Finally, the last chapter is here, sorry for not getting it here sooner or doing a better job.
Water
Earth
Fire
Air
Long ago, the four nations lived in peace and harmony, but all that changed when the fire nation attacked. Only the avatar, master of all four elements could stop them. But when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new avatar, an air bender named Aang, and although his air bending skills were great, he had a long way to go before he was ready to save anyone. But I believed in him right up to the day Aang saved the world.
Previously, on Avatar:
Admiral Zhao and General Iroh stood on the ship, discussing important business. "Yes, I've heard of your little foray into the spirit world."
"Ever since I lost my son…" Iroh turned away from his nephew, tears coming to his eyes.
"Uncle, you don't have to say it."
"I think of you as my own."
"Leaves from the vine, falling so slow." Sang Iroh, tears streaming down his cheeks. The tree was tall and strong, and the sketch of his son still looked as though it had been drawn a mere day ago. It was a beautiful day. "Happy birthday, son." said Iroh.
Book 3, Fire.
Chapter 25, Leaves from the vine
The next day, the general slept until almost noon. When he finally got out of bed, he went to the war room and called a meting.
Every war minister who entered bowed deeply and gave his condolences for Lu Ten.
When they were all seated, Iroh called them to order. "I was unable to survey our progress yesterday." he said. "How did the other attacks fare?"
The overall idea seemed to be that the other three attacks had gone very well, but not as well as Lu Ten's attempt had almost gone. None of the other groups had gained entrance into the city.
Iroh took a long draft of jasmine tea. He had already failed to follow his son's last advice, the drink had become one of his favorites already. But he imagined that his son had meant for him not to let it fall out of favor with him, and if this were the case then quite the opposite had occurred. Now every sip of it reminded the general of his son.
"I will not hide the truth from you, I have grown very tired of this war. I can feel the length of it in my bones, and I can see it in your eyes. And every night I realize what it is doing to our men. Yesterday was our best bet for the city. We were so confident that it would work that we neglected to form a backup plan, and now we are left without one. Does any of you with to continue with the siege?"
None of the generals raised his hand or spoke out. They all looked as though they agreed with their commanding officer.
"Yesterday was a blow to each of us. Lu Ten was an honored fire nation captain, and one of the bravest soldiers in the war. His death has taken away the will to fight from every man here who loves his own nation."
"Then I think it is time for us to give up the siege. I know there must be many fathers even now experiencing the grief that I feel, and I have no desire to cause the same to happen to more men. I want to give my son a proper burial, in his homeland."
Commercial break
Not one of the men objected to the idea of seeing home again. Everyone was tired of fighting, and they all felt their general's loss.
Tents were taken down, bags were packed, and ships were boarded. Late on the six hundredth day of the siege, the fire nation withdrew from the city. Not one soldier knew they had been victorious.
"General?" The helmsman seemed a bit hesitant.
"Yes?" asked Iroh.
"Not to question your intentions, but you seem to have plotted a course only half way home. Might I ask…why?"
"I want to find that dragon we saw on the way here. I need to do something. Anything really, but as I said before, killing it will be a very good face saver when I return home."
"Ah, I see."
Through the serpent's pass they passed without incident, and onward they went. Many of the soldiers were traveling by ship, but many were marching overland to a rendezvous point where they would board other ships.
Onward traveled the imperial ships, till they came to land where the dragon had been spotted.
"General Iroh, will you be needing assistance?" asked an imperial fire bender.
"No, I'll be just fine. Wait here with the ship, and I'll try not to be long."
Then he left the ship, and set out along the ancient road. It was similar to roads in the fire nation, but not identical.
Minutes dragged out to almost an hour, before he found a perfect imprint of a dragon foot in the soft earth. It was fairly fresh.
He continued on, and soot he came to a ruined city. He was surprised to find just how much its buildings resembled fire nation architecture.
He went through the streets, admiring the craftsmanship of them, until he came to a pyramid like temple at the city's heart.
At the top of the staircase, he found a door, with a red jewel above it.
He looked around. There seemed to be no one there.
Then something moved.
Iroh spun around, his keen hearing informing him before he was through with the motion that he was not alone. "Who's there?" he asked.
The shadows of the very city itself seemed to come alive, and soon he was surrounded.
"We are the ancient ones, the warriors of the sun!" shouted a booming voice.
"I am a father, who has recently lost his only child."
The sun warriors closed in on him. "And what do you seek here?" asked the voice.
"I seek a dragon. I need to feel like I am doing something worth while."
"Dragons are rare in this world, and not meant to be hunted. If you will meet one, you must pass its test of worthiness, and in order to do so you will need to surrender all ill intentions. You must be deemed worthy to learn the original secret of fire bending."
"So you know where one is?"
