Settling In
The water tribe siblings rubbed the tiredness out of their eyes as the sun laid its glow on their faces. While it indeed was a lovely morning, Sokka found himself frowning. As he did so, he stared, while lying flat on his back, at the gold streaked sky, wondering with frustration what situation his sister had placed them both into.
He had apologized to that bastard in the forest. That fire nation boy.
Heat rose to his cheeks as he thought of how he had thought the other teenager’s eyes were the prettiest pair he had ever seen. Now he was simply embarrassed and furious with himself.
Katara sat up and yawned, then turned to look down at her brother who was still wearing a scowl on his face.
“You ok?” She asked with concern.
He rolled back onto his side, grumbling.
“I’m fine.”
She smiled broadly and enthusiastically placed her hands on his shoulders and shook.
“Perfect. Because you know what today is?”
“What?”
“Your birthday!”
His blue eyes widened for a moment, then he turned away.
He had been waiting for this day to come for some time. He wasn’t sure why, but the idea of turning fifteen made him feel so much more mature, and all he wanted was to feel like a man rather then a boy. To be a warrior.
But now their whole situation with the fire nation folk killed his mood, and he certainly did not feel like celebrating anymore.
“It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled “I already know today isn’t going to be all that great.”
She pursed her lips at his comment. She knew how much Sokka looked forward to his birthday, so she certainly didn’t want him to feel upset on this meaningful day.
“Don’t be like that Sokka. The prince and his uncle aren’t the worst fire nation people we’ve encountered.”
He turned back to face her, shock evident on his face.
“Prince?!”
She tilted her head in confusion.
“You didn’t know he was a prince?”
He sat up and ran a hand through his dark hair.
Royalty.
He had accidentally attacked literal royalty.
The teenager groaned in frustration and slapped a hand on his face.
“What’s a Fire Nation prince doing wandering around the forests of the earth kingdom?” He asked curtly.
She responded as she brushed her unbraided hair.
“I can’t say what for exactly, but from what I remember his uncle telling me, he was banished from the fire nation.”
Sokka perked up once again with surprise, eventually settling with his head placed on his upright arm.
“He must have done something pretty bad for the fire lord to not even want him home,” he replied grimly.
She shrugged her shoulders and braided her hair once again, eventually rolling up her limited belongings and placing them in her bag.
“Who knows. All I do know is that we need to get going or we’re going to be ditched by our one way ticket to the North Pole.”
He groaned in an exaggerated manner before rolling off the thin blanket he had slept on. Boy did he miss their sleeping bags. Too bad the sea serpent had destroyed them along with the rest of their stuff.
He pulled his hair into his usual wolf tail look, then he repeated Katara by gathering his things.
The teenager sighed as he finished, then extended a hand directed at the coast.
“Shall we get going?”
..................................................
Iroh and Zuko were already up with the sun as usual, so they waited for the two water tribe teens to eventually show up.
The prince wanted to simply leave without them, considering they were a few minutes late, but his uncle insisted that they made a deal that they shouldn’t break.
Eventually the siblings emerged from the woods, looking rather exhausted.
“Took you long enough,” Zuko shouted, a hint of resentment and impatience prevalent in his tone.
Katara scoffed loudly and Sokka glared up at the firebender, who had his arms crossed over his chest.
“Sorry your highness,” the water tribe boy said sarcastically, “we wouldn’t want to keep you waiting.”
The prince met his glare, and Katara’s glance shifted between the two boys, taking in the tension. She nudged her brother, who relented.
Iroh cleared his throat to break the rather awkward silence.
“Well...welcome aboard our ship!”
Zuko snorted and turned away to go back inside the ship, but his uncle stopped him by placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Prince Zuko. You should introduce yourself,” Iroh said quieter then his previous statement.
The firebender glared at the older man, and was going to simply growl and walk away, but personally the prince didn’t enjoy disobeying his uncle. Sometimes it was easier to just comply and get it over with. So he groaned and threw his hands up at the siblings.
“My name is Prince Zuko,” he gritted, “now get on my ship now or we’re leaving without you.”
The siblings glanced at one enough before warily walking onto the metal monstrosity before them.
Never in a million years did Sokka ever think he would be going onboard a fire nation ship willingly. Especially not one owned by a prince. A prince who was currently burning his glare into his skull. It was almost unsettling how the gold in his eyes practically glimmered in the sunlight. Sokka simply pushed by him and turned his thoughts elsewhere.
