𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝙵𝚒𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚎𝚗

┏━━━━━━━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━━━━━━━┓

Standing on the deck of the ship, Iroh watched a flock of geese sailing south, the opposite direction of where they were heading. "There's a storm coming. A big one."

His nephew stood behind him, peering at the blank sky through a telescope. "You're out of your mind, uncle. The weather is perfect, there's not a cloud in sight."

"A storm is approaching from the north," Iroh insisted, he knew he was right, even if his nephew couldn't see it. "I suggest we alter our course and head southwest."

"We know the Avatar is travelling northward," The prince stated, pointing north, "So we will do the same."

"Prince Zuko, consider the safety of the crew," His uncle implored. "I know that this storm will be too great for even Miss La'kea to handle."

Zuko growled in frustration just as Lieutenant Jee walked out onto the deck, "The safety of the crew doesn't matter!" Jee just lifted a brow.

"Finding the Avatar is far more important," The prince walked right up to the older man, daring him to challenge him, "Than any individual's safety." He stomped down the stairs into the quarters, leaving the irritated Lieutenant behind.

La'kea slumbered peacefully in her bedroll, until the door was suddenly flung upon without ceremony. She groaned, pulling her pillow around her head, "What is it?"

"My uncle thinks I can't capture the Avatar."

The islander sat up groggily at the sound of the prince's voice, he was pacing back and forth in the small confines of her quarters. She rubbed her eyes, "What makes you think that?"

"He doesn't take this seriously," He snapped, and she tried not to take his irritable mood too personally. "My uncle thinks this is just one long vacation, and that he can make stops whenever he likes."

Turning his words over in her head drowsily, she blurted the first thing that came to mind. "Just ignore him." She winced as soon as the words left her mouth, and tried medicating it, "Not about everything just... He's right about some things but not everything."

Watching her yawn, Zuko remembered why he had stormed in here to begin with. "My uncle thinks there's going to be a storm you can't handle."

The islander sat up scoffing, "I can handle any storm." She pulled on her boots, tying the belt around her sash and dashing out the door.

Zuko followed and stepped out onto the deck right behind her to see the sight of heavy grey clouds rolling in. Jee and a couple of soldiers were gathered watching the storm approach.

"Oh. Looks like your uncle was right about the storm after all," The lieutenant jeered.

Iroh held up his arms, "Lucky guess." Everyone knew that was a lie, La'kea could sense the restless currents from the ocean.

"Lieutenant," Zuko sneered, advancing over to the man, "You'd better learn some respect, or I will teach it to you." La'kea looked away from the sky to see the prince poking Jee's chest threateningly. Unease boiled in her stomach as tension filled the air.

"What do you know about respect," Jee shot back, and she walked over to the prince's side awkwardly, trying to think of some way to placate him before it erupted. "The way you talk to everyone around here," The lieutenant continued much to Iroh's chagrin, "From your hardworking crew to your esteemed uncle to your only friend on this ship, show's you know nothing about respect."

Zuko didn't respond, still facing away as Jee persisted, "You don't care about anyone but yourself! Then again, what should I expect from a spoiled prince?"

La'kea touched the prince's arm in a gesture of assurance, but flinched back as the prince whipped around with his arm extended in a firebending stance. The lieutenant was quick to mimic the pose as Iroh tried to soothe everyone, "Easy now."

The two locked wrists, and smoke began to rise from the prince's hand. It was enough to make the retired general push them apart, "Enough! We're all a bit tired from being at sea so long. I'm sure after a bowl of noodles, everyone will feel much better."

"It might take more than some noodles," She sighed as the prince turned his back to them and walked forward.

"I don't need your help keeping orders on my ship." His uncle walked forward, trying to comfort the prince, but Zuko only shrugged off the hand, marching farther down the deck. La'kea mulled over Lieutenant Jee's words, was she not just his ally?

┏━━━━━━━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━━━━━━━┓

"I'm sick of taking his orders! I'm tired of chasing the Avatar!" Lieutenant Jee was ranting angrily to the crew gathered in the mess hall sharing a drink. La'kea sat over on the next table, she just wanted to finish her meal and get back on deck. The storm hadn't reached it's worst point yet.

Keeping her head down would be a harder task than she thought as Jee suddenly called attention to her. "How do you stand the brat? Every time I see him, you're not far behind, even though he treats you the same as us." The crew turned towards her expectantly.

She chewed slowly and shrugged, debating telling them that it wasn't true, "We both share the same goal." They both just wanted to go home.

"You must be the only other person on this ship who actually cares about capturing the Avatar," Jee quipped, slamming down his drink. "I mean, who does Zuko think he is?"

"Do you really want to know?"

Most of the men stood to attention at the sight of General Iroh walking down the stairs to the mess hall. "General Iroh," Jee started apologetically, but Iroh just waved him off.

"It's okay," The old man assuaged, "May I join you?"

"Of course," The lieutenant agreed, clearing a spot at the table.

Iroh made himself comfortable, he was aware of the islander's presence in the shadows but did not single her out. "Try to understand, my nephew is a complicated young man. He has been through so much..."

La'kea resigned herself to listen curiously to Zuko's past, thinking all the way back to the first night she had met him. After she had repaired the melted flesh and singed eye, he had almost attacked her in his panicked state. It wasn't the best of first impressions.

The general wove a tale of a young and bright prince. Who tried entering a war chamber in order to learn about the Nation he was going to rule one day. Iroh spoke of the plan the Fire Nation generals had laid out, to sacrifice a whole division to bait an Earth Kingdom battalion. The prince had spoken up in defense of the division, appalled that they would willingly send recruits to their death.

