The Tourists Guide to the Realm of the Avatar

(The Voyage of Eduard)

Chapter 4

"I'm sorry Zuko," Eduard lay back on his bed which consisted of a blanket and a slab of rock. Eduard realized fairly early in his stay at the Western Air Temple that he would make a completely unhappy and grumpy air nomad. Zuko did little to improve the mood as the prince had his own worries. "I didn't know Mai very well but she sounds like a decent sort. I have been Azula's prisoner." Eduard pointed at his missing eye for effect.

Zuko paced the room nervously. "I know what happened to you and so I've got a good reason to worry."

"Not all things turn out badly," Eduard sat up on his bed. He knew this would offer little consolation to the troubled prince but something in his nature obliged him to give out useless advice in hopes that somehow Zuko could make use of it.

Katara showed up with her daily dose of warm foxglove tea. "I'll just set this down." Katara scowled at Zuko and left the room.

Zuko waited for a moment. "She treats me like crap. She hates me and I don't know what to say." He threw up his hands in frustration. "I wish I could earn her respect."

Eduard gazed at Zuko. "I've come to know you as well as anyone knows a moody, insecure, traumatized prince with an obsessive compulsive nature. I have never felt even the tiniest need to show you respect and you have never even had the tiniest interest in my opinions."

Zuko huffed dismissively. "You've given me a chance to acquire self discipline and control. We end up spending time together and it takes all my discipline to keep from choking you."

"When I look at the bleak, ugly, out of the way hellholes we've visited," Eduard spoke softly, "I've not yet had the chance to visit some hideous place with too many bugs or inconvenient locations, trees that make me break out in a rash or where the temperature soars to where the fillings in my teeth start melting that hasn't been made worse by spending time with you. Katara may have decided to save on effort and just not try to get to know you."

"What does that have to do with anything!"

"Nothing, just venting. Why do you care what Katara thinks? You came with a mission to help the Avatar master fire bending so he can challenge and defeat your father." Eduard picked up his cup of medicinal tea. "I spent time camping with you and I will admit to having the urge to bash your head in with a rock." Eduard blew on his tea and sipped it. "You need to give her time to become used to the idea of the good Prince Zuko and come to accept you for the vastly irritating but well intentioned ass that you are."

"Thanks..." Zuko said dryly. He sat on Eduard's bed and decided to change the topic. This proved difficult with Eduard since the man hated his life, hated living in the Western Air Temple and wanted everyone to know.

"Do you think my sister will come for revenge?" Zuko asked as he lay back on Eduard's bed. "We know she's going to want revenge for the theft of her airship and her loss at The Boiling Rock."

"I would bet that Azula has every airship at her command hunting us down," Eduard tented his fingers. "Do you think we should leave this place?"

Zuko put his hands behind his head. "All she has to do is draw a straight line from The Boiling Rock and she'll find us."

"I wouldn't miss this place." Eduard crushed a cockroach that had done nothing but wander out of the danker spaces of the temple with the bottom of his tea cup. "I can think of fifty thousand better places to wind up and that's just the Northern Hemisphere. Nature can't seem to find a civilized level of bugs. I saw a weird fluorescent green caterpillar with yellow and white stripes the length of my hand eating a bush. I found that unsettling."

Eduard had finished readying himself for the morning when the wall facing outside exploded. Eduard grabbed his knapsack and watched two ton chunks of limestone fall into the chasm below. A series of sharp concussions shook the temple and Eduard beat a hasty retreat from his room. He fell through a hole in the floor and tumbled out of the air temple and landed on the top of an exceedingly large Fire Nation airship. He looked at the red linen for a moment and then slid down the side until a cable stopped his fall by catching him in the crotch. Eduard grunted and held on to the cable as his eyes filled with water.

A loud crack came from above and the rest of Eduard's room exploded into fragments. The fiercest blows fell on the veranda with the pivoting blue doors where most of the gang slept. The cable snapped under Eduard's weight and he fell past startled Fire Nation gunners as they lobbed bombs at the temple.

"Crap! Son of a bitch!" Eduard lost his grip and fell about ten feet and landed on a rock. He lay there winded and sore but found it amazing that he still had his knapsack. He felt a flash of heat and stones pelted him as a bomb went off. Eduard ran into the maze of tunnels behind the front facing of one of the upside down stone covered pagodas. A concussion knocked Eduard down and the hallway filled with dust. Eduard heard his ears ringing and could feel blood trickling down his head.

"On days like this, I could roll over and die," Eduard stumbled into The Hall of Echoes, "but I don't want to give Azula the satisfaction of killing me."

