AN: So the original chapter nine is proving to be a hydra. I cut its head. I should not have been surprised at the result. *quietly ticks up chapter count again* I figured no one would complain at getting a 6k chapter now, rather than a 12k chapter who-knows-when.

Also: Someone reminded me that Zuko pulled his shoulder way back at the start of this. That someone should remind me who they are so I can credit them for making Zuko's life more difficult. Take pride, you someone you.

10. Kustaa's Favorite Apprentice Wouldn't Get Kidnapped

Kustaa had taken on another 'apprentice' before Zuko even had a chance to prove himself. Zuko did not want to talk about it.

%%%

"I don't need a break," Zuko said.

"It's not a break," the healer said, "it's the end of your shift."

"It's barely midday!"

"Maybe you shouldn't have snuck in here to work at midnight."

The night shift had weasel-ratted him out. Kustaa didn't see fit to share that information; he had the feeling that the brat would take it as a challenge to sneak in unobserved rather than a caution to stay in bed.

"We aren't even done with the new batch of salve," Zuko tried.

"My favorite apprentice can work all day," Kustaa said, well aware of the reaction this would get. "You can't."

The boy was literally steaming as he left.

%%%

"Why won't anyone let me help?" Zuko growled. He was sprawled on the deck glaring at the sky. No one saw fit to point out how dramatic he was being. A dramatic ex-prince was a healthy ex-prince.

"Kustaa told us not to," Panuk said, blocking his sun. "Never tick off the healer."

"I'm the apprentice healer. Why aren't you afraid of ticking me off?"

"I'll let you know when I feel threatened. Why don't you just train, or something?"

"...Training doesn't count as work?"

%%%

Downtime activities on the Akhlut, an incomplete list:

Bone dice. Luck-based. Zuko was not about to put his luck on quantifiable display.

"All I'm saying is that if you're as consistently unlucky as you claim," Panuk said, "I just need to bet against you, and—"

Storytelling. The Water Tribe didn't write down their stories on scrolls, or in books. They just… remembered them.

"I didn't see paper regularly until my first Earth Kingdom port," Toklo told him. "My gran-papa says we didn't have a writing system until we borrowed the one they use on Kyoshi—and made it way better, of course—but my other grand-papa says Kyoshi took ours. How is that part confusing, don't you have two grandpas? I mean of course you— How do you not know?"

...They were big on oral storytelling, apparently. Passed down in families, and tribes. Tuluk told him some of the stories went back to the first Avatar, and to the Spirit Dream that came before humans had their own lands. He wasn't clear on how much was true or not, and no one else seemed bothered by it. He liked to sit at the edges and listen at night, but it wasn't something he could do.

Pai Sho. Also no. Especially since their set was missing pieces and no one even cared, they just adjusted their strategies. Zuko didn't really know any openings that didn't involve the lotus tile. Not that he wanted to play.

Training. It was usually led by Leg Breaker, so he'd stayed as far from it as possible while he was their prisoner to avoid accidents. But. That wouldn't happen now, right?

"You ever used one of those?" Aake asked.

"Not exactly," Zuko replied, testing the balance and weight of the sword. It was shorter than he was used to, straighter, more of a stabbing blade than a slicing—

"Then don't start with two," the Leg Breaker said, unimpressed. "I swear, you kids. Why would you even try to use two?"

"I'm not a kid," Zuko snapped.

"It looks cool," Toklo said. "Hey Panuk, remember those wanted posters? The ones with the guy in the blue mask, with the two swords?"

"The Blue Spirit?" Panuk asked.

"Yes!"

"Are we talking again?"

"No."

(Zuko studiously and silently examined the Water Tribe weapon, in a manner completely different from not-looking-at-anyone.)

Aake pinched the bridge of his nose. It was a gesture that was spreading amongst the crew. "'Looking cool' gets men killed. Leave it for the theatres."

Under the older crewman's frown, Zuko slowly set one of the blades back down. He kept the other in his right hand, because being ambidextrous might also be cool, but being left-handed was wrong.

%%%

The kid was pretty good, actually. A little off balance, like he didn't know how to react to things on his left side. Probably that eye of his. He kept looking at whoever he was sparring with like he needed reassurance, too, especially after he got a hit in; probably the lack of weapons experience. Firebender, after all.

Still, he clearly had some training. It wasn't like he was some kind of self-taught prodigy.

