The next three days were really busy. Aside from getting laundry, Zuko pretty much ignored me, though other people took me up on my offer to do theirs. I did run into problems with knowing who owned what… But in the end, I just found a spare hammock that was set up (I have no idea what happened to that particular crew member… He could have been the one that got sick with small pox and had to be left behind to be treated) and let as many people know as I could that clean clothes would be left there, so if they had anything they expected to get clean, to check there.
Another disappointing thing was that it had been almost a week and the prince and the general still hadn't started the prince's training in firebending back up. It was starting to bother me a little bit, since I was still having problems with accidentally summoning fire and scorching things.
It was probably about ten-o-clockish when we docked a little way from shore. The boats had relatively flat bottoms compared to some ships, so ours was able to get a little bit closer to the shore then most ships would have been. Even so, the enormity of the ship kept us from coming too close.
I was hanging out in the steering room, simply because some of the crew was playing pi-sho as they waited, and I wanted to see if I could pick up any good moves to beat the general with. It was probably pointless, the man was a genius.
Suddenly, the prince stormed into the room. I could tell he wasn't super happy... But who was I kidding? He was never happy. Still, he seemed… a tad more displeased than normal. Something had set him off.
"Captain!" He barked, "We're going to raise our anchor in twenty minutes! Get to your post!" Immediately, without explanation (as was usual) he stormed off without a word.
I blinked three times. It wasn't that it was unlike him. No. But all of it was just so sudden. There was peace and quiet... And then there was Zuko. What an end to it!
I decided to check it out, standing up slowly and quietly, and exiting the room. Zuko was out on the deck, pretty much where I expected him to be.
"What's wrong?" I asked, trying to quiet my sigh.
"Nothing is wrong!" He snapped back, without looking at me.
I shook my head. "Forgive me… But it seems a bit odd for you to suddenly announce that we're departing like that... if nothing is wrong." I flinched when me moved, expecting him to start yelling again.
"It doesn't matter." His voice was low and tense, but it didn't hold any more hostility.
"I apologize." I hesitated for a moment, unsure if I should ask. "Is there anything I can do?"
"Go see if uncle is coming. I gave him a time limit about two hours ago, and he's still not here yet! If he's not ready, tell him he better come, or we'll take off without him." The prince stalked away and I wondered why I had bothered to ask. Maybe I needed this. If I offered to help him more, he might trust me more.
I didn't want to get stuck on the ship if we were supposed to be preparing to sail again, at least, not when I had an errand to run. So I made my way off the ship as quickly as possible.
I figured it wouldn't be too hard to find the general, but it took longer than I expected.
What finally clued me in was the clothes I saw hanging on the tree. "Don't tell me…" I suddenly felt a headache coming on. It had been at least eight of the ten minutes that we had to show up, and the General's clothes were hanging on a tree? How would we ever get this solved in time?
"General…." I called out, trying not to let the nervousness seep into my voice.
No reply.
"General?" I frowned. It wasn't like him not to answer at all. I decided it warranted going on past the tree that had his clothes on it. What I saw made me stare for a moment, uncomprehendingly.
There had been a natural tub of sorts. I could tell that much from the mud all over the ground. But there was more to it. Spikes of earth came up in irregular patterns. What did it mean?
I slapped my forehead with my palm. Earth benders. They must have figured out who the General was and captured him while he was sitting there defenseless. By now, half our time must have passed, the ship would have sailed and there was no reason to go back. No, I had to try to track these guys. Maybe we could find another way to catch up with Zuko. It didn't matter, from here, all that mattered was that I rescue the general, if he hadn't already managed to do it himself.
There were footprints from a large animal, possibly an ostrich-horse. It would be difficult to hide those kinds of tracks.
As it turned out, I was right, they were really easy to spot. I followed them out the other end of the woods, onto a sort of dirt road. It wasn't particularly wide, but several ostrich-horses could probably walk right next to each other. There was bamboo growing thickly on both sides, so I knew that there was no way that they could choose to deviate from the trail either, for now.
The sun would be setting in a few hours, so it would be best if I could hurry. However, I knew from previous experiences that running would only wear me out, and I probably would lose time taking breaks when I could simply walk at a good pace. I began to do something between a walk and a jog, but it would still take a long time for me to catch up to the general. Gradually, there was less dust, and more rock on the road. The going was getting tougher. But there was still no way they could deviate from the trail, a ledge had gradually sprung up to the side of the road… But then, these people were Earthbenders… They probably could go wherever they wanted to, as long as there was earth.
