Chapter Text
“Just give me a hint,” an angry Lee demands from any nearby spirit whose attention may be grabbed by the sheer volume of his voice alone. “Something! Anything!”
All around him the forest teems with life. The cicada's symphony echoes all around, continually building up to a dull roar only to drop back down to a quiet hum. Birds sing their merry songs. The wind plays with emerald tree leaves. Small forest critters chitter happily and play about the underbrush. It is peaceful. Beautiful. Idyllic.
Lee wants to tear his hair out.
In a frustrated huff, the boy kicks at a stone intending only for it to skitter a few feet away. Perhaps it’d fly into the underbrush. Or maybe the stone would pick a direction and that, that, would be the path Lee is meant to follow.
Instead, the stone arcs up.
Hits the sign post.
Bounces off and strikes Lee straight in the eye.
The right eye, to be exact. The good eye. The non-damaged eye. He hisses at the sting of it. Slapping a hand over the reflexive tears, Lee tries to press some of the pain away.
Angry and beyond frustration, Lee growls. He clenches his arms down tight against his sides, hands balling into fists because he is not a child and absolutely will not lose his temper like one. He has control of himself. He is in control of himself. He will not yell and holler and carry on.
No, instead he pulls in a deep breath. Through the nose. Slowly.
He holds it.
Just as slowly he pushes the breath out, through his mouth.
Slowly. Calmly. Because that is how people in control of themselves breathe.
What Lee absolutely does not do is heave air in a single, great, big rush and lets it out just as fast— all in the span of a heartbeat like some… like some kind of… Like some kind of person , okay! The exact word isn’t even important. It doesn’t matter. One does not heave-and-haul breath like a fisherman struggling with a net. Such behavior is not acceptable. Therefore, he does not do it.
He doesn’t.
Except he totally does and Lee doesn’t even know why he bothered lying when he’s in the woods. By himself.
Alone.
The internal struggle for composure wages war for a few moments longer. Lee wrestles with it before he throws his hands up into the air, the situation in its entirety well and truly beyond him and his capabilities.
“Why is this so difficult,” he yells. A question to which he is not expecting an answer. Mostly because he already, on some level, knows the answer.
He either goes left or right. One or the other. This is not a challenge. This is anything but difficult.
It isn’t like he is the Avatar, fighting to save mankind. There are no dark, malevolent spirits, no clashing armies, no invading forces. There isn’t even an active volcano rupturing in the area. No one is in danger. No one is dying or about to die. His choice will affect no one, save himself.
Left or right. It can not possibly be any simpler.
It is impossible.
Logically, the decision is clear. Any idiot with half a working brain can tell that Lee needs to go left, down the winding trail that leads to the town port. Where he has a job waiting. A means to support himself that isn’t signing up with the nearest army, or back breaking field work, or becoming a crazy hermit living out of a cave. He will be fed. He will be clothed. He will have a safe place to sleep. He’ll have people watching his back.
Lee has met the crew. He has spent many afternoons unloading and lugging supplies out of their hull and up to the orphanage. They’re nice. Weird. But okay enough, for sailors.
And Bo is… isn’t terrible.
He just talks all the time . The man will not shut up. He is loud, and flamboyant, and spins the stupidest tall tales, and nonsensically answers questions with proverbs, and says twenty words when one would do. He throws his arms around his crew, drags them in close and hangs off their shoulders. He actively encourages strangers to join in his ridiculous arguments. He flirts without prejudice. He acts as if decorum and dignity were things for others to worry about.
Everyone loves Bo.
Lee sees it in the reluctant grins and open laughter. He sees the endearment in eye rolls and exasperated huffs. All the other orphans love Bo too.
Lee wants to like Bo. A small part of him is constantly annoyed that he doesn’t already. He just can’t. He tries. Except, somehow, in all the trying, Lee’s genuine want morphs into genuine anger and before he knows it he’s pushing the guy into the harbour.
It’s so stupid.