If bombs made loud noises when they detonated in open spaces, they sounded horrific in The Hall of Echoes. Eduard covered his ears and wondered if he would die on the rock with no eardrums. After a few moments, the bombing stopped and Eduard found himself in a strange silent room with the stone dust drifting slowly in the light from the skylight. Eduard sat on the ground and wondered what to do next.

"Dear Eduard," A familiar voice came from the hallway. Azula emerged from the hallway with her hair down and arms crossed. "The Avatar left with my brother on the sky bison."

"What!" Eduard yelled and pointed at his ears.

"The Avatar has left you here!" Azula yelled back.

"Huh?" Eduard made a mental effort to still the ringing in his ears. "The man a the bar did what!"

"The Avatar and his friends have left you here!" Azula yelled and struck a fierce fighting pose. "They have abandoned you to your fate!"

Eduard raised his hand. "I'll catch the next sky bison out of here."

"You have taken to wear an eye patch." Azula paced around Eduard like an evil cat waiting to pounce. "I had to take your eye out, I had to keep you in line and I was right about you – you left with my pathetic brother and joined the Avatar. I had expected you to die given that you don't have your heart medication but I imagine that Water Tribe witch has ways to keep you alive."

"You did me a favor," Eduard pointed at his eye patch, "after all I have a convenient place to keep my keys – beats hiding them under a mat." Eduard's odd humor seldom struck Azula as funny and her face showed not a trace of emotion.

"You can't imagine how it hurt me to have you sentenced to death." Azula watched Eduard carefully. "I like you and you have talents." She held a pink throwing knife in her hand. "I have no use for my brother or my funny uncle."

Eduard scratched his temple. "You look like crap. You usually take great pride in your appearance – but your hair is a mess..."

Shut up!" Azula snapped. She sank into the floor and screamed.

Toph lifted a rock and held it over her head. "You alright Eduard? Lets go before the soldiers show up."

"Thanks!" Eduard followed Toph into a tunnel and Azula watched it closed. The two ton boulder over her head fell to one side with a thump.

"I couldn't leave you with the scary lady," Toph guided Eduard by the hand. "It'll take them a while to pry her out and that'll buy us time to escape."

Katara had a spool of some kind of sinew she used to stitch up Eduard's head which had a four inch long gash running across his forehead. Eduard looked at the blue sky and fluffy white clouds and hoped they would soothe his nerves as the needle dug in – they utterly failed.

"Ow!" Eduard yelped. "Chicks dig scars – ouch!" Katara had no local anesthetic and Eduard could feel her sewing his gashed forehead up with seal sinew and a needle made of bone. "Will my -ow! - ears end up on the same place on my head?"

Katara didn't let Eduard's squirming deter her from her task. Suki grabbed Eduard's head to hold it steady so nothing unfortunate happened. She had visions of the unlucky and squirming Eduard having his eyebrows sewn together.

"I feel like an – ouch!" Eduard yelped as Katara finished the last stitch. "I know what my stuffed toys went through when my mom fixed them."

"You won't have a scar and so chicks won't dig you." Suki snickered.

Katara smiled pleasantly as she finished knitting Eduard's battered scalp together and sewed up the last stitch.

"They never did." Eduard sat up and let his headache slowly subside and sat next to Zuko. "Quit looking at me like that!" Eduard told Zuko. "I'm a sissy! If you could stay calm while a water tribe girl stuck needles in your forehead and sewed you up with seal guts – more power to you."

"I don't think your a sissy," Zuko said unhappily. "A colossal complainer and grumbler but not a sissy."

"Azula says hi." Eduard told Zuko as he sulked in the back of Appa's saddle. Eduard watched a kangaroo like animal hopping along the grassland below him. The Western Air Temple Island reminded Eduard of what he had seen of Madagascar on nature documentaries and explained why he had never had any burning desire to visit there. A half hour had passed but Eduard and the others still kept checking to see if they had any airships pursuing them but they had gotten away cleanly. Nothing except a few vultures dining on a large carcass flew in the skies.

"She'll hunt us down like dogs." Zuko growled. "We're not safe anywhere."

Eduard looked down at the grassland below him, "Doesn't anyone live on this rock? Half a million square kilometers of nothing but jungle, scary bugs and no human habitation." Eduard had a European sense of scale which meant he found vast tracts of land with no buildings or landmarks utterly boring and considered Denmark a vast track of land. "A huge waste of space if you ask me."

"We'll be crossing the coast soon," Zuko said as an attempt to rid himself of the company of Eduard. "If you find this boring then wait until you see the open ocean."