One problem with walking by yourself without knowing how long it's going to take, or what you'll do when you get there is that your brain goes into hyper drive. Either you start remembering things you don't want to think about, or you start worrying about things that could happen in the future. In between worrying about how long it would take to catch up with general Iroh, and worrying about what I would do when I finally did catch up, I also wondered what exactly my goal was on the ship. After all, I had gone off kind of half-cocked, and after dealing with nightmares every night for the last week, I was beginning to wonder if I had come really to serve general Iroh, or if I was trying to run away from something. Life wasn't too bad before, so I had no idea what I would be running away from, but all the same, I was more distracted on the ship than I cared to think about. And how was I contributing? By washing clothes? How pitiful! Anyone with a brain could do that, and laundry wasn't exactly necessary. If only I was better at firebending! Then- I stopped myself in the middle of thinking that. Then what? I could help Zuko capture the Avatar? I could protect Iroh from… what? Killer birds? Despite being on a military ship, it wasn't as if we were in any real danger, most of the time. Again, the problem of who I wanted to impress and serve seemed to run in circles in my mind until I wanted to scream.
There! I almost missed it in the ever-dimming light, a sandal…. I stopped, panting, and allowed myself to take a break. It had to be the general's… He hadn't escaped, but he was leaving a clue behind. I looked back over my shoulder and realized that I'd taken one fork of the path without realizing it. I slapped my hand over my eyes. "STUPID!" I was lucky that time, but that didn't mean that I would be in the future. I thanked fate or whatever it was that kept me from taking the other fork, and decided to leave the sandal where it was. I wasn't sure what the point would be of leaving it there, unless maybe the prince would come after his uncle, realizing that he still wasn't on board… Maybe he'd try and track him down… Probably not, but you never know.
After my break, the light was just about gone from the sky, and I was starting to lose hope. Someone on foot could not hope to catch up to someone with ostrich-horses, and I hadn't had much time to catch up. They could have left long before I had ever arrived on the scene. But there was definitely no way that I could stop either, anything could be happening.
The sun set. Gradually crickets and other insects that come about at night decided to make their presence known to the world. I stopped jogging, and started walking. Probably about half an hour passed before my feet began dragging on the ground. There was no way…. I fell to my knees on the ground. I couldn't keep going.. I couldn't just keep going, not when they were hours away like this… I wasn't strong enough to keep it up indefinitely. I had failed. Maybe it was time just to rest for the night.
Rather than try to move myself off the path (It didn't seem like anyone else was coming this way anyhow) I just started drifting off where I was.
I sat up with a start. Of course! That was what they would be doing, resting until morning, probably. After all, what reason did they have to go through the night? It was probably one or two in the morning, they would have stopped a long time ago, which meant I was probably getting closer!
With some renewed energy, I pulled myself and started going again, just walking. But even a little bit at a time would get me there. As long as I was right, and they were taking a break for the night, I could possibly catch up to them.
I was beginning to tire again when I noticed a light. A light meant that someone had made a fire… And a fire could possibly mean- but I should be cautious. If it really was them, then I should be careful. They had a prisoner, so likely they'd have a guard. I should take him out before trying everything else. And to be realistic, I had a bad feeling about taking any of them out. I was so exhausted that I felt as if my arms and legs were made of lead. But I would do anything I had to do. Anything at all.
I crawled forward, and realized that there was one guy standing up. Lucky for me, they'd made their camp next to the woods. Maybe I could get up behind that guy, and hit him on the head from behind. Unless he was guarding the forest… Then I should approach the road… But that was unreasonable, they were probably guarding the road, because anyone that came, or left would come from there, right?
I backed off a bit, then climbed off of the road and into the woods. After what seemed like hours, I could see the light again, through the trees. I was so close…
Making an effort to slow down, I half-crouched and moved slowly through the woods. There! I could see the sentry from before. Lucky for me, he was facing the road. I crept so close, that I was standing on ledge about four feet from him. I took as quiet a deep breath as I could, and jumped, trying to tackle him before he could make a noise. He fought back pretty hard, but in the end, he ended up hitting his head on the ground, dazing him a bit. I stood shakily to my feet and looked around. There was no time to waste! He wasn't unconscious, just had the wind knocked out of him. There were ostrich-horses, but no tents, the men slept around a fire. The general was sleeping too, but he was a little farther from the others, where the man I'd just tackled could keep an eye on him.