"Decent," Aake said. "I didn't think firebenders learned weapons."

"I'm not a good bender," the kid shrugged.

"Good for another round?"

He nodded.

Aake nodded back.

%%%

"You can't spend the entire day training," Kustaa said. "You're going to strain something."

"I'm not. I'm spending half the day. If you want me to stop, maybe I could spend the entire day doing my actual job—"

Kustaa was well aware of where the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose came from. And who. This did not stop him from self-prescribing the gesture. It was, after all, an effective remedy against teenager-induced headaches.

"I'm giving you homework."

The brat perked up. Somewhere along the line, threats and rewards had gotten disastrously mixed up in his education.

%%%

Zuko spent considerable hours on deck, reading medical texts during his free time.

He spent the rest of his free time convincing Aake to teach him how to fight with the Water Tribe's spears, and clubs, and boomerangs.

"No," Aake said, plucking the projectile weapon from his hand. "Not unless we're in port."

"Why not? I can figure it out, I'm not stupid."

Aake let the kid rant himself out. Then he explained, because not explaining would end with the kid sneaking sharp things out of someone's supplies. "You know how boomerangs come back? For beginners, they don't."

He glanced pointedly at the very deep ocean all around their very small deck. Zuko put down the boomerang.

%%%

"You can't spend half the day training," Kustaa said.

"I'm not," the brat smirked. "I'm spending a quarter."

Kustaa looked him in the eye, and gave him additional homework. He couldn't help but think he was rewarding this behavior. "...My favorite apprentice doesn't talk back this much."

%%%

The kid was actually quite good. Especially with a sword. Especially once he stopped worrying how the crew would react to being beaten.

Easy to rile up, though.

"Hey," Ranalok said, as they sparred, "how's Kustaa's favorite apprentice?"

The growl that followed was somewhat alarming. As was the sudden charge. And the easy-to-miss gasp, from nothing Ranalok had done.

%%%

"Told you you'd strain something," Kustaa said, slowly rotating Zuko's shoulder as the kid adamantly didn't react. It would have been a better act if he wasn't holding the rest of his body rigid.

"I didn't," Zuko snapped.

"Uh-huh."

"I didn't! I pulled that weeks ago, on my own ship."

%%%

Catching a falling man's entire body weight, he didn't say. Also Pohuai, and all the craziness there, he also didn't say. Because the healer was already looking at him.

"Your shoulder has been bothering you for weeks?" Kustaa asked, with glacial calm.

"Uh."

"Was it bothering you while you were doing chores for us the entire day?" the Healer asked. "Was it bothering you while you rearranged the cargo hold?"

"Well it's not like I could say anything, the Chief said I had to work so I was working. It's not like anyone cared about the concussion. Or the days with a fever. Or the almost dying. Why would they care that my shoulder was a little stiff?"

This was a true and valid point, that Zuko promptly soured: "Besides, I've done more with worse."

"Really."

"Uh."

%%%

Zuko was sprawled on deck again, his right arm in a sling. A dramatic ex-prince was… maybe not a healthy ex-prince, but at least a healing one.

"And no climbing the main mast!"

"It barely even hurts!"

Kustaa dropped a book on his chest. "Chapter ten," he said, and went back to his office.

Chapter Ten: Concerning damage of the lightning-chi paths

...permanent injury possible, generally manifesting as the false numbing of pain or other senses. Particular caution must be exercised as, once extinguished, not even the famed waterbending healers of North and South can rekindle the fire in...

Zuko very dramatically allowed chapter ten to fall onto his face.

(Which was a terrible way to treat a book. He picked it up and smoothed out the pages and set it on the deck just-so.)

When he looked back up, Panuk was smirking.

"If you say anything," Zuko glared, "I won't be talking to you, either."

"Toklo," Panuk said, "Please, please say it for me."

"I bet Kustaa's favorite apprentice doesn't cause him this much trouble," Toklo said.

Zuko rolled over, and growled into the deck.

%%%

Kustaa's favorite apprentice came aboard at the last port. Kustaa's favorite apprentice had been specially requisitioned for duty on their ship before anyone knew Zuko would be staying, much less that he would be an apprentice. Kustaa's favorite apprentice was straight from working with the researchers at Omashu Medical College, personally recommended by one of the healer's old friends there. Kustaa's favorite apprentice was approximately the length of a man's hand, the width of a child's pinkie finger, and more consistent and accurate than Zuko could ever hope to be.