Eduard looked around the saddle, "this thing lacks a lavatory."

"Nature is your lavatory," Zuko yawned.

"Ew! I can exercise some discipline." Eduard looked down at the long breathtaking sweeping grassland flow below him.

"We'll take a bathroom break as soon as we're safe." Katara said comfortingly.

"What about stopovers at a nice regional airport?" Eduard held out few hopes for that as they flew over a coastal mangrove swamp and felt the humidity waft off the ground. Appa flew over the mass of forest full of caymans, pythons and other nice things and soon headed out over the tropical blue ocean. Eduard grimaced as the wet swamp smell hit his nostrils.

The gang arrived at some unnamed island with a few sparse trees that had nothing to recommend it as a tourist destination. It may have belonged to the Fire Nation or the Earth Kingdom or consisted of a twenty or thirty square kilometers of grass and rock where some migratory bird could leave a few droppings. Eduard dubbed it 'Crap Island with a Tree' and immediately set about to complain about it. His forehead ached from the cut he had received from falling rock and he felt he had the right to complain. Eduard had come to hate isolated and out of the way places and decided that he would gladly trade the sensation of having a mugger slug him in the gut and make off with his wallet than camp.

"I claim this island in the name of the European Union and the Nation of France!" Eduard spread out his arms as the gang set up camp. "We need a place to put lepers or test biological warfare agents. We can safely kill monkeys with small pox and no one will notice or care. Why do we always end up holed up in the sort of places that have a very good reason for not having tourists?"

"Does everyone from your world complain as much as you?" Zuko asked as he walked with Eduard along the coast of the small island.

"My country has a special talent for it, I will confess." Eduard answered back casually. "As we prepare the Avatar for the coming battle, I know we have to run from the Fire Lord and your sister but I miss many of the comforts of a civilized life. I miss hot running water, food that isn't rice." Eduard paused as a gull screamed as it flew over. "I miss living a life where I don't have to worry about someone killing me either because they hate me or because they explode for no properly explained reason and take me out with Combustion Man fragments."

"You could be dead," Zuko answered back. "My sister has plans to kill both of us and nearly succeeded."

"I have the stitches in the head to prove it."

"I can't make friends with Katara." Zuko changed the topic as soon as he was certain he was out of earshot. "She treats me like scum and I don't know how to talk to her."

Eduard scowled at Zuko. "She sewed my head together with a bone needle and seal guts! Since I get along fine with her – man - I'd hate to see what she'd do to someone she really hated. You have to help the Avatar and end this War because I want a warm bath, a shave and a steak!" Eduard felt that special kind of frustration he had when he had to spend his time with Zuko in isolation. Eduard liked Zuko as a person but not as a friend and imagined Zuko would be the first one shoved out the airlock if they had to travel on a long interplanetary mission to the planet Mars. "Why not talk to the girl? I can offer my services as a mediator if you want but the first thing you ought to do is talk to her."

Sokka came up from the opposite direction and had in his hand a bunch of roses. He whistled a happy tune and looked pleased with himself. "Hey guys!"

"Where did you find roses on this crap hole!" Eduard asked in his direct way. "Flowers on this dump?"

"It wasn't easy. Suki and I have a special romantic night planned." Sokka smiled. "I give you two a rose out of respect for our Fire Nation allies?"

Sokka walked off and Eduard looked down at the rose. "I think Sokka's a little off. Not off as in nuts but maybe like people who like to collect knitted bobble hats are a little off." Eduard sniffed the rose. "Or my grade ten math teacher was a little off."

"You never say anything helpful," Zuko made his usual complaint. "I can't seem to get Katara to respect me."

"Take Katara a few roses to show your respect?" Eduard held out a rose to Zuko. "Maybe give her a peace offering?"

"No!" Zuko exclaimed. "What if she thinks I'm hitting on her!"

"Right...Mai would kill you." Eduard turned around to head back to camp and held his rose up to his nose. "Can't Fire Nation Princes have more than one wife or a mistress or hookers?"

"No!"

Eduard began to walk slowly to the camp. "I hardly see the point of being a prince then."

"Why is it that when we camp, I always end up sharing a tent with you?" Eduard lay on a blue sleeping bag looking up at the stern shadows cast by an oil lamp hung next to him. He didn't approve of the stone tent Toph had made for them as it didn't have a great deal of room and this meant sharing his private space with the sulking prince Zuko. "Hell is an eternity locked in a room with your friends. I find it amazing how you can get on my nerves in so short a time and with such little effort."

