing anymore.

Maho, technically, wasn’t part of the Wani’s crew, though everyone referred to her as the 2nd mate. Maho, technically, was missing from her post in the 38th Naval Division and had not been discharged nor given leave to be here. Maho, technically, was the third biggest traitor to the throne on this ship, and the second most purposeful one.

Maho and Tsukiyo’s father was, to put it simply, a bag of flaming dicks, may he shine in Agni’s light. And even if the entire Fire Nation and half the Earth Nation hadn’t already known what Ozai did to Zuko, it wouldn’t have taken Maho long to guess. So when Maho heard of a full scale rebellion she could join, having already deserted and committed some minor acts of sabotage, she jumped at the chance. Take down the Fire Nation from both the inside and outside, keep Zuko out of that hellhole, sail around the world and try to find friendly ports she could take refuge in once she became a target. She figured by the time any progress was made in the whole coup department, Zuko would have been an adult, raised away from his twisted home life and even more twisted homeland. She'd thought he would either take the throne or change his identity and find some nice calm life in the Earth Kingdom. Either way, Maho would get to spill Ozai's blood and see a kid who acted like Tsukiyo grow to live his best life. Maybe they wouldn't reach peace, but Maho was determined to make some kind of change.

The Avatar being alive made things complicated. On one hand, this was fantastic news for the world as a whole. On the other hand she had really grown attached to Zuko over the years. At first she had been bitter. Oh, so the Prince's warning saved a few dozen soldiers. So what? It hadn't been enough to save her brother. But then she met him, his first week out of the infirmary. He was so out of his mind on pain medicine that she was shocked he never fell overboard. If she was his aunt, she would have tied him to the medbay bunk, but she wasn't, and General Iroh believed in fostering Zuko's independence. 

(" Who are you?" he'd asked, after bodily running into her in the hallway.

"I'm the 2nd Mate," she'd lied, and then truthfully said, "I do navigation," because Zuko still looked confused.

"Oh." 

He stared up at her, eyes wide and uncomprehending. Then he nodded his head way too hard for someone with a recent face injury and put on his most authoritative voice. Which wasn't convincing, because he was thirteen and was only standing up because she was holding him. 

"Navigate us to the Avatar.")

As much as it had broken her heart to see a kid sent to chase a spirit-tale, part of her had been relieved it was so hopeless. If Zuko could never succeed, she wouldn’t have to face the facts. The revolution may have been in Zuko's name, but Zuko was about as far from a revolutionary as you could get. She wasn't sure if he was even aware the Fire Nation was divided. For someone so broken, he was incredibly naive at times. She’d hoped seeing more of the world, seeing how hopeless pinning faith on the Avatar was would change him but he was still a kid, and damn the Avatar, for hiding for a century and coming back right at the worst time.

Maho would do most anything for Zuko. She would die for Zuko. But if it came down to choosing Zuko or the entire world? Zuko or the end of the war that stole her brother? She would make the mercy killing quick.

She would never, ever , let any of those plans slip around General Iroh, obviously. Though, if you asked her there were some flaws in his methods too. Not disillusioning the kid about imperialism while being an active traitor, for one. Letting two additional teenagers run rampant on a boat, for another (and sure, Li Jie and Shen were adults now , but they sure as shit weren’t when they joined, and they acted way more childlike when around their toddler monarch). 

She does not know what to think of the Dragon of the West, but on a ship so small and a world so big, one had to make some compromises when it came to authority. She knocked on his door in a way she hoped sounded relaxed enough to be casual but also genuine enough not to put her neck on the chopping block.

“You up for a round of pai sho, old man?”

Chapter Text

Zuko was finishing up his morning meditation when the Wani pulled into harbor. At the same moment, Shen burst through the door like fireworks exploding in a library. Zuko, having exhausted all other methods of confronting Shen in previous encounters, decided to try a tried-and-true method he’d learned from a six-year-old Azula: the silent treatment.

