Work Text:
They put a boy on Ji’s ship.
He is small. Mummified in bandages. He makes no noise except pained whimpers and groans when they move him.
Ji asks where he is supposed to take the boy. What he is supposed to do with this maimed royal.
Away, they tell him. They don’t care where or when. He’s banished from the kingdom and is to never return to the home of the Fire Nation. If he returns, he will be executed for treason. His only chance at returning is to find the missing Avatar and present him to the firelord.
Ji has never met a member of the royal family before. Neither has any member of his crew. Looking down at the boy, he desperately wishes that his first will also be his last.
Prince Zuko, for he still is a prince even while maimed, does little else but cry. The flesh around his eye is gone. His ear is mangled. He has been tortured and taught to believe that it is his own fault. That he brought this on himself.
For a while, they wonder if he will simply die. Ji, who has seen the damage up close and personal, especially believes that no one could survive it. He has seen men perish from burns much less severe. They wait for it with bated breath. For this easy assignment to end and the rest of them be broken up and set away.
Yet, their prince endures. Perhaps his royal blood carries him through. Perhaps he was born lucky or with a strong constitution.
As he begins to heal, Ji starts to think it’s something else. His survival is not luck or blessing. It’s torment, pure and simple. The Gods themselves have marked this boy for suffering.
He regains clarity nearly a month into their journey. The men of their ship are excited for a while. He’s coming back to them. Returning to the world of the living. Their ship is in exile along with the prince. He is the only new thing they have.
The excitement is doused like a candle when the first words slip out of Prince Zuko’s mouth.
He begs for death. He begs for them to take what little life he has and extinguish it. Ji tries to talk him out of it. Tries to remind him of the chance he has at returning to his home.
His one working eye looks at Ji and he says nothing. He doesn’t have to. This quest, to find the lost avatar, is nothing but a fool’s errand. A way to pretend like he has any chance of going home.
“Will you and your men get to return home if I die?” Zuko asks.
Ji could lie. Tell this boy that no matter what they couldn’t go home. Pretend like the crew isn’t trapped here along with this boy.
“Yes.”
Zuko says nothing. His one eye stares at the plain quarters. They are the captain’s quarters. For he is the captain of this ship. The highest ranking member who should control and direct them. While he is indisposed or incapable, Ji is in charge. Yet he isn’t a captain. He is only a commander.
“But they don’t want to go back. The people of this crew volunteered to attend this journey.” Ji has never before seen any expression on the Prince’s face except desolation. Now it is painted in surprise. His one eyebrow raised, eye open in shock.
“What? Why would they do that, knowing that they wouldn’t get to go home?”
How innocent this boy is. How little of the world he knows. Then, what thirteen year old actually understands the way the world works? What boy, not even yet a teenager, understands what the war has done to their noble country?
“On this ship, there is not much to do. There are those escaping unfair and brutal labor. There is no warfare. Soldiers who have seen the front lines, watched their friends die, and survived to know they don’t want to go back. Even a few women, running away to escape marriages that have been arranged for them. Or being pushed out of the military for one reason or another. Prince Zuko, none of these people have homes to return to.”
Ji hopes that it’s enough to convince the prince that even if he isn’t wanted, that his presence is not harming them.
It isn’t. Zuko attempts suicide three times. Each time, hauling himself to the top of the boat and trying to throw himself over. Ji can’t find it in him to be angry at him though. He is just a boy who has lost everything. He is in constant pain and what they can give him gives him little relief.
Ji can do nothing but be there for him. He sits at the boy’s beside and speaks to him. Talks to him about tidal charts and wind directions. Anything and everything that comes to his mind.
He reads him the scant few books they have on board. Talks about the drama between crew members.
He stays away from topics like letters from home. Prince Zuko seems to have no family. His father has destroyed him. His sister writes only to scorn him. Their great general, the supposed Dragon of the West, never sends word at all.
Ji wonders if he even understands what has happened. That his younger brother has maimed and exiled his nephew. Or if the grief over his own loss too strong. Although, perhaps, he knows and doesn’t care. There seems to be a lot of that in their rulers.