"I see them sitting around the fire and laughing," Zuko looked out of the open front of the tent. "Why don't we try and join in?"
Eduard found Zuko's rear in perfect line with his foot and kicked him out the door. "You go ahead, I'll catch up." Eduard had his daily tea and saw no reason to socialize after riding a thousand clicks on the back of a sky bison without resort to a bathroom break. He had stitches in his forehead, a headache and Zuko had more than gotten on his nerves. He lay back and sighed and held the rose in his hands. He had begun drifting off into that pleasant state of mind between relaxation and sleep and began to look back on the events of the day. Fate must have spared him for some reason as nothing he had encountered had killed him. Azula had tried twice. She failed in the first try since he had escaped with Zuko on the war balloon. He had met her in the cave that morning and he knew that she had intended to kill him and she would have finished him off with ease if Toph had not shown up to reunite him with the team. He let his mind wander in a pleasant way as he imagined what his Ember Island house could become once the War had ended and he had the time to put some effort into making a real home.

Zuko scrambled back in the shelter and sat on his sleeping bag. "I tried to talk to Katara and she reminded me of a few things. I betrayed her and the Avatar and he nearly died."

Eduard kept his eyes closed and held onto the rose. "Have you considered talking to those who know her better than me? Sokka's her brother?"

"As a fellow fire bender; I feel I can relate to you," Zuko said sadly, "and I haven't done anything really awful to you."

"Thanks. Glad you haven't done anything awful to me." Eduard said halfheartedly. "You could go talk to Sokka – he may help." Eduard made a show of his indifference.

Zuko stood up and looked at Eduard with his eye patch, the sutures in the forehead. "Right..." Zuko turned away and Eduard let the sutures in his head amplify his headache as he closed his eyes and began to relax once again.

"Knock, knock!" Eduard heard the voice of Suki at the front door. "Zuko is talking to Sokka. Do you have an idea what they could be discussing?"

Eduard propped himself up on his arms and winced in pain, "Zuko wants to make nice with Katara and has been winching on about it all day long." Eduard wait a moment for his head to quit hurting.

"We had a special night after being a part so long." Suko sat cross legged in the doorway of the tent. "We've been along so long and so..."

Eduard raised his hand to signal Suki to stop. "Sorry about him. He saved my life but he has a certain obsessive compulsive streak and he's been going on and on about how Katara doesn't respect him. I keep going on and on about how I have a headache and don't care because we have far more important things to worry about like the end of the world and preparing Aang to battle Fire Lord Ozai."

"I missed Sokka." Suki smiled gently. She had suffered as Eduard had suffered and she had long wanted to talk with him. "The thought of him kept me going when I had lost all hope. Azula enjoys her torments but gave up on me when I had nothing to give her. What can I say but I'm sorry for what she did to you."

"Eduard Tubin offered her dedicated service with a minimum of corruption," Eduard said slowly and softly. "Looking back I would have stolen more money and taken more bribes."

Suki laughed gently. "I hope Zuko doesn't take long. I have a date with my guy."

"Dinner at this island's finest followed by a play?" Eduard sarcastically added. "Sorry – that was a bit abrupt but my head hurts and we always end up camping in the kind of places where in our world we conduct atom bomb tests."

"Long day?" Suki said sympathetically. "What's an atom bomb?"

"A very big, loud and nasty bomb," Eduard explained as best he could. "Lets just call the Mother of All Bombs. So big no sane nation would ever use it but every powerful one and a few that wanted to play with the big boys had to have one. A single atom bomb could blow up a city but I can tell by your confused look that you don't get it." Eduard rambled.

Suki pondered this for a moment but decided to let it slide as one of those Eduardisms Sokka had warned her about on the trip home on the airship. "You lost your eye to Azula." Suki said cautiously. "She kept me in isolation in the Fire Nation palace. She tried to break me and tossed me in The Boiling Rock to rot when I didn't give her the satisfaction of breaking down. I would have lost my mind if I didn't believe somehow Sokka would find me."

Eduard looked at Suki, "and now you want to know what kept me sane?" Eduard took a moment to think. He had not permitted himself to remind himself of that horror and it took a few moments to collect his thoughts and control his emotions. "I guess I accepted my death on some level because I had nothing else to live for. My closest friend was Azula and she had me imprisoned because of her paranoia. Anyhow I think it's time you go now." Eduard spoke with great sadness in his voice. Suki bowed and stood up.

"I know who killed Katara's mother," Zuko stepped inside the tent.

