Chapter 4:
Once the city was out of view, we were officially on our journey. It was absolutely nerve-wracking and completely exhilarating all at once. We were all excited to help our brothers and sisters in the South, and—as I later discovered—it turns out that I wasn't the only one running away from something. Several of the men were trying to escape the North as well. A few of them had arranged marriages that were no longer appealing; some just wanted to escape the humdrum that was life in the city; and others, I found out, were convicts who were offered amnesty if they went. That idea was oddly comforting to me. Not that I was travelling with criminals, but that they were given a second chance to get it right. And it helped that many of them really believed in the mission, and weren't just trying to get out of prison.
I have to admit that I let my anxiety get the best of me several times that day, but luckily there was an older man named Arlok who had taken many trips around the world. He comforted me by telling me that this was a good, solid, strong vessel that we were on, and that the captain knew exactly what he was doing. "You don't think they'd let just anyone steer the ship that had our most precious cargo on it, do you?" he said jokingly. But he was right. The war had ravaged us so badly that waterbenders were almost beginning to come few and far between. So Arnook had every reason to make sure the he selected only the finest crewmen to escort us.
Everyone had a job to do on the ship. Some of the men kept the deck clean; some loaded the coal into the boilers; and a few even did laundry. Since our original cook was too afraid to go and backed out, I was elected chef. I wanted to do something special for our first night at sea, so I asked a couple of men to fetch me all of the cafishsalmon they could possibly catch. Catfishsalmon were hard to come by in the waters near our city, and so they were considered a rare delicacy, usually reserved only for the richest members of our society. Once they heard what I was planning, every available man joined in, and I ended up having more fish than I could possibly know what to do with.
I grilled the salmon and roasted some tubers we had from the food stocks, but only enough so that everyone could have one of each. We had to make our rations last. But I did throw in a single moonpeach for each of us, as a special treat. It was a great dinner. Everyone was talking and laughing, sharing stories and jokes. The camaraderie we had developed in just a few hours was nothing short of amazing. They crew accepted me and took me in right away, so much so that I didn't even feel like the only girl anymore. That is until they would pull out my chair, open doors for me, or refuse to let me do any sort of physical labor.
Every week, we would have some sort of festivity to try to prevent the monotony of looking at nothing but ocean water. One week, we would have Music Night. The next would be a sort of comedy hour, during which we told our funniest stories or best jokes. We would also host a talent show, in which everyone had to participate. We agreed that showing off our individual talents would be good for bonding.
We also decided to make the most of our All-Around-The-World trip. Each of us put in a bid for a place we wanted to go, and we would vote on each idea. The five bids with the most votes would be chosen and planned as mini-vacations, provided they weren't too far out of the way of our original route. I was so excited to know that my bid to go to an Air Temple had been chosen. I have always been fascinated by the Airbenders, and I wanted to learn as much about them as I possibly could. For years I had dreamt of visiting an Air Temple. To walk were they walked and see where and how they lived. I was also ecstatic to know that my mini-vacation would be the first stop on our journey. The route we planned as not even half a day's journey from the Northern Air Temple, so it made sense to go ahead and stop there instead of going out of our way to try and visit another Temple.
Everything was going well until that night. It had been about six weeks since had we left the Northern Tribe behind us. We had drifted from our original course in an effort to go ahead toward the Northern Air Temple. It was a quiet night, nice and warm, and I had decided to spend some time on deck, to get some fresh air since I had been cooped up in the kitchen for most of the day. I was enjoying the peace and quiet, since most of the men had already gone to their quarters for the night.
After a couple of hours, I began to grow tired. I was turning to head back to my quarters when I saw it. It was just a black speck in the distance at first, but it was quickly and steadily growing larger and larger until there was no mistaking it. A Fire Navy ship. I ran up the ballast as fast as I could. "I know, Yarah. I've already seen it," the helmsman said gravely.
"What're we going to do?" I asked desperately.
"That's… up to the Captain," he replied.
"Okay," I said. "I'll ask him and get back to you." I immediately turned and ran to the Captain's Nest. "Captain! Captain!" I hollered. I was out of breath, but he heard me. He turned to face me. "There's a Fire Navy ship headed right toward us," I said, breathing heavily. "It's pretty far out right now, but it won't be long before they reach us," I added. I stepped closer to him. "What're we going to do?" I asked. I wasn't looking for a fight, but I also wasn't going to miss the opportunity to exact some small measure of revenge.
"Tell the crew," he said, "to prepare for surrender."
"WHAT?!" I screamed. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. There was absolutely no way I would ever give up. Not with everything we had at stake. The South Pole was depending on us. They needed our help, and if for some reason we didn't make it, my uncle might decide to abandon the cause altogether and let our sister tribe go extinct. And that was something I simply could not let happen. Not while there was breath in my body.