Kustaa's favorite apprentice was a thermometer. The latest in Earth Kingdom technology.

"Once we figure out the temperature you're using on that salve," he'd said, when introducing the unassuming device to his new apprentice, "anyone can make it."

This uncovered the former prince's propensity for hating inanimate objects with a worrying intensity.

%%%

They'd started with small trials: Zuko used his hands to heat the mixtures in their little bowls like he'd always done, but now the thermometer was watching the whole time.

"Interesting," Kustaa said, marking down another number.

Which meant Zuko had gotten it wrong again, that the number had changed again, that someone in the Earth Kingdom had invented a way to quantify how inconsistent his bending was.

"We should test the extremes of the range, see whether it's still effective when you go higher or lower," Kustaa said, so Zuko spent days making salve even worse than he'd apparently been doing all along, and they figured out exactly how bad he had to be at this before the crew members they dragged into the healer's room reported that they didn't feel anything when it was used.

(There were still a lot of healing burns, from the raid when the soldier had—)

Zuko scowled at the latest batch. Maybe if he got it hot enough, the stupid thermometer would just break, its quicksilver insides bursting out and spilling over—

"Are you trying to murder your fellow apprentice?" Kustaa asked, eyeing him.

Zuko flushed.

And then the healer fired up the little oil burner he'd used before Zuko came aboard, and started making the salve without him. Sure Zuko helped measure the ingredients and mix it now, but anyone could do that, and anyone could put it on the burner, and anyone could watch the stupid thermometer go up to the right temperature and settle the pot at just the right height to keep it there. Perfectly. It didn't flare with each breath, didn't slip with a lack of focus, didn't get tired or need a break or—

"If you're afraid it's going to take your job, nephew, then learn to be more than a glorified teakettle."

"I am not your nephew. And I'm not jealous!"

Which wasn't a word Kustaa had used, and both of them realized it at the same time. Zuko scowled. Kustaa raised an eyebrow.

"Weren't you trying to cut down on your bending, anyway?"

"...You noticed?"

"Everyone's noticed, brat." He said it like he wasn't judging. But that didn't mean he approved. And that shouldn't hurt so bad, because the stupid healer was not his uncle—

Zuko looked away. This put the happily steaming pot and the awful thermometer right in front of his gaze, which at least gave him something to glare at.

%%%

So now Zuko was flopped face down on a deck, relegated to activities that only needed one arm, which was basically just memorizing stupid plants and their effects so Kustaa could quiz him on them. He was getting very, very sick of plants. He was classifying leaf shapes in his dreams, and if he had to learn another of the thirty-two regional names for foxfern while Kustaa did the real work with his favorite apprentice, he was going to take a page out of Azula's book and make himself an only apprentice.

%%%

Another book appeared on his hammock after they left the latest port. Zuko glanced suspiciously around, then picked it up.

It was a cookbook.

He never figured out if it was Toklo or Panuk who'd left such an unsubtle hint for him, but they'd wagered right: he was bored enough to open it.

%%%

(It had been Ranalok.)

%%%

At the next port, it was surprisingly easy to sell Chief Hakoda on the merits of buying a bigger laundry tub. One that could hold all the crew's laundry at once, now that they were doing it regularly, and also and purely by coincidence was big enough to take a halfway decent bath in. If a person didn't mind being half out of the water and also keeping their elbows in. But it was better than a bucket and a rag.

He also managed to successfully present his list of points in favor of purchasing a small coal stove to try cooking with, just on a trial basis, if they got a second-hand one it wouldn't even cost that much, and it was more practical than trying to cook for the whole crew on his hands, especially since Kustaa wouldn't even let him use one of his—oh, he was going to try cooking? that was what the stove was for— and he could make the coal last a really long time, there was this leaf-burning exercise that was basic for firebenders and he was pretty sure Engineer Hanako had done it with their own coal stores back on the Wani because a few times they'd limped back to port after investigating a spirit sighting when he didn't think they would be able to limp back, not all the way, and—

"Zuko," the Chief interrupted, bemused. "Can I just see your paper?"

Zuko handed over his List of Points. He stood at military attention as the Chief read it, because at least he knew what to do with his hands when he was at attention.