Eduard lay back with his hand over his head wondering if he could ever find silence. "How does that help?" Eduard lifted up his hand. "I have to ask what you hope to accomplish with this little nugget of information? What guarantee do you have that you can find this person and even if you can, then what? You're not a judge and the authorities in the Fire Nation would as much kill you as hear your complaint."

"I can help Katara find him and avenge her mother's death!" Zuko spat out loudly. "She will want to know this and then she can choose what to do!"

Eduard sat up, "and that is?" He coughed for a moment. "All your worst traits come forward when you believe you know something absolutely. Has the idea of evidence gone completely out the window along with trials, law and order, good government and all the things we stand for? Are you going to track this nan down and kill him? If so, then what if you make a mistake and blow away some innocent guy who never had anything to do with this?"

Zuko looked at Eduard and turned away. "I knew you wouldn't understand!" Zuko walked away in a huff. "Silk robed idealistic know nothing!"

"Impetuous rash unthinking..." Eduard said under his breath and lay back.

Toph crawled into the tent a few minutes later and spoke quietly, "you asleep?"

"No!" Eduard answered back.

"Katara made your tea," Toph held out a cup of tea as Eduard sat up. "She has some kind of problem with Zuko so she didn't get around to making it it until a few minutes ago. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," Eduard said with his impeccable manners. "Thank you." He took the cup and began drinking it slowly.

"Now get to sleep." Toph stood for a moment. "I made the tent for you and Zuko. Where is he?"

"Meh?" Eduard said as he sipped the last of the tea. "He has his own preoccupations and we had an argument."

Eduard decided to take a morning stroll around the makeshift camp and wondered if he had become a life time refugee. Eduard pondered his program for world domination if he ever became Fire Lord (he knew Azula would have him bumped off long before then even if he curried her favor). He would have set this island aside for his nuclear bomb tests. He found something in its remoteness and barren hills that gave him the urge to blow the living crap out of it. Such a remote and uninteresting place deserved obliteration. His head had stitches and his eye had gone missing and he entertained his morbid thoughts. He wondered if bending made the construction of an atomic bomb easier. He knew the technology wouldn't let him enrich uranium or make plutonium without a huge expense to make some kind of enrichment facility.

Katara walked beside him for some time and watched him staring at a yellow and gray rock. "What has you so absorbed in thought?"

"I loved my home on Ember Island," Eduard answered quietly. "Every other place I hate."

Toph began the rhythm of the Elgar Cello Concerto. She had heard Eduard hum that so many time she could not count but she didn't expect him to break down. Eduard began to weep aloud.

"Oh God I missed the music." Eduard began to cry. "I am not the first to say this but I fear that all that is good and kind is gone forever never to return." Eduard cried. "I so miss the good and kind people."

Toph said nothing but held the delicate man as he cried.

"Oh god how I miss my family." Eduard cried out. "In this world I have no Elgar no Mozart and no one to remind what is true!"

"Oh..." Toph hugged him gently. "I knew you were unhappy but I didn't know what to do." She held him gently. "I could hear your unhappiness. Are you in love with Zuko?"

"Get all my frank admissions out of me?" Eduard smiled through his tears. "What gave me away?"

"You find him good and kind?" Toph let go and patted his back. "You two argue like you care about each other."

Katara put her arm around Eduard. "Would you still think of me as good and kind if I killed my mother's murderer?" She looked at Eduard with her intense blue eyes. "You should know your opinion matters to me. Zuko has offered his help to track him down but I know my decision makes you deeply unhappy."

Eduard wiped his tears away. "I have faith in you to do the right thing. If you kill your mother's murderer, you'll shatter that faith but I'll live and I'll be very unhappy." Eduard put his arm around Toph "Then again I have faith in you guys to do the right thing."

Toph walked with Eduard holding her arm around his waist. "Too bad you're gay."

Katara stood back and mused in her own mind what Eduard had said.

Everyone in the group sat around the camp fire except Eduard who lay back in his stone tent and rested, and Zuko and Katara who had left earlier that day. Eduard could hear the voices of the others as he lay back but their conversation didn't interest him. He lay in the dark and contemplated the future. He had no desire to remain on this remote island and had offered his house on Ember Island as a place to hide out while the group worked out their plans for the final battle and Aang trained to use all four elements.

"Why are you hiding here?" Toph poked her head in the stone tent she had made for him. "You have to drink your 'tea' and you should come out and join us or we'll think your deeply unhappy about things."

Eduard opened his eyes and sat up, "I'm not unhappy and I'm not ignoring you guys. I need to rest so I can come to grips with things."

"Drink your tea." Toph handed him the cup of greenish brown slime that doubled as medication.

