Spare me some crumbs o’ Goddess
"We have to hurry uncle," said Zuko as he got off the ship and sped walked.
Iroh followed closely behind Zuko and asked, "What for?"
Zuko turned around and leaned forward to look right into his uncle's eyes, "To continue looking for you know who! We can't risk losing his trail after finally finding him."
"You mean the Avatar?"
Hearing his uncle say Avatar right in the open, Zuko felt like he was going to go mad! Glaring at his uncle, Zuko said angrily, "Don't mention his name! Once word gets out there that he's alive, every Firebender is going to go out there looking for him."
Zuko already had a very tough time looking for the avatar ever since he had been banished.
It was his only goal and he made it his life-long goal. To look for the Avatar, regain his honor, and gain the approval of his father.
He had nothing else on his mind until he met a peculiar fellow, Genji. However, now that Genji was nowhere to be found, Zuko couldn't split his worries between looking for Genji or capturing the Avatar.
However, 'thanks' to his uncle's 'encouraging' words, Zuko focused on capturing the avatar. He trusted his uncle's words and was expecting Genji to survive and look for him sooner or later in the future.
For now, he could completely focus on the Avatar and hopefully meet up with Genji in the future.
"Mm…" Iroh groaned a little, understanding his nephew's worries.
He didn't want Zuko to have any problems, but he also didn't want Zuko rushing things. By rushing things, he would not only be causing great stress to himself and his body, but to those he's dragging around with him.
'Like me for instance,' thought Iroh as he rubbed his round belly.
"And I don't want anyone getting in the way," said Zuko, whispering into his uncle's ears.
"Prince Zuko."
Suddenly, a man's voice entered the ears of the duo.
Turning around to look at who it was, Zuko narrowed his eyes and he revealed a look of discontent and anger.
"Captain Zhao…" said Zuko, spitefully.
Zhao smirked and corrected Zuko, "It's Commander now."
Zuko frowned and watched as Zhao turned to look at Iroh to greet him.
"General Iroh, great hero of our nation."
Iroh smiled a little and bowed his head in a respectful manner, "Retired General."
Standing tall with his hands behind his back, Zhao revealed a look of great curiosity as he said, "The Fire Lord's brother and son are always welcome at this harbor. Tell me, what brings you here this time around?"
Zuko frowned.
"We came to replace some supplies for our ship's barracks since it was burnt down," said Zuko, his eyes filled with confidence.
Zhao frowned a little and couldn't detect a single lie in his words. Nonetheless, he continued to push a little, feeling like Zuko must be hiding something regarding all of this.
"The barracks was burnt down? Were the culprits arrested," asked Zhao, a bit interested.
"We'll soon be transferring the culprits out of my ship and into your harbor so that you can send them out to prison," said Zuko, ready to walk away and leave Zhao behind.
Before he could take a step, Zhao beat him to the punch and instantly asked them to join him for some food.
"I must say, you have to regale me some of the details over a meal and some delicious tea," said Zhao, gloatingly looking at Zuko.
"No-"
Zuko was about to reject Zhao's offer but was instead interrupted by his uncle who readily accepted the invitation.
'Damn… at this rate, Zhao will find out about the Avatar…'
…
Shhhhh…
Shhhhhhh…
SSHhhhhhh…
A flipped boat, slowly drifting in the sea.
Alone in the middle of nowhere, slowly being dragged along the current of the sea with a body lying softly on top of the boat face down.
Sshhh!
Ominously, a large and long shadow moved underneath the boat. It's movements causing large waves, breaking the surface tension of the sea.
Psh!
The waves hit the boat, pushing it to the edges of a nearby island.
Shhh…
Grahhh…
A large shadow erupted from the sea and loomed over the small boat, glaring at the boat. Looking at it curiously, the large aquatic beast believed the boat to be a large fish.
With it's maw opening up widely, the large beast lunged at the boat and just as it was about to sink it's largemouth onto the small boat, a large fish had suddenly rammed into it.
Bang!
'Run away little one!' seemingly yelled the large Elephant Koi fish as it eyed at the boat.
In the next second however the Elephant Koi seemed to go slackjawed as it realized that the boat wasn't a young Elephant Koi fish.
'Ah!! Give me back my life!'
The large beast's head hit the water next to the boat instead, causing a wave to form and send the boat gliding away on the water.
When it regained it's stability, the large beast turned to the quivering Elephant Koi next to it, ready to devour it.
The Elephant Koi looked up to the large beast with teary eyes.
'Sir Unagi! NO… big brother Unagi! It was an accident! I swear!'
The large beast ignored(?) the pleas(?) of the Elephant Koi fish before diving into the Elephant Koi only to hit empty space as the Elephant Koi swam away rapidly.
'I'll never save anyone again!'
…
Soon, the boat arrived at land and the body on the boat slid off and onto the cold sand in this cold island.
Seconds passed and the body showed no signs of movements.
Seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned into hours…
It wasn't until the third hour hit that someone had coincidentally walked by and found someone unconscious at sea.
The person flinched at the appearance of someone on the cold beach. They raised their guard, expecting something bad to happen any time soon.
Their eyes narrowed and they approached the unconscious body with worry.
Finally arriving next to the body, the person's eyes widened after realizing that this person was truly unconscious.
