The Girl No One Knew

Chapter 5

Time passed quickly on the ship, and much had changed. The search for the Avatar was endless. I still believed it was just a wild goose chase, but Zuko never gave up. We sailed to every Nation. We searched every home in the Northern and Southern Water Tribes, though I chose to remain on the ship when we were at the South Pole. We searched every building and possible hiding place in the Earth Kingdom. We even tried to reach the Air Temples, but the Western Air Temple was impossible to get to. Every stop we made, we never found the Avatar.

With every failure, Zuko changed. He became more aggressive and more desperate. One night, everyone had agreed that it was time for a break. Sailing ceased, and many crew members and soldiers chose to have a small party. Everyone was on deck, drinking tea. Iroh was playing his tsungi horn. Zuko, on the other hand, was brooding in his quarters.

I stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame with my arms folded across my chest. He was deep in meditation, facing his Fire Nation flag on the wall. He had learned to live with his scar, accepting it as a part of him. I had learned to push back the recurring visions of the incident, back into a vault of everything I wanted to forget.

"You know," I said, "I don't think it's healthy for you to keep yourself locked up in here." He let out a deep breath, keeping his eyes closed.

"It also isn't healthy to interrupt someone who's meditating," he smirked weakly. "Besides, I come out of my quarters."

"Yeah," I said, sitting in front of him, "only when we've made a stop so you can search for the probably no-longer-existent Avatar. Otherwise, you're stuck in here. You almost never speak, you barely eat. You-"

"Is there a point to this, Saki?" He finally looked at me, changing his sitting position.

"Come out and join us." I took his hands in mine. "Please?"

He shook his head, giving me the excuse of how he had a certain "status" to keep up. This apparently meant he wasn't supposed to take part in small celebrations that wasn't formal. Monkeyfeathers! The only reason he wanted to stay in his room was because his stupid father broke him. He wasn't the same, and I would do whatever it took to get the old Zuko back.

"Please?" I asked again, poking out my bottom lip. He shook his head, laughing this time. We stood up, still hand in hand, and walked onto the deck. The party had gone silent, but not for long. When the crew received no orders from the normally cranky prince, the music and laughter resumed.

"I already regret this," Zuko frowned, turning to return inside. "I'm going back inside."

"Oh no you're not," I laughed, pulling him back out. There was no way I was letting him stay in that room of his. He need the fresh air-sometimes I feared he'd die of suffocation what with the candles constantly burning in his room and he almost never opened the only window in his room.

"It's nice to see the prince has finally come to join us again," Iroh chuckled as he sipped his tea, taking a short break from his horn.

"Who knew that all it took to convince him was a pretty girl?" A soldier patted Zuko on the back as he laughed at his own comment, and the others joined in.

"She's a Water Tribe girl, and from the North Pole, at that." Wrong. They always got that part wrong. "They never fail to impress." The laughter upped itself in volume. The soldiers handed us cups of tea and welcomed us into the group chatter. For the first time in the few years we'd been at sea, I saw Zuko smile.

"How shall we end the night, gentlemen?" The admiral said with a smile that was illuminated by the lanterns that sat in the center of the circle we were seated in. "A ghost story around the fire? Or maybe we can tell tales of our triumphs in war?" The men laughed, Iroh being the easiest among them all to hear.

"I doubt the lady could handle it," said the soldier next to me-Hung, I think his name was. "Girls always get squeamish when they hear of anything that isn't a beautiful love story." He nudged me with his elbow as if to urge me to join in the chorus of laughter.

"You'd be surprised," Zuko added in. I didn't need to look at him to know he was smirking. He nudged me as well, and this time I laughed. Genuinely. "She's a tough one."

"Don't think I can handle it, huh?" I smirked, looking around at the circle. "Listen to this." At that moment, I knew I had their attention. Each and every one of them had their eyes on me, waiting to hear my story. "When I was a little girl, my father would make small weapons for me, letting me play soldier with him whenever he was home from battle. My grandmother always warned him: 'Takoda,'" I spoke in my best impersonation of my grandmother, which was a bit dramatic and inaccurate, "'you shouldn't give those to a little girl! She could hurt someone, or herself! It's not safe!' But my father never heeded her warnings. I began training myself, sneaking out to practice sparring with the snow army I had built. They were heartless, ice cold fighters."

The soldiers laughed at my terrible joke.

"One day, I had overheard a few of the women of my village talking. They were saying how the villages food was always coming up missing, like it was being stolen. There were very few people in our village, and no one would dare steal from each other. I wanted to find out where the food was going, so I did a stakeout."

"Wait, wait," Hung interrupted. "Wait a minute. How old were you? There's no way you thought of this when you were little!"

My fingers pinched his lips together, but I didn't break my stare from the captivated group. "Excuse me, I'm in the middle of telling my story. No interruptions, please." Everyone in the circle laughed, and I continued my tale.

"I waited until nighttime, when all of the village was asleep. I kept my weapons close. I even had war paint on my face!" They all laughed. "A growling noise could be heard from the tent where we keep our food. I followed it and stood outside the tent, and when it went silent, I jumped inside ready for a fight. But there was nothing there but pawprints and a trail of blood from the meat. I couldn't stop myself from following it. When I'd finally reached the end of that trail, do you want to know what I found waiting for me?"

The soldiers nod. Even Iroh was invested in my story.

"Waiting for me was a big, snarling, hungry...."-I emphasized every adjective dramatically, adding to the suspense I was trying to build-"polar bear dog!" I yelled the reveal, curling my fingers to look like claws, impersonating a polar bear dog. The flame in the lantern becoming stronger and shooting up. I looked over to see Zuko giving me a half-smile, half-smirk. He had done it for effect, which had worked very well.

I continued my story by telling of an epic battle between the young Saki and the beast, concluding it with the bloody triumphant.

In reality? The "big, snarling, hungry, polar bear dog" was a little boy named Sokka, who never stopped eating. But the crew was only going to hear this version. This version was much better.

We ended the night with more tea and laughs, everyone heading to their quarters around midnight. Zuko and I volunteered to clean up, which was surprising to everyone on the ship, including myself. When the work was done, the two of us walked back together. We were quiet so that we wouldn't accidentally wake someone.

"You know, Saki..." Zuko said when we finally reached my door. "I've heard you at night. You have these horrible nightmares, whatever they're about, and you cry. I know you try to conceal it, but I still hear it."

"Well, I'm sorry to keep you up," I said softly.

"No, that's not why I'm saying this," he shook his head. "What I'm trying to say is....if you don't want to be alone when they happen....I mean, i-if you need me....or something..."

I chuckled softly. "Thanks, but I think I'll be fine tonight."

I was wrong though. That night, I had the same cruel nightmare. I made my way to Zuko's room and crawling into his bed, closing my eyes. I felt his arm wrap around me, his fingers clasping mine.

That was the first peaceful night I'd had in what felt like forever.