...he blinks. "I'm not sure I've heard anyone say that before," he says, momentarily surprised out of his discomfort.

She shrugs. "I mean I dunno what it means, or anything, but it's a good set of syllables."

"It can mean a lot of things. My father says 'rage', my mother said 'loved one'. My sister says 'failure' but she's just being a pain."

"Huh. I dunno if mine means anything. Probably does. Couldn't tell you what, though."

Not without the internet, which she is slowly losing hope of ever using again.

"I guess most people probably don't know what their names mean, unless they're named after flowers or something where it's obvious."

"Yeah. I don't really know how it is other places, but where I'm from all the names are like, filtered through lots of archaic languages so you have no idea what any of them originally meant anymore. I mean I'm sure someone knows, but it's - not really very important, in the end, as long as people have something to call you that isn't completely terrible."

"It's like that in the Fire Nation too."

"Cool. Never been there. But maybe names are just like that everywhere."

"...where are you from," he asks, without any particular hope of an answer.

"I don't think you'd've heard of it," she says, and that is obviously a dodge but she doesn't really care.

He makes a frustrated sound. "There are only three countries in the world! Five I guess if you count the Southern Water Tribe separately and still count the Air Nomads even though Grandfather killed them all!"

She smiles despite herself, and despite the fact that part of her is furiously noting down the fact that her new friend is definitely personally connected to some kind of large-scale genocidal regime. Also that he might have, like, slightly questionable geography knowledge, she's really pretty unclear on the tech level in play here.

"Stupid little town in a place called California. It's very far away and I miss it more than food. Although that's, y'know, probably subject to change depending on how much longer food goes between visits."

"...I don't want you to starve," he says. "You're annoying but... not annoying as a person, and... anyway I don't want you dead. Uncle—" He looks around. His uncle is not there. "—oh. He probably went to find you food. I guess."

"Sounds good. I'm sorry for the general annoyingness of my circumstances, I promise I am usually only, like, forty percent as mysterious as I am right now."

Wishbone whines at her. She pets him. "Food'll be here soon, boy. You've been a real trooper."

"...are you secretly a spirit? I guess California doesn't sound like the sort of thing spirits would name a place. I guess I don't really know what spirits name places actually. I guess I also don't know if spirits can lie. But if you're not from anywhere in this world, and you have mysterious powers that don't make any sense..."

"I dunno. Can spirits punch people?"

"It's... not really what they're known for," he acknowledges.

Shrug. "I guess probably not, then. Although you never know. In my experience ancient legends are usually, like, eighty percent true, but that still leaves twenty percent complete randomness. I would suggest things I might be, but I'm really not up on the local...... anything."

"You're not the Avatar and you're not a bender and you're not a normal human without any special powers and you're not a spirit and that's sort of... all of the things... you could possibly be. So I guess you're impossible."

"Honestly not an unfair assessment."

He makes a sound that might possibly represent some form of amusement. The most lackluster imaginable 'heh'.

"Okay, impossible girl."

Well, this is a better reaction than some things. Certainly preferable to fire blasts.

Iroh returns a little while later with news that the ship's cook has prepared his special dumplings, which Iroh claims are beyond compare. 

That sounds like food, which means it's something that Karen is in favor of.

She follows him back to the mess hall, bringing Wishbone with her. She has no actual intention of asking anyone for permission to bring her dog anywhere, at least not when he's gone two days on as little food as she has.

No one comments on her dog.

The dumplings are really good.

Zuko turns out to have a broad repertoire of vaguely uncomfortable faces.