"Approved," the Chief said with a small smile, which might have been making fun of his posture. "And at ease," he said, which definitely was. "Have you ever cooked in your life? Besides just heating up food."

"Most recipes are just heating up food. After you stir it together."

Hakoda was forced to concede this point.

%%%

Zuko made stew for his first experiment. This was meat and vegetables and water stirred together. Then he heated it up. He only made a little, just in case it was terrible. He only let Kustaa try it, because only Kustaa deserved for it to be terrible.

"So it's okay for you to use a stove," the Healer said, "but not my favorite apprentice?"

It wasn't awful. Unfortunately.

%%%

"I need these spices," Zuko said, handing Hakoda another list.

Hakoda, having no particular idea of cooking requirements, added them to the supplies to be bought at the next port.

%%%

Kustaa was out on deck sitting in a particularly nice breeze, reading a letter from one of his former Earth Kingdom classmates about cutting edge advancements in battlefield amputations, when a teenage-shaped cloud blotted out his sun.

"If I have to take breaks, so do you," Zuko said. "Why don't you train?"

Behind his scowling apprentice stood Bato and Ranalok, grinning. Kustaa set his reading aside, and surrendered to his fate before he was bodily dragged to it.

"I'll have you know that I've spent a lifetime being terrible at this," he said.

"So have I," his apprentice said. "We'll start with falling exercises."

"...We'll what?"

"So you know how to hit the deck when I beat you."

Bato was still grinning. Ranalok had moved on to holding in a laugh. Seal Jerky had joined the increasing number of people watching them, his tail thumping the deck at the air of general merriment.

"You're keeping that sling another week, no matter how much you bully an old man," Kustaa said.

"That's okay. I can do this one-handed."

Several crew members stopped trying to hold in their laughter. It was understood by both master and apprentice that this training was no joke.

(Neither of them mentioned a crew cabin lit by bursts of fire, or an old man who'd been protected by a child. Neither of them had to.)

Kustaa was sprawled flat on deck when a teenage-shaped cloud blotted out his sun.

"Again," the kid said.

"My favorite apprentice wouldn't do this to me," Kustaa wheezed. "Is this revenge?"

"Training is training," the brat said, and hauled him back to his feet.

%%%

"Huh," Toklo said, after his first bite of stew. He took another spoonful. "Huh," he repeated.

"Yeah," Panuk said, and didn't even get a Not talking to you thrown his way.

"What?" Zuko snapped.

"It's just…" Toklo said, "This is actually good?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" Zuko scowled. "Cooking recipes are just like medicinal ones. Except they don't taste awful, and it's harder to poison people on accident."

"That's real reassuring, kid," Tuluk said, as to his side Bato mouthed 'on accident' to Leg Breaker, who was sloshing around his own bowl like he expected something to still be moving. "It is good, though. Thanks."

"It's the easiest one in the book." Zuko ducked his head. Which really invited hair-ruffling, and more than one passing crewman helped themselves. "Hey!"

It was easy to miss Kustaa beginning to cough. Or his eyes starting to water.

"It's a little spicy," Bato said. "I thought that was an Earth Kingdom recipe book you had?"

"I, uh. Might have used some Fire Nation spices. But I toned it down."

Their healer doubled over, wheezing for entirely different reasons than earlier that day. "This is toned down?"

"Sorry," Zuko said. "I thought your favorite apprentice could measure heat."

Healer and student met each other's gaze. Zuko slid a container of fire-chilli powder out of his sleeve, and pointedly doused his own bowl.

Training was training. This was revenge.

%%%

"Stop growing," Toklo complained, tugging the sleeve of Zuko's borrowed shirt lower. It sprang right back up. "You can't be taller than me."

"I'm not."

"That's why you need to stop growing! You're the ship baby, you need to act like it."

"Pretty sure the ship baby is still you," Panuk said.

"And that," Toklo said, pointing an arm at the other crewman—at their other friend—"is why we're still not talking."

"I feel like you're just making up reasons, at this point."

"I am not!"

They started arguing. Zuko sat to the side, smoothing out the creases in his sleeve cuffs. "Does this mean you are talking to him again?" he asked.

"No."

"But you were just…" he didn't finish that thought. He wasn't entirely sure how friendships were supposed to work, but he starting to think that sometimes they just did. Even when people weren't talking to each other? ...Even though they were? "Um. So what are you going to do in port?" he asked, because Panuk always flashed him a grin behind Toklo's back when he changed the subject like this.

