Cartoons » Avatar: Last Airbender Rated: T, English, Romance & Adventure, Zuko, OC, Words: 275k+, Favs: 339, Follows: 428, Published: Aug 9, 2012 Updated: Jun 22
822 Chapter 2
Okay - two chapters in one day to make up for my lapse in uploading. But don't expect two chapters in one day again! This is a special occasion!
I have uploaded a poll, trying to determine the demand for a more "adult" part two. Please visit my profile page to vote, and drop me a PM with any additional comments, if you'd like!
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NICKELODEON'S AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER OR ITS CHARACTERS. I just find most of their firebenders dreamy...
It took Zhushou, Iroh's efficient secretary, still secretly employed by the Dragon of the West, only one day to arrange for passage for Lan Chi and Hua to the Earth Kingdom colony where Lan's paternal aunt Ming Yi lived. It was not, however, going to be a very quick journey. The ship upon which they had found accommodation was going to two other Earth Kingdom colonies prior to Lao Hai, the city where Ming Yi and her husband Fai lived.
That, however, was the only problem that Lan faced during her last days in the capital. Fortunately, and unexpectedly, Ozai did not call for Lan Chi at all while she remained, which was a fortuitous thing in the eyes of Iroh's secretary, since he himself had been brought before the Fire Lord not long after his employer's departure. He had disavowed any knowledge of Iroh's plans or affairs, citing his dismissal the day before, as well as his subsequent employment with Finance Minister Wa, a low-ranking official whose main job was to collect taxes from the eastern Earth Kingdom colonies.
Zhushou had escaped with an admonishment that he should alert the Fire Lord's office should Iroh contact him in any way - at all. Zhushou agreed readily, and he was dismissed with all his body parts intact, which had actually been in doubt at the beginning of his interview.
After he left the Fire Lord's presence, Zhoshou sent a coded message to Jianyu, Iroh's butler, warning him about the need for discretion when dealing with any of Iroh's concerns. He was floored when he received word back that his employer's ward had not only not gone to the Earth Kingdom colonies from Ember Island, as he had arranged prior to Iroh's departure, she had instead come to the capital in the company of Hua, Iroh's housekeeper.
He gave a frustrated growl. Silly girl! She should have been on her way already. He spent the better part of the next four hours arranging for her passage the following day, and informing Jianyu.
And this time, Zhushou wrote to Jianyu, you escort her to the ship yourself.
So, after a tearful good-bye with Jianyu at the same pier she had been at only days before, Lan Chi began the next phase of her life.
A large stateroom was booked for her, as befitted her status as a member of Fire Nation nobility and her connection with the royal household, and Hua was lodged in the servants' quarters below deck.
Hua, who had not been on a ship, other than the small ones that took her to and from Ember Island, since she had come to the capital more than thirty years before, was, like Zuko, horribly seasick. Upon boarding the ship, she had settled Lan Chi in the girl's cabin, spacious enough for the girl and a maid, and found her own way to her accommodation. It was a berth, among many in a long, narrow room. She looked at the bed with distaste. The sheets were only marginally clean, and the curtain that offered her privacy stank of old sick. Wonderful.
She felt the ship lurch as it left the dock, and, despite the roiling in her stomach, she hurried back up to Lan Chi's stateroom. Her charge was gazing solemnly out of the open window at the capital as it started to drift away.
"I never thought that I would leave it." She threw a look over her shoulder at Hua. "I wanted to, many times, when Uncle and Lu Ten were gone. I fantasized about going away somewhere. Somewhere where someone loved me." She sighed. "And then, when I - found Zuko, I never, ever wanted to leave it again, because I knew this is where he would always be. And now - he's not. I don't know where he is, and I don't know where Uncle is, and I'm going away, and I'll probably never see either one of them again." She was quiet, and the boat pitched, but she was unaffected. Lan Chi, child of the Water Tribe, was more at home on the ocean than on land.
