The sleeveless pink dress, if it could even be called just a "dress," that was delivered to Miyuki's room was oddly luxurious. It had a maroon lining that sported painstakingly intricate gold accents. The material was soft and smooth against her skin, and it felt almost wrong to be wearing something of such high quality. It almost felt as though it was worth more than she was.
Miyuki undid the braids to her usual half-up-half-down hairstyle in favor of the generic Fire Nation topknot, which she secured with a golden clip shaped like a small flame. The bell-shaped sleeves just barely reached past her elbows and didn't have much extra cloth so as to not catch fire or obstruct bending. She hummed. Practical in design, but fashionable.
The silhouette of the dress was clean and graceful. Unexpectedly flattering actually. She approved. Still, it felt strange to be clad in foreign clothing. She almost looked like a new person, now that she took a closer look at herself. Almost. Hopefully she could pass for someone from the Fire Nation like this.
Miyuki took one last glance at herself before heading outside, where she found Iroh and the exiled prince waiting for her. "Ah, just the people I was looking for," she greeted. "Thank you for the change of clothes. Do I look the part?"
"It suits you well, Miyuki," Iroh replied as he handed her a thick maroon cloak.
She thanked him as she wrapped herself in the warm cloth gratefully. Clearly, Fire Nation clothing wasn't suited for the cold and she was thankful for the additional warmth that it provided. She glanced at the prince who had been oddly silent. "By the way, when did you pick this up? We've only stopped in the Earth Kingdom to re-stock twice since the Zhao incident and this fabric feels expensive."
"Y-You look..." the prince began shakily. She cast him a curious glance in response to the waver in his voice. "You look suitable." He practically blurted the words out.
"'Suitable'?" she echoed.
He nodded curtly. "Yes. Suitable."
She blinked back owlishly at him. "Um, thanks..." she began. "I certainly wouldn't want to look unsuitable."
"I-I should go." He hurried down the hall and she heard him smack his forehead. "'Suitable'?" he muttered to himself, "Really?"
She turned back to the general when the prince was out of sight. "Your nephew is..." She hesitated as she searched for the phrase that she wanted. "How should I put this? He's quite the charmer."
Iroh sighed deeply. "He'll learn one day. I hope."
·:*¨༺ ★ ༻¨*:·.
Miyuki looked up from her book blankly as the exiled prince informed her that he and his uncle would be leaving to meet with the bounty hunter named June, who had made an appearance on their ship not too long ago and caused quite the commotion.
"You trust me that much?" The question came out without much thought and she had to stop herself from wincing visibly at the mistake.
"Should I not?" The expression of alarm on his face brought a faint smile to her lips.
She shook her head. "No, I'm just flattered. It's only been a few weeks, but you already trust me enough to leave me on the ship unsupervised?"
"You won't do anything though, will you?" he asked her, his general anxiety slowly seeming to rise.
She hummed playfully. "Even if I was going to, do you really think I would tell you?"
He gave her a look that she could only describe as a mix of warning and exasperation. "Miyuki."
"I won't do a thing. Promise." She flashed an innocent smile at him and batted her eyelashes. "Look at this face. Can you really say that this is the face of someone who would stir up trouble? Someone untrustworthy?"
He pushed her arm. "Coming from you? One hundred percent." She pouted at him and he sighed. "I know that you won't do anything. Enough of this," he replied with a hint of irritation at her teasing.
"I'll even stay out of your room."
"I know you won't do that either. Read here or whatever you want," he grumbled.
·:*¨༺ ★ ༻¨*:·.
Miyuki took her final move on the pai sho board with a satisfying clack. "Sorry gentlemen, but I believe that this is the end," she declared before collecting the coins from the table.
The men around the table groaned. "If General Iroh and Prince Zuko don't come back soon, we'll all be battered and broke," one of them proclaimed.
Another laughed. "Never thought we'd be wishing for that grouchy prince to take a pretty girl off our hands, eh?"
Miyuki chuckled. "Say what you will, but I'm afraid there isn't much else for me to do until Prince Zuko comes back. I'll help with cleaning and cooking again today if you'll trade me for another sparring session."
"No knives this time, please. Just bending," another chimed in.
"Understood. Oh, if you're getting any injuries, please let me know, and I'll heal them. I can't have Prince Zuko and General Iroh returning to find you all weary both physically and mentally."
"How kind." She could hear the sarcasm dripping from the phrase. "Can you do something about us being broke too?"
She hummed thoughtfully. "Stop gambling against me, and I'm sure you'll be fine."
They all burst into laughter. The crew was great. They took her banter with a quip in return and a laugh, and they finally seemed to be over the fact that she was from the Water Tribe. Best of all, when they sparred, they sparred. As expected of the Fire Nation military, it didn't matter if one was a man or a woman, so long as they fought well and pulled their weight, they were accepted. At the very least, there was something to be said about that.