“Hey, Myth-manager!”

“...”

“Spirit-seeker!”

“...”

“Agni’s chosen, the one and only Crown Prince, savior of the 41st, owner of my life-debt, finder of the Avatar, sovereign of our hearts—”

“What the fuck do you want? ”

“Come shopping with me.”

Breathe in. Breathe out. Zuko was doing so well for a while there. Uncle wouldn’t even have had any notes. His mind had been blank, he had gotten one solid minute in without thinking of the embarrassing failure at the South Pole. Now, all he could focus on was the awful sound the ship was making and hope that they didn’t sink before they could make it to port for repairs. And Shen wanted him to ignore his mission, ignore his damaged ship, just to go shopping.

Next to him, Li Jie kept up his steady breathing, despite the fact that his crewmate was crawling half over his shoulders to make pleading eyes at Zuko. Zuko admired Li Jie’s determination, so quiet Zuko could forget he was there half the time, and regretted ever letting Shen join his crew.

“C’mon, Zuko, please?”

Shen used to call him Prince all the time. Now, he rarely did it except to mock him. If Zuko was a stronger leader, he’d do something about that. Azula was right: Zuko was a sentimental fool.

“No.”

“But I neeeeed to. Earth Kingdom ports are great! They have good food, we could find you some fun swords to play with, you and Li Jie could blow our cover again, it’d be great.”

Do not firebend at your nonbender crew. You saved this man from being crushed by rocks. Do not kill him now. Do not think about how easy it would be to just leave him at port and never come back.

“Can’t your shopping wait till we capture the Avatar?”

“No, actually. We’re almost out of coal.”

“ What ?!”

“Keeping a damaged ship sailing at the same pace uses a lot of power.”

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling smoke build up in his throat as he barely restrained the urge to scream. Annoying as he may have been, Shen was one of the people who respected Zuko most on the ship, hence why he brought up management issues at all rather than just assuming that Zuko would ignore them and try to push ahead regardless. Still, any setback now could be disastrous.

“ Just get the coal.”

“So you’ll come with me!”

“No!”

“But—”

Li Jie rose from his knees, making Shen fall off of him and give a look of pure betrayal.

“I’ll get supplies with you,” Li Jie said. “Stop bothering the Prince. He needs to focus on finding someone to do the real repairs.”

 Zuko was actually planning on having Lieutenant Jee find someone to repair the ship, but he’d take the easy way out of this conversation. Li Jie took Shen’s wrist and pulled him out of the room. 

No longer at risk of rising to the bait in front of Shen, or losing control of his bending and startling Li Jie, Zuko promptly jumped up and set his room on fire for several minutes until he felt calm enough to face his Uncle.

“What was that actually about?” Li Jie asked once Shen was dragged safely out of the “being accidentally set on fire” zone.

“We do need coal. But also, Zhao’s in the harbor.”

That explained a lot. Li Jie and Shen had a pact when it came to Zhao; keep that creep as far away from their prince as possible. No good could come from someone who’s response to a kid being sent on a (supposed) suicide mission was delight in making them die faster . 

“... Prince Zuko would prefer to face Zhao directly,” Li Jie said.

“Which is exactly why I did not mention that the port was boasting some bad facial hair today.”

They’d have a long day out. And there were things that Li Jie wanted to buy, now that there was a large enough distraction that his goings-ons wouldn’t become the crew’s focus…

“How much extra money did you grab?”

Shen grinned, and tossed a bag to Li Jie. “I grabbed your purse too, don’t worry.”

“I thought you came to invite Prince Zuko?”

“You’re his shirshu, you’d follow him.”

Li Jie resented the comparison, but did not dispute it.