"Oh very well," Eduard conceded. "I can lay in here and have the bugs eat me alive in the dark or I can go sit by the fire and have the bugs eat me alive out there." Eduard drank his tea quickly and grimaced then sat up. "Did Katara teach you how to make that tea?"

Toph shook her head. "She taught Suki how to prepare it." Toph followed Eduard to the ring of stones she had arranged around the fire and sat down next to him.

"The fierce swordsman has to show his ability to take advantage of a weakness in his opponent!" Sokka flailed his sword around in a wide arc and pointed at Eduard. "I made this sword out of metal from a meteor!" Sokka smiled proudly.

Eduard looked at the dark metal sword. "Meteor metal? Do you mind if I take a look at it?"

Sokka handed the sword to him. "I studied with a great master and he helped me make this sword."

"Wow!" Eduard held the dark blade by the hilt. "What I wouldn't give to know what this thing was made of!" Eduard held it up which he found was no easy feat. The blade had a metallic luster but none of the kind of damask like patterns in high carbon steels like top end kitchen knives. The blade looked about the same length as a katana without the curve. Eduard tried to flex the blade against his leg but it refused to bend – this likely ruled out iron or steel and hinted at something much more refractory.

"Quiet!" Suki hushed everyone. "Toph? Put out the fire. I see a light on the horizon!"

Toph stomped her foot and a wad of wet earth smothered the fire. "I can hear a motor." She whispered to Sokka."

Eduard looked up and saw to the east a set of lights floating in the air above the sea. "My employers want their money back?" He whispered as he listened to the distant drone of the engines.

Toph stomped her foot and the camp vanished beneath the ground. "We have to hide!"

"Where?" Eduard asked sarcastically. "We have fewer places to hide than in one of those dreams when you have to speak publicly and you've forgotten your pants!"

Toph slugged him and made a few delicate motions and a cavern opened up in the ground. "Everyone in here!" She pushed Eduard ahead of her and motioned to all the others. She could hear the dull hum slowly growing in intensity and guessed the airship would pass overhead.

"Do you do Biblical events?" Eduard asked as he felt himself pushed down into an underground tunnel. He held out his hand and made a small orange flame above it to guide the others. "When we leave this island, I say we sink it."

Toph made a motion and the ground slid over the opening and the tunnel grew very quiet. At the end of the tunnel she had made a small circular room with a dome over it and a small opening at the top. Everyone found their gear carefully stacked in the center.

"You stole from the Fire Nation?" Sokka asked Eduard as he took a brief tour of the room. "I thought of you as the honest, hard working, dedicated type."

"I took a few things like pens, pencils, gold paid to me as bribes so certain units could obtain porn and beer." Eduard sat on a stone bench Toph had made out of the living rock. "Where I come from; this is part of a grand tradition of graft and corruption going back many centuries. We call it organized religion."

"Isn't that dishonesty?" Aang asked as Eduard gave him a good long, hard look.

"A bit out of touch with that I'm afraid." Eduard said sarcastically as he lay back on one of the stone benches and held his hand up dutifully to give light to the others. "When compared to letting the poor troops carry on in the trenches unfulfilled and sober?"

Toph cuddled Eduard by his arm. "What is that sad song?"

"Elgar's Cello Concerto?" Eduard answered slowly. "Seemed appropriate."

The house on Ember Island had not changed except that bits of it that had not fallen before Eduard took possession had fallen down. The forces of entropy had reduced the dock from a 'Honey Do' project to something that on good days might bear the weight of a small dog. Watermelons planted by Eduard had grown up the cliffs and along the road. Eduard had noticed the house had continued to receive mail and the weekly Ember Island newspaper (a small publication that took all of two sheets of newsprint to publish). Eduard felt pride as he faced the pile of mail carefully stacked just inside the non existent front door.

"According to this, I'm the latest entrant in the Reader's Digest Lucky Dip." Eduard flirted with reading the junk mail. "Scratch with a coin to reveal your prize – either a holiday property on Ember Island or a cobalt blue tea cup." Eduard pulled out a coin. "Of course I'm not a winner and I don't read Reader's Digest."

"Do you have Gas?" Aang piped up. "Ember Island Coal Gas Limited wishes to remind you that your bill has gone unpaid for a month."

"That would explain the equally polite letter from the collection agent." Eduard held up a letter with bright red characters on it. "Does the gas company know I'm dead?" Eduard ruffled an old Ember Island News and Views community newspaper. "My obituary states that I died in a heroic airship accident and my service will be remembered by the royal family." Eduard handed the paper to Aang. "I'm deeply moved."

