deleonjh | The Dog Who Was a Prince

“Fuck.”

Wow, who was the potty mouth who was cursing so early in the morning? Katara lifted her head and looked around the room where she’d woken up. She was apparently lying in a hammock attached to the walls of a room made entirely out of metal. There were miscellaneous bags of something lying on the floor (dimly, Katara remembered that the floor on a ship was called the deck). Some of those bags looked familiar, and it took Katara a moment to realize that they belonged to her and Sokka. Was Sokka here too?

Oh, there he was sleeping in the hammock on the other side of the room. From the loud snores he was emitting, he hadn’t been the one who had greeted the new day with a hearty f-word. “Fuck me.” See, there it was again. It was coming from someplace really close by, too. So close that she could have sworn it was coming from her own mouth. “Merciful spirits, please fuck me dead.” Oh wait, it was coming from her own mouth.

“Did someone say ‘please fuck me’?” With those words, a teenage boy cheerily walked through the door. Katara stared bleary-eyed at him before she remembered who he was.

“Go ‘way, Zuko,” croaked Katara. “Iz too early inna mornin’ for you to be so loud. Wait, make evathin’ stop spinning before ya go.”

“What do you mean ‘early’?” asked Zuko. “It’s almost mid-afternoon, you’ve been sleeping for half the day.”

“Ah, fuck.” Oops, she should really stop dropping f-bombs so much.

“How’s the hangover?” asked Zuko.

“What hangover? I’m still drunk.”

“Yeah, that was some party, huh? Oh, sorry about sticking you and your brother in the same room. I know girls like their privacy but your brother was shouting about protecting your virtue last night before he started vomiting on everyone around him. We put you two together just to shut him up, but we can try putting him up with your Airbender friend later. Come down to the mess hall when you’re up to it, it’s just down the hall to the right, you can’t miss it. Cook’s got his special hangover soup that he’s been simmering all day.”

Aargh, that was too much talking. Katara laid back and covered her eyes with her arm before she realized Zuko had finished whatever he was saying. “Gruh,” said Katara in acknowledgement.

Zuko turned around to walk away before he stopped and remembered something. “Oh yeah, the women’s bathroom is to the left. You’re the only girl here so there won’t even be any line-ups for when you need to pee or if you need to, like, take a massive dump. Anyway, later!”

“Frung,” she said to the door closing after him.

Aang promised himself that he would never, ever, touch alcohol again. It was obvious from the bleary looks on their faces that some of the other people in the mess hall were making similar promises to themselves. No wonder the monks had warned novices about wine and spirits, the stuff was obviously a punishment for human licentiousness from the powers that be. Shakily, he lifted his bowl of soup to his lips. He really hoped he’d be able to keep this stuff down.

“Good morning, Aang!” said Zuko as he plopped himself down on the seat across from Aang.

“Muuh,” said Aang in response.

“I just saw Sokka and Katara, they’re still in bed but they’ll probably be coming here soon. I know how I felt on my first bender, but how are you doing?”

“Better,” croaked Aang. “This soup really works.”

“Yeah, who would have guessed snake bile and ground-up bear liver would work so well for hangovers? The secret is to beat the bear to death with sticks as painfully as possible, the fear makes their liver extra spicy.”

Aang briefly felt offended at inadvertently breaking his vow of vegetarianism but he set that aside since he was really too messed up to care. He was kind of disturbed about the animal cruelty thing, though.

Evidently, Zuko recognized Aang’s feelings since he hurried to reassure the monk. “Don’t worry, the liver doesn’t actually come from bears, that’s just a marketing strategy. It comes from hobos instead!”

Aang carefully set his bowl of soup down and drank as much water as he could from the pitcher on the table.

“What?” asked Zuko. “The liver is one of the few organs that regenerate. It grows right back, those hobos make a pretty good living selling their body parts.”

“Please stop talking,” begged Aang. “My stomach’s practically empty and throwing up would be kind of unpleasant.”

Zuko shrugged and left to get some actual food from the kitchen. He came back with a tray holding a bowl of rice and some kind of teriyaki fish thing. Aang blearily watched the prince eat his late lunch before something occurred to the monk.

“This ship is moving, right? Why are we already leaving the Southern Water Tribe?”

