Zek

"Oh how nice it'll be to be back on the Patriot again. More out of spite for Luke than anything else," I joked.

Naturally, none of us had anything against one another. It was simply the way that entertainment worked in this modern world-at the expense of another. The truth was, ever since Ba Sing Se, I think I'd found myself closer to Luke than anybody else, with the exception of Ka'lira of course.

He reminded me of Hizo in a way. The two couldn't have had personalities any more different, but at the very least, Luke was just as easy to talk to, just as easy to insult and joke around with without him taking it to heart. It's what I needed. It's what got me through Ba Sing Se, having my old childhood friend there to keep me company. Losing him at that forsaken city, Citadel, I couldn't have seen things getting any better. Somehow, of course, they had, at least in some respect.

Ka'lira chuckled, it slowly stifling and being softened as she looked around to see if we were far enough away from the campsite, asking, "We're not really that loud, right?" She was practically whispering when asking this, and I found myself being reduced similarly to a whisper as well.

"I didn't think we were. I thought we were actually keeping it tame."

"And we weren't even doing anything."

"Well…define 'not doing anything.'"

"Going all the way."

"Ah, of course. Right right."

She shot a devilish grin my way, saying, "Just going to have to wait, bud."

"Hey, I didn't say anything!"

"You thought it though!"

"Okay, if I can get blamed for everything that goes through my head, then I really have no chance at all, do I?"

"Nope!" she responded with a smile as we continued along through the darkening landscape, searching for somewhere that offered at least a slight degree of solidarity.

The last few weeks had been, well, there was no other way to put it than to say they'd been nice. There was something oddly refreshing in feeling as though you constantly had somebody at your side, somebody who, when it came down to brass tax, was an friend, an ally, a partner, and beyond that, just somebody to face down the world with. Every moment felt just a little bit easier, more enjoyable, more worthwhile when there was simply somebody else there to do it alongside. For all the shit I'd given Hizo over his obsession with Shanzi back in Yu Dao, I was starting to realize that he may have been on to something. Well, at least in the general sense. His taste in women still had left a lot to be desired.

We eventually managed to find a small cleft left by the malformed mountainside, not too far yet not too close to camp, enough to offer some privacy from Gordez as he took first watch and avoid disturbing our sleeping beauty, Luke, but not far enough to put us at the mercy of the outside world.

Away from the forest, no longer hiding beneath a thick ceiling of leaves and branches, one could finally observe the sky above. It was something I had first learned to appreciate in the days after Ba Sing Se, the first ones we'd spent at sea, miles away from any light source, just in the dead center of a dead sea, nothing to light the way ahead save the stars and moon.

Right here, right now, it felt the exact same way, the two of us huddled together, backs against a stone wall, facing up into the night sky, our faces lit by the near full moon.

"Waxing," I said.

"What?"

"The moon."

"What do you mean, waxing? Like, with wax?"

"No. Growing. Getting bigger."

"Ah. That's called 'waxing?'

"Yeah." I was suddenly starting to realize the amount of useless information I'd learned from school back in the colonies. And it was more than apparent right now, being able to give a pretentious name for the moon becoming more full.

"So gonna be full soon then?"

"Looks like it."

"Hmm. Perfect time to be going looking for xenophobic waterbenders who may try to kill us at first sight."

"Ought to make it more exciting at least."

"That's a word for it," she chuckled.

A cold breeze flew over us in that moment, prompting her to huddle herself closer to me, wrapping her arms around my neck as I removed my arm from my coat, wrapping its end around her, pulling her closer in what simply felt right at the moment, and judging by the way she turned her head towards mine and our eyes met, I could only assume that it had indeed been the right call.

"Nice sky tonight," she managed to let out in between shivers.

"It is. You know, we can head back to the camp if ya want. Stay by the fire."

"No, no," she said, digging her head further into the nook between my head and shoulder, further pulling herself closer to me. "I'm happy right where I am."