Zhao boasted about his own military successes, and mocked Zuko’s failures. He rubbed the word banished in the Prince’s face like it was salt and the burn was still healing. He sat back and shared his tea and waited for his men to come back with news of whatever that “Earth Nation ship” the Wani crashed into really was. He waited. And waited. And waited…

His tea went cold. General Iroh finished his cup. The rage on Prince Zuko’s face burned down to just a simmer, and with no further ammunition to bait him with and no authority to challenge the Prince first, it seemed an Agni Kai would have to wait for another day. A shame, Zhao was really hoping to make that whelp symmetrical. Really, what was taking so long?

In another life, Zhao would have caught on to Zuko’s secret within minutes. His soldiers would have gone below decks, lined up Zuko’s crew, and barely would have needed to threaten them before details about the Avatar’s discovery and subsequent escape spilled from eager lips.

In another life, the crew was fed up with following a child’s orders. Those with pride had a grudge against him, and those without malice had no reason to stick by him. The Fire Nation came first; once the Avatar hunt was real it was a national emergency. What did Zuko’s dreams matter in the face of the only real threat to the war? What could possibly be gained from lying to Zhao but a lifetime adrift at sea with the knowledge that they’d betrayed their home for someone who would not sacrifice anything for them?

In another life, Zuko had not yet saved a single life, his only attempt at speaking out quickly silenced and kept secret. He was scared, bitter, and so alone. In another life, the only member of the crew on Zuko’s side was his Uncle, and even the Dragon of the West could soothe only so much unease.

In this life, tensions on the Wani were still high, but they were not as hopeless.

In this life, when Zhao’s men came to the Wani’s deck, the crew kept their story straight. 

Lieutenant Jee, despite what some may have claimed, did not have a soft spot for Prince Zuko. He did, however, have no desire to be moved to a ship with more oversight and a different crew. Especially with the Prince’s friends (sorry, “subjects”) keeping him from yelling constantly. With no great reluctance, Jee confirmed the Prince and General's horrible claim of ramming into an Earth Kingdom ship. He, at least, knew how to lie.

"I don't think it was a military ship," Jee said, because a Naval collision would be easily checked for. "It's been a while since I've been in battle, but I don't remember any combatant boats with that style of sail."

One soldier, who’d gotten frostbite from that Water Tribe brat and not enough injury compensation, really wanted to gripe about it, but not to these bastards. He wasn’t sure what they wanted with Prince Zuko, but he was sure it wasn’t good. The soldier’s niece was in the 41st, but she had never believed in the Prince’s quest. The soldier hadn’t either, but when he was assigned on the Prince’s ship anyway, demoted from his last one for cowardice, it had seemed as good a way as any to repay the debt of his daughter’s survival. Just because the whole Avatar business turned out a little realer than initially planned didn’t make him owe the Prince less.

“I hear the Prince got knocked overboard. From the force of the vessel hitting us, that is,” the cook said. He was indifferent to Zuko (really, he was just a rude kid who didn’t eat enough), but Assistant Cook Li Jie was absurdly loyal. Having a firebender who didn’t burn every meal was too good of an asset to lose.

Maho nodded, keeping her arms crossed to conceal the knife up her sleeve. “He almost got hypothermia. And a concussion, from hitting the railing. It was pathetic.”

The man who would've been the first to squeal felt his heart race as all his brothers in arms elaborated on the lie. He had few loyalties either way; only the same fears that drove most men during war. Lying to a commander, one who was well liked in Caldera’s courts, for the sake of a banished prince? It would be suicide. But so would being the one man who sold out the Dragon of the West’s nephew. So would being the one man in the large, quiet, ocean who revealed the rest of his crew to be liars. Going from a man, nameless, to a political actor, named, could be what got him off this worthless mission, but it would also paint a target on his back. He remembered the letter from his wife at the start of his assignment, alerting him to how the fate of the 41st was enough to throw their country into turmoil. He remembered how on edge the ship got when any new communication from the islands came in, how any risk to the Prince would be quickly dispatched before it even became a real threat. He remembered how, when the 2nd Mate saw Zhao's ship in the port, she had openly started sharpening a dagger that was definitely not Navy-approved. The man who once would have had nothing to lose by contradicting the prince weighed his life on his words. He chose to keep his damn mouth shut.

