Escape

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If I wasn't too comfortable in the palace, I was much more uncomfortable in the small ship. I usually tried to avoid Ozai, sometimes I don't see his disgruntled face for months, now we were on a rather cramped trough rather than a huge royal palace. One of the skills I developed as a child while meditating was the sensation of warmth. If I close my eyes, I switch to infra-red circular vision, like a thermal imager I can detect the slightest changes in temperature, and make up a red-blue picture from that data, where redder objects are hot and bluer objects are cold. This skill is what allows me to avoid seeing my 'favourite' father or 'favourite' grandfather. When travelling on the ship, I have to see my adored relatives several times a day every day. I had nothing against Ursa, I considered her my mother, but it was very unpleasant to see such a good and beautiful girl living with such an arsehole as Ozai. I loved Ozai as much as he loved me, that is, not at all, and we clearly disliked each other. Azula was usually very bitchy with me, but I didn't pay much attention to her antics, it was stupid of me to take offence at her, she's just a silly little girl... who can throw blue fireballs with a temperature of ten thousand degrees.

- Hey! Watch it! - I intercepted such a fireball with my hand, and redirected it into the sky.

Ozai decided not to waste time, and on the deck of the ship to arrange a training session with his favourite daughter, and called me to see how real Firebenders fight, and not such an underdog like me.

- Oh, I'm sorry, ridiculous brother, it was an accident. - Azula, who had clearly thrown the fireball at me not by accident judging by the worms dancing in her eyes, replied.

- Look at that, you were able to redirect Azula's attack. - Ozai said and threw a fireball at me too... oh, he's such a caring father.

Because of my technique training, I've learnt to control the fire I've already created quite well, redirecting someone else's fire magic is quite easy for me, which I did with Azula's fireball and now Ozai's fireball as well.

- He can only defend himself, but his brother is a weakling! - Azula shouted, throwing her blue fireball at me again.

- But I can do this. - I intercepted and redirected Azula's attack back at her, but a little to the right so she wouldn't get hit.

- Maybe you're not so hopeless, but you're still a long way from Azula. - 'Praised' me my 'adored' daddy, and continued training Azula, I'm not even planning to train me, why waste time on the obviously weak heir, if the same time can be spent on Azula?

In principle, I don't deny that my sister is stronger in fire magic than me, and she is more worthy to rule the Fire Nation... and I will rule the world... I guess. As much as I don't like power, it would be foolish not to remake the world to suit my tastes, but you have to have power first, and you don't have to rule yourself, you can give power to someone you trust and only interfere occasionally.

Ozai is clearly hungry for power and wants to rule alone, the heirs are just a tool for him to gain power, because Azulon, being an old ruler, realises that power has to be passed on to someone and he wants to pass on power to someone who will also have a strong and worthy successor. Ozai and Airo are both strong mages, Airo is older and more experienced, but Ozai is constantly training to surpass his brother, the only obstacle to power is a worthy successor, and I am not suited for that role, so I am not interested in being Ozai's son and successor to the throne. I could kill Ozai, though, if I put poison in his food, and that ambitious turkey who wants to take the Fire Lord's throne will die like a normal person.

Four days on the ship with my daddy had been very slow for me, as if I'd been on that trough for a month. There was nothing to do, except train, but I didn't want to do my training under Ozai's gaze, so I mostly meditated on the roof of the deckhouse in the sun, and tried to think up modifications to various spells, but I couldn't think of much to do with fire, unless I had some ideas for controlling lava or red-hot metal.

≪No, no, no metal, don't even think about it, I know where you're going with this - to learn how to control metal to create weapons without hammer and anvil, to heat the metal itself with Fire Magic, and to harden it with Cold Magic. ≫

Even so, this would count as magic.

≪First master Fire and Cold to the level of a master, and then you can do Metal. ≫

It seemed like a long time to me, but we arrived at Coal Island, it was mostly filled with beach houses, we even checked into a small house on the Emperor's private beach.

I wasn't much of a swimmer, but as it turns out, my jet propulsion technique from my limbs that I've been training lately helps me move underwater at a pretty decent speed like I'm a living torpedo. I can't say for sure, but I can do about three hundred kilometres underwater, and I'll go faster in the air, but I still have to learn how to fly in the air, it's not that easy. And the flight will be quite noticeable, both in the daytime and at night, but if I swim under water, it is impossible to distinguish me under the water column. So I hatched a plan to get away from my relatives.

All the time we spent on the island, I tried to swim underwater on jet propulsion, improving this ability, and trying to learn to hold my breath for as long as possible. I think jet-swimming skills will help me learn jet flight faster.

Ursa took us to the theatre on the island a couple of times in the evenings, both times to the same play about a blue water dragon and a red fire dragon, about how they were enemies at first and fought all the time, but in the end their confrontation turned into love and they even got married. It wasn't much of a show, but Ursa liked it for some reason, and she had taken us to see it many times in our past visits to Coal Island.

