In effect, this is the last hurtle for Endless