As the key slots into the lock of Azula's wrist's shackle our eyes meet once more. This close I can see there is still panic in hers. Her body is coiled like a particularly pyromaniac spring.
"Just me," I tell her, and I don't know why. Perhaps it's because even I don't wish for her to have been molested.
...
Something shifts in her expression. I can't tell if it's contempt, or distaste. It might be both. Azula has never been modest about her emotions.
She rubs her wrists as they come free, reddened, but not so badly that I feel it would be prudent to heal them. She frowns at me, just a tick of her brows and the corners of her mouth. My face is blank and bored-looking in response. I've come to realise that indifference hurts better than any show of condescension.
I sigh and unlock the last shackles. Immediately she attempts to stand. Her knees give out beneath her before she's risen to half her height.
"Were you…" I trail off once I hear my own voice in my usual monotone, at odds with what I want to ask her. Then, realising that it doesn't matter now, except for how she would need to be handled differently, and perhaps healed which I feel she would not enjoy, I continue. "Did they touch you?"
Her eyes narrow further, and her mouth twists into a snarl. "What do you think?"
I look at her carefully. Her clothes are… they look alright. Not like someone attempted to get through the layers. And Gorou did say not to damage the merchandise.
I lift my brows. "…Not, then?"
"As if they would dare," she hisses.
I glance at the pirates, all of them either knocked out or too wounded to move. They would. I'm fairly sure. That she is a princess is the opposite of a deterrent.
My half-lidded stare as I offer her a hand to stand conveys my thoughts, and even as she takes it, leaning heavily on me to steady herself as she forces her legs to cooperate, her mouth quivers until she presses it into a thin white line. Most of her weight is on my arm now, and I notice that not only she is at the end of her rope. But there are things that need doing.
"The chains from below," I say to Mai over my shoulder, and elaborate at her confused look, "We'll chain these…" I consider my range of insults, and settle on the most simple thing I could call them, "Pirates up for interrogation. There seem to be enough shackles to go around."
She goes to retrieve them, brother still in her arms. We'll need to feed him soon, along with ourselves. I do hope their kitchen is stocked.
Hands clasped, Azula and I shuffle towards the railing. It's awkward, having to balance for another person who is generally unwilling to even touch, and even worse when it comes to relying on someone else. We're both glad to let go of each other.
With exhaustion in the forefront of my mind, I return to an old and worn habit from my past life. A to-do list.
Item one: free the girls has already been accomplished.
Item two: chain up the bad men – myself excluded –, in process.
Item three: check our course, where the pirates I threw overboard are, and prepare and adjust accordingly.
Item four: feed everyone important.
Item five: interrogations. I want to know where we are, exactly; how far the next large trading hub is; what the best route to Ba Sing Se is; how they intended to contact the Fire Nation and cache in the ransom or reward without being incarcerated themselves; what they know about the war, what the word is on the Avatar's return; and who I need to fuck over to get access to the Dai Li – although that last one is just in the eventuality that they know some people in Ba Sing Se.
Item six: decide what I want to do with the pirates, and find out what the girls' plans are. They will hardly continue travelling and hunting the Avatar together, unless I have them pegged entirely wrong. Azula has lost their loyalty and they have lost her trust.
Item seven: rest in a situation where I won't have my throat slit.
As I compose this list in my head, Circus Girl is already searching the bodies for weapons and other useful things. The motions seem practised to me, and I wonder vaguely if she picked up some bad habits from her time as a gypsy.
She looks up at me suddenly, as if sensing my judgement of her. One of her hands is still stuck down the front of a man's tunic, and she crouches over him like a proper scavenger, ready to bolt at any second. Her stare is apprehensive, and somehow stubborn.
I decide to mess with her a little. I smile, allow my eyes to crinkle so that she can see it even as I still wear my mask.
Thoroughly weirded out, she goes back to concentrating on her task.
With the sound of metal clinking together Mai emerges from the bowels of the ship. Her brother sits on her shoulders as she drags what must be about her weight in shackles behind her. Circus Girl immediately goes to help her.
I think they have this well enough in hand, and Mai will hardly make another blunder as the one that I had to correct. So I wander back up the stern, to the steering wheel, and where I left the shredded captain.
The wet sound of his breathing is slightly revolting, and I realise that he's dying. With the amount of blood on the planks, pooling there instead of dripping down into the gaps the ship must have been recently oiled and lacquered, he doesn't have long. Well, I suppose I need him for interrogation later.
The first step is to confirm the gravest wounds, and where to get some of his blood back into his body. I've done it before, after all, with one of my tribe. I know the procedure well, had to write a detailed report for Yugoda. At the same time, I need to keep the blood from clotting.
With great effort, I draw strength from the water that surrounds us, and the moon – Yue, thank you, I suppose, hope you're not watching me too often and instead keeping an eye on Sokka. As I lay a hand on his chest, and feel the flow of his blood, and where the most of it is still exiting his body, I gather some of the blood by my knees and begin the infusion.
Once I have a stable flow going, I begin to close some of the blood vessels, so that my work here won't come undone.
I don't heal him completely. He still won't have use of his arms. But he won't die. So easily.
With him mostly stable again, I stand, and check on the other pirate still on the stern. He's unconscious. Alright, then. That's something.
Checking our course, I look past the large sails, and realise the ship is quite large. It has to be, with holding cells, but it also means that this river is likely to spill into the sea, since the farther upstream it heads, the less likely it is to be able to continue on. If I have the map I got from General Fong in my head correctly, that means we're not too far off from Lao Ling, that Azula and I passed by on our great escape. Perhaps the captain has a map in his cabins, and preferably a nautical one that I could consult. I wonder if my knowledge on those is still up to speed. At the moment, we're going downstream at about six knots. I see no end to the river yet, so we'll be fine on this course for the time being.
I will have to station one of the girls here, though, to look out for obstacles, and other ships.
Do we hiss a flag? Where would they keep them? Perhaps in the captain's cabin, or the first mate's. We'll have to search those.
The girls – women, now – are done chaining up the pirates, and there are even some left for the captain and his friend beside me. How fortunate. The fact that there are enough shackles aboard the ship to chain every single one of the crew reinforces my belief that we are dealing with quite the deplorable sort of high-risk traders.
Circus Girl comes to truss them up. It seems there is an uneasy truce between us now, probably thanks to Mai and a few imploring words. I wonder how Azula will fit into this. I don't imagine she'll deliberately cause trouble, now. But once the situation changes, and she is able to turn it to her advantage, she's a wild card.
"You don't, by any chance, know where the galley is?" I ask when she's done.
She nods, "Yes. I knocked out the cook before I was caught." She scowls.
"Alright," I nod at her, and turn to Mai to shout, "Would you come up here and hold the course?"
She does, and Azula watches her, still leaning against the railing. Mai takes the steering wheel from my hands, "Alert us if you see another ship coming."
Her nod is enough for me to gesture to Circus Girl to lead the way. She does.
...
Don't forget to throw some power stones :)
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