Finally , one of the soldiers came back. Zhao went to stand, but the man just shook his head. Nothing. Nothing? Preposterous. There had to be something. Prince Zuko was a revolutionary, Zhao knew it. Ships didn’t just damage themselves, and revolutions didn’t just gain figureheads without that figurehead’s involvement.

"Well, Prince Zuko, it appears tea time is over, but I’d hate to cut our visit short. Would you be so kind as to allow me a quick look around your ship. What with the recent crash, I think a little inspection is in order

“Why the f-”

“Of course!” General Iroh said. “After all, funds for the Wani’s repairs could be fully covered by the Fire Lord if we had the keen eye of a Commander to confirm our appeal.”

Zhao felt his keen eye twitch. The General smiled serenely back.

Shen squinted. “Did Zhao just leave his ship?”

Shen and Li Jie had finished gathering supplies ages ago, and were now too afraid to step back on board. Zhao hated Zuko the most, but he targeted the 41st almost as frequently, having far more freedom to do so. Neither of them were technically deserters (though some of their previous traveling companions were) and they were on the ship legally, but it was an open secret that the Loyalists were basically given free reign to hunt down any of the surviving division members. Shen sometimes felt bitter towards the revolution for calling themselves The Fighting 41sts . Caused a fair bit of trouble for the rest of them. 

Li Jie stood up and offered Shen his hand.

“So,” he said. “We can’t go back to the Wani . And Zhao is on the Wani. ”

“Right,” Shen said.

“So,” Li Jie continued. “We could sabotage Zhao’s ship.”

“WHAT?”

Li Jie did not elaborate. He just stood there, blinking with that pretty blank face of his like what he said needed no elaboration. Then again, maybe it didn’t.

“That’s treason,” Shen said, as though his friend hadn’t considered that fact. Shen had a long, elaborate list of all surviving members of the 41st (and a few of the dead) ranked by Most to Least Likely to Join the Revolution. Li Jie had always placed somewhere in the middle-to-low end of that list, just after Shen himself. Li Jie was loyal to Zuko, and Zuko was loyal to the Fire Nation, so Li Jie was loyal to the Fire Nation. Sabotaging a commander’s ship was not a very loyal to the Fire Nation thing to do.

“Treason does not count if it’s just against Zhao.”

Well. That was a good point.

“Okay.”

Li Jie grabbed Shen’s arm again and started sneaking to Zhao’s ship. Wow, he was light on his feet. Shen had watched his fellow soldiers train a lot, but all he’d noticed about Li Jie is that he was knocked over and had less force behind his kicks than most. He’d never thought about how that disconnect from the ground might translate outside of battle. Shen tried to match his silent steps over the railing, but stumbled, heavy from his bad knee.

“Okay,” Shen said once they were on board, “So what’s the plan?”

Li Jie shrugged. “I do not have one yet.”

No wonder firebenders set things on fire in anger and shock all the time. No wonder Li Jie was such a bad firebender. Shen tried to mimic the weird deep breath thing Li Jie did to calm down, but only managed to make a weird wheezing noise.

“Aren’t you the tactician. Aren’t you helping with the Avatar plans.” They were not questions.

“Technically, I am a cook. I didn’t plan to actually find the Avatar. I think that was mostly fate. And Prince Zuko's skill, of course.”

Not helping. Not helping at all. He really hoped that someone on the Wani had actual tactics for chasing down a spirit monster (person, whatever), and Li Jie had always seemed confident. Or at least emotionless. Huh. Maybe that was never confidence. Okay, okay, focus.