Recently, when I was in Ursa's room, I noticed that one of the paintings on the wall was hanging crookedly, and it turned out that behind the painting was a hidden cache of theatre masks, almost identical to the masks worn by the actors who portrayed the dragons in the play. I don't know who Ursa was before she married Ozai, I don't know my grandparents on my mother's side either. If Ursa has masks from this play, most likely she was once an actress in the theatre, and maybe she even had a lover with whom she played two dragons that at the end had to confess their love to each other and kiss. When Ursa took me and Azula to this performance for the third time that summer, I was sure that my guesses were at least close to the truth.

I didn't want to leave Ursa and Azula, of course, but I wasn't very attached to them, and I knew they'd be alive and well after I left, so I was free to leave. Maybe after a while, when my sister and I grew up, our family relations would improve, maybe I would even have a normal relationship with my father and grandfather, but in any case, I would have to hide my strength in Ice Magic from them, which I couldn't train in the Fire Nation Palace. I want to go to a place where no one will prevent me from using Fire Magic, Ice Magic, or any magic at all.

As it is clear, these are not the lands of the Fire Nation, nor the lands of the Earth Kingdom, which the Fire Nation is now actively occupying. The islands of the exterminated Air Nomads are mostly rocks, and where there are normal plains, the Fire Nation has established colonies, one of the reasons for starting the war is to seize territories for the expansion of the Fire Nation. However, even after almost destroying the Southern Water Tribe, the Fire Nation did not take over their territories, because this territory looks like an endless ice wasteland, where fire mages are very uncomfortable. There are no fire mages in the central regions of the South Pole, and the Southern Water Tribe is now very small in number, and lives mostly on the outskirts of the South Pole. In general, in the centre of the South Pole no one will definitely prevent me from doing magic, and the cold is not a big problem for me, it will even be useful to me.

I was going to leave at night on the first day, after the sailing, the ship will be far out to sea, and by jumping into the water unnoticed, I can reach the southern islands of the Air Nomads by jet propulsion in a couple of days. According to the map stolen from the captain's cabin, these islands are about four thousand kilometres away, and from there about five thousand kilometres to the south pole. But the closer to the pole, the more icebergs there are in the water, and you can't swim there. But while I will be on the islands of Air Nomads, it will be possible to train to fly on jet propulsion, and already to the South Pole not to swim, but to fly.

At night, when I got to the stern of the ship, I noticed a sea serpent floating nearby. There are various rather large animals in the sea here, among which there is a kind of water dragons that spit streams of water instead of fire. Initially I just wanted to swim away quietly from the ship, but when I saw the serpent, I remembered the recent wish of my favourite sister Azula, I said good night to her, and she wished me to be eaten by a sea serpent at night.... and since I was lucky enough to have a sea serpent around, I might as well change my plan a bit. Instead of Prince Hela's mysterious disappearance from the ship in the middle of the sea, there will be Prince Hela's tragic death by the teeth of the sea serpent.

Tearing off a part of my clothes, I sprinkled it with my blood, and threw that scrap onto the deck of the ship, then shot a small ball of fire at the sea serpent, attracting its attention. The serpent didn't like being attacked by someone and started looking for the offender, I fired another fireball at it to make it realise where I was. The serpent orientated itself, and lunged towards me, trying to devour me with its rather massive maw.

I was able to dodge the slow serpent, and jumped into the water from the opposite side of the ship, then began to jet-propelled swim quickly southwards. At the site of the serpent's attack, there was a piece of bloody cloth from my clothes, as well as a noticeable trace of the serpent's teeth, in general, even a fool would understand that my disappearance from the ship was due to the fact that I was eaten at night by a sea serpent, as my favourite sister Azula wanted.

I, however, felt no sadness when I left my relatives, only joy that I was at last completely free, and did not have to live under the same roof with people who disliked me and who disliked me.

I could now stay under water for only ten minutes at a time, and in those ten minutes I could cover a distance of sixty kilometres, so that when I surfaced for the first time I was quite a long way from the ships. The ships themselves were travelling at a speed of forty-five kilometres per hour, for their sheer size and mass it was a good result, but it turns out that in ten minutes I cover a distance that a ship can cover in an hour and a half. So even if someone were to theoretically look for me, which I doubt, they wouldn't be able to find me, because I swim seven times faster than ships.

I wouldn't have enough energy for constant jet-swimming if I didn't replenish it from the surrounding water. The water temperature dropped a few degrees as I travelled, but since I was moving quite fast and the water around me was changing all the time, no ice appeared around me.

I didn't need to stop for a snack, but I could use a rest after a few hours of jet-skiing, so when I came across a small, apparently deserted island, I stopped to catch my breath. The constant emission of a stream of flame from my feet and hands has left my skin a bit charred, but regeneration repairs that damage fairly quickly.