"We," Panuk said, "are going to get you," and Zuko stopped liking where this was going, "a haircut. That needs to stop growing, too."

'That' was accompanied by a hand-swirly motion in the general vicinity of Zuko's head.

"What?" Toko said. "No no no, that is almost long enough to do something with—"

Zuko was pretty sure Panuk said things Toklo would disagree with, just to get him talking again. He was very sure Toklo hadn't noticed the strategy.

"What we need to do is get him hair ties. Oh, and beads! Blue beads."

"Do I get a say in this?" Zuko asked.

"No."

"Nope."

...This was another part of friendship. Maybe.

"I, uh. Don't have any money," Zuko said. "And I always help Kustaa at port, anyway."

"We'll talk to him," Toklo said. "And don't worry about money, the hair beads are on me. We can match!"

"Uh."

"...Are matching beads not cool enough? Do we need to get tattoos?"

Zuko looked to Panuk for help. This was a mistake.

"What are friends for?" Panuk grinned.

"Making unwanted decisions about my life?"

This seemed to be the right thing to say. Or the wrong thing. It led to a lot more attempts to ruffle his hair, which quickly devolved into teaching his friends their own lessons on falling, via live demonstration. And then it was two on one, and he… was less invested in winning than usual.

Winning didn't seem to be the point, in friendships.

%%%

"Chief?"

Hakoda was learning that he was only Panuk's 'Chief' when the young man wanted something. "Yes?"

"Zuko doesn't have any money. Zuko doesn't have anything."

"...Ah."

This is how Hakoda ended up freeing a small portion of their supply funds for their newest crewman to pick up the things he needed. For once, the boy went into town with his friends instead of with Kustaa.

Kustaa watched the three depart, Panuk's arms around the shoulders of an ex-prince who was bristling but doing very little to actually move away. Kustaa raised an eyebrow, and kept it raised as he turned to Hakoda.

"It's not like he can carry your things with that sling of his," Hakoda defended.

Which apparently wasn't the topic on their Healer's mind. "How old are your kids, Chief?"

"Fourteen and fifteen, by now."

"And when you left?"

"Twelve and thirteen. Why?"

"No reason," the man said, watching three young men go into a port town with money.

%%%

"Are you sure this is okay?" Zuko asked. Again. "It's just that, the budget on my ship was—"

"Extravagant, your Highness?" Panuk asked, raising his eyebrow in the same way he did when he was baiting Toklo into a topic-changing argument.

"Limited. It's really okay to just… spend this? On anything?" It was reassuring, having friends he could ask for advice.

"We don't get much of a wage," Toklo said, "it's not like we're a merchant ship, or something; the Earth Kingdom gives us a—what's the fancy word?"

"Stipend," Panuk replied. "We're cost effective navy contractors, apparently."

"Yeah, that. But the point is, what we do get is ours. The Chief's not going to yell at you for spending your own money."

%%%

Hakoda was trying very hard not to yell at Zuko for spending what was, admittedly, his own money. He was instead taking a breath, and trying not to elbow Bato to make him stop laughing.

His second in command had gotten in the habit of standing with his still healing side to Hakoda. That action might be more pre-mediated than Hakoda had previously assumed.

"—Was a really good deal," Zuko continued, exactly like an excited teenager. "I don't think the pawn broker knew what he had. They're a little rusty, but look, it's barely even surface level. And the grips need to be redone but that's just cosmetic. And their last owner didn't know how to maintain an edge at all, but I got a good deal on the whetstone too—"

When Hakoda had given their resident firebender money to get what he needed, he hadn't expected the boy to come back with swords.

Or a theatre scroll.

"I've heard of this one, but it's technically banned in the Fire Nation, so anytime Uncle and I were in port not even the street performers would put it on in case we took insult—"

The hair ties were at least practical, even if the kid's hair wasn't quite long enough to stay in one, and over-long bangs kept slipping free.

"And the earrings?" Hakoda asked, keeping his arms crossed, where he couldn't either rub his temples or pinch the bridge of his nose.

The prince was, unfortunately, beginning to pick up on Hakoda's lack of enthusiasm. The bristling increased. The excited stream of words accompanying each of his purchases dried up. He stood between his friends, his posture tense, hugging his rusty second-hand swords to his chest.

