Steam Will Rise

7. Easier

"Why do I have to travel all the way to the Earth Kingdom to see a fortune teller when I don't even believe in fortune tellers?"

"It's a long proud tradition among the nobility and royalty dear."

"Well it's a stupid tradition!"

"Kanna I do not want to ever hear you speak like that again!"

"I'm sorry Mikak. I didn't mean it." Kanna slumped against her bedroom wall. "I'll go see Madame Wu."

"Of course you will. Stand up straight." Mikak said and shook her head. "This headstrong attitude will not get you anywhere in life. No man wants to marry a woman who doesn't know her place."

Kanna wanted to tell her governess that she didn't want to marry a man who thought a woman had a place but it wasn't worth the lecture she'd have to sit through so she said nothing.

"Go put on something nice you're representing the Northern Water Tribe, and Madame Wu is the best fortune teller there is in the world. Very few get a chance to make use of her services, so you best be grateful you've been given the chance."

Kanna walked over to her wardrobe opened it up, and swung one of the doors back and forth as she stared at her outfits. She felt like she was choosing an outfit for her funeral. It was bad enough playing the role of the dutiful daughter, but going from that to dutiful housewife filled her with a sense of unending dread.

"Are you ready?" Mikak asked.

"Yes." She grabbed her fanciest clothing and carefully laid them in her valise. The only good to come out of visiting the fortune teller was that she finally got to leave the North pole.

Kanna could hardly contain herself on the carriage ride to the port. For so long she had wanted to leave the Northern Water Tribe, under different circumstances of course, but she was leaving none the less. As long as she lived she knew that she would remember this day.

"Kanna don't lean out of the carriage window!" Mikak snapped. "Do you want people to think you're a commoner?"

Kanna pulled her head back into the carriage window. She hadn't even realized that she been doing it until her governess had snapped at her. "I don't care what people think. I just want to see the world."

"Well you can do that from the safety of inside of the carriage or not do it at all. If someone had saw you imagine what they would be thinking about your upbringing."

Kanna started to chew on the inside of her lip. Anyone who made a big deal of her sticking her head out of a carriage wasn't worth worrying about, but that was just another opinion she couldn't voice. With Mikak chaperoning her for the whole trip there was no way she was going to have any fun at all, but there was no way she could get rid of her. Her mother had insisted that Mikak accompany her. She wondered if her mother ever had fun? Did she have dreams other than being a wife and a mother?

The carriage made it to port. It was so busy. There were other carriages constantly coming and going. Ships of all shapes and sizes were either pulling into port or leaving. Myriads of people milled around. Some boarding ships and others departing. She hadn't known there were so many ships in the noise of their horns going off goose fleshed her skin with excitement. Deck hands ran hither and thither like ants in a mound. They shouted across ships to one another. Kanna didn't think she'd ever tire of taking it all in.

"Quickly on board the ship. Don't stand out here making a spectacle of yourself."

This time Mikak's reprimand rolled off her like water off of a turtle duck's back. She stepped back and looked up, up, up to take in the ship. It was the biggest ship she'd ever seen in her life. It was hard to believe something so big could float. Mikak started her prissy decent up the gangplank and Kanna followed after her. She was only fifteen but she felt so very grown up traveling on a ship for the first time in her life.