Zuko paused in his eating to squirm in his seat and look uncomfortable. “Uh, some idiot got loaded last night and crashed the ship through their outer wall, so the Water Tribe was kind of ticked off. I paid for it and everything but I thought it would be better not to hang around. I’ll punish the scapegoat as soon as I can find someone to pin it on. Err, I mean, as soon as I find the idiot responsible.”

That fish was smelling pretty good. Aang wondered if he could bend his vegetarian vows just a little bit. Fish barely counted as meat, they were ugly and stared accusingly at you like they knew how often you masturbated, so maybe it was okay to eat one as a one-time thing. Then something occurred to Aang.

“So if we’re leaving the South Pole, where are we going, then?”

“Just kind of north,” said Zuko vaguely. “Maybe we’ll resupply at one of the southern ports. Why do you ask?”

“If we could, could we maybe stop by the Southern Air Temple?”

“Yeah, sure,” agreed Zuko, but then the prince apparently realized something as he immediately began backtracking. “I mean, no, it’s completely out of our way. There’s this really awesome strip club I heard about to the northeast, I think I can sneak you in even if you’re underage.”

Aang gave Zuko a sad smile as he listened to his new friend babble weird promises about cherries and swimming in some lake called Poontang. “It’s all right, Zuko, Sokka and Katara told me about what happened to the Air Nomads. It’s just that I grew up in the Southern Air Temple and I’d really like to see it for myself again.”

“Right, I just wanted to spare you the pain of seeing the temple,” agreed Zuko. Then he hunched over and pretended to be absorbed in eating his food.

“So can we go to the temple, then?” asked Aang.

Zuko began squirming in his seat again before he sighed softly and began staring at his half-empty bowl. “Okay,” he mumbled eventually with his mouth full of rice.

“Thanks, Zuko,” said Aang in appreciation.

As Iroh stumbled into the sunlight, he saw his nephew chatting on the deck with a group of other youngsters. He stared at the new people as he tried to remember what had happened last night. Who were these kids again? “Crewman,” said Iroh to a crewmember who was swabbing the deck, “did we pick up passengers in, uh . . .”

“The South Pole, sir,” said the sailor, who was familiar with Iroh’s alcoholic blackouts. “We were there two days ago. And yes, Prince Zuko offered to take the Avatar and his friends to the Northern Water Tribe so that the Avatar could learn waterbending.”

“The Avatar!” exclaimed Iroh. Of course, how could he have forgotten? They’d found the Avatar at last, so they could finally go home, hand over the Airbender, get Zuko reinstated as Crown Prince, build him up into a worthy leader, and have him take over as Fire Lord, and then afterward Iroh could retire to the Earth Kingdom and never, ever, see Zuko again. No, wait, maybe Iroh was celebrating prematurely.

Well, he might as well step forward and introduce himself to the monk. “Avat—“ began Iroh before the ship gave a sudden lurch, causing his stomach to leap into his throat. Quickly he ran to the ship railing to vomit over the side.

“Hi, sir!” said the Airbender as Iroh puked into the ocean. “You’re Zuko’s uncle, right? He said it was his mission to find me, which he did. Isn’t that really lucky?”

“Bleeargh,” replied Iroh. Sweet spirits, how could he be vomiting this much when his stomach was practically empty?

“Anyway,” said Aang obliviously, “Zuko said he didn’t really care about taking me back to the Fire Nation, so I could stay on this ship for as long as I want. I guess we can talk more when you’re not feeling sick. I can introduce you to Appa, too, he’s down in the hold right now sleeping. Have a great day! Oh, don’t try the hangover soup.”

Iroh was feeling too miserable to answer.

“So then I said, ‘You think you can steal my money from me? Well, you’re absolutely right!’ Then I threw all my cash at him and ran the other way.”

Katara giggled at Zuko, who was mystified at why she thought he was joking.

Aang watched Katara laughing with a weird feeling in his stomach. He turned to Sokka, who was fiddling with an extra-long fishing line hanging over the side of the ship. “Sokka,” he said to the older boy, “are you really okay with Katara being so close with Zuko? I mean, he's a nice guy and all, but didn't you say the Fire Nation were all bad guys?”

“I thought you were all buddy-buddy with the Fire Nation,” said Sokka absent-mindedly as he watched the sea in anticipation. “Didn't you say you were in a total bromance with this one guy back in the day?”

“That's not what I said, you make it sound like I had a crush on him! I said I was best friends forever with Kuzon!”

“Bromance, friendship, you were totally into him and junk. You had a Fire Nation friend back then and you have a Fire Nation friend now.”

