Pai Sho

We had crossed further south, on our merry way to the pole, but the coast of some windblown islands was giving us grief. The shoreline was full of uneasy and vile ocean currents, all the while being littered with treacherous stony banks. It threw our course, and our ship in general, way out of whack. The waves kept slapping us list, and that's boat-speak for the ship tilting in a nerve-racking angle ninety percent of the time at sea. It was seriously killing off the otherwise quite sea-sturdy crew. Three of our guards were down in the cabins too sick to move, though the list was way more intense and nauseating below. Not to mention I had never been at sea for more than an hour before I came to this universe so I was one step away from loosing my goddamn mind.

I kept to the deck but on the fourth day of swaying like I was drunker than a sailor on leave, I decided to confront our dear captain.

"ZUKO! YOU HAVE TO STIR TO PORT! NOW!" I'd kicked the door in to the bridge, and stumbled to gain my footing again because of the pestering waves.

Zuko was holding on to the steering wheel and he'd jumped a little at my entry. When he glared over his shoulder I was the one to flinch. He was white as paper. Zuko didn't say anything, I figured he didn't dare speak because he was as ill as the rest of us, but his eyes could've struck lightning.

"Oh." The ship tipped again and I fell into the doorframe. I gazed out of the window on the bridge and I could see how the waves clashed against each other further out, suggesting there might be a rocky reef under them. It probably wasn't that easy to navigate in the first place, but my patience and understanding had gone over-board together with my breakfast a long time ago.

"Moor the ship as soon as possible or I'll jump off and swim to shore!"

Zuko turned stiffly back to his steering but I heard him say something vicious under his breath.

Iroh was sitting on the terrace under the straw roof of the local inn. We had rented the entire upper floor for our men and ourselves as the ship kept rocking even at port. I was lying with a cold cloth over my eyes and wished for the ground to stop swimming about.

"Kai, would you like me to teach you Pai Sho?" Iroh asked and I had to take a moment before sitting up. The summer night was light blue and cloudless, and even though we were closer to the North Pole that we'd ever been, the wind bore no promise of cold.

"No offence, but sitting still and contemplate tactics right now is not something my brain can do. I'm telling you, being swished around in a metal box for half a week has turned it to jelly." I hung my head. It felt like I was sitting on a raft.

"Hah! Contemplate tactics. Right." Zuko sneered weakly from where he lay on a bamboo sofa.

"You wanna fight?" I barked at him. The threat was mostly empty, as I doubted my legs would even stand right now.

"Are you challenging me?" He turned his head a fraction and glared.

"Fighting your friend is as destructive as fighting yourself. You two should let the pleasant breeze ease your minds and temper." Iroh cooed and sipped his tea.

"He's the one with the temper." I snorted.

"She is the one being disrespectful to the future firelord!" Zuko heaved himself up like gravity was stronger over on the sofa.

Iroh just sighed at our childish bickering.

"I'm serious, I could take you right now future firelord!" I stood, wobbled and lid a flame in my fist. Zuko got up and grabbed the couches back for support before spitting a flame out through his teeth.

"I'll take my tea to bed. Please try not to burn all the furniture, our funds are low enough as it is." Iroh shook his head and vacated the perimeter in a leisurely stroll.

"You should mind your insolent tongue!" Zuko hissed once we were alone.

"And you should try to enlighten that chauvinistic mind of yours!"

"I wasn't doubting that all women could conceive strategic thinking, just you." He smirked mockingly.

My eyes went round by the insult and I dropped my jaw.

"You- you-! Mean boy!" I huffed and jabbed a finger in the air at him, too infuriated to think of a good comeback.

"Ow. See that hurt my feelings." Zuko rolled his eyes wickedly.

"You are such a spoiled little brat!" I shouted and my flame flared for a moment before going out.

"Spoiled?" He glared. "Oh really? Which of this lavishness and splendor says spoiled to you?" An angry hand gestured the bamboo terrace. "Or maybe your are referring to my palace? Which I'm not allowed in?! Or my father's extravagant showers of affection? Yes, I agree, I have been spoiled for the world!" He spoke viciously with bitterness dripping from every word.

There was a silence. The moon-rays lid everything in its pale blue light.

"Oh shut up. Poor Zuko!" I wrung. "It get's a little tedious to hear you feeling sorry for yourself all the time! At least you have Iroh!" This fight's topic was morphing into something else entirely.