It is so stupid that Lee is letting his dislike for one singular, annoying man sway this decision. How ridiculous. Absurd. Idiotic. The miles to Ba Sing Se are untold. It is a city on the literal opposite side of the continent from where he now stands. Lee knows. He broke into the town magistrate’s office two years ago to look at his maps. Traveling to Ba Sing Se is just as bad an idea now as it was back then, worse even.
Lee is on his own. He has no family, no money, no connections.
When the journey sours, and it will, he will have no help. Which basically means he’ll die. Get lost in a desert? Dead. Caught in a flash flood? Dead. Mauled by a bear? Dead. Jumped by bandits? Dead. Catch ill? Dead. Not to mention, Lee only has enough provisions to last him a few weeks tops. So if foraging goes poorly, add death by starvation to the list. If he doesn’t accidentally poison himself and only if he doesn’t die from severe dehydration first.
Of course, all of this is assuming he doesn’t accidentally stumble on a battlefield because they are quite literally in the middle of a war. Wars? Whatever. It’s dangerous, is the point.
Han spent too much time and too many resources keeping him alive for Lee to just throw his life away. And for what? Chasing a maker’s mark branded on a dagger Lee knows nothing about? Han sacrificed. Han struggled. Han put the orphans first, Lee included, even before himself. Han did so much that he didn’t have to. Not going to Bo would be to spit in the face of Han’s open handed generosity.
The left. Lee absolutely needs to go left.
Lee stares at the post. This whole entire time, the signage hasn’t changed.
“Well,” Lee yells, entirely at himself, because being crazy out loud is perfectly acceptable so long as there are no eyewitnesses, “you’re not going to get there by just standing here!”
In the face of solid logical arguments and the threat of public shame, Lee fails to understand why he can’t get himself to move. He’s stuck. Rooted like some earthbender. Why?
Why does he want so badly to go to the right?
Home? Love? Family?
Dumb. Naive. A child’s dream. His want is just that— a want. Not a need. He needs food. He needs shelter. He needs clothes. His family is probably dead anyway. If they’re not dead, that means they didn’t want him. They gave him up. They decided life was better with him not in it.
Something inside Lee doesn’t believe it.
But what if it is true? Say he makes it all the way across the country only to find his family doesn’t want him back. Then what? Does he really want to risk it? Facing that rejection? Isn’t it better to imagine the ‘what if’ than to find out the ugly truth?
“No.”
Lee might be many things, but a coward is not one of them.
He is going to Ba Sing Se. He is going to make it to that stupid city alive. He is going to find his family, and when he does, they are going to tell him the truth.
Lee is going to the right.
In the small port below town, a ship flying under an Earth Kingdom banner sits at a dock. The ship is made of wood, weathered from a lifetime at sea. It is on the larger end of middling in size. The only other remarkable thing about the ship is that nothing else about it is particularly remarkable.
Against the rail of the lower deck lean two men. They’re dressed ready for work. Their clothing looks comfortably worn, but not threadbare; loose, but tailored to fit well enough.
“Go ahead, do it,” encourages the one doing a very poor job whittling a chunk of driftwood.
“I have no idea as to what you may be referring,” responds the one whose eyes are stuck on a singular path. The one that leads out of the beachy cove, up the steep forested hill, and to the town above.
The whittler hums.
The starer stares.
Waves lap the shore. The breeze kicks up. Gulls squawk.
“You’d feel better if you looked.”
“Shut it, Hachiro. I don’t need to look at the sun to know the time.”
“Didn’t say you needed to,” with a flick of a wrist, Hachiro sends a peel of wood fluttering away. “I said you would feel better if you did.”
“I feel fine.”
“Sure about that? Seem a little tense there, Bo .”
Bo, with obvious intent, says nothing.
“So you’re strangling the rail because of how relaxed you are, is that it?”
Another peel flutters away.
Bo huffs, releases the rail and crosses his arms. He shifts his weight. He shifts his weight again. He turns and frowns aggressively at Hachiro.
“I remember when you respected me,” Bo grouses.
Hachiro hums his response and dryly says, “And what a long week that was.”
Bo struggles to hide his grin. It isn’t long before it breaks out of him with a quiet laugh, and he’s shoving at Hachiro’s arm. “Rude,” he gripes, “no manners. No regard for my family name.”
