Rules Of The Road (Zuko X OC)

In Which There Is A First Chapter

Author's note thing/ mandatory intro/ disclaimer 🍵

I own nothing but my writing medium. If I owned the show, well, for starters, the romantic pairings would be almost completely changed, but that's just my personal opinion, so, moving on.

Hi, this is the author speaking. Please give this story a shot, if nothing else, for the extreme amount of puns that will be made completely on purpose. This story starts out set in book one, water, and will most likely proceed through the series. Tell me if you spot any errors, comments are appreciated no matter what they contain, and most of all, yell at me if I'm not updating!

*beep beep beep page break*

"Hey, Jacqueline, you're gonna want to see this!" An eager voice calls from somewhere above me and to my left. I slid out from underneath the canoe I was working on, trying not to look too irritated at the use of my full name.

"Jin, I told you to call me Jack! How is that harder to remember than 'Jacqueline'? You know I don't like being called that."

"That's exactly why I call you that, Jacque-" The younger girl's teasing stopped immediately with the glowering look I sent her way from the floor. However, her eyes lit back up as soon as I stood up and brushed oil from my gloves on my coveralls. "How about I call you Jackie?"

"Nn. I guess that's fair enough. Now, what is it that I need to see so bad? Got another job for me?"

Jin wrinkled her nose at the sight of my attire. "Yeah, they just pulled into port. How you can like getting all dirty and oily and fix-it-y, I'll never understand."

"Just like how I'll never understand why you spend over half of your waking moments playing the flute, Jinnie. Just a part of why we're friends. Wanna walk to the port with me?"

"Jinnie?" The Earth Kingdom girl questioned, falling in step next to me as we exited my small workshop.

"Hey, you get to call me Jackie, I get to call you Jinnie."

Most of the rest of the walk through the streets of the small, Earth Kingdom port town was silent, apart from Jin taking out her flute when we left the shop and playing something that sounded suspiciously like "Toss the Feathers". (AN: it's a song. Just some instrumental Celtic music.)

"So, who showed up at port?" I ask, breaking the gap in conversation. "Are they a regular or something?" The town doesn't actually get a lot of traffic through the port, other than the odd merchant ship or Fire Navy brigade.

Jin stopped her flute playing to smile suggestively up at me. "It's your secret admirer, Jackie." That could only mean one person. I mean, a person like me generally only has interactions with two or three other human beings anyway, but it's no secret who Jin is talking about.

I sigh. "I wish you'd let that go, Jin. As if Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation is my 'secret admirer'."

"Oh, please, Jackie. He sends you letters."

I try to resist the urge to snort, but it fails. "Only to tell me that he's gotten his ship into another mess and he needs me for repairs again. Speaking of, I wonder what he's done in order for him to need to show up now."

"Ooh, apples!" Jin shouts, spotting a vendor. "Do you want any, Jackie?"

I pull off my gloves to rummage in one of the many pockets in my coveralls and retrieve a small handful of copper pieces. "Three for me, okay?" I ask, tossing the coins over to Jin. I take the moment to notice that my hands are surprisingly clean underneath my gloves. A good thing too. My brain interjects. You're going to be doing business with Fire Nation royalty. You don't want to find out the hard way about some obscure rule of etiquette punishable by death.