Avatar; The Royal Firebender.

North Under Siege (Part 2)

Iroh takes note of the scowl present on Zhao's face as the entire line of point ships at the head of the armada burn and continue to sink. This delay would set back the siege by hours if not days in order to maneuver the landing parties once they breach the walls. The muttonchop sporting admiral growls as he turns and stomps back to his quarters in the bridge leaving Iroh alone on the top deck. Once Iroh finds himself alone, a wide and proud smile grows on his face. Itd been a long time since he wore fatherly pride so openly on his face, but seeing just how powerful his so- nephew has become makes him a proud man. "You have become powerful, Prince Zuko. I'm proud of the man you are becoming, and I shall see you soon." His thoughts are stopped when the iron door behind him opens again.

"General Iroh, Admiral Zhao requests you inside the bridge." The voice of Lieutenant Jee calls out from the doorway. "He's rather unhappy with what Prince Zuko has done to the fleet."

"Let him be, it's late and I need my rest in my old age. Let him know that we can speak in the morning." Iroh responds giving an exaggerated yawn before walking towards the doorway where the lieutenant stands. "You will need your rest, Lieutenant, don't forget that."

"Yes, General Iroh." Jee responds with a slight bow as Iroh passes him and enters the corridor walking towards his quarters. As Jee closes the door to the frigid night air, he notices that Iroh had made a wrong turn instead of heading to the officer's quarters; he is heading to the lower parts of the ship. "He's probably heading to get some late night tea, it's best that I let the admiral know."

Iroh tucks his hands into his robes as he walks calmly through the halls of the admiral's flagship. Jee had assumed that the old general was headed to the galley to satiate a late night desire for tea or even a dessert but that isn't what Iroh is doing. Calmly he makes his way towards the hold of the warship, being careful to avoid any patrols or engineers that were nearby he continues down to the bowels of the warship. At the end of a lonely hallway he twists open the iron wheel that is the latch for the door, the slightly rusted iron creaking under the movements. As the door creaks open he quickly ducks inside the empty docking platform at the end of the massive phoenix class warship. Now alone he takes a deep sigh before turning his attention to the single manned lifeboat hung up on the side of the wall. The older man drags the metal lifeboat into position then rigs up the robes in order to lower it and himself into the water below. Once everything is in place, he climbs into the boat and clutches the lowering robes in both hands. Raising his hands up he begins to allow the ropes to extend and begin to lower him and the lifeboat into the waters. Silently he rows the boat through the calm water using the noise of the engines of the warships to cover his trail.

Zuko has his own conundrum to worry about, the cold air is extremely distracting, especially since the sun has dipped down below the horizon. The miniscule amount of heat that the sun provided this far north was comforting to him but the cold is far from it. Outside of the distractions of the cold the issue that Zuko is trying to work out is how to contact the spirit world to begin with. The only idea that he can think of is to meditate, something that Aang had him do on a regular basis during the early days of their training. He's been trying to meditate for the past several hours since the sun has set and he hasn't been successful. The constant bickering between the watertribe siblings and the random comments between Aang and Yue are proving to be just as distracting as the cold. The bubbling frustration comes to a head prompting him to lash out at his noisy companions, "Will you shut up! I'm trying to concentrate damnit!" he roars, causing the others to fall silent almost immediately. "It's impossible to try to meditate with you all making so much noise."

"Sorry Zuko." The four say in near unison as the young firebender huffs out a bit of frustration then gives up on trying to meditate, at least here that is.