A bulky man stepped forward. He was most likely the one who had spoken. "Do you want to meet him?" he asked.
"What would I gain by meeting a dragon?"
"If you do not want anything from him, why did you come looking for him?"
"Because I have just abandoned something that was very valuable to my career, and I need the fame that comes only slaying a dragon to boost it again."
That seemed to have a most negative affect on the warriors about him. They all fell to arguing, mostly over whether or not to kill him.
One angrily shot a fireball at him, but he shoved it away with his own bending. Then the warriors stopped their arguments and stared. Of course, most dragon hunters had been fire benders, but Iroh's fire bending had somehow escaped their notice.
At last, the one who had spoken before did so again. "We can never allow you or anyone else to see a dragon, if he intends it harm. But if you will agree not to do so, we will allow you meet one and discuss fire bending."
Another argument exploded then. It seemed that Iroh's hosts could not agree on whether this was appropriate for him. When it settled down a little, the warrior approached him again. "I'm sorry, but we cannot agree. If you wish to meet a dragon, then you must wait in the chamber of the dragon dance, which also happens to be one of our best booby traps, for us to reach a final decision."
Iroh thought long and hard. Finally, he said "To learn fire bending from a dragon is surely the most coveted chance in a lifetime of any fire bender. I will wait for you, and I will promise not to harm him."
The chamber of the dancing dragons was dark and a bit creepy. At first, Iroh had wondered if the dragon might waiting inside for him, but after close investigation throughout the room, he found no living dragon. The only dragons in the room were a long circular pattern of statues, depicting a complex dance.
Iroh stared up at them. His loss was heavy on his heart, and when he wasn't thinking about it he was thinking about his ship, and wondering if the crew would sail on without a failure such as himself, or if they would patiently wait for him. He feared they would not wait, for it was already past the time at which he had said he would return.
He could do little in the cavern. He had been there well over an hour, and was becoming bored. He felt as though he should be doing something, anything to alleviate his pain. He thought about the dragon, and just for a moment he felt a tiny surge of hope in his veins, but then it was gone. The strange warriors who had captured him would probably not allow him to meet it.
Rolling his neck to loosen its joints, he decided to practice his fire bending. He might as well.
After several minutes of flying flames, Iroh noted the pattern of the dragons, and realization crashed over him like a wave. The dragons weren't dancing, they were bending.
He walked to the front of the oval and took the stance of the first dragon. Performing the dance with the dragons, he found that his bending increased a little in strength, and even more so when his position was parallel to that of the dragon he mimicked.
When he finished the dance, and huge golden artifact rose up out of the ground. Iroh smiled. That had to be the booby trap the warriors had spoken of. Only a fool would have touched it.
He did the dance again, several times.
"The masters have granted you an audience." said the warrior when he returned. Then his eyes fell on the lump of gold. "I see you remembered my warning about the booby trap."
The fire nation general stood at the top of the steps, staring at one of the caves he saw. There were two. Two caves, and possibly two dragons. The warrior had said masters, plural, so there might be more than one. Or did masters refer to the elders of the tribe?
His question was answered when a red and a blue dragon erupted from their respective caves. Iroh hugged the flame he had been given close to his body (but not close enough to burn him) as he watched them dance. Then a thought came to him and, leaving his flame to burn in the air where it was, he joined the dragons in their dance.
As the masters finished, they spat forth two jets of fire into the air. They twisted, and intertwined about one another, spiraling upward as far as the eye could see.
Iroh stared at the spectacle with his mouth open. In the pillar of flame around him he could see everything about fire, and about life. About his own life. He saw his childhood, his teenaged years. He saw his wife, and he saw Lu Ten.
Briefly, grief overtook him again, and he felt himself slipping away. He sank to the ground, and curling his legs beneath him, he remained rigid as if made of stone.
As the pillar of fire dwindled and left, the dragons looked at their guest. His eyes glowed a bluish grey.
"Will he be alright?" asked the blue one.
"Yes, he'll be fine." said the other. "We just need to give him some space, that's all."
Iroh looked about himself, searching for something to tell him where he was.
Nearby some kind of little animal was chirping happily as it groomed its voluminous tail.
"Excuse me," he said, though he knew it was foolish to speak to animals. "Do you know where I am?"
"You're right there of course!" said the disgruntled animal, and disgustedly ran into the dark misty forest around them.
Iroh blinked. "Apparently, I'm in the spirit world." he said. He threw a punch, intending to send out a small ball of flame, but nothing happened. "Yup, that pretty much proves it." A thought struck him. I wonder if Lu Ten is here? He cast about himself for any living creature. There was no one. "Hello out there!" he called. "Is anyone there? Lu Ten?"
A rustling in the trees about Iroh unsettled him.