Perhaps it’s their royal blood that makes them so heartless.
Commander Ji had not always been a commander of a ship. Once, he had been a foot soldier with a wife and a dream. He had dreamed of many little ones tripping all over him. Sons and daughters laughing and crying and loving.
Ji had wanted to be a father more than anything in the world. Had already picked names out for his young ones.
Yet, no matter how they tried, no children had come. They had seen doctors, specialists, had tried every herb and medicine known. Still, no children. Eventually, they had let that dream go. Not all at once, instead a little at a time. Until there was nothing but rooms that should’ve been nurseries being turned into storage.
Ji had wanted to be a father. Ji had wanted a family and a home and a life and a high ranking position. Instead, his wife dies of a fever young. His home has no children and because of it is no home at all. His life becomes about his work and that leaves him with little but hollowness.
Ozai had everything that Ji could’ve ever wanted and more. A loving wife, beautiful children, a royal household and so much more.
His wife is gone, under mysterious circumstances. His daughter ruthless and unloving by the way she writes her letters. His son, he has destroyed himself.
What Ji would’ve given to have a son such as Zuko. What he would’ve given to have someone to love and cherish. To watch grow and learn. Be all of the best parts of him and his wife.
Why does their ruler, a man so cruel as to do this to his own son, have and waste everything Ji has ever wanted? Why was he given so many privileges to squander?
Zuko stops trying to kill himself. He has discovered that no one on the ship will assist him. That his begging brings only pity and restraining hands. He does not have energy to waste on trying to take his own life.
The bandages finally come off his left eye.
Two crew members have to leave the room to be sick.
It is mangled. The skin a twisted deep red. The eye barely opens. Only a slight crack and Zuko can’t open it any further.
The skin is so new that any touch has the young prince doubled over in agony.
That is the least of the issues though.
He now fears fire. All fire. No matter how controlled, no matter how contained, it sends him into panic attacks that require him to be removed.
Their ship is a Fire Nation ship. It is powered by steam engines lit with fire hot enough to burn for days without help. The cooks use fire to make their meals, and everyone uses candles to light their way at night.
More than one candle in his room and Zuko can’t breathe. Ji would’ve made it so that he never had to encounter flame again if he didn’t want to. Would’ve ordered the ship be kept dark when anywhere near his prince.
Zuko is stubborn. He insists that it’s shameful that a firebender is afraid of his own element. That for firebenders fire is as integral to their souls as their mind is to their bodies. So, they work together. Candles first. Then candles become fires, fires become stoves and finally stoves become engines.
Thus, the prince has conquered his fear of fire as much as he’ll ever be able.
Ji wonders if he’ll ever conquer his fear of firebenders.
“Where is this ship going,” Zuko asks one day. The crew is kind to him, but he fears strangers, especially firebenders. Benders make up more than half of their crew, having mandatory military service. He can barely get a word out when there’s one in a room. Ji had spent so much time with him that he feels familiar to the young prince. It helps that he has no firebending in him, not even a spark.
Zuko had taken to joining Ji on the bridge. It seemed he liked to look out at the ocean. Enjoyed the sounds of the waves against the boat. It’s not much but for a boy who’d barely left his quarters, it was something.
“Wherever you want Prince Zuko.”
Zuko turns to him, confused. “What do you mean? Aren’t you captain of this ship?”
Ji explains. He is not. He is just a commander. Zuko is in charge of this ship. “This is your task and your ship. We go wherever you say. If you don’t say, then I decide. Right now, we are doing a slow orbit of the occupied territories. When we need supplies we restock at one of the ports.”
“I’m thirteen,” he says.
“And yet, you are captain of this ship. You are the highest ranking person here. The prince of the Fire Nation. Even an exiled prince is more than a commander.”
There is a moment of silence as Zuko seems to process those words. Then, “That’s fucking stupid.”