One look at the chains they'd bound him with left me certain that there was no possible way I could get him out on my own. He wasn't dressed (not a surprise, since I had found his clothes hanging on that tree), and he was shackled up in an uncomfortable position, with his ankles secured with rope. I had to keep a grip on my emotions to keep them from skyrocketing into an enraged mess. I'd probably burn the whole forest down if that happened, and I didn't want Iroh to get hurt.
They were soldiers, so they probably had weapons…. Hopefully they used more than their Earthbending… Soldiers had to carry weapons of some sort, right? They had all their stuff next to them, and I finally realized that there was a knife handle just barely sticking out of an upended bag. If I could just cut the general's legs free, we could steal one of their ostrich-horses and… ride away? It was the best I could come up with for now, plans typically weren't my thing.
I ran carelessly through the group of sleeping men, aware of how little time I had. I just needed to get the knife.
I couldn't help but feel a bit smug when I finally made it. Adrenaline was racing through my veins so that the shaking in my limbs didn't bother me. I wasn't sure if that was from the adrenaline, or also from exhaustion. I had to be careful, wouldn't want to accidentally cut the general while I was working on these ropes…
"So, you're one of his…" a voice came from behind me.
Oops.
I jumped, spinning wildly around, and holding the knife in front of me. "Look… I'm sure he wasn't doing anything to you, could you just be… a nice gentleman and let him go?" I asked, pushing myself into a stance. Like that would ever happen…
He must have been one of the guys I thought was asleep… Probably my mad rush woke him up. I heard the soldier to the side gasp a bit. More company. It wasn't really the best time to stall, and I also couldn't afford to turn my back to this guy to cut the ropes. I had lost… But that didn't mean I was willing to admit it!
The soldier raised an eyebrow, and I sighed. "I thought not." I adopted an apologetic tone. "Well, sorry, but we have to be moving. If you're not going to let us go, I guess I'll have to fight you." I cracked my knuckles, avoiding the knife in my hand. "Fine then! I'll take you on, body and soul!"
He actually laughed at this. "Fight me? You're kidding, right?"
I glared at him, and made a run for his throat. I never got that far.
It was embarrassing how easily he slapped me out of the way. I could feel the welt rising on my cheek. Now I was angry. "Aaaaaaarggh!" I yelled, effectively waking up everyone else who was asleep. Great. But still, I was too angry to realize how bad that was. I brought the knife up past my right shoulder, and ran forward, screaming, about to slash at the soldier. He merely smacked me in the chin with his elbow, and when my head went flying back, he kicked me in the chest, straight toward the ledge that I'd jumped from. The impact knocked the wind out of me, and I slumped to the ground. My adrenaline rush was gone, leaving the wave of exhaustion to crash on me.
What a funny time to realize how starving you are… I tottered to my feet, still holding the knife somehow. "I refuse to lose to you!"
Somehow I had managed to forget that there were more of them than just the one guy. The guard had recovered by this point. He must have been the one that hit me in the back of the head.
I crumpled onto the road.
My entire body ached.
Not that you shouldn't expect that when you get smacked that hard. Seriously, don't pick fights with guys that are much larger than you when you haven't slept in over 20 hours. It's not pleasant, and it typically doesn't end well.
I groaned, feeling my senses begin to come back as I realized how much I ached. The first time I opened my eyes the colors all blurred together, so I shut them again.
"Hey!"
I heard the voice in front of me, and forced my eyes to open. "Huh?"
"So you're alive." Zuko sighed. I wasn't sure if he was happy about that or not…
I laughed bitterly. "Not sure if that's a good thing at the moment."
"Where did they take Uncle?" He searched my face. I found it dreadfully intimidating, especially since I wasn't sure what he was looking for.
"I don't know. I was so close, just…" I looked around. I was leaning on the wall that I'd crashed into before. Strange, I thought I'd crumpled on the road… "Hey, what are you doing here anyway?" It dawned on me that it was weird that he was here, since he said he was leaving twenty minutes before this whole mess started.
"You never reported back. We waited a couple hours, and you never came, so I went looking. That's how we found out that Uncle was gone." He glared. "They got you too, didn't they?"