Toph pushed past the heap of mail. "Do you know you have lizards in your basement?" She said urgently.

"The elementary school down the road has noticed some students have gone missing." Eduard held up a yellow envelope from the local Ember Island council. "If you find yourself in need of a make work project, land a rock on their heads." He opened the envelope. "My alderman wants my vote. Too bad the dead can't vote."

Eduard decided against reading back issues of the newspaper and letters from collection agents. A parcel from Azula had an odor that reminded Eduard of a dead cat fermenting in the summer heat as made faint ticking noises so Eduard decided to dispose of it.

"Your stove doesn't work!" Suki announced when she stumbled into the kitchen.

"The gas company threatened as much," Eduard mumbled as he pushed the mail into a heap on the stairs of the front porch. "You have the services of two fire benders if you badly need to cook something." He held Azula's parcel at arms length and made for the ramshackle dock at the beach. "If you will forgive me – I have to dispose of a bomb."

Eduard found Katara still sitting quietly on the end of the dock. He held Azula's parcel at arm's length and drop kicked it into the ocean and it promptly exploded after sinking. Eduard had every expectation of having the dock crumble under his feet and having to swim to shore but the dock held in spite of the fact several boards caught fire.

Katara casually motioned to drown the flames.

"Fish for dinner?" Eduard watched dead fish rise to the surface. "Can we eat dolphin?" Eduard watched a bottle nose dolphin's gray corpse rise to the surface in the grimy oil slick the blast left behind. "I mean we didn't kill it, rather Azula's bomb killed it and it looks like it would cook up nicely. Sad to see a victim of the post office union but can we eat them? I mean..."

Zuko rushed up. "I heard a blast." The dock shook as he ran.

"Azula sent me a present." Eduard said as he squatted down to touch the dolphin. "Or she had the harbor mined. Have you ever tasted dolphin sweetmeats?"

"Bleh!" Zuko stuck his tongue out.

The dolphin still felt warm and had the consistency of some kind of porridge. It had experienced the blast up close and every possible orifice bled. Eduard had never seen a dolphin up close and had a fascination with it. He came from a long culinary tradition that did make a habit of eating tree fungus and raw meat and he did somewhat suffer from a blurring of the concepts of tuna – edible fish – and dolphin – social sea mammal.

"Holy hell!" Eduard stepped back as a great white shark bit the dead dolphin in two and submerged with the front half. "Is everything in the world trying to kill me?"

Katara grabbed Eduard's collar to keep him from toppling backward into the water. "We have lots of melons."

"Suki wants a bath," Sokka told Eduard "Nice night robes by the way." Sokka found Eduard in the first floor bedroom in front of a dirty mirror doing up his hair with a hairpin. Sokka noticed Eduard valued neatness in his appearance and fussed over his hair and clothes.

"How does that concern me?" Eduard tightened the silk ribbon onto his braid. "Or is this a way of telling me we have no hot water or no water."

"We have no running water." Sokka explained.

Eduard tightened his night robe and pushed past Sokka to gain access to the mirror. "I know." Eduard checked his appearance. "You may wonder how I know." Eduard raised his finger to emphasize his point. "Glad you asked. In the back yard under a set of stones we have a well that gives us water and when I called on the taps in the bathroom for rushing water I got a dribble that smelled like the sort of thing barfed up by the Fifth Ring of Hell. I went out and examined the well and found a dead – whatever passes for an opossum – in the bottom of it. Suki can have her bath but I would fish out the marsupial first."

Sokka looked at Eduard. "Didn't you get rid of it?"

"It will go away on its own accord." Eduard patted Sokka's shoulder. "I found the damned thing but I'm not in the mood for choking back my vomit to fish it out of there even if I could stumble upon some method to gather its nasty bits together."

"You have a dead possum mouse in the well!" Zuko announced from the hallway. "I fished it out but I don't know what to do with it!"

"What!" Eduard rushed out and choked. "So drag it through the house came to mind before tossing it into the bush?"

Zuko held out the dead, bald and now impaled on a stick animal out for Sokka and Eduard to examine.

"Oh man that's just nasty!" Eduard complained as his eyes teared up. "That thing has a freaking half life! Toss it into somewhere where we won't slip on it! I'm sure the forces that rule life, death, the Universe and everything won't mind." Eduard motioned for Zuko to leave. "Shouldn't it have hair?"

"Sokka!" Suki cried out from the second story bathroom. "The water smells foul!"

"Zuko!" Eduard pointed out the front door. "Go with God! Go with Buddha! Go with Vishnu but go!"