Zuko knows nothing about commanding a ship. He knows nothing about ports and restocking. He tells Ji more than once that he is not qualified, and Ji is supposed to do whatever he thinks is best.
“You shouldn’t put someone who’s not qualified in charge. You know about ships. You run this one. You should keep running this one,” Zuko says.
“Yet, you are the Prince. Where you want to go, we’ll go. What you say to do, we’ll do. That is the way the military functions.”
“No wonder we lose so many battles,” he scoffs.
Ji never asked about what insubordination got him punished by Ozai himself. Never concerned himself with what would cause that. Nothing could ever have warranted doing that to a child. Now he’s pretty sure of what happened.
The only order he gives out is that Ji is supposed to run the ship as he sees fit. Go where it makes sense and take care of the crew.
Every member of their little crew has suffered under an arrogant leader that knows nothing about what he’s leading. Everyone has known the pain of losing friends and comrades to mistakes made by idiots.
The crew is endeared. Ji has long since thought of him as theirs, but now the rest of the crew does as well. Zuko is a prince who isn’t a prince and a captain who isn’t a captain. With their group of misfits and malcontents, he fits right in.
Zuko would be well within his rights not to work. Ji doubts that before this he’s ever worked a day in his life. At least, not at what regular people would think of work. Yet, he joins into the tasks that he can complete.
He still flinches when there’s fire and he’s not expecting it. He is too small and fragile for anything that requires strength and labor. Most of the everyday tasks are out. He tries many things and most of them he’s ill-suited to. Often, they would take him more time than could possibly be any help of. However, there is one job that he excels at and after a while, takes mostly over. That’s sorting and folding laundry.
There isn’t as much laundry as a standard ship would have but there is still all of the clothes, towels and linens of the crew. Enough that even at a rate that was slower than other crew members, it helps to have him folding the laundry and sorting it to the right people.
He’s clever, their prince. He never sends the wrong things to the wrong person and Ji is relieved that he seems to like it well enough. It occupies his dull hours and makes him feel useful.
It helps that he seems to enjoy the feeling of the warm, dry clothes. Often rubbing his hands in the soft linen and when he thinks no one is looking, his face.
They settle into a routine. It’s nothing flashy like warfare, but the crew seems content for their regular everyday tasks. Zuko is climbing up from his depths, and his recovery is slow but steady.
Which of course is when everything changes.
A letter from the Dragon of the West requires that Zuko be informed. Ji opens and reads all of his correspondence. Most of the time, he doesn’t even tell Zuko what he’s been sent. The rest of the time, Zuko doesn’t want to see it.
Zuko takes the letter from Ji and reads over it. “He wants to meet us?” He asks, uncertainly. The prince is very intelligent. His mind remembering stories and war tactics he’d read only once. It’s his eyes that betray him. The left still sees almost nothing. Only taking in light. The right didn’t escape complete unscathed. Reading is now a challenge even on his best days.
“Yes, Prince Zuko,” Ji says.
“I guess we have to,” Zuko says hesitantly.
Ji prays that his uncle is nothing like his father.
The man before Ji can not be the Dragon of the West. He is a small man, balding a little, with grey hair and cheerful eyes. The softness of royal life and his retirement have caught up to him and he’s thick around the middle. He greets Zuko with friendliness that is not returned.
“I will be joining you on your ship, Zuko. To help you with your task.” Iroh’s eyes sparkle.
Zuko stares at him for long moments. He opens his mouth and then closes it. Ji fears for what will come out of his mouth when he finally gets his wits back to him. Which turned out to be the right instinct.
“Why the fuck would you do something idiotic like that?”
Although never cruel, Zuko had a mouth worse than all of their sailors. He swore and spat. There was hardly a polite word in him. The only times when he wasn’t spitting vitriol was when he was silent. Often while folding laundry.
The smile slowly fades from Iroh’s face. Whatever he was expecting when he met his nephew after all this time, Ji is certain this wasn’t it.
Iroh does join their ship. Bringing decorations, tea sets and a very elaborate pai sho board. He eats with the crew and tells jokes that aren’t really that funny. He teases his nephew trying for a smile.
