By Your Side |ATLA|

The Voyage

"Stop Zuko!" I yell as the boy continues his onslaught of fire balls at me. I agreed to sparr with him which I've come to regret. No matter how many times I won he would not give up. I heave myself up in a sitting position from where I had laid myself down in exhaustion as he fumed at me a few yards away.

"Asana get up!" He exclaims. "We must be ready for when we find the avatar, so that either one of us can defeat him and return home, that's the goal always has been you know that."

I huff and struggle to stand once again not at all in the shape to continue any sparring or practice. Iroh from his place across the deck noticed this before speaking up.

"Prince Zuko, give it a rest you've had Asana and yourself at it since this morning it is almost sun down, you both need rest." He chides as he dips his head towards his tea cup.

"You two are pathetic." He lashes at us before walking away towards the hallway leading to the rooms of the ship.

It had been almost three years. three long and hard years at sea. I missed my family terribly everyday, my mother had given birth to a boy a few months after I left and even though I hadn't met him I loved my brother with all my heart. My mother had sent a picture of him to me in a letter from a messenger hawk. I fell in love with his soft eyes that grinned at me in pure joy from the picture. I hadn't heard from my father at all in the time I had been gone but my mother and I exchanged messages often. Keeping in contact and giving each other updates. I had ran around the ship in glee when I got the letter informing me that my brother, Asai, had taken his first steps and then again when he said his first words. I was elated and nothing could bring my mood down on those days. It was my happiest times on this ship by far. Everyone had been looking at me as if I had grown a second head when I read the letters and quite literally began screaming and laughing and jumping around the deck.

Zuko had caught me only for a second before even he couldn't contain my excitement after he read the letters himself. He let me be in my happiness after that and went to bark orders at the crew. Three years away from home was still a long time. Everyone was tired the crew, Iroh and even Zuko. I had ran out of things to truly keep myself entertained. Now I just watched Zuko train and spar against the crew everyday while I drank tea with Iroh and attempted to learn how to play Pai Sho. The game was difficult and it frustrates me each time, however Iroh had insisted on teaching me the ways of the White Lotus as he put it.

Pulling myself from my thoughts I watched Zuko return to the deck in his royal robe wrapped around his shirtless figure before taking a seat far away from Iroh and I towards the front of the ship. I managed to drag myself over to Iroh as he took his last bit of tea. He smiled kindly at me as he watched me still struggling to breath.

"Your form is improving much and your bending is becoming more powerful." He concluded. He and Zuko had taken to teaching me themselves since I did not discover that I could even fire bend until four months at sea. I was a late bloomer with my bending but it didn't deter them. They worked me hard until I had even passed Zuko's level. Being at sea brought Zuko into a different state, he was colder and less of the kind hearted Prince I knew. Iroh and I shared the same worries as it seemed like he didn't even know himself more and more as time passed. He was angry all the time, he refused to have any fun anymore. It was unsettling.

"Well I owe it to you and grumpy moose lion over there." I smile at the old man.

"Prince Zuko did indeed take extra measures to help train you." Iroh teased recalling the memory from a year ago. I had been training and training everyday for the length of time we had been on the ship and I was tired. I took a stance of refusing any training for a few days no matter how hard Zuko had pushed the issue. I ignored it, until one morning I was making tea with Iroh and Zuko ambushed me with an onslaught of fire balls and aggressive kicks. He chased me throughout the whole ship attacking me until I finally attacked back and fought until I managed to knock him over the railing of the ship into the cold water near the North Pole. His method was unusual as Iroh had described it at the time.