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Zuko stands on the deck of their ship, leaning against the railing and gazing out towards Jee as he pours over a map and Iroh at the bow.
The tales of the West Nomadic Sea drift in and out of his thoughts. There are a lot of tales of the oceans, spread by sailors from all walks of life. Some too ridiculous to believe, and others that leave him wondering and nervous. But if Zuko's learnt anything in his few short years in this world, is that reality is usually more horrifying than fiction, so when he hears the rumours of the West Nomadic Sea, he listens.
The Fire Nation has never had a tendency towards superstition, but now he wonders if being a bit more cautious about the ways of the ocean could have saved them a lot of men, and a lot of vessels.
The Water Tribe have always leant towards more superstitious tendencies. Some things are mundane like it's bad luck to leave your anorak inside out. But The Water Tribes weariness of the ocean seems to run deeper.
The West Nomadic Sea stands shrouded in awful mystery and horror. Technically international waters, but also classified as largely Water Tribe waters, it is not even travelled by the very people who are considered to own it. The Water Tribe people looked at the clear waters of the West Nomadic Sea and saw something to be scared of, and it all came down to Sozin's massacre of the Air Nomads and their remains.
Zuko used to be one to dismiss the ramblings of Iroh about spirits, but the West Nomadic Sea is infamous in the rumour that it's still waters hold the spirits of some air nomads who's spirits still cling to the present world, and now, with everything he's been through and everything he's seen, Zuko's not discounting anything.
The rumours of sailors going mad from the constant eerie silence that's settled over the waters has twisted into a well-established fact, despite there are no firsthand accounts that Zuko could uncover from his digging around, only a' friend of a friend told me' type stories and those who had sailed the waters themselves were tight-lipped.
Zuko has always been a skeptic at heart, but the words from old sailors and the tales from the mouths of young navy officers whose eyes would glaze over, staring into another place, another time at the mention of the haunted seas and refuse to elaborate on whatever it was they saw makes him hesitant to dispute the rumours.
Zuko leans over the railing as the sun pounds on his back, gazing into the clear waters.
He can make out a vessel resting at the bottom of the sea. It's a Fire Nation vessel, and one of the very early models, from what he can tell. Maybe from the first decade of the war if Zuko remembers all those history lessons from his time in the palace correctly.
He takes a deep breath as a shiver rattles his body. They had no choice but to take the West Nomadic route to avoid the Fire Nation, and he knows it was their only real option with his birth country directly to the south and he wanted to give the Earth Kingdom a wide birth to avoid anyone reporting the sighting to any Fire Nation soldiers.
There is an unnatural chill to the air that has the hairs on Zuko's arms stand on end, and has Jee looking out towards the port side more often than he should be.
Iroh has been standing at the bow looking out at the water, his mouth pressed into a thin line and his eyes stormy with something Zuko can't quite place.
Zuko has no doubt they're thinking the same thoughts as him, thinking of the stories, the rumours and the unspeakable crime that happened just to the east of their tiny vessel. An entire society was destroyed, and by the hands of their own people.
Zuko has never been one to hang onto superstition or believe convoluted tales from old withered sailors, but there is no breeze, no fish in the waters, no sound. It's just as the rumours said. The quiet is maddening, the mountains of the western air temple stand as lonely beacons of a tragedy that can never be rectified. He can almost see it in his mind's eye - the empty architectural genius of the Air Nomads left empty, and the human remains of its people who were never laid to rest left to erode in the elements.
Jee takes a long measured breath, whether it's to push down the rise to puke or an attempt to keep his emotions in check, Zuko doesn't know, but can’t blame him for whichever one it is.
Obviously, he can't speak for any other nation, but after death, the very concept of leaving someone's body without a proper cremation as they are performed in his country is enough to make his vision swirl. The burning of the body is to be united with the gods once again, to be with Agni, to be at peace, to be with your element once again. To leave a Fire Nation citizen's body to decompose into the soil, to have their flesh left exposed to the scavengers - there is no greater insult.
He's sure that the proper post-death procedures of the Air Nomads involved great care and he hates that there is nothing that Zuko can do about it. If their souls are chained to the seas or maybe the island itself, Zuko can understand why.
They were murdered in their own home for no other reason than another man's greed, their bodies discarded.
"We'll have to stop soon, Captain," Iroh's voice sounds from the bow, his voice is too loud. There's no noise aside from the waters lapping at the sides of their vessel. Jee flinches and Zuko can't stop his own jerk at the sudden disruption of uneasy silence they'd settled into.
Iroh is right, he notes. The sun has steadily been making its way down, reminding them all that soon darkness will descend upon them.