“Right. Right. Okay.” Shen thought things through. And then thought things through some more. An idea came to mind immediately, but there was a reason he was not the planner. This plan was stupid. This plan could get them both killed if they were caught (any of the treason could) or could get just Shen killed if Li Jie liked him a little bit less than he hoped he did. “How good are you at keeping secrets? Not a ‘I pretended not to cry on the battlefield secret,’ a ‘ruin our friendship’ secret.”

If Li Jie had asked Shen that, Shen would have made a joke. Instead, Li Jie reaches into his bag and grabs something. “A secret for a secret?” he asked.

Shen choked out a weak smile. No matter what, they both could agree on one thing; “For the prince?”

A single, firm nod. “For the Prince.”

Li Jie pulled his hand out of his pocket. Clutched tightly in his palm were… earrings? Small ones but dangly, topaz carved into a spiral like a hermitcrab shell. They were beautiful.

“I bought them while you were getting the coal. I would like to wear them in both ears, sometimes, like they’re meant to be worn. But I would also like to wear just one. In this ear.” He raised his right hand, shakily, to the matching ear. “When we’re away from the rest of the crew and far enough from the colonies for it not to be recognized.”

It is not really an equivalent secret, but if Li Jie was telling the truth and Shen was catching his hints correctly, then it was one that could get him jailed. Fair’s fair.

“I’ll help you pierce your ears if you’ll pierce one of mine,” Shen offered. Earrings were a small gesture to pretend not to know the meaning of. Shen knew exactly what they meant.

In their four year friendship, it’s the first smile of Li Jie’s that Shen’s seen directed at him rather than the Prince. Small, discreet, and slightly strained, but real.

“A secret for a secret,” Li Jie reminded him. “We don’t have much time to do this.”

“Right.” Shen really needed to ask Li Jie or General Iroh to teach him how to meditate (not the Prince, the Prince’s awful at it), his breathing gets all wonky when he’s nervous. Not that he was nervous. He trusted Li Jie, they had a pact now. “So, I totally know a way to slow down this ship. It’s not permanent, but it last least a few hours, and there’s no way they’d trace it to us. But you have to promise not to murder me.”

Li Jie raised his eyebrows, and slowly stuffed the earrings back in his pouch.

Zhao did a quick headcount and found a few of Zuko’s toys missing from the toybox.

“Do you know the location of the two young crewmen not currently on the ship?” he asked a woman on the deck. He did not recognize her among Zuko’s crew, but most of the peasantry sent to serve the banished Prince were unremarkable and remained in identical armor.

“Most likely out gambling, Commander,” the woman said.

“...Gambling?” A lie, likely, but amusement filled Zhao’s chest nonetheless.

“Yes, Commander. They’re barely grown and ran across the world on a whim. It’s only natural that they’d waste away their wages at every port. Horribly irresponsible boys.” The woman’s face twisted in disgust. Zhao found that he liked her.

“I see. Chosen for the 41st for good reason then.”

“Yes, sir,” she readily agreed.

“And Prince Zuko allows this nonsense of his crew?”

“To be completely honest, I believe the Prince is just oblivious, sir.”

“Right.” Zhao could believe that. “What did you say your name is?”

“I’m Mizuki,” said Maho, who was blessed with an extremely common face and the foresight to keep secret identities planned ahead of time. “I'm the 2nd Mate.” 

“Thank you, Mizuki. May I see your identification? I believe that I could help you find a more worthy position than babysitting the Prince.”

“Sorry, no can do, sir. My papers got lost in the crash.”

“Ah, Mizuki! Lovely girl, though admittedly not the best with directions.” General Iroh leaned conspiratorially over his tea. “Do not tell her I said this, but it’s her fault we ended up crashing. She set the route right into Earth Kingdom trade paths. It’s a shame, but I do not think she is cut out for a combatant ship. She more than makes up for it at music night though! She puts some of the Capital erhu players to shame. Why, just the other night, she—”

“Mizuki?” Lieutenant Jee grimaced. “Horrible sailor. I’ve been thinking of asking the Prince to let me fire her. Really, they’ll draft anyone these days.”