Zuko does not smile, ever. He has very little to smile about and when he does, it pulls on his tender skin and scars. He has lost his smile to the pain that has taken everything from him. Iroh doesn’t seem to be put off.
He also brings changes. It seems that he’s going to actually try and help with Zuko’s task. He orders them to the Sothern Air Temple to explore what secrets might be there. He believes he knows what’s best for their prince.
He’s wrong.
Iroh begins by trying to get him to practice firebending. He has a panic attack and starts crying. He offers to teach him strategy and warfare, but Zuko cusses out the Fire Nation and all of their tactics. He engages him in a tea ceremony and Zuko barely takes part in. He attempts to teach him pai sho and ends up playing pai sho alone.
Zuko finds purpose in one place, the laundry. Iroh has the brilliant idea to order him to stop doing laundry and to direct that energy other places. Apparently it’s not becoming of a prince, and also the future firelord, to be folding laundry. He’s to dedicate himself to things more suited to his station.
Zuko doesn’t get out of bed for three days.
Iroh lets him fold laundry again.
Zuko does as Iroh orders, but only what he ordered. He never offered to join him of his own volition. Eschewed his company whenever possible.
Iroh has shown none of the cruelty that seems to plague the rest of the family, and it makes Ji wonder why. Why does their prince avoid the only family willing to have something to do with him?
“We’re strangers. I don’t really know him. Sometimes he would send letters to us. Mother would read them out loud.”
“He didn’t visit?” Ji asked.
Zuko shook his head slowly. “Not really. He would come to the palace and visit grandfather. Or he would speak with…” he trailed off. Still unable to refer to his father. “After Lu Ten passed away and grandfather removed him as heir, he didn’t really do much. He rarely left his rooms.”
“He seems nice,” Ji offered. He had nothing else to say.
“Yeah. I guess.” Zuko didn’t need to voice what they were both thinking. Looks could be deceiving.
Zuko often sought out Ji’s company. Even just to sit and do his reading. Ji never minded, enjoying the quiet company.
Somebody else did.
“He comes to you often. Spends time with you,” Iroh said. “What do you do that makes him want to?” Jealousy wasn’t a great look on such a great and venerable general. Nor did it suit such a wise and learned man.
“We know each other,” Ji settles on.
“And now he and I know each other,” Iroh points out. “Yet he seeks your company and not my own.”
What was Ji supposed to say?
“Please, speak plainly. I won’t punish you. I just want to know how to make things better between us."
No one had ever accused Ji of being sensible and the urge to just lay it all out was too strong to ignore. “You’re his father’s brother. He fears his father more than anyone else. You’re a firebender, exactly as the same person who burned half his face off. You push him to do things he doesn’t want. You are everything he fears and everything he dislikes in one man.”
“What advice would you give me?”
“Let him do the laundry,” Ji says with some derision.
Iroh sighed. “I understand that. Something besides that.”
Ji looked out at the ocean. “Give him time. You want him to be something he isn’t and never will be again, if he ever was at all. You have this image in your mind of a royal heir. That boy never will be, if he ever was.”
“Thank you commander, you’ve given me much to think about.”
Iroh backed off on some things. He quit pushing the firebending. Let Zuko fold the laundry. He did insist on continuing his schooling, but reduced how much he wanted him to do. It seemed he had actually taken Ji’s advice.
There was one thing though.
They were still hunting for the Avatar.
Well, Iroh was ordering them to hunt for the Avatar. It was clear that Zuko and the entirety of the crew believed it would all be in vain. Which Ji also agreed with. Still, they should probably at least be pretending like they were trying to complete Ozai’s task.
Ji wondered at what point they would be allowed to abandon the search. Or if they would continue hunting the missing Avatar until they were needed in battle. Or until the prince died of an accident or an infection or a freak occurrence.
There was something about that idea that depressed Ji. Nearly a year into their time with the prince and some things haven’t changed at all.
They were still waiting for Prince Zuko to die.