Zuko takes a moment to look over at the Air Nomad's home, peering out at the mountains that no doubt hold a thousand tortured souls through his only telescope.
He spots a beach and holds his gaze there for a moment, waiting for some kind of movement. Of course, not a thing on the beach so much as shifts, and Zuko isn’t sure whether that makes him feel better or worse.
"We'll camp on the beach," Zuko orders, his voice bounces off the metal, echoing in his head like a warning that he shouldn't take a single step onto that land. He almost wants to follow that instinct, but his men need rest and they need to get off the boat for a few hours before they all go stir crazy. Plus they'll be gone by dawn and they won't venture beyond their camp.
Iroh finally tears his eyes away from the island and turns his gaze to Zuko. It's an empty look that Zuko is sure he never wants to see again.
The second Zuko's boots hit the sand he has to stop, a wave of nausea washing over him and the unsettling but familiar feeling of being watched hits him so hard he nearly stumbles. He takes a stunted, pathetic breath and looks down the length of the beach. The white sand is near yellow in the setting sun, undisturbed by human interference. The sand runs up the beach for a few metres before it hits the sheer rocky cliffs. They stand, riddled with blacks and browns and whites, bigger than the volcanoes from his old home. They stand over his crew like guards, protecting the shattered remains of an entire civilisation.
Zuko finally rips his eyes from the length of the lonely beach and is met with Iroh'dead-eyeded stare and Jee's glazed over haunted look. Jirou, Satou and Kazuo stand a little behind them, eyes trained on the mountains that stand over them in an odd moment of unified unease.
"We're shouldn't be here," Kazuo whispers, but the one sound seems almost deafening on the silent beach - the silent island. No one answers him, but Zuko knows they all agree.
The feeling of being watched never goes away. Not while they set up camp, not while they light a fire, not while they cook dinner, not while they sing old shanties songs as a way to break they oppressive silence. Zuko stops looking over his shoulder after the first few hours. There are no other humans here. It’s just them and the remnants of a entire race of people that Zuko's own great grandfather caused the demise of.
Iroh pulls out the liquor after their stomachs are full and he takes a generous swig before passing it to Zuko. He presses the bottle to his lips, relishing the feeling of the cheap Earth Kingdom wine burning his throat. He can see the desperation in his crew's eyes as the bottle is passed around and Zuko can only hope they'll drink themselves into such a state that they won’t feel the eyes of the dead watching them, that they the laugh so hard they'll forget about the oppressive silence.
He knows it won't work, but he can hope.
It’s well past dusk and he and Jee are the only one's still awake, albeit barely. They've emptied every bottle they bought with them and are no closer to ridding themselves of whatever force wants them off the island when Jee rears his head, eyes barely open. His face is lit up orange from the dwindling flames of the fire at their feet and he looks at Zuko for an unnerving amount of time.
"If… if we ever come back here," he says, words slow and slurred. "If we ever come back we better have a fuckin better excuse than rest. They're not gonna like that. They're not gonna like us fire nation bastards using their grave as a fucking stopover."
He slumps back down at the end of the spiel, and Zuko wants to agree, ask him if he feels the eyes baring into his soul as well, but his mouth refuses to move in the way that he wants it to and it's easier to grunt out a disjointed hum.
He falls asleep soon afterwards, never had he found his uncles' snores more comforting. Even drunk, Zuko will take anything over the utter silence.
They're back on their ship before the sun has risen in a silent agreement that they're not welcome, despite their pounding heads. Zuko stands on the deck, looking back at the island as they head to the Northern Water Tribe, leaving the land of the western Air Nomads behind them. Its mountainous guards now just a rapidly dwindling spectacle they're leaving behind.
The old tales tell stories of the West Nomadic Sea lying in haunted waters, of a silence that drove sailors mad. Those that came by these waters don't speak of their experiences, leaving the sea shrouded in mystery and fuelling the fire of a terrifying stretch of water that turned even the best sailors minds against them.
And maybe that's what it is, but it's also a reminder. Zuko's fighting for his people so they can be free under his father's reign. He's fighting for the near eradicated Southern Water Tribe, the Northern Water Tribe in imminent danger and The Earth Kingdom, riddled with poverty and war devastated communities.
But he's also fighting for the Air Nomads. He's fighting for the spirits still tied to this earth, desperate to bring back the balance that Sozin took, and for every soul that Sozin stole.
He can't forget the Air Nomads, Zuko now realises.
The Fire Nation needs to change and remember what Sozin created, and what he destroyed while doing so, and if that change starts with Zuko and his tiny crew on an unnamed vessel fighting for a cause much bigger than them, than that's were they'll start.