Accidental Avatar

Out in the ocean...

I had spent most of the day practising my waterbending and had sort of perfected my own variant of the water whip. Twas fun, but now I have a whole bunch of little red marks where it went wrong, and I hit myself. That wasn't nearly as fun. When he heard I was on deck and practising, Koko stayed in his room, which I thought was hilarious. I'm not that bad, am I? But yeah, right now, I'm lying on the deck and staring at the cloudless sky, thinking. For one thing, I'm worried about Alex, wondering if he's alright and that he is actually with the Gaang. Then I freak out because I remember that there is a chance he has to meet up with Jet, and I don't see that going too well for him. As the day progressed, Zuko finally decided it was safe to surface and came up to practice. We'd gotten to the point where we would both try to come up with the most insulting name we could think of without bringing in his family, scar or honour. It was mighty difficult for me, and in the end, I kind of won with Koko, but he's getting pretty good at this thing. It's sort of our way of not killing each other, especially when Iroh isn't around.

"So Koko, what you got for me today?"

"Not in the mood."

"You're never in the mood. I think you need to lighten up once in a while." I retort, throwing an arm over my eyes to block out the sun. "I also think the sun needs to stop eating my face."

"Then go below deck."

"That's boring, and I get seasick like that," I respond, turning my head so I can look at him from under my arm. "Right, let's play a game."

He sighs in defeat and sits down opposite me. I sit up and cross my legs, grinning at him. "What is this game?"

"It's called Question This," I say, my grin growing wider. "We can only communicate in questions."

He sighs again. "This seems childish."

"Is it?" I say, still grinning.

"How old are you?"

"Don't you know it's rude to ask a lady her age?" I put on an expression of mock horror.

"You're not really much of a lady."

"And that's a point to me," I say, laughing. He protests that he wasn't ready and that I hadn't said we had started. I discovered that Zuko is highly competitive. He got into the game in no time, and we were both grinning by the time we agreed to end it. It was a tie too. Ah, good times.