She stared attentively, disbelieving that the fire-spitting brat she was familiar with had once been selflessly defending soldiers he didn't know.

"Zuko was right, you see," Iroh told solemnly with a hand on his beard, "But it was not his place to speak out... And there were dire consequences."

The general definitely knew how to capture an audience. La'kea found herself scooting closer on the table to hear more about the prince she was learning she knew so little about.

"After Zuko's outburst in the meeting, the Fire Lord became very angry with him," Iroh continued softly. "He said the challenge against the general was an act of complete disrespect! And there was only one way to resolve it."

"An agni kai," Jee murmured.

She thought of the agni kai between the prince and Commander Zhao. Speaking out against the general must have been what got Zuko banished, she thought, but why make him fight an agni kai then? Shuddering, she remembered the smell of burnt flesh when she walked into the room with the prince. How cruel that general must have been to duel a boy and not show mercy.

Iroh carried on, "Prince Zuko looked upon the old general he had insulted and declared that he was not afraid. But Zuko had misunderstood. When he turned to face his opponent, he was surprised to see it was not the general."

La'kea was unabashedly staring now, throwing all of her old theories away as she finally sat directly across from Iroh. The general resumed his story, pleased the islander was finally hearing about it. "Zuko had spoken out against the general's plan, but by doing so in the Fire Lord's war room, it was the Fire Lord whom he had disrespected. Zuko would have to duel his own father."

She gasped softly, horrified at what it meant, dread scraped against her bones as she thought of the disfigured flesh dripping like wax off the boy's skull. The thought of any father disfiguring his own child like that made her sick. She found sympathy for Zuko, and her heart clenched in compassion.

"When Prince Zuko saw that it was his own father who had come to duel him, he begged for mercy." The islander pictured the events Iroh was recounting, a dark and hardhearted monster stalking across an arena to look down at his surrendering son. The prince would look up pleadingly, only to be met with an unflinching fist of fire. "I looked away." 

And the damage had been so bad the general had to risk bringing a waterbending healer to even attempt at saving the prince's life.

"I always thought that Prince Zuko was in a training accident," Jee murmured quietly, in shock.

"It was no accident," Iroh hissed uncharacteristically, before continuing calmly. "After the duel, the Fire Lord said that by refusing to fight, Zuko had shown shameful weakness. As punishment, he was banished and sent to capture the Avatar. Only then could he return with his honor."

La'kea couldn't stand to listen to it any longer and walked out of the mess hall without any resistance. She was wrong about the prince, she thought he had been banished for being a spoiled brat this whole time. The islander was suddenly tossed to the side, colliding with the wall.

Groaning, she rubbed her shoulder and hastily made her way up to the deck. She had been so preoccupied with Zuko's past that she had completely let the storm grow out of control and now the rain was slamming into the deck. Something was wrong, even if the storm was large, she still should have been able to at least curb it.

But no matter how many times she threw her hands against the sky, or deflected a massive wave, the storm persisted. What was wrong with her? She cried out in frustration, stomping her foot against the deck just as the sky burst. One second she was blinded by a white light and the next second the command tower was smoking.

Metal groaned as the deck split from the command deck above her, La'kea threw her arms over her head as the heavy pieces of metal collided with the deck around her.

"Look out!"

When the world finally stopped spinning and a chunk of the deck crashed into the spot she had been standing. She realized someone had tackled her, holding her against their chest, but awkwardly realized that someone was Zuko.

The prince jumped off her, teetering as he struggled to keep his footing. "The helmsman!" Everyone gave shouts of alarm as they spotted the older sailor hanging onto the remnants of the deck.

Zuko wasted no time rushing to the ladder, scaling it quickly with the lieutenant not far behind. Not a moment too soon either, the rain made it difficult for the helmsman to maintain his grip, and he slipped. Luckily, the prince reached him in time, lowering him down to Jee. The lieutenant smiled gratefully up at him.

La'kea was still losing the fight with the storm by the time everyone made it to the deck. "What's the matter," The prince shouted over the rain as he ran over to the waterbenders side.

"It's not listening to me," She screeched in response, pushing against an invisible force as a wave was thrown back.

"The Avatar!" He suddenly cried out, pulling everyone's attention to the sight of a familiar bison, distracting the islander's already precarious focus.

"What do you want us to do, sir?" Lieutenant Jee inquired, awaiting the prince's orders.

The prince hesitated for a moment, looking between the struggling waterbender and the Avatar. "Let him go. We need to get the ship to safety." Zukos warm hand gently clasped La'kea arm, distracting her for a moment. "Can you make it?"

She held his stare steadily, "I can keep us afloat."

Iroh smiled, "Then we must head directly into the eye of the storm."

┏━━━━━━━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━━━━━━━┓

The ship finally stopped rocking as the clouds circled above them in a seamless pillar to the sky. They had reached the eye of the storm finally.

La'keas legs wobbled, but just as she was about to collapse, the prince caught her arm and held her up carefully. Zuko bowed his head in shame at what his actions had done to the waterbender, who had to hold back the ocean's wrath. "Uncle, I'm sorry."

Iroh just patted his nephew's shoulder with a smile, "Your apology is accepted."

He looked down at the exhausted girl sagging against his side, "You did well."

"Thanks," Her bright but lopsided smile caught him off guard as the islander promptly passed out.

His uncle chuckled, "Maybe it's best you take her to her room, unless you want to leave her out here to sleep."

The prince rolled his eyes, but still obligingly scooped the girl up, following his uncle down to the quarters below.