Zuko walked briskly away muttering about how Eduard was insufferable.

"What's next?" Eduard wiped his eyes. "Nuclear waste drums in the watermelon patch? Nerve gas under the porch. A tech support team in the attic providing toll free call out service for blenders?"

"What?" Sokka followed Eduard into the kitchen.

"Nothing." Eduard muttered. "I should make a pot of tea."

"Do you have a shovel!" Zuko shouted from outside.

"Just kick it into the bush – the animal's in no condition to complain!" Eduard turned on the tap and washed out the copper kettle. "Drop kick it through the goal posts of life. We don't need some elaborate pagan ritual that involves erecting a pyramid!" Eduard held the pot up and made a flame grow out of his hand to boil the water.

"Would you want that if you came back as him in the next life?" Zuko asked. "Show him some respect."

"Yeah!" Eduard placed the old kettle on the counter. "We all know how God knows about the life of the humblest living thing. Too bad that he didn't help the poor creature out when it drowned in the well but I don't pretend to understand the larger order behind these things."

Eduard put the kettle down and realized he would get no useful things done until he provided a funeral for the possum. "We could use Toph but she's sleeping through all of this." Two things diverted Eduard's attention from making tea, Zuko began a long prayer and then clapped his hands. Eduard decided to investigate before Zuko started a pet cemetery. Eduard found the stick with the animal propped up against the front steps.

"I simply said a prayer," Zuko looked at Eduard.

"I could go for the field goal but this thing might simply explode into a pile of goo." Eduard walked down into the bush. "We're gathered here in the sight of Almighty God – blah blah." Eduard tossed the stick into the bush.

Zuko showed up with an old rusted shovel. "What did you do? I found a shovel in the room under the porch!"

"Tossed him into the bush and let him out to rot." Eduard said callously. "He didn't pay for the special funeral service."

"He may have had a family." Zuko said glumly.

"If you think," Eduard wagged his finger as Sokka looked on. "If your deluded and possibly mentally unstable royalness thinks I'm going to dig a hole for a dead rodent!"

"I'll dig the hole." Zuko offered.

"I have no idea where he landed when I tossed him in the bush." Eduard gave Zuko a stare that told Zuko Eduard would not conduct a search.

"You meant well," Sokka patted Zuko's back.

"He fell into a well," Eduard walked past Zuko. "I haven't seen possum cops and coroners about the place probing his fate. I don't want you digging up the place and burying things anyway." Eduard looked at a lizard that had followed Zuko down the hill. "As you have discovered, we have lizards in the basement and they make a modest living eating mice so what I do want to know is if you left the door to the basement open."

"Oh." Zuko looked at the lizard as it woefully looked up at him. "They crapped all over the basement but they seem friendly."

Eduard and Katara sifted through the attic. Eduard had no time to equip the kitchen with all or even some of the necessities and they decided to look in the attic through boxes and crates that had been in that hot space for the better part of four decades. The dark attic became an oven in the late summer heat but two small open windows kept a breeze going.

"If the Fire Lord has such power," Eduard pulled out old books, "why didn't he hire someone to clean up all his crap." Eduard found an old book of traditional Fire Nation nation recipes with faded color illustrations of a way to cook various animals Eduard would not have imagined ingesting.

"Why didn't you hire anyone to get rid of all this crap?" Katara piled a set of dark gray dishes on each other hoping she'd happen to find a complete set.

Eduard held the recipe book and gave Katara an angry look. "Well, I would have had the cleaners come in but I had my execution looming. Next time I face death I hope I have the presence of mind to hire someone to clean."

"Sorry." Katara looked down at her pile of dishes. "I forgot."

"Not a problem," Eduard said quietly.

Toph stomped up the stairs that led into the attic with a raucous thumping that made Katara's plates rattle and dust rise from between the ill fitting floorboards. "Do you need any help?" Toph said cheerfully as her head poked above the attic hatch. "I made friends with the lizards!"

"Aw!" Katara held up a fainted painting of a baby boy with a bucket and spade. "Zuko as a baby! He's so cute!"

"If you say so." Eduard picked through a box of things he had found in the attic. "Cute is in the eye of the beholder." Eduard found a box of old mail that dated back from the times of Fire Lord Azulon. "Dear General Iroh. I didn't know Iroh was a general. Some kind of mental block keeps me from seeing a man who dresses like a hippie as having high military rank."

"He almost conquered Ba Sing Se," Toph reminded Eduard.

"How are you enjoying your rest on Henwa Island?" Eduard found that the box of mail contained little of any historical importance.