I smiled at that comment. How couldn't I? Having a beautiful woman huddled in my arms, clutching to me for warmth. What in the world could there have possible been to complain about?

Some time of silence had gone by. I wasn't sure how long, save for the fact that, at one point, she'd spoken, saying, as though knowing he'd crossed my mind on more than one occasion today, "Tell me about Hizo?"

"Hmm?"

"Your friend. The one you mentioned before."

I scoffed. "Hmph. I didn't mention much about him. Surprised you remembered."

"I'm a good listener," she retorted, her head still buried into me, not that I would have it any other way.

"Alright. I suppose I can oblige. We grew up together in the colony Yu Dao, first and biggest of the Fire Nation's. Was not much more than a poor, run-down, backwater village. Or at least, that's what I think I remember the history being. Never paid much attention back in school. Hizo and I, when we weren't ditching class, were in some way or another screwing around, finding all manner of ways to distract ourselves whether it was passing flying notes to each other, trying to antagonize this one firebender in our class, Zenji, until he'd firebend, punishable by detention, or something else along those lines."

"How old were you when you first met Hizo?"

"How old was I? Hell, I couldn't tell you. He was just always there so to speak. Even before school had begun and the like. Was just always us taking on the world. Anyway, we were, obviously, thick as thieves. I tended to be more the troublemaker, though. Hizo, while he'd preach responsibility, wouldn't put much of a fight before he'd join me in my antics one way or another, sometimes getting far more into them than even I was."

"Tell me about some of them?"

"Our antics?"

I could feel her head nod against my arm.

"Very well. Remember this one time, we were probably in our teens at the time. For some reason of another, Hizo and I were under disciplinary probation and were made to keep ourselves busy by assisting the Yu Dao local government with this one experiment they'd been running. It was something along the lines of them wanting to write the news from the past week and sell it to people who wanted to know what was going on in the city. We took it seriously at first, at least, relatively knowing us, but after a while, the entire thing was starting to flop as half the people in Yu Dao couldn't read and the other half couldn't be bothered to read. Only people who read were our schoolmates who mainly did so just to poke fun at us for the mistakes we'd made. Since hardly anybody read anyway, we figured we could make reality whatever we wanted it to be and so slowly took to either slandering, no, what is it, 'libeling' our friends, crafting convoluted stories around them, to, eventually, just outright killing them in the news and putting their names in the obituary.

"Turns out, our friends' parents would read our newspaper too, so when one of our friends had spent the night at a girl's place, not coming home, only for his mother to read his name in the obituary the next day, it was, well, it wasn't pretty." I could feel the soft thumping of Ka'li's head against my shoulder as though from chuckling, or maybe simply shivering. It was hard to tell, but I had no complaints. I couldn't think of any way to view the feeling negatively if I had tried.

"Anyway, some more time would go on, and he, like other teens our age, eventually became infatuated with the gentler sex. He wasn't much of a lady's man, so, unfortunately, at least in my mind, he had to sink pretty low, prime example being this girl, Shanzi, hence the name of our tank. Now, mind you, she wasn't a bad looker. She was attractive, and from what I heard, good in the sack. And when I saw 'from what I've heard', I mean from nearly everybody in town. I don't think there was a single male specimen in that town who hadn't had a slice of her, excluding myself of course, but despite this, Hizo would always remain infatuated with her. They'd even started dating, not that she ever, you know, stopped her, how to put it, scandalous ways. She would be the cause of many an argument between me and him back in the day, his mentality being that of women being queens, and mine falling more under the lines of bros before hoes, but, those arguments wouldn't last long, 'specially after we got drafted. Weren't many women in the military to keep us apart then," I finished with a sad smile, a part of me knowing I'll never stop missing the man.