"And who, pray tell, are you?"
Iroh spun around to find a man standing beside him. He was tall and lean. He wore a domed hat on his head which covered almost all of his face, and his clothes were loose fitting and dark colored.
"I am Iroh of the fire nation. Who are you?"
"I am Ji, a spirit here."
"Ah. And may I ask what is your specialty?"
"I am a spirit of truth."
"Oh." the spirit's voice unnerved Iroh. It was deep and rumbling, unbefitting a man. "And what do you do to people who tell lies?"
"If anyone lies to me, he is unable to use the words of his lie ever again, in this world, or the physical one."
That was a frightening concept. "Is it not so that people often lie in small everyday speech?"
"It is. A man who says he feels alright, when he really means that his stomach ails him, will have no desire to speak with me."
Vaguely, a plan formed in Iroh's mind. Just keep asking him questions then, he told himself. "Do you know where my son is, Ji?"
"Your son, Lu Ten is no more. But his spirit is in this realm. He has not yet chosen to be reborn. He is waiting for you, for he knew you would come."
"Which way would I go to find him?"
The spirit pointed. "Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty carrying your belly. He'll be there."
Iroh stared into the clearing. As promised, there was his son, meditating.
"Father?" he said, looking up.
The general ran to his son and the two embraced. "How's the tea?" asked Lu Ten.
"I'm afraid it has become one of my favorites, if you mean jasmine."
"Excellent." the captain sat back down on the misty forest floor. "I knew you would come, but I sense that Ji has already told you. I hope you did not lie to him?"
"No, he warned me of his power, and I had no desire to lie even if he had not told me."
"Good. General, I wanted to tell you, I think no one ever had a better father."
"That is high praise." Iroh sat beside his son. His emotions told him to do so many things, but he knew that this would be the last time his son and he ever spoke, and he had to enjoy it while it lasted and pay attention to every detail.
"Father, while I have been here I been thinking, and meditating, and I have seen many things. I have foreseen many things. That is how I knew you were coming. I knew that the dragons would find you worthy, and that when they showed you the essence of fire, you would see me in it and slip into the spirit world. And I have seen some other things as well. I paid special attention to little Zuko, and Azula."
"And?"
"They worry me. I have seen a terrible turmoil in Zuko's future, and I believe that in time Azula's more successful attempt to keep a reign on the vicious political atmosphere of the fire nation will eventually cause her to lose her sanity. Father, I knew when I saw these things that I had to wait here for you. I had to tell you about them. Zuko will walk a razor's edge in the future, and if you do not walk it with him he will fall to his doom, and the doom of all."
"What then must I do? How can I prevent him from falling?"
"You must let your grief for my passing flow through you and release it. Death is not an end, but the beginning of a new cycle. I will live again. When we are done here, we will both return to the world of the living, you to the fire nation, and I to…somewhere I have foreseen. Do not let my passing grieve you so much that you cannot see what else there is in this world. You must be there as a crutch for Zuko. You must always be there for him. And if you can help it, please be kind to Azula as well."
Iroh nodded. Somehow the opportunity to say goodbye to his son properly was already making him feel a bit better. "Anything else?"
"Do you still have my broad swords?"
"Yes, they are one of my prized possessions now. But I could not find your Tai Chi sword."
"That is alright. Please, give the swords to Zuko when you return home. His father gave them to me anyway, as you know. They should be his, and they will serve him well at least once in the days to come. I'm afraid that is all I can say. It grows late, and your crew is wondering where you are. And also, I am curious to discover the anew, from the perspective of a child. I hope some of your wisdom will follow me in the next life."
"I do too. And I hope you are safe. I will look after Zuko."
Commercial break
The Jasmine Dragon bustled with people now, full of customers. Aang smiled. At least the story had a somewhat happy ending.
"You know the rest of the story I suppose?" Iroh asked as he readied a customer's order.
"Yes, I know. You were there for Zuko, and in no small way, the war ended so well only because of you. You taught Zuko, who taught me."
"And he used those broad swords when he rescued you from Zhao. He always loved those swords, right from the moment I gave them to him." The old man carried away a tray of cups.
Aang closed his eyes and meditated for a moment. It took a lot of effort, and more time than he'd expected, but in time he found, in his mind, the place where Lu Ten had fallen by the outer wall. The arrow tattoo on his head glowed silver for a moment, and then he opened his eyes. His finding was a great surprise to him, but not an unwelcome one. Using his connection to the spirit world to locate Lu Ten's spirit, he had discovered an eight year old boy in the southern water tribe, whom he had already met years ago, when he first got out of the ice berg. Judging from the boy's presence, he was probably capable of bending water, but did not know it yet.
The avatar smiled to himself. He'd have to visit that boy.