“She’s 2nd Mate Mizuki,” the crew said. “She’s been here forever.”

“Huh? What about the navigator? Yeah, I guess her name is Mizuki, who cares?” the Prince said, completely sincere and oblivious. "No, she's not a bad sailor, no one on my ship is, HOW DARE YOU INSULT MY CREW?!"

"Didn't you crash , Prince Zuko?"

"...Yeah, so?"

Despite the lack of papers being produced, Zhao decided to drop the point. A lot of members of the army lacked official documentation of being drafted, after all. She had shown far more respect for Zhao’s position and disdain for the uppity young Prince than most of the crew, and it was hardly the fault of a loyal peasant that she was too insignificant to have been placed on a more important mission. 

 Maho wished she had slit that man’s throat.

“Maho, why did Lieutenant Jee say he wasn’t going to trust us with the shopping money anymore?” Shen asked when he and Li Jie got back from some light treason and team bonding (but decidedly not gambling) that evening.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll talk to him.”

And so Zhao was left with the infuriating pull of knowing that the Banished Prince was hiding something, but no hints as to what. Treasonous business, surely, and if only there was proof that Zuko had started taking a more active role in leading his little followers Zhao could execute the boy freely and secure his own position for life. After all, everyone knew that the whole Avatar grizzly-goose chase must be a front by now.

(Mere hours later, after temples around the globe start glowing, messenger hawks would be sent correcting this assumption. Zhao had never been more furious or more elated in his life. Well. This opened some possibilities when it came to dealing with the Prince. As well as a full ship of liars to be disposed of. But Prince Zuko was long gone, and Zhao hadn't been prepared to start chasing his trail. And then, when Zhao gave the order to leave the port his engineers started shouting the second they got to the engine room.)

The Southern Air Temple

When the wind had fallen, when the rage had drained, when a hollow acceptance had fallen into place, a too-young Avatar stood up from the temple floor, pulling his new family with him.

“Come on,” Aang said, “I can’t just leave Monk Gyatso like that.”

“Of course,” Katara said. She tried not to let herself sound scared or shaken, tried not to recall her own mother’s blood in the furs. This was about Aang, and if Aang needed to put his guardian’s soul to rest, that's what she would help him do.

Sokka just nodded and followed, thankful to not have been blown off the mountain and to be leaving the temple soon. It was almost enough to make his stomach revolt against the fruit that Momo had just found for him. He’d wanted Aang to see what had happened to his people, come to terms with the war, but no twelve year old should have to handle bone and ancient fabric.

Aang tried not to think about anything else as Appa carried Gyatso up to the peak of the tallest mountain next to the temple. He kept his mind as blank as he could as he considered how to do this, because every time he slipped out of his veneer of meditative calm tears started to burn his eyes again till Katara’s hand on his shoulder grounded him. It couldn’t be a proper sky burial; they didn’t have the days to wait, and there was nothing left on the bones for the vultureleopards. They ground down the bones (a process that took most of the day, since they had to take numerous breaks where they tried desperately to get their hands to feel clean). It was only after the body was processed that Aang realized they had no flour to mix it with, and no time to check if the other animals were gone like the bison were, so he bent the powder into the wind instead, and hoped that it was close enough for the spirits to guide Gyatso the rest of the way. He had been spiritual, free, and kept from a proper death for so long; surely even Aang’s cobbled-together funeral was enough to bring such a worthy man peace. The person he’d cared about most in the world was now gone from it, and Aang could not bear to stay for a moment longer. The monks had taught him that death was just a part of life, that it was natural and necessary for rebirth and balance, but death was not meant to be like this, a silent temple and culture without hope for revival. He couldn’t think here.

It was only as they flew away that Aang could let himself wonder who performed the rites for all the other souls who were once there.