There was still that same motion against my shoulder now, though it was slower, more rhythmic. It didn't take me long to realize she'd fallen asleep. I smiled, myself wanting nothing more in that moment to close my eyes with her and let myself drift off as well, my head leaning against hers, but some risks just weren't worth taking, even though this one came rather close.

I don't think I'd ever done anything more carefully in my life than I did right then in slowly getting in a position to scoop her up in my arms like a toddler, deliberately placing every foot in front of the other as I slowly and surely made my way back towards the campsite, her in my arms.

Gordez, ever the vigilant watchman, noticed us approaching from a good distance away, but didn't say anything, likely not wanting to wake the slumbering Luke, as I slowly set Ka'lira down on her sleeping bag, taking cautious effort in tucking her in, but somehow, eventually managed to do so without waking her.

"When's next watch begin?" I whispered to Gordez, kneeling down next to him.

"'Round half an hour."

"Hmm. I can take it from here."

"Next watch is Luke's."

"I'll switch mine with his. Don't feel like sleeping just yet."

"We drew straws."

"Eh, screw your straws. Let 'im sleep a bit longer.

"Hmm. Fine. I'll finish my watch though. Not tired either."

"Mind if I hang around then?" I asked, crossing my legs and sitting atop them by Gordez's side, figuring I may as well get comfortable, assuming he didn't respond with a negative, however.

He simply shrugged. I suppose that was as much affirmation as I'd get. I knew what was on his mind. Ka'lira knew too. I doubt Luke did. I assumed that he understood the gist of it-Gordez leaving behind his closest friend, not necessarily knowing to what extent that 'friendship' went. Putting myself in his shoes, imagining Ka'lira in Boss's place, it was easy enough to imagine how Gordez was dealing with this.

"He's going to be fine. If he made it this far, they aren't going to do anything now. They're more reliant on us now than we are of them."

"That's a part of what I'm worried about."

I looked over at him. "What do you mean?"

"Really think Boss would leave them behind if he was what was keeping them together? You know how he is. He may just be the next Kiu. Thinks he can control them, keep their violent tendencies in line, ends up just being trapped by them."

"So you don't think he'll want to leave?"

"I think he'll want to, but whether or not he'll be able to? That's different." He let out a long exhale, the result of what I could only assume had been more than enough time spent on his own thinking of this while I was gone.

I knew what he meant. We were essentially the same way after all. The men he'd been responsible for at Ba Sing Se, who he couldn't leave behind. I knew that was the case for Luke, and even for me. He felt like he owed it to us. As though, since he'd been entrusted to watch over us, that responsibility didn't end with the abandonment of his post. He grew attached to those he was designated to watch over from day one. And that's what made him who he was. Not because he gave orders, not because he commanded people to his will, but he made it his responsibility to look over those who had entrusted their lives to him. That's what made him Boss. "He knows who his family is," I said, wanting to believe it to be true. "I know he'll make the right choice when it comes to it."

"Hmm. Guess we can't do anything except wait." He let out a deep yawn, the scruffy black beard of his becoming stretched along his jaw as he raised his arms into the air. "Think I'll take you up on your offer." He stood up, placing an arm on my shoulder before turning away towards his sleeping sack. "Night, Zek."

"Night, Gordez."

The watch would prove to be uneventful. I could make out the vague outline of the Nip from here, a shadow reflected the light of the moon back to the sky, rippling across the waves in the far distance. This was a beautiful world. Even nearly a century of war couldn't change that, or so I wanted to think, because as I looked further ahead, I saw what couldn't be seen, yet I knew to be there-hundreds of Fire Nation ships at the ready. We were in a warzone. We may not know what our role in this is, whose side we're on, but whether we liked it or not, we were a part of it. I looked around me at the sleeping forms of Luke, Gordez, and Ka'lira. Right now, this was the only side that mattered to me. My family. I wanted to believe that Boss saw us that way too. But if I had to make my choice between Boss and the people around me right here and right now, I knew which choice I'd make. I knew where my loyalties lay.