Both siblings eventually made their way into the ship, getting several judgmental glares from the crew along the way.
“Who are they?” One whispered, or more offensively, “what are water tribe savages doing on our ship?”
Truly, the duo had been insulted in far worse ways, so they ignored such comments and continued on their way.
Iroh eventually came back and greeted the siblings once again.
“Katara if you could come with me to get your new wardrobe, and Zuko if you could show Sokka to him and sister’s room, that would be wonderful.”
Blue eyes glance at one another in confusion.
“A new wardrobe?” Sokka questioned.
Just as Iroh was about to respond, his nephew cut him off.
“Unless you want a target on your head, you’ll wear our clothing. The rest of the fire nation won’t be as generous with you water tribe peasants as me and my uncle are.”
Sokka scoffed, “Trust me we know.”
Much to her brother’s mistrust, Katara went with Iroh to retrieve their clothing, while Sokka forced himself to follow the prince inside the ship to his room. The walk was silent, Zuko walking in front of Sokka particularly stiffly. His eyes fell on the teenager’s pale clenched hands. He wasn’t quite sure why the firebender was so angry, if anything he should be the frustrated one, considering he’d been consistently insulted
The prince eventually came to a stop in front of a metal door. His scarred side faced the other teen as he glared through the slit of his eye.
“This is you and your sister’s room. It’s across from mine so you two better be quiet when I’m meditating.”
Sokka spaced out for a moment and forgot to reply, until he noticed the prince was turned fully towards him and clenching his jaw angrily.
“Well?”
The blue eyed teen waved his hand carelessly in his face.
“Yeah yeah yeah whatever. Wouldn’t wanna disturb your beauty rest.”
The prince’s face morphed into offended and thinly contained rage.
“It’s not rest. It’s to practice breathing for fire bending.”
Sokka rolled his eyes and stared squarely at the firebender.
“What are you practicing for? Gonna burn down a forest or something.”
Once again, the area around them felt increasingly heated, and despite the dim lighting, Zuko’s eyes were glaring with fire. It was intimidating and strangely beautiful—for a guy at least.
Suddenly a finger was being jabbed into his chest and the water tribe boy could smell that warm cinnamony scent clearly once again.
“What I do with my bending is none of your business,” he growled lowly.
The prince’s tone made Sokka’s heart beat faster, and he wasn’t sure why. He ignored it by retaliating.
“It does if you’re using it to hurt innocent people.”
Zuko almost seemed struck by the assumption and removed his finger from the other boy’s chest.
“Listen Sokka, don’t act like you know anything about me, because you don’t. So either shut the hell up or you and your sister can walk your sorry asses to the North Pole. I could care less.”
If felt strange hearing his name spoken by the prince. It was better then being called a peasant anyway.
Sokka scoffed and brushed past the firebender, opening the door to his new room.
“Ok whatever. We’ll be quiet,” he muttered quietly, “as long as you learn how to deal with your anger issues.”
Heat burst into the prince’s face, and even as the other teen slammed his door in his face, he still yelled through it.
“I DO NOT HAVE ANGER ISSUES!”
“YES YOU DO!”
“NO I-“
The prince stopped yelling at the other teenager when he finally noticed his uncle and Katara standing at the end of the hallway, a look of agitation on both their faces.
He crossed his arms and gritted his teeth.
“What?”
“Are you done?” Iroh said rather impatiently.
Zuko angrily snapped his head towards the door of the water tribe warrior, before growling and stomping off to his room.
The door was slammed with a Bam!
Katara and Iroh glanced at one another before she knocked on her brother’s door.
“Sokka, you in there?”
“No, jerkbender was just screaming at a door for nothing,” he replied sarcastically.
She heard feet shuffling inside the room and the door opened. His eyes fell on the clothing his sister was carrying.
He sneered as she held out a pair of rust red pants and a deep red shirt.
“Sokka come on, it’s just a change of wardrobe!” She explained.
He scoffed in disgust as he pushed the clothes away from him.
“I don’t care. We’re gonna look like fire nation with those on,” he growled,” I don’t want to be associated with them.”
Katara glanced over at Iroh, who got the hint and left respectfully.
She turned back towards her brother and threw the bunched up pants and shirt into his chest.
“I don’t like it either, but we also got to fit in if we don’t want to catch unnecessary attention.”
