[Campsite, Woods Behind Milliways]

[princeinexile]

It's a small copse of trees, but it'll do. Won't be the first time Zuko's slept on the grass, and shan't be the last time.

He fingers the ring, heavy on the chain around his neck, but refuses to put it on. He won't run from debt to the forge god's kindness. Finding a cradle of branches to rest in, he broods over the things he hates most: powerlessness.

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[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

Nights have not been good times for Sergeant Wells lately. The moon's coming around closer to fullness, and the pull of that is worse at night than it is during the day. Staying in the bar during the main dinner rush grates on his nerves.

Then, of course, there was what happened in Libria.

The upshot of this is that he's lately taken to feeling unfit for human company after dark. Not that he's got a shelter built just yet, or anything, but he does have a fire-pit dug not far from the treeline. It's been there since not long after he arrived. Right now, he's just looking for the fuel to fill it with.

[princeinexile]

The prince, wedged up in the branches, cracks open an eye when he hears the noise. He tilts his head, and then snorts softly, jets of smoke accompanying. "Are you hiding from a tab too?" he asks, voice full of sulk and frustration.

[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

Wells looks up, blinking. "Thought I smelled a fire around here," he says. "Nah. I'm hiding from people." He nods back towards the Bar. "Too fuckin' many of 'em in there. Been feeling a bit raw lately, nights."

A pause.

"I'll be payin' mine off after the full moon."

[princeinexile]

"I can't pay," Zuko says. "I knew I couldn't, but..." He started a tab anyway, and lived reasonably comfortably. He could rest, relax a little... and he let it go to far.

"Gave everything back that I could, turned in my room key."

And now he waits.

[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

Wells nods. "I see," he says neutrally. "Word of advice: the rabbits taste ruddy nasty on their own. I'd advise findin' some sort of root or something for seasoning, or fishing if you can. There's deer deeper into the woods, but there's also shape-shifters who hunt that deep in. Fair warning."

He may be singing a different tune in time, but he can't pay anything until he's gone home. And while he's pretty sure he'll survive, he doesn't want to jinx it and die forsworn.

[princeinexile]

"I don't need pleasant tasting food! A dose of stringy rabbit and sickly doe--" is really all he warrents at the moment, "-- suits me fine. Exile is not about -- comfort or pleasure or relaxing, anyway!"

This has been been a foolish distraction from his mission, his purpose. He let it, because some part of him wanted it, to rest and regain himself. Uncle said it was no sin, but... his father would be furious. For so many reasons. Uncle would weather this better, but in his mind eye, his father's got that expresesion and has nothing kind for him.

Not that he ever did, but still, some little child in Zuko remembers, once, that he might've had a loving word.

[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

"Jesus, mate, who put the bug up your arse? I've had to live in field conditions often enough to know that it's easier to keep goin' if your food don't taste like shit, that's all." Wells shakes his head. "As bad as Bruce, so you are."

[princeinexile]

Zuko is quiet; Wells rebuke stings, and so he takes it and quiets. He shouldn't yell at his other master, for really, he's been nothing but good to him.

He's just sixteen, upset, and in trouble. It's never a good combination.

[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

Wells takes a few moments to gather up some more wood for his fire-yet-to-be. Eventually- without looking up- he adds, "I saw the bit at the bottom of the sign about that fund thing. I expect you and I feel the same way about that."

Now he looks up.

"No Wells that I know of's ever been willing to take charity. Sticks in the craw."

[princeinexile]

"I'd never be able to go home. Draining Uncle's accounts on this quest has been bad enough. Charity?" He spits flame.

That is the end of that.

[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

Wells nods. "Figured as much," he says. "Question, though. If your hunting's bad, and I run something down myself, would you object to putting that on your fire? The last thing I want's to see you slumping on the practise range 'cos you haven't had your bloody protein."

[princeinexile]

There is a long, horrible pause as pride goes against food. But if he puts it that way, Zuko can abide, and does so. "Agreed," he says.