I was pulled out of my shock when Arlok and several other men showed up. "We heard yelling. Is everything alright?" he asked.
"No, it's not," I began. "There is a Fire Navy ship about a mile out from us," I said. "I asked the Captain what to do, and he told me to tell you to ready for surrender."
"What?!" Arlok said, echoing my earlier response to the notion.
"Well, it does seem like the safe choice," said a man behind him. "Who knows what the Fire Nation will do to us if—"
"Who CARES what they'll do?!" I screamed angrily. "We have a mission and a cause which we must see through to the end! Do not let your fear allow you to forget about the women and children in the South who are depending on us to make it down there. Now do you want to surrender like cowards and forfeit your honor, or do you want to fight like the men you claim to be and show them that the Water Tribes will surrender to no one!" I said forcefully.
I didn't think my words were so powerful, but several men started to unleash vigorous cheers, and before I knew it, I had been swept up on deck with the rest of the men as they took their positions to fight. They wouldn't let me on the front line at first, at least not until I told them that I had just as much a right to defend the ship and my honor as they did. That got them even more fired up, knowing that the only woman onboard was just as—if not more—ready, willing, and able to fight.
It was only minutes before the ship got up close to ours. They had several soldiers on deck, about seven in all, and the one in the middle had clearly been chosen to do the talking, as the others fell silent when he spoke. "In accordance with the Fire Lord's naval decree, you are to surrender your ship and your crew at once. We know this vessel was stolen, and Fire Lord Azulon has ordered the ship to be taken back on sight. If you surrender peacefully, we will—" He stopped talking as his jaw fell.
On my own, I had lifted a wave no less than twenty feet above sea level and sent it crashing onto the deck, washing away all seven soldiers. The ship was solid, though, even sturdier than ours, and while it did lean over quite a bit, it didn't capsize. It righted itself, and not even seconds later, the entire crew as well as all the soldiers within had rushed on deck.
The battle started immediately after that. I could see waterbenders and firebenders rushing aboard each other's ships to fight. There was fire and water and steam all around me. It was absolutely unnerving, but I managed to keep my wits about me as a Fire Nation soldier rushed right to me. I let him run as fast as he could towards me before I quickly side-stepped. He couldn't stop his momentum, though, and he ran right into the railing, hanging over it. I bent some water up from the sea, and I brought down my closed fist, several shards of ice had impaled the man, killing him instantly. I almost felt bad for him, but he knew what he was doing.
When I looked around, I was horrified to see that there was blood everywhere, and that most of our men were dead. I had been severely injured myself, but I had too much adrenaline coursing through me to feel any pain. "Yarah…" I heard someone murmur from a few feet away. I turned to see Arlok on the floor, crawling towards me. His legs had literally been burnt off, and I could tell that he was using the very last of his energy to get to me. I ran to him then, to save him the effort. "Yarah," he said, coughing up blood. "This battle is over. We've lost."
Tears flooded my eyes then as I realized that it was all my fault. If I had just agreed to surrender like the Captain wanted us to, everyone would still be alive. "Do not regret urging us to fight. You gave us a chance to defend our honor," he said. He continued then. "You are a great master. I have witnessed your bending firsthand just now, and I can honestly say that I never thought a woman was capable of such bending. You have surpassed myself as well as every other bender on this ship combined… Yours is a great skill which must be shared with the South. Go now. Run away and try to survive this onslaught. Someone has to survive, and if I could only choose one person, it would be you." I shook my head then, refusing to run away. He took his very last breath right after that, and I kissed his forehead before struggling to lift what was left of his body over the railing and into the ocean. The greatest honor a waterbender could attain was to be buried at sea.
I turned around and looked at the Fire Navy ship with tears in my eyes. I wanted to destroy it, as well as every single thing and person on board. I turned and ran for the other side of the deck then, diving overboard. I heard several shouts and taunts behind me. "Yeah, that's right! Turn and run like the coward you are! Go back to the North to play in your puddles."
Everything fell silent, though, when I rose. I used my anger to fuel my bending, and had created a twenty-five-foot waterspout that surrounded my lower body and lifted me high into the air. In addition to that, I had also given myself twelve tentacles of water which swirled this way and that around me. I used each of them to grab a man and hurl him hundreds of yards into the ocean and away from the ship.
It was going well. I had almost cleared the ship, until I saw him. He was dressed differently than the rest, in a much more ornate uniform. He must have been some kind of leader or something. I was momentarily distracted by him, and he used that opportunity to strike. His hands began to glow then as he made circular movements. But it wasn't fire; it was lightening. He was creating lightening!
It happened far too fast for to me to react, but I still perceived it in slow motion. I watched as he created two semi-circles—one with each hand—to generate the lightening, and then he aimed directly for my waterspout and fired. I gasped what I thought to be my last breath as I saw the lightening travel up the tower of water, before shockwaves ran through my body and everything went black.