“Yeah, okay, but that was a hundred years ago and things change and, uh, stuff.” Aang knew as he was talking that his excuse was exactly as pathetic as it sounded like. Sokka regarded him suspiciously before answering.

“Riiight. Well, you know what doesn't change? How awesome meat tastes! They've got meat here that I've never even heard of before!”

“What does that have to do with Katara's relationship with Zuko?”

“It's got everything to do with it!” said Sokka cheerfully.

Aang stared at Sokka in confusion before he caught on to Sokka's meaning. “Sokka! How could you pimp out your own sister like that?”

“What? It's not like she hates the guy and he’s actually pretty cool.” At that point their conversation was interrupted off by the sound of bells ringing.

“Whoops,” said Sokka “It's third watch now and I promised Cook I'd taste-test some recipes he's trying out. See ya!”

Aang watched in annoyance as Sokka scurried off. Before he could chase after the other boy, the crewman guy up in the big pole thingy shouted, “Land ho!” Honestly, Aang didn’t know what the proper naval terms were. Then he realized what the sailor had said. Land! He could finally take Appa and fly the rest of the way to the Southern Air Temple!

“You’re being awfully quiet,” said Katara to Zuko, who gave her a fake-looking smile and a noncommittal shrug. “Don’t worry, I know flying on Appa is kind of scary at first but you get used to it. You really should have come with us before when Aang took us all flying around the ocean.”

“You guys are going to love the temple,” said Aang in excitement. “It’s got the most amazing view and the Airball court is really awesome! I’ll show you how to play. Sokka, you can be on my team! There’s also this big statue of Monk Gyatso and a secret room that no one’s allowed in and, uh, fireworks?”

Aang trailed off in confusion as he saw bright explosions in the sky. “There are people living at the temple?” Then he looked down and saw groups of travelers climbing the winding mountain path. “Look! Pilgrims! People are still visiting the temple even after all this time!”

Zuko hunched further into his seat and moved so that Katara and Sokka were between him and Aang. Everyone riding on Appa gasped as they saw the Southern Air Temple for the first time.

“Look at all the people,” said Katara in wonder. “Look at how colourfully they’re dressed. There must be a festival today. Aang, what Air Nomad festival is today?”

“I don’t know,” said Aang as they came down for a landing. “I didn’t think there was any today. Maybe it’s new or, uh . . .” Aang trailed off as he saw people drunkenly shouting and smashing jugs of wine on the ground. He stared as he saw someone urinating against the wall of one of the temple buildings, then fall forward and pass out in a puddle of his own pee. He goggled at a group of girls dancing on a stage who began flashing their breasts when the crowd threw necklaces at them.

“Guys?” said Sokka as he pointed at a giant banner hanging between two buildings: Welcome to the Party on Top of the World.

Aang got down off Appa and looked at everything in shock. “What happened here?” he asked no one in particular. “Who are these people?”

“Hey, it’s Prince Zuko!” shouted one of the revellers.

“Go Zuko!” shouted another one.

The partygoers started chanting Zuko’s name. The rest of the gang turned to him expectantly.

“Well,” he said, “I may have mentioned to this one brothel owner who was looking for a new location to open a franchise that the Southern Air Temple was completely abandoned.”

“You what!” shouted Aang, who was now floating in midair. “You turned the Southern Air Temple into a brothel!” Light began shooting out of his eyes and mouth.

“You’re cute,” slurred a twentysomething girl with a bottle of wine in her hand. She proceeded to kiss Aang and shove a hand down his pants. The wind died down and Aang’s light show immediately stopped as he and everyone else stared at the girl in surprise.

“Uh,” said Aang to the girl, who still had her hand down his pants and was now pumping it back and forth.

“No talking,” she said as she pumped faster and took a swig from her bottle.

“Uh,” said Aang again as his eyes rolled up into his sockets. His feet were back on the ground again. “Uh, uh, uh . . .”

“Shh,” whispered the girl as she leaned down to lick his ear. At that action, Aang grit his teeth and collapsed on the ground. The girl smiled down at him and wiped her hand off on the front of his shirt. “Bye, cutie,” she said, then walked away.

Aang stared at his friends, who stared back at him. Finally, he got up and climbed back into Appa’s saddle. The rest of the group followed him. No one talked on the ride back to Zuko’s ship. For the rest of their lives, none of the four mentioned the Southern Air Temple ever again.