“And which family name might that be, hmm? You have so many. It’s hard to keep track.”
Mouth partially open with a response, Bo is cut off by the sound of the ship's resident otterpillar crash landing from the upper deck onto the lower. She’s up to standing before anyone can react. Full body lunging with all her many feet, and teeth, she scrambles to get at a butterfly that had dared to wander into her territory.
It’s distracting.
“I know it’s technically a royal pet, but something is not right with that thing,” Hachiro says instead, as the animal jumps onto a railing and launches after her fluttering prey.
She misses. She falls and lands in the water with a very loud splash. With another mighty splash the otterpillar resurfaces. She swims furiously toward shore. Rolls aggressively in the sand. And takes off to disappear into the forest.
… Okay then.
Looking over, Hachiro finds Bo is back to strangling the handrail. Knuckles white, he’s pushing and pulling his upper body back and forth, openly anxious in a way he usually isn’t. Bo opens his mouth. He closes it. His eyes narrow in thought.
“Han said ‘first thing’,” Bo decides after a long pause. ”We are well past ‘first thing’.”
Hachiro hums his agreement.
“I hate to say it,” continues Bo, ”but there is a good chance Lee isn’t coming.”
Snorting out a laugh, Hachiro side-eyes his friend. “There was always more than a good chance of him not showing up,” he rests a consoling hand on his friend’s shoulder. Hachiro is careful to keep the dagger pointing away and his expression only mildly sardonic. “The kid hates you, pal.”
Bo stops his swaying to and fro from the rail, aghast. “He does not hate me .”
“Lee pushed you off this very dock,” reminds Hachiro, pointing to the exact spot in question with his carving for emphasis.
“Psh, he pushed me into the water. It’s not like he pushed me off a cliff. And I would like to point out that you are completely disregarding the five minutes before that happened, by the way. We were having ourselves a very civil conversation.”
“Right, sure, but isn’t that how it usually goes? With the two of you?”
“Meh.”
“Things start civilly,” continues Hachiro, gamely ignoring that extremely anemic attempt at sidestepping this issue, “and before you know it he’s yelling, or stomping away, or yelling as he’s stomping away-“
“Well, Lee does like to multitask.”
“- or he’s pushing you off a dock. Didn’t he throw something at you once? A mango?”
“A star fruit,” Bo nods in agreement. “To be fair, I earned it that time.”
“You shouldn’t sound happy about that.”
“His aim was impeccable.”
“Not the point I’m trying to make here.”
Up ahead on the dusty trail, Lee spots a small group of turtle ducks crossing. A family of seven: a mama, a dad, and five little turtle ducklings. The babies are downy and fuzzy. They’re stumbling all over the place, chirp-chirping as they bump and bounce off one another. Mom is leading the way. Dad is bringing up the rear, corralling the chaos in the middle into something resembling a straight line.
It is not the cutest thing he’s ever seen.
It’s not.
There is a chance; however, that it is a sign. After all, Lee had asked the spirits for one. Any sort of indication that might tell Lee he chose correctly and; well, there are not a lot of turtle ducks in the area. The last time Lee saw any was well over a year ago. A tired, muddy Rue had been clinging to his back, late one afternoon as he carried her back to the orphanage. He had pointed the waddling group out to her. “The babies go chip-chip”, she’d said because before the lisp the little girl had simply avoided the sound altogether. “Chip-chip. Chip-chip.”
Lee remembers being that little, he thinks, as little as Rue had been that day. He remembers sitting by a pond, watching a family of turtle ducks swim lazily around, and a woman’s soft, “So this is where you went off to,” and being gently bustled into warm arms and pulled onto a lap. “We’ve been looking all over.”
“They look so soft, Mama,” he had said as he watched, transfixed, the fuzzy turtle ducklings circling around their mama. “Are they as soft as they look?”
“Of course they are, my little firefly. All babies are soft,” and a nose had pressed into the hair behind his ear, preening him like a bird's beak might.
He remembers giggling.
It’s a nice memory. If that’s what it is, a memory, and not simply some story he told himself so many times his imagination formed a picture.