"We match!" Toklo said, picking up where the boy left off. "See? Panuk and I got red, and Zuko got blue, and we got them on the same side because—well, you know."

Because Zuko had only gotten one in his good ear.

"We couldn't agree on a tattoo," Toklo confided.

"Tattoos are for crime syndicates," Zuko hissed.

"You're just upset they didn't have a turtleduck design."

"I was—I was just looking through the book! Because you were taking forever! I didn't actually want—"

"What is a turtleduck, anyway? Are they scarier than they sound, or something? I had you pegged as a sabertooth moose-lion kind of guy—"

Hakoda continued to refrain from dealing with his headache, or inflicting bruises on his best friend's ribs. "When I gave you that money, this is not what I pictured you buying."

"Then why didn't you say that?" the kid snapped. And then managed to look even more like a snapping-viper trying to retreat back into its shell. "I could sell back the swords. And the scrolls. But Toklo paid for the earrings, that was all his idea, it wasn't even your money, I don't know why you care. ...Could— May I keep the scroll? It—it didn't cost much, see, it's from one of those new printing presses, and it has a tear in the third act—"

Bato was biting his lip, and not-so-subtly wheezing. Kustaa was also on deck. He'd very pointedly set himself up with a book, and hadn't much moved since the boys had left.

"Just be happy it wasn't hookers," their Healer chimed in, not even pretending to read now. "It wasn't hookers, was it?"

"No," Zuko said, his face about as red as that shirt he had hidden in his hammock.

Bato slung an arm over Hakoda's shoulders. "You sent him into port with a full purse and no directions, and he came back with a body piercing and sharp things. That's the most normal teenage thing he's ever done."

"Really?" the ex-prince said, perking up.

"Don't encourage him." Hakoda finally gave into the urge to rub his temples.

"Hey, this is a good thing," Panuk said, with that grin of his that made Hakoda glad he wasn't the boy's chief. "We're socializing him on the proper way to make bad decisions."

That should not have been a valid point.

"Just explain to me, please," Hakoda asked, "why you bought a cabbage? You could have put that on the supply list with the rest of the food."

The three boys exchanged looks.

"Yeah, that was weird," Toklo said. "Some guys were talking about the Avatar, and Zuko started kind of loudly yelling about him being twelve and a pacifist and more of a menace to the world than a savior, and then this cabbage merchant just kind of…"

"He gave it to me?" Zuko said. "Really enthusiastically?"

"I think he was crying," Panuk said.

Hakoda stopped asking. "We'll talk tonight," he told Zuko. "You're not in trouble."

"...Okay," the boy said, exactly like a boy in trouble would.

%%%

Hakoda caught Panuk later, while the prince was distracted trying to excavate the swords out of those rust piles he'd bought.

"Toklo is Toklo," Hakoda said, "And Zuko… doesn't have the best understanding of normal expectations. But you knew what that money was for."

The young man stood his ground. "Did you really want him coming back with a pile of blue clothes? Or would you like him to have a personality again?"

The former prince had bought swords, and seemed strangely confident in his own ability to repair them. A play scroll, when Hakoda had never seen him touch more than Kustaa's medical texts.

Hakoda let out a sigh. "And the earrings?"

Panuk flashed a grin, and tilted his head to set his own earring at a jaunty angle. "He really didn't want a tattoo."

%%%

"The Chief said you weren't in trouble," Toklo reassured him, as Zuko's hands ached from scrubbing off rust spots. "And the swords are cool. So relax, I'm sure it's fine."

Friends gave terrible advice.

%%%

That night, Chief Hakoda offered him his usual meditation lamp like nothing was wrong. Zuko didn't fidget, but he didn't sit down on the floor to start, either. The Chief had been going over his correspondence, and his maps, and all the other things he didn't bother hiding from Zuko anymore now that he wasn't a prisoner and wasn't a prince and didn't get any say on how the man was coordinating a fleet to kill people who weren't Zuko's anymore. Hakoda looked up, after another few moments of Zuko's not-fidgeting.

"We can talk after you're done," he said.

"Can't we talk now?" Zuko asked, because the man had already put it off all day. He didn't want to meditate first.

The Chief looked at him for a moment more, then moved some of his papers to the side. Zuko took a seat at his invitation, and set his mediation lamp to the side as well. Then the Chief got out a new sheet of paper and set it between them.