There, Wells. You can feed the boy without breaking his pride. Good on you!

[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

The Infantry takes care of its own.

Whether they know they're its own or not.

"Good. I call the rights to the heads and skins, though," Wells says. "Been meaning to learn how to brain-tan a hide."

Deflecting attention away from the critical bit of the situation can't hurt too much either, he figures.

[princeinexile]

"Never learned to tan," Zuko admits. "When we went hunting it was always with a cadre of servants who handled the messy parts. We just did the killing."

Distraction? Accepted and running with.

[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

"Bet you had hounds, too," Wells says. "Tell you the truth, I've never been hunting exactly- not until I got werewolfed, anyway. But you've got to be able to trap and kill things for the survival training in the Army, so you've got to be able to gut and skin and butcher. I just never had the time to do shit with the hides."

There's a certain amount of grubby pride in knowing your way around the inside of a small defenceless animal.

[princeinexile]

"Hounds, hawks..." He nods once. "All sorts of things. Komodo-rhinos for mounted chase... But tigers, lion-lizards, other things, we did traditionally. Our hands, our fire, our spears and nothing else."

Good way to kill a prince, but he's still here, so he obivously did something right, didn't he?

[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

"That takes doing," Wells says. "Where I come from they're out to ban hunting foxes with hounds- they say it's not sporting, or cruel to animals or some such. Seems like a load of nonsense to me, honestly, with foxes being hardly worth the hunting at all." He indicates something the size of a mid-sized dog. "If you're going to hunt, for God's sake, hunt something that puts up a fight, not something that fucking runs for its life."

[princeinexile]

"Tigers fight," Zuko says. "If you're noble-born, you're not a man till you've taken one down, either. I did mine at thirteen." Nearly died, too, but... That's just something we don't go into.

[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

"Yeah? No tigers in England, except what's in the zoos," Wells says. "And we exterminated the wolves centuries ago. Boar-hunting used to be big, so I hear. And stag. Time was when the oldest Kings of all weren't King truly until they'd brought down a stag with a stone knife or spear, all on their own."

[princeinexile]

"We hunt similiar beasts, under similiar cirucmstances," Zuko says quietly, thinking back to his youth; that hurts almost as much as this slap to his pride does. It all comes from the same root.

"Father took me a few times, and then broke all conventions and took my sister, too." He shrugs. "But she-- was born lucky, that way."

[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

"Didn't know you had a sister," Wells comments. And that's all he says on the topic; if Zuko hasn't mentioned her before, he rather suspects asking for more information will win him no love now. "This a ceremonial sort of affair, or just traditions about ordinary hunting?"

[princeinexile]

"If she had her way, she wouldn't have a brother," he says tersely, on the subject of his sister. Bitch, whore, viper, jackal!

"It's a bit of both," Zuko admits. "Depends on time of year, the hunt, who is going..." He shrugs his shounders. "And with nobles, everything is ceremony."

[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

"Ah," says Wells. That particular theme is all too common in the history of English nobility.He jus tnods.

"Suppose I shouldn't be surprised by that," Wells says. "Whent hey go fox-hunting in England, they've got to wear just the right helmet, just the right colour jacket and trousers and boots, braid up the horses' manes in just the right way, prep the dogs... Lot of nonsense for people with more money and time than sense, if you ask me. But the English nobility's gone to rot anyway, mostly. Too much breeding, not enough doing."

Class pride, yo.

[princeinexile]

Zuko smirks a little, but cannot say aanything to that; he know sthe failing of his own people, but he is still a prince. "I will have to have a council of commoners, should I ever regain my throne. If half of them are as smart as you, I will be well served."

[milkbonesoldier.livejournal.com]

"There's nothing about being common that makes us any smarter, boy," Wells says. "All it means is we've got different accents and don't live anywhere near so posh as the others. You just look for the smart ones, whether they're common or noble or foreign-born, and you'll be served well enough. Mind, it always helps to have the commons represented- but that's so that they don't feel left out. 's how we do it back home."