Whatever. It’s not important.
Lee just likes turtle ducklings, okay? He likes them a normal amount. The amount that is both normal and socially acceptable. The exact same amount most people like them. They don’t mean anything special. They’re simply cute. Fully grown they keep the bug, tick, and snail population in check. He and the other orphans would have wasted a lot less time plucking gross snails out of a lot of stupid gardens if people bothered to keep turtle ducks around.
Up ahead the family stops a little more than halfway in their journey across the path.
Lee hangs back. Watching from a distance so he doesn’t accidentally scare the parents and ruin everyone’s day. It’s not like he’s got a deadline. He can be patient.
And, well, he feels a bit bad for all the yelling earlier.
Lee settles in to wait.
And that is exactly when a wrestling, snarling mass of fur spills out of the woods to land between him and the turtle duck family.
“I haven’t asked,” says Hachiro very quietly, and very seriously. Now he is the one staring at the path, up the forested hill, looking for a mop of dark hair attached to what is basically a human shaped barrel full of blasting jelly tied with the world’s shortest fuse. “But I’m asking now.”
Bo catches onto the shift in attitude immediately.
He should. Hachiro rarely asks outright. By now they hardly ever need actual words to communicate.
War forged their friendship. He’s been Bo’s second for so long, they’re well past the growing pains. They know their roles. They know their responsibilities. Most importantly, they share the same priorities. They built their foundation on literal battlefields, where a few seconds was all they had. Off those battlefields it only seems like telepathy.
But occasionally, Hachiro does need to ask. He does need to use words. No matter how awkward it may be, or even, perhaps, insulting.
“How sure are you about this kid?”
Despite the search for him, Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation hasn’t been seen in well over three years. They’re running out of time. Lady Ursa needs to produce a legitimate hair to substantiate her claim to the throne, and Ozai has Princess Azula well in hand.
If they want to end this war, to oust Ozai’s tyranny, they need Prince Zuko.
They haven’t been home in so long.
Lee has the look of the lost prince. He’s an orphan with no memory of his family. He could be anybody. The proprietor of the orphanage wouldn’t say much, but they do know Lee washed up on these shores about three years ago. The timing fits.
“I’m worried it’s too convenient,” Hachiro tacks on after seeing Bo squint and frown in a way that means his thoughts are going contrary in a bad way.
Bo’s expression shifts to raised eyebrows. “What about total memory loss is ‘too convenient’?”
That is a solid point. And if you can’t beat ‘em… pile onto their troubles.
“He also can’t,” Hachiro jerks his head towards the sun, “you know.”
Firebend.
“That’s actually not as big a concern as the fact that he doesn’t remember his own mother.”
“Is it though?”
“Yes, Hachiro,” laughs Bo at Hachiro’s overly, borderline theatrical, skeptical cadence. Again Bo leans on the railing, fully this time. His upper body weight settled completely on his forearms. “I spoke with- well, I spoke with others. Given his history, and his bending abilities at the time before, well, before, it was decided that him no longer bending isn’t exactly unexpected.”
Okay. Well. Great. If General Iroh and company weren’t concerned then who is Hachiro to question the circumstances.
“That still doesn’t answer my question.”
Bo smiles an irritating smile of innocence.
“I asked how sure you are of the kid.”
It happens fast.
The turtle ducklings start chirping frantically in fright. The parents start honking their warnings. Lee starts yelling. The two lumps of wrestling, snarling, biting fur do not appear to hear any of it.
“Hey! Stop it!”
It does not grab anyone’s attention. Not a singular animal looks his way. Except maybe the babies. Their eyes are wide and their tiny baby wings are flapping uselessly in anxiety. Mom and dad have their wings stretched up and out. Their beaks are open.
The tussling pair rolls closer to the family. The babies chirp up a storm. They’re scrambling back and forth between mom and dad. Unclear of where they may be safer. They’re scared.
Panicked.
He moves on instinct.
It is accurate to say Lee jumps between the family and the fighting.