"It's about time you stopped living out of Toklo's sea chest. Let's make a list of what you actually need."

"...Okay," Zuko said.

They did. And then he meditated.

He really wasn't in trouble, though maybe he was, if he was going shopping with Hakoda instead of his friends. But it didn't feel like a punishment. The Chief was a busy man. Maybe Zuko should feel guilty for taking up his time. Instead… he felt like when Lu Ten had still been alive, and he would sneak Zuko and Azula the presents he'd bought them, when he'd come to see them first even before announcing himself to grandfather's court. Or when Uncle invited him to music night over and over even though Zuko always said no. Or when father came to one of his birthday celebrations. Not for the whole thing of course, his time was too valuable for that even when he'd still been a prince, but he came.

Zuko was… looking forward to tomorrow. A little.

%%%

The next day, they went shopping. Hakoda took the boy to get a sea chest, first, so they'd have something to carry all the rest in. And by "they" he meant "he", because Kustaa still had the boy confined to a sling. It was, he suspected, more than a little due to spite, and the fear of what kind of hand-to-hand training they'd start doing when the kid had both arms free.

"This one's okay," Zuko said, finding the plainest and cheapest trunk on display.

"Too boring," Hakoda said.

"What?"

"Find one with personality. Otherwise how are you going to tell it apart from everyone else's?"

"Because theirs will have personality and mine won't?"

Hakoda waited. The kid glared for a moment, seemingly on principle. Then he huffed and actually started looking.

He hovered over one with a sea serpent design—rather dragon-like sea serpents—before picking out one with a repeating wave motif that was next to it. Hakoda paid for the one with the serpents. He worried a bit that it was a mistake, that maybe the boy really had liked the waves better, but when they stopped at the cobblers to get him in a pair of shoes that weren't three sizes too big, Zuko sat on his new chest during the sizing. His fingers traced the serpents' manes, followed their coiled bodies, fanned out over their wings.

The boots went on his feet. Tuluk's old pair went into the trunk.

They picked up a shaving kit next, much as Ranalok would be disappointed at having to keep his own razor clean and sharpened again. Hakoda caught the kid eyeing some Earth Kingdom style woven blankets on a stall as they passed. Earth and Fire shared similar tastes in bedding, Hakoda recalled. The blankets weren't as weighty or as warm as furs, but with spring around the corner they were cheap enough. The boy stepped into the haggling and somehow bought the price down to half what it was, and with a pillow tossed into the deal.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" Hakoda asked, avoiding his first thought on how to phrase things: Why does a prince haggle like he's on his last copper?

The ex-prince flushed. "Father expected me to be frugal."

Hakoda didn't need more motivation to kill the Fire Lord. Nonetheless.

Just the seamstress, then. A few sets of clothes, and then maybe he could treat the kid to a lunch he hadn't cooked. The crew could figure out their own meal for the afternoon.

"Sure he doesn't need a coat, too?" The shopkeeper was a tall Earth-blooded woman with a critical gaze. It was currently turned on Zuko's—Toklo's—coat. And the way the sleeves still dangled almost to the end of his fingers.

Hakoda smiled. "Better to hold off on a coat until next winter, with the way he's growing."

The boy gave a start at the words next winter. Then he tucked his face half into the fur lining of his borrowed coat. Not far enough or fast enough to hide his flush. He hadn't been thinking that far ahead, had he? Hadn't pictured himself still with them a year from now, even with his apprenticeship. Hakoda realized, with his own start, that he hadn't pictured the boy anywhere else.

"Clothes about your size are over there." The woman pointed with a jerk of her head. "We can do adjustments if you grab something too big. Don't grab too small."

If Hakoda had thought ahead, he would have realized the boy would come back with an armful of blues. Panuk had been right.

"Zuko. Not even all of my clothes are blue. What other colors do you like?"

"Blue is fine," the boy said. And scowled into Hakoda's continued silence. He looked away. "...Black is okay."

"Why don't you go find something black, then," Hakoda said. He followed the prince, keeping two blue shirts, and returning the rest to the stacks. "Get something in red, too."

"I don't…"

Hakoda cut that argument short by grabbing a red shirt himself, and adding it to the pile. The boy didn't argue further, which was as close to agreement as he'd get.

"You really want to put a kid like that in red?" The shopkeeper raised a brow.

"What do you mean?"

She shrugged, one-shouldered.