Sokka groaned. Katara was right. Like always.
He unbundled the clothing and stared at it for a bit.
They were nothing special. They were particularly bland compared to the water tribe attire he was currently wearing. The aggressively red shirt had a v-cut neckline and mid length sleeves. The pants weren’t anything much either, aside from being a little baggy-looking.
“Come on let’s get this over with,” Sokka said as he directed Katara to come into their new room.
He closed the door and reluctantly began changing, while his sister did the same on the other side of the room.
The sleeves on the shirt cut off just about at his elbows, and as he predicted, the legs of the pants were rather large on him. He resolved this by tucking the ends of his pants into his boots.
The only components of his original outfit that remained was his white necklace, his forearm wraps, and his knee-high brown boots. He placed his water tribe attire into his bag and glanced over at Katara, who had finished switching clothing.
The pants she wore were the same shade of red that Sokka’s pants were, and were baggy but tight against the ankle, where the leg stopped. She had switched her booties out for a pair of dainty black slippers that looked rather worn.
She was now in the process of tying a knot at the end of her dark red shirt, which had short sleeves and a round neckline outlined by gold that cut off right at her collarbones.
She ran her hands down her pants to smooth them out, then placed her hands on her hips.
“So...how do I look?” She asked cheerily.
Sokka looked her up and down quickly.
“Like a water tribe girl pretending to be from the fire nation,” he pointed at her hair loopies, “the hair doesn’t help.”
Katara looked up at the pinned strands of hair, before reluctantly agreeing with her brother and proceeded to take her hair out of its braid and loops.
A vague memory on how to do a proper fire nation topknot popped into his head as he watched his sister’s dark hair come loose.
He probably learned from a random book he read or something.
He searched the room for a ribbon to hold her hair with, and eventually his eyes fell on a rather faded piece of fabric lying on top of one of the many boxes in the small room.
“Here,” he said as he held the red ribbon, his tone lacking in his usual sarcasm, “I’ll fix up your hair.”
She complied and he pulled the top half of her hair into a knot, then tied it together with the ribbon.
“There, now you look more like fire nation. Although that isn’t really a good thing,” he said with a slight grin on his face.
She smiled up at him, then pursed her lips at his hairstyle.
“Well if I can’t have my hair loopies, you can’t have your ponytail.”
He slammed his palm into his face irritatingly.
“First of all it’s a warrior’s wolftail,and secondof all, the prince literally has the same look. I can play it off.”
“So you’ll say it’s a ponytail?”
A long silence followed.
“Fine.”
She chuckled victoriously and began to finish getting settled into what would be their new home for the time being, and her brother followed suit.
.......................................
The sun was high in the sky, and the prince stood on the balcony on the tower of the ship, breathing in and out, feeling the heat of the sun within him.
In and out and in and out and-
The quiet was interrupted by a shuffling noise behind him, and he swiftly turned around to face it.
It was that damn water tribe boy.
‘His name was Sokka right?’
Well whatever his name was, he was getting on the prince’s nerves.
He had changed out of those awful blue colors though, from what the prince could see, and the red didn’t look too bad on him. In fact, the color fell against his brown complexion rather attractively—For a guy anyway.
It took him an embarrassingly long time to realize how aggressively he was staring at the other boy, and he quickly began scowling.
“What are you doing here?”
Sokka blinked for a few moments before rocking his foot back and forth.
“I.....uhh....got a little lost?”
His awkwardness was contagious, almost to the point were Zuko wanted to laugh out loud at the stupidity of his response. Instead, the stoic-borderline-irritated expression stayed pressed on his face.
He turned back around to face the ocean and shut his eyes closed, his eyebrows still furrowed downward.
“Whatever,” he quietly growled, “just get out of here so I can meditate.”
Sokka snorted mockingly and went to leave.
“If that’s what you want....jerkbender,” he almost whispered on his way out.”
Zuko’s eyes shot open and he gritted his teeth.
“Don’t call me that peasant.”
The water tribe boy had already left the proximity, but not without hearing the last comment. He was quickly taking note that the prince has a fiery temper, and he constantly insulted other people. Typical firebender.
Granted he hadn’t seen him actually use fire, but he was practically steaming most of the time so it was quite obvious what element he bent.
Back outside, the young prince continued his breathing exercises, not allowing for the petty insults of the other boy to falter his breathes, or his sky blue eyes to shake his focus.
For now, at least.