"I am not feeling sorry for myself." It was his turn to stumble for a decent retaliation. "If anyone's wallowing in their own misery it's you! Always crying and shouting how unfair life is! That's tedious!"

"I should kick you butt. Kick some of that annoying Zuko-ness right out of you!" My cheeks burned.

"You can try." He shrugged before readying a stance, swaying a little on his feet.

Blew my bangs out of my eyes and took my own stance and held the orange flames in between my fingers. The room still swayed but I tried to make no notion of it.

Then we came after each other at once. In an anti-climatic set of motions we both fell over. I tripped over my own ankles and Zuko lost his balance on a kick. The sound of us falling on our butts was too loud for the slumbering night.

The undertone of the ocean stood on the terrace.

An ugly giggle escaped me before I could catch it. It wouldn't be silenced and only grew in volume. I slapped my hands over my mouth and blurted out the laughter like a sneeze.

Zuko bowed his head and breathed a chuckle.

I looked at him in surprise.

"I didn't know you could laugh?" I said sarcastically in between the ripples of compulsive snicker.

"I laugh." Zuko said amusement hanging on to a corner of his lips. "I just only do it if there's something really funny… Like the time you spilled ink all over you." His amber eyes flashed.

"That was a unkind laugh! Those don't count." I shook my head in a smile and rubbed my lower back where I'd fallen.

The last of my happiness slowly ebbed out of me as I watched the wave's white peeks.

I sighed. Zuko leaned against the couch.

The fight seemed to have run its course and I was feeling the burden of sadness weighing on my heart. Zuko had Iroh, and I had no one. Poor Kai really. And he was right. I did cry and wallow a lot.

"I don't think you're spoiled. Sorry I said that." I pouted after a moment's consideration. That statement had been untrue and hurtful. There was nothing spoiled about Zuko's situation. "I still think you are really full of yourself though." I scotched over to floor-cushion opposite him on the other side of the Pai Sho table, and got comfortable.

He snorted but softened a little.

"I don't think you're stupid." He muttered I glanced over at him and lifted my brow. "Just ditsy." He added in a smirk.

"Hey. I'm taking the high road here. Don't make me regret it." I narrowed my eyes.

"And why is that? Why are you being nice?" Zuko asked and slumped a little as we were both still quite ill.

"I'm always nice. And I'm a year older than you so it's understood that I should be the bigger person." My eyes closed for a minute.

"You're older than me?" Zuko frowned in disbelief.

"Yeah." I lifted a brow at him and glanced up. He looked different in the light. A warm lamp burned in a window facing the terrace and the moon was almost full.

"I wouldn't have guessed. When's your birthday?"

I was a little stumped.

"I don't have one here… I never considered that… Huh. When's yours?"

"It's the national past summer solstice in the firenation. The 86th of summer."

"Ehm. What?" I leaned in over the table and grinned.

"What 'what'?" He asked irritated.

"What kind of wacky calendar is that! The 86th? How many days does your month have man!"

"Month? I don't know what that is. Each season has 90 days." He leaned in too. "What do you have?"

"Like, approximately every 30 days is a month and there's 12 months in a year, pretty simple really, it just follows the moon." I shrugged.

"12! How do remember them all?" Zuko asked astounded.

"Good question… Heh, but I guess the same way you probably have memorized every member of the royal firenation bloodline, right?"

Zuko smirked and breathed a laugh.

A light was blown out behind a curtain in the window, and suddenly it seemed a lot more intimate sitting in the dark together. Zuko and I caught each other's eyes, but glanced away.

"So…" I smiled a little crookedly. "I should…" I gestured a thumb over my shoulder.

"You don't want to prove me wrong? Did you hit your head in that fall?" Zuko suggested a little sharply.

"Eh?" I drew my brows.

"Pai Sho?" Zuko gestured the gritted surface between us. The checkered table had a drawer with the tiles that Zuko pulled out. The many small pieces 'clacked' on the table and I had to blink at the shear amount.

"But I don't know the rules." I rested my chin in my palm while he set the game.

"I'll show you." He placed the round wooden pieces in patterns.

"You know… We're both pretty bad losers…" I muttered in my palm. He had slender fingers.

"I'll be polite if you will. Pay attention. This is the most important. The Chrysanthemum tile, uncle calls it the soul of the game so we have to protect it. It goes over here." Zuko started explaining the complex procedures of how to win the game, but I had to admit that my glance was more drawn to his concentrated face than the ancient pass time.