Hakoda had left the pile of their purchases next to Zuko. Zuko took this opportunity to snatch the red shirt off of it, and shove it deep in a stack of green. Hakoda cast a frown at the shopkeeper, and went to rescue it.

"I don't want it," Zuko said, as Hakoda set it back with the rest.

"It's what you wore before."

"But I don't wear it now."

"Red would look good on you, honey," one of the other customers put in, a woman with a somewhat lower neckline than Hakoda was used to seeing. And a significantly higher belly line. But then, life at the south pole hadn't much prepared him to see so much skin. The Earth Kingdom had different standards of dress to begin with, and they varied from region to region. The man she was with certainly didn't seem to mind.

"Are you buying, or just touching?" the shopkeeper said, settling the question of whether she was rude to just Fire-blooded people, or everyone.

"You don't have to get it if you don't want it," Hakoda said, a bit more quietly.

"I don't want it."

"All right."

"Fine."

The red shirt returned to the stacks, and stayed there. At least black clothes were taking its place.

"I need to check with Bato and see how the restocking is coming. I'll drop your sea chest at the ship, while I'm at it. Will you be fine doing adjustments alone? I'll leave the money with you, and I'll come back when I'm done."

"I'm not a little kid."

Hakoda took this as a yes. He shouldn't have, considering when he came back, the boy was gone.

"He left," said the shopkeeper.

Hakoda didn't think to ask 'with who'.

%%%

The shopkeeper was touching Zuko. Which she had to, to measure him. But that didn't mean he had to like it. Or her.

"That your father?" she asked. Zuko turned his head away, and set his jaw, which was all the answer either of them needed. "Ah. Nice of him to keep you around, then. Dote on you like this. You've got it better than most, boy."

The Chief expected Zuko to be here when he came back. And for the shop to not be on fire. Not that he'd do anything like that, but. Sometimes he wished he could solve problems like a proper Fire Prince. If he was back in Caldera, no one would dare talk to him this way. And if they did, he'd be well in his rights to—

But. But he still didn't think he'd want to.

(It was that weakness in him that had forced father to send him away. And Zuko hadn't learned his lesson, and now he was never going to see Caldera again, so he should get used to people talking to him however they wanted, because if he showed even a hint of firebending in an Earth Kingdom port—)

The shopkeeper was still talking, friendly-caustic advice about how he'd better work hard and keep his head down, or he'd end up begging in the streets like all the other lazy thieving coal children. Which wasn't a term he'd heard before. But it wasn't hard to figure out.

The two other customers were glaring their way. Zuko took deep breaths, and kept his mouth shut against any stray sparks.

"You don't need to take that from her, kid," the woman said. Her clothes were cut almost in a Fire Nation style. But with a higher neckline, and barely any of her stomach showing. It was also green and beige. So. Not actually Fire Nation style. She… wasn't glaring at Zuko.

"That's true," the man with her said. "She's the worst seamstress in port."

"Then why are you shopping here?" The shopkeeper scowled.

"It's cheaper to cut your shirts up than to buy new by the yard." He flashed a smile at Zuko. "Fabric is actually worth less after she gets her hands on it."

Which was approximately the point where all three of them got kicked out. At least Zuko had already paid for his new clothes. Now he just… needed to pick them up off the street before they got more trampled. But he still needed to get them fitted, Hakoda was expecting him to be done by the time he was back, not for him to have gotten in trouble the moment he was left alone—

The woman groaned, but she was smiling at her companion. "She's never going to let you back in there."

"Please, she never remembers me. I'll just do my hair different, unbind my chest, be a respectable lady."

"You are never a respectable anything."

"I didn't even do anything!" Zuko protested to the closed door, a tangle of dusty clothes clutched to his chest. "And I'm not with them!"

"But you could be," the man said. "You still need to get those adjusted, right? Wouldn't want you to feel uncomfortable in all those clothes."

"I need to wait here."

"Come on," the woman said, slipping an arm around Zuko's waist. "We'll teach you everything you need to know."

"Uh."

"Do you really need to wait for your minder?" the man asked. "I thought you weren't a little kid, sweet fire."

"I'm not."

%%%

Three hours later, after increasingly tense searching, Hakoda received a bill from Madam Sun's Massage Parlor. And a note.

Come collect your child.

Bato was significantly more entertained by this development than Hakoda.