That's probably one of the reasons why Fire Mages don't actively use the reactive fire technique, the local mages don't have absolute resistance to their element, they can get hurt by their own flames, and they don't have regeneration like me.

After resting on the seashore, I decided to try flying. In the palace, I could only go up a dozen centimetres on the jet propulsion, just to train my ability to keep myself in the air, but now I can fly at a sufficient height, and, if anything, I will fall into the sea, not on solid ground.

Well, I fly like a rocket... I mean, I fly high into the sky, and then I fall to the ground, trying to plan my flight. In general, I'm not flying, but rather jet-jumping and then falling down in a weakly controlled manner. And it's clear to a fool that I need either some wings to stabilise and control my flight, or just more practice to better learn how to control my flight with the help of the four jets coming out of my limbs. As another option, I could try to create wings for myself out of magic, but I definitely don't have the strength for those right now.

It was fun to feel like a living rocket, I wouldn't learn to fly in one day, but I could try to learn how to land properly, and that's what I did all day on the island. After these trainings I was quite tired, during the day I managed to climb a couple of dozens of times to a height of a couple of kilometres, and then from this height to fall, trying to stabilise the flight. I fell into the water all the time, but by the end of the day I learnt to land more or less smoothly on the water and then on the ground. Tired after the flights, I decided to spend the night on this island, and the next day to continue sailing southwards, maybe I would meet some more islands and practice there too, and then maybe I would reach the islands of the Air Nomads.

Now, while swimming, in order to breathe in fresh air, I would dive out of the water at a great speed, fly in an arc of several hundred metres, and sometimes even a couple of kilometres, and then dive back into the water, and continued my swimming until I ran out of oxygen again.

I don't know if Ursa and Azula are grieving after my 'death', but personally I was having a lot of fun. There's something funny about magic, when you do things with your own hands that ordinary people use complex devices for... but I know how to make these complex devices, which is why I ignored magic before. But I can't help but admit that it's very interesting, though dangerous; without regeneration I'd be walking around with charred heads instead of limbs... but that's more of a cost of fire magic, Earth, Water and Air magic is much harder to maim.

The next island on the way was clearly of volcanic origin, which could be easily recognised by the volcano erupting at the moment, and by the lava streams flowing everywhere. This was the place to try to control the lava... and the fact that it was hot didn't help me control it. It's too static and not like a flame... although I haven't learnt to control ice properly yet, so after I learn how to control static ice, I can try to control lava again, but now I have to leave this island, as the volcano started to erupt again, and red-hot pieces of lava and ash started to fly out of its vent.

The next day, I had definitely reached the Air Nomad Islands, as I saw a Fire Nation settlement on the very first of the less rocky islands. The central island of the archipelago, all made up of high cliffs and mountains, was where the Southern Temple of the Airbenders used to be, and since all the Airbenders had been exterminated by the Fire Nation, this temple must now be empty. I went there, my flying was still abysmal, but my jumping was good enough to get around the mountains and rocks.

Where the temple was located, I saw quite quickly, I just flew as high as possible and having examined the nearest territory found the temple, but to get to it, I had to jump among the rocks, at one time I did not dare to fly there, so as not to crash on these rocks at high speed. The temple looked like a castle among the clouds, located on the highest cliff, the Airbenders could fly, so it was quite easy for them to get here, but how the Firebenders got here during the attack, I knew from the chronicles of the Fire Nation.

Every hundred years, a Great Comet passes near the planet, which for a short time strengthens the Fire Mages tenfold. Sozin used the power of this comet to exterminate all the Air Nomads. Afterwards, this comet was called - Sozin's Comet, and when it was near Earth, almost all fire mages could fly on jets, while in normal times only the Avatar would have enough strength for such a thing. After the genocide of the Air Nomads, the Fire Nation's war with the rest of the world began, and from this event it is now customary to count down the years. This was now the ninety-second year since the war began.

Even with the reinforcement from Sozin's Comet, the Fire Mages were still taking some casualties from the Air Mages, as could be seen by the scattered bodies in Fire Nation uniforms near the temple, but the bodies of the Air Nomads were many times more numerous. The temple had been looted long ago, and there was nothing of value here, except for the wall frescoes, which depicted some kind of flying six-legged bison, and Airbenders flying gliders of some kind.

I found a few of these gliders in the temple, and they were folding gliders that looked like a monk's pole when folded, but when the simple mechanism was activated, it had two wings and two tail flaps on each side.

It looked like even Airbenders couldn't fly without such crutches. I decided to try the glider myself, and it did help me stay in the air for a long time, but I burned the tail flaps with jet fire, and the glider was made of wood and cloth, so I had to land on my own, and not very successfully, I flew into a rock, and passed out.