I shook my head. "No… I thought I'd try to find him on my own…"
The silence before the storm was deafening.
"Are you stupid?" Zuko shouted. "As soon as you found out something was wrong, you should have come back and reported to me!"
I groaned. "With due respect, that would have resulted in us taking more time. We might not have caught up to him in time…"
"We're still not caught up to him, if you haven't noticed!" Zuko retorted. "You've accomplished absolutely nothing, unless you count getting yourself knocked senseless!"
I blinked and lookd away. He was right after all. "I-I'm sorry. You're right, it didn't do any good."
There was a brief silence, and I could see him almost visibly cooling off. "Here." He handed me some hardtack. "You should eat. I don't want you to collapse or anything while we're looking for him." I stared incredulously at what he was holding out, and then cautiously took it.
He turned the other way, and looked down the road. He was probably impatient to get going and worried about his uncle. If he came all this way, he must be. I devoured the hardtack as fast as I could possibly manage. The shaking in my body eased a bit. I relaxed some. "Okay… How are we going to catch up to them on foot?" I asked, embarrassed to have slowed him down so much.
"We won't have to, I brought a rhino. Let's go." He turned and started back around the bend. So that's why I couldn't see it...
When we finally mounted, I wasn't sure what to do. I was getting stronger by the minute, but it was still taking time for the hardtack to hit my bloodstream.
"You can hold on to me if you need to."
I blinked. Quite honestly, it was the last thing I actually expected him to say. "Thanks."
"We're going to ride hard, so I don't expect to have to stop for you. If you fall off, you'll just have to stay there."
"Got it." I put my arms around his waist, gingerly, kind of expecting him to blow up, or to be blazing hot. But no. He was very, very …human feeling. It was almost a let down, but then, what had I expected?
We rode hard for a long time, just like he'd planned. It was probably late morning when he found me, and it was starting to get dark again before anything happened. Neither of us really talked much. ...Okay, neither of us talked at all.
I had started going into a daze when we finally stopped. He dismounted the rhino. I was about to do the same, but he stopped me.
"Stay here!" He whispered.
"What's going on?" I asked him back.
"Sh! Listen."
I frowned, trying to figure out what I was listening for. I suddenly heard what he must have heard. Voices.
"Stay here." He whispered harshly. "I'm going down to get uncle."
"But I can-" I started. He silenced me with a glare.
"If you won't agree to stay here, I will tie you down! I don't need anyone getting in the way!" he whispered loudly. I could hear the seriousness in his voice. He wasn't kidding. I nodded.
"Good luck." I whispered, helplessly. There wasn't anything I could really do if his mind was so made up.
He nodded and turned, disappearing between the rocks.
I stayed there for maybe 30 seconds before I dismounted and moved closer. If he wouldn't let me fight, I could at least watch. I just couldn't stand sitting here and knowing nothing about whether they would win or lose. Besides, after having something to eat and resting a bit, I felt significantly better.
"-must be crushed!" The soldier who had dispatched me so quickly yesterday announced. I finally heard his voice, not having to concentrate on watching my step or making sure Zuko didn't see me. I watched as he caused a huge rock to levitate over the general's hands, which were shackled, and laid down flat against an equally huge boulder. My eyes widened. They couldn't…
The movement was so fast, I almost missed it. Zuko came crashing in, kicking the boulder out of the way, and flipping backward. He swung his leg in an arc, breaking the general's chains in half. I couldn't follow it all, but before I knew it, the general was wielding the two separate chains attached to his wrists as some kind of weapon.
"Excellent form, prince Zuko!" He praised his nephew.
From my position, I caught a ghost of a smile -the first I'd ever seen- on Zuko's face. "You taught me well."
"Surrender yourselves!" The lead soldier interrupted. "It's five against two and you're clearly outnumbered!"
"Ah, that's true." General Iroh agreed. "But you are clearly outmatched!"
I nearly gasped. This was the legendary Iroh, the Dragon of the West. The man who'd won a thousand battles, the man who had started the almost two year siege of Ba-Sing-Sae. It was as if there was a kind of dangerous fire radiating from him. I was glad that I was on his side.
True to form, somehow the general and the prince took out all five of the men. I could barely follow it, there was so much that I wanted to know how to do and to be able to try. It was the most amazing fight I had ever seen.
