Book 1: Clouded Waters

A Girl at Sea

THREE MONTHS LATER

     Hikari stared at the paper in front of her. Her hands covered her nose and mouth as her eyes glared at the scroll in front of her. It was clear, though deep in thought, she was aggravated.

     The writing on the parchment was foreign to her. It was discovered, shortly after she woke up, that she could not read. Furthermore, the way she wrote was foreign to everyone else on the ship. It seemed to be that only she could understand her own handwriting; what was common was alien to her. Iroh took it upon himself to teach her, thus her current predicament. She hated this.

     After three months on the ship, she was more or less a welcomed sight. The crew had taken a shine to her after she began assisting around when she could. Plus, after being out on sea for so long, a girl on board was not so bad. She could be very sarcastic and witty, but was also apologetic about every little thing. Iroh had taken her in as his own, without having to vocalize it.

     Now, being with the Fire Nation, or at least the angsty prince had told her, required her to dress like one. She wore pair of red pants and a matching, red, short sleeved top. It was more of a shawl, so she had a sleeveless, black tank top under it and tied the two ends of the shawl together. She decided it would work to cover whatever felt exposed. She had her pants tucked into her boots, giving the effect of those weird, poofy trouser that her companions wore. As it also turned out, she was bad at doing her own hair. She could braid it or pull it back in a low ponytail, but when she attempted to pull her hair back into a bun, it resulted in Iroh having to tame the rat's nest she created.

     At the current moment, they were traveling through the South Pole. She wore a black cloak over her shoulders. It was a descent tool to keep the cold winds out. Her hair was left to do as it pleased, for the most part, and kept her neck warm like a scarf.

"Glare at the paper any longer, we might discover you have been a firebender all along... Or you're face will get stuck like that," Iroh grinned and shrugged lightheartedly, "Which ever you choose to allow first."

     General Iroh had been her closest friend and she stayed with him the most. She liked his stories, his good nature, humor, and patients. He had been helping her discover who she was little by little.

     They found out that she was not a bender. And while she knew what bending was, it seemed like a whole new concept at the same time. It brought back memories of pretending to be a bender, yet she admitted it was also because it...was because it was a fictional concept. Yet that was so weird considering the prince had nearly burnt her on quite a few occasions. She could not read kanji, yet was able to fluently write...whatever it was that she wrote.

     There were still a lot of things she could not put a face or a name too. There were a few stories she remembered and was able to recite. The name of her parents still remained a mystery. Even the place she had grown up in for so long had no name in her mind, on top of that, a lot of those memories were blank. Plenty of it was just little things, but it still made her all the happier to remember a small amount of her life before her sudden loss.

     Her relationship with the prince was...interesting. There were some moments where they could get along, they got mad and shouted at each other, or one would attempt to be nicer to the other, only to start fighting again. Her temper only seemed to flare up with him. She was peaceful and fun around General Iroh and the rest of the crew, yet just seeing the prince would seem to set her off... Either that, or she was annoyed with her reading lessons. Such as that moment.