It is even more accurate to say Lee puts himself between two very angry parents and their target. What Lee has done is turn himself into an obstacle. A well intentioned obstacle, but an obstacle is still an obstacle to any wild animal no matter how cute their young.
“Hey! Quit it! Knock it— Ow! Hey! Ow! Ah! Why are you attacking me!? I’m helping you! You dumb, stupid birds! Stop!”
One half of the tangled fur mass detaches. It’s light brown on top, white on the bottom, covered in sand, and has got so many, too many, legs. Lee’s never seen an animal like it.
“Gah!” His lapse in concentration earns mama turtle duck a beak full of human flesh. “Quit it!”
The many legged creature makes the most horrendous sound. It is a howling type of bark. The thing postures with its chest forward. Teeth snarling. Spit flying. Nubby ears pinned back.
The turtle ducks hesitate, stopping in place.
The many legged creature looks pleased. Satisfied with this outcome. It barks one last time before taking off. Back the way it came. Crashing through the woods.
Leaving behind Lee, a family of agitated turtle ducks, and disheveled, confused mess of black and orange fur.
…Lee feels a bit confused himself.
The mom and dad square up. Clearly they are taking this turn of events as an evening of the odds. Suddenly, Lee fears for his safety more than he had.
“Uh.”
Bo doesn’t answer. He’s making that face he makes when he’s being a bother and thinks it hilarious. Bo is trying to get a rise. The trick is to not give it to him. They’ve been friends too long for Hachiro to pull a resting bitch face this quickly and with such ease.
Bo holds up three fingers.
He folds one down. Ah, counting down then. He waits a beat before folding down another. The last finger he uses to point at the door that leads down below the deck.
“Sakari!” They hear a young woman’s voice carry from the doorway. “Sakari!”
The stairs leading up and down from the main deck to below deck are stacked so closely they may as well be a ladder. Princess Yue climbs them with no difficulty. The top of her white hair shows before the brown of her skin or the blues and whites of her garb.
“You’re not clever,” Hachiro deadpans to Bo, because he isn’t and Bo needs to know that. It is one of the things that needs saying out loud.
Bo smiles. He is pleased and smug.
Some days, the reasons why Lee throws things at this man are not so unknown.
“It’s hardly an interruption,” argues Hachiro because it’s not that good of an interruption either. A teenager. A princess, yes, but there were worse princesses to be interrupted by. For example, this one has yet to set fire to their sails or any other part of the ship. Bo has only dodged the question for a few moments. If that.
“Sorry to bother,” says Yue, stepping up to them, smiling easily.
“Not at all!” Encourages Bo for many reasons and all of them to be taken in equal measure: one part because the man was raised well; one part because he genuinely likes the girl; and one part because he knows Hachiro will read his enthusiasm to help her as enthusiasm to keep Hachiro from getting what he wants.
Which is a straightforward answer to a simple question. Spirits forbid.
“Have you seen Sakari? I know, uh, Lee is supposed to be here soon and I would hate it if we had to leave without her.”
Bo nods in happy understanding. “Not at all! That’s the benefit to having waterbenders on board.” He whispers to her as though they are plotting mutiny, “Rumour has it they can charm these waters into taking us out to sea without help from the tide.”
Some of her tension eases and her easy smiles melts into something a little less strained.
“We shall not leave without Sakari or Lee on this vessel, on that you have my word.”
If you speak of demons, they shall arrive.
In a flurry of breaking branches and screaming barks, the otterpillar explodes from the treeline. In addition to the fine coating of sand, the creature has picked up a layer of dirt and leaves. Protruding out of her mouth is what looks like a strip of tree bark.
Yue lets out a happy cry. “Ah! Sakari! There you are!”
At the sound of her voice, Sakari the demonpillar full body wriggles in delight. Yue runs down the ramp to reunite with her animal companion on the splintered wood of the dock. The creature makes all manner of happy noises. She twines between Yue’s legs like a house cat.
“Were you foraging?” Yue asks, voice pitched high, and stooping down to pet the beastie. “Huh? Were you foraging for food, my ferocious hunter?”
Hachiro and Bo side eye one another.