It culminated to a high point, the lead soldier was about to crush Zuko with a tower of rocks. Iroh snapped the chain around the soldier's ankles and caused him to trip, knocking down the tower of rocks on top of him.
The tension released and Zuko put his hand on his uncle's shoulder. I could tell that he was also proud of their work. "Now would you please put on some clothes?"
I walked back to the rhino, knowing they were right behind me, probably. I heard the two of them come up, and turned to face Zuko. "I just realized… There's no way we can all ride the rhino."
He frowned. "We can all fit."
It was not an ideal situation. Somehow, sitting behind an almost naked man appealed to me as little as sitting in front of an almost naked man. Plus, it was almost a little embarrassing to me to be that close to Zuko anymore. There was nothing romantic in it at all, it was purely practical. But still, I found it strange to be that close if there was another way to do things.
"Hey, what about grabbing one of their ostrich-horses?" I asked.
"I don't want to take longer than we have to."
"But it will make things shorter in the long run, right?" Oh excuses, excuses. I started toward the edge to find my way down.
Zuko sounded like he was about to say something, but Iroh caught him right before he could actually say it. "How am I supposed to put on my clothes when you haven't brought them?"
The prince gave an exasperated yell, and climbed onto the rhino. Iroh managed to get up beside him, and I took off to find an ostrich-horse for myself. It didn't take long.
What took time was getting it onto the path. Those creatures are kind of stupid.
Once I made my way onto the path, I realized that we were going the wrong way. I pushed my ostrich-horse to catch up to Zuko's rhino. "Wait a second, isn't the ship in the other direction?" I asked, a little surprised.
"We're going after the avatar."
"The Avatar?" I asked. "I thought he was the reason you wanted to leave?"
"I saw his bison when I was on my way to find Uncle, before I ran into you. He's here and I'm not going to leave until I catch up to him."
There was no arguing with him. I made a mental note to find out why the avatar was so important to him. Was it just the status of it? Somehow that seemed off. The prince was almost desperate to find him. There had to be more to it than simply gaining glory.
Zuko could not be persuaded to give us more than a few hours to sleep, so it was early in the morning, and still dark by the time we got to the village. The village was tiny, and most of it was wrecked too. As if a band of pirates had come through and destroyed as much as they could before they were forced to stop.
Zuko hopped down off of the rhino and made his way to the front door of the main building confidently. He pounded on the door and a somewhat wimpy looking man answered it. "Having trouble sleeping?" Zuko demanded. He kicked the man into the door. I winced as it caved and the guy fell through it. That had to hurt…
"Seen the avatar lately?" He followed up.
I noticed the huge bison that he must have seen earlier take off.
"Umm…" the man was clearly stalling for time. "The Avatar? I thought he was dead. He hasn't been seen for a hundred years!"
"Don't try to play games with me!" Poor Zuko. He'd been through a lot in the last day, it seemed like this was just another block to keep him from getting the avatar. Should I feel that way? He just kicked a man through the door… He could afford to be kinder. But I noticed that that note of desperation crept back into his voice again. It was just a hint, barely anything at all. But it was something. And he cared a little about his uncle, so in my mind, he deserved at tleast a little bit of sympathy.
I saw the bison take off and hesitated for a moment. Did I really want to change course and start chasing the avatar down again? But I felt sorry for the prince, and I really did owe him after he …well, didn't leave me laying in the middle of the road, and gave me something to eat. Not to mention, I didn't want anyone in the village to get hurt either… "Sir, I think I just saw him take off."
Zuko growled in frustration, turning on his heel and mounting the rhino again as fast as he could.
I rubbed my eyes. It was probably about four hours since we'd left the village, and it was about 8:00 in the morning. Morning. I was beginning to hate it. Why did it exist in the first place? Mentally, I decided to take the rest of the day off. When we finally staggered onto the ship, and guards took care of the rhino and ostrich-horse, I hobbled to my room. Hopefully the prince was humane enough not to force me to work too much today… I couldn't say anything for sure about his character, but I didn't think anyone else would expect that of me.
How many people would expect to miss a prison-hold cell? I never would have thought that I was one of them, but I found out differently. Since it smelled familiar by now, and meant sleep, I figured that this cell was as welcoming as heaven would be. Perhaps that was an exaggeration…
Who cared? Sleep first.