Nearing the unconscious person, the mysterious figure stepped even closer to the body and revealed themselves under the light of the sunset.
A beautiful warrioress with a face painted white and her eyes painted with red, and a golden ornament on her head.
Squatting down, the warrioress picked up the unconscious man and carried him away after checking that he was properly breathing and had a steady heart rate.
"Leader! Who's that man?"
The instant the young warrioress exited the beach, she was surrounded by other female warriors with similar attires and face paint.
The young woman turned to look at the others and said sternly, "Go look for the village leader. This is an outsider, I found him unconscious at the beach. He looks malnourished, meaning he might have been left stranded in the middle of the sea before having the luck of making it here."
"Luck? More like death rejected him," said another female warrior after many of the other warrioresses had run back to the village.
Walking to the village, the warrioress that stayed behind made sure the unconscious man was well. They continued on their journey to the village, hoping that the village head had prepared the medic of the village.
The leader smiled a little, knowing what this warrioress meant, "The Unagi probably wasn't hungry. No matter how small or big the prey, the Unagi wouldn't let it's food slip away so easily. Especially an unconscious one…"
The warrioress smiled and looked at the young man with a bit of interest after getting a good look at the unconscious man's face.
"Say… he's pretty cute, don't you think Suki?" said the warrioress with a smirk on her face.
Suki, the warrioress carrying the unconscious man, blushed a little and rigidly answered the woman, "I don't know what you mean, Vice-Leader."
"Come on Suki, you're so fun to tease," said the Vice-Leader as she happily followed behind Suki.
Suki smiled and loudly said, "We're ending the scouting early today. Everyone will be dismissed for the day after we arrive at the village."
"Yay!"
The warrioresses all happily yelled, following Suki back to the village.
Within minutes, the group of female warriors carrying an unconscious man were entering a village with various people waiting for them at the entrance.
"Oh my… is that the man that was found unconscious?"
"He's kind of cute… I wonder if he's an asshole like every good looking guy we know."
"But I'm good looking…"
"Yes, you're the problem."
"..."
As Suki walked forward with the unconscious man on her back, an old man with a large beard and a big top knot on his head approached them. His gaze was firm and full of skepticism as he looked at the unconscious young man.
Before Suki could mention anything, the old man said, "Bring him over here, the doctor will take a look at him."
Keeping quiet, Suki followed behind the old man, following him over to the old man's house.
"Oh, is this the young man I will be examining," asked an old man with a bald head. He stood up from a chair set up outside the village head's house and walked over to the unconscious man on Suki's back. "Hm. Bring him in, we need to lie him down."
Suki nodded and followed the village head and the doctor into the village heads house.
Laying down the unconscious man in the guest room of the village head, Suki stepped back and watched as the doctor got to work.
The old man stood over the unconscious man and slowly inspected him. Checking his pulse, carefully checking his skin, opening his eyes to check them, and listening to his breathing.
Just when the old man was about to finish, he heard the stomach of the unconscious man growl.
"Hahaha…" the old man laughed and stood up with a shake of his head. "This young man is just very hungry and thirsty. If I'm correct, he should have lasted 3-4 days without any food or water. He seems really healthy and other than that fact, he should be waking up tomorrow or even later tonight."
"Hm."
The old man just nodded and walked away, leaving Suki and the doctor behind in the room with an unconscious young man.
The doctor smiled and lightly shook his head before turning to look at Suki, "Well, I should get going then Suki. Take care."
"Yeah, take care Doctor Yan," said Suki, seeing the old man leave with a smile on his wrinkly face.
Suki turned to look at the unconscious man and sighed a bit before leaving the room. She took one more glance at the unconscious man and thought, 'Hm, I'll come back later to see if he wakes up. I'll head home and take off this armor before coming back. I'm responsible for him since I brought him into the village.'
After that, Suki left the room and went back to her house to change out of her warrioress armor.
Why was it a big deal for an outsider to be in the village? Or the Island in general?
Because this island was known as Kyoshi Island. It was known for practicing the ideal of the Avatar Kyoshi. The ideal she implemented for this certain island was Isolationism.
The certain village Suki was part of was a very strict isolationist village. It wished to separate itself from the world outside of Kyoshi Island. Especially so when the Fire Nation began it's tyrannical acts 100 years ago.
Some villages weren't that serious about isolationism. To deal with the shortage in crop food, some villages began to trade in places outside of Kyoshi Island.
The village head, Oyaji, was very strict and would refuse even in times of bad harvests.
'A very stubborn and senile old man indeed,' thought Genji as he slowly opened his eyes.
Furrowing his eyebrows, Genji brought up a hand to his head to massage his temples. With his head in pain from intense hunger, Genji could only weakly get up and look around for a bit.
Since he was currently doing nothing, his <Rest> was currently active and making him healthy and removing any fatigue. Despite that, the skill wasn't strong enough to remove his hunger and thirst.
"Ughh…" groaned Genji as he weakly stood up from the bed.
Turning to the door, Genji walked on over to the door dragging his feet. Just as he was about to make it to the door, Genji began to feel faint, causing him to trip and fall into the arms of a beauty.
"Eh?"
Hearing the surprise in the voice of the beauty, Genji looked up into the eyes of the beauty, mumbling.
"Please… spare some crumbs O' Goddess…"