"How about I trade you a firebending lesson in exchange instead?" The Lieutenant spoke up.
She glanced at the man curiously, interested to see why he would offer a firebending lesson to a waterbender before she realized that he had seen right through the reason she wanted to spar to begin with: to collect information on the patterns that firebenders fell into when fighting.
She put her palm and fist together to bow, ensuring that her palm was above her fist. "Deal."
·:*¨༺ ★ ༻¨*:·.
The general movement of firebending was predictably different from waterbending. When Lieutenant Jee offered her a firebending lesson, she wasn't sure exactly what she was expecting, but apparently, it wasn't a full blown firebending lesson. On one hand, maybe it was easier to teach her all the forms since there was no risk of her losing control of the fire that she couldn't bend, but at the same time, it was far more intensive than she was expecting it to be.
"Right hand higher, arm extended!"
Miyuki raised her right hand and made sure her arm was fully extended.
Jee nodded approvingly. "Good, run the set again."
She nodded, went back to a neutral stance, and ran the set from the top. Everything down to the very structure of firebending felt like the complete opposite of waterbending. Firebending seemed to rely on rapidfire attacks meant to overwhelm.
Circular movements were used to power up attacks, and while she was no stranger to circular movements, all the actions required in firebending seemed to require more force and tension than she was accustomed to. Jee's most repeated phrases of their lessons were "more power" and "more force."
She caught herself about to make a rather waterbender-like, slow turn and corrected it. Miyuki wondered how the Avatar dealt with learning all four elements. She was learning merely for the sake of more accurate prediction and it was already a headache in itself. The fact that firebending was, for some reason, divided into offensive and defensive movements in itself was vaguely confusing to her. Dividing them so rigorously made it easier to read.
Waterbending was nothing like that. Defensive techniques could just as easily flow into offensive techniques and vise-versa. Furthermore, defensive actions were usually just taking control of the momentum of an opponent's attack and turning it back against them. The mind boggled.
A shout for "more power" drew her out of her thoughts and she gave a corrected, more forceful punch to the air before moving on.
She bowed when she was done with the set and turned to Jee for feedback.
"You're getting there. If we were talking about truly firebending, I'd say your movements aren't as crisp and forceful as they should be most of the time, but for your purposes, you're more or less there." The man nodded approvingly. "Those were the sets that most kids learn when they're just starting out, but I assume you want to see the advanced ones too?"
She nodded. "You know me too well, Lieutenant Jee. But first, can we take a break?"
"Of course. Take a moment to catch your breath."
A moment. As she thought, military types were rather strict. Still, a moment was all it took for her to slow her breath and remind herself to use more power and move with more force.
·:*¨༺ ★ ༻¨*:·.
It had been several days since Zuko and Iroh left, and Miyuki did her best to keep herself occupied, but nothing seemed to be enough. From playing pai sho and sparring with the crew to reading or straight up just napping, she did everything she could think of to pass the time. She was used to traveling alone, so it struck her as odd to come to the realization that she was bored without the prince or general to chat with. That she missed their company.
"Lieutenant Jee?" The man turned to her and she walked over to him. "I was wondering if you'd heard anything from Prince Zuko or General Iroh."
The man shook his head. "My apologies, Miyuki, but I haven't. Are you worried about them? It's only been a few days."
"Not particularly. Like you said, it's only been a few days," she replied with an air of feigned nonchalance. "More curious than anything else, really."
"If you really wanted to know, couldn't you have found out? That is your job, isn't it?"
She laughed easily. "Touche. But as it happens, I've already sent out the inquiries. All that's left to do is-" She paused when she caught sight of one of her messenger hawks beginning to circle overhead.
Miyuki raised her arm after securing the arm chap around it and watched as the bird dove down and landed gracefully on her forearm, talons digging into the sturdy leather. She took the message attached to its leg
"What does it say?" Jee asked.
Her eyes skimmed the scrap of paper quickly. "The Avatar appears to have left an abbey yesterday. It seems that Prince Zuko and General Iroh were stranded there for a few hours after being paralyzed," she reported before ripping the message up and tossing it into a torch. She walked to the perch that she had set up for her birds and waited for the hawk to take a place there before lowering her arm. "I know they haven't asked for it yet, but shall we change course and pick them up, Lieutenant?"
The man smiled a little and nodded. "Sounds like a fine idea. I'll let the crew know."
·:*¨༺ ★ ༻¨*:·.
Extra:
Miyuki sat across from the prince, huddled up under the blankets while he caught her up to speed on his adventure with June. "While we were on the hunt, we met a kooky, old herbalist with a cat named Miyuki," the prince told her.
She opened her mouth to reply and then closed it again to wait for the punchline.
He smirked a little. "I happened to think it was fitting. The cat was fat and spoiled."
Miyuki hit his arm lightly and chided, "Rude."
He laughed in response, and it wasn't before long that she was laughing right alongside him.