There is not a single soul on board the ship, other than Yue, that can get away with loving on that wild animal the way she does and get to keep all of their fingers the way she does. Yue may or may not be aware of this. Hachiro thinks she does know, to an extent. He also thinks, if he were to tell the princess her animal companion has been silently menacing the whole entire crew, she would laugh as though he were telling a joke.
“Did I tell you that I saw it catch a seagull?”
Hachiro snorts, “I caught it stealing an eggplant out of the food store.”
“No kidding?”
“Yeah, I tried to stop it. Might as well have been talking to a tree, for how well it listened.”
They watch as Yue, without hesitation, yanks the strip of bark out of Sakari’s mouth and flings it into the water. With reckless abandon the otterpillar throws herself after it.
“Will you answer the damn question now?”
Bo turns, he opens his mouth-
A large flock of birds make a hasty, squawking retreat out of the treetop canopy.
That looks… unusual.
Then they hear it. Something with a mighty pair of lungs screaming their way through the forest. The closer it gets the more they can hear branches snapping, with great force. Hachiro is reminded of a stampede of komodo rhinos.
“If that is Princess Azula, I am quitting.”
The black and red ball of fur has wide dark eyes, a high pitched bark, and a fluffy orange and black striped tail. This creature fluffs itself up, stands on its hind legs. It makes the angriest, meanest noises it can. It spreads its fore paws up and out. At this height, it reaches maybe Lee’s mid-thigh. It looks like a fox crossed with a bear.
The turtle ducks are not impressed. They advance, spitting fury.
The fox-bear drops to curl into a ball, trying to hide behind its own tail.
Lee scoops the quivering thing up.
He runs.
Turtle ducks are not exactly known for their speed. Still, when Lee feels he has gained enough distance, he turns to check. Just to be sure.
That’s when he trips.
Knowing better than to catch himself, and unable to do so with his arms full of scared mammal anyway, Lee twists and lands on his side. He is too close to the edge of the path. He is more in the woods than not. This is not good, because unlike the gradual descent of the clearly cut path, the ground of the forest is a very steep slope. A very, very steep slope.
Fortunately, Lee does land. Unharmed.
Unfortunately, his journey downward does not stop there.
He rolls. When he is not rolling he is skidding. Deadwood branches and shrubs pull and snag at him. He crashes against a tree or two, but none of this is enough to stop his momentum. All he can do is hang tight to the fox-bear still in his grip, keep his pack on his person, and yell.
It isn’t Princess Azula, but her brother. Her supposed brother. The forest spits Lee out like he was a splinter that had been stuck in it’s gums.
Even from this distance, Hachiro can tell the kid is muddy.
And angry.
He lands face first in the sand, and wastes no time jumping to his feet to shout his displeasure to the trees. Perhaps there are people in there? Bandits? Did he get attacked?
“Hey! Lee!”
The kid whips around. He’s got a furry dark animal tucked against his chest.
His eyes land on Bo. He pulls a face.
Movement catches his attention and the face turns into a scowl.
“You!” He yells, angry and pointing.
“Me?” Yue calls back, confused.
“No! Not you! I don’t even know you.” He marches over, he’s got leaves and twigs in his hair, and it becomes clear he means the otterpillar, not the human girl.
“That thing is a menace!” He declares, pointing at Sakari and somehow clutching the black and orange creature even more securely to his person.
At this, Yue does take offense. “Excuse me?!” She draws her shoulders back, and plants her feet.
Lee responds in kind.
Hachiro reminds himself that Lee doesn’t bend. He is not sure if this hurts or helps. Yue very much does bend.
He wonders if Lee can use those swords strapped to his back.
Hachiro wishes he could leave.
Very quietly, Bo hums a note of uncertainty under his breath. Hachiro isn’t sure why he is choosing now to be circumspect. No one can hear him. Not over the argument breaking out down there on the dock. If Lee really is Prince Zuko, this is not an auspicious first meeting between two future monarchs.
Unfortunate.
“You know,” Bo’s eyes narrowed in deep, speculative contemplation, “I’m no longer sure.”
It takes Hachiro a second to realize that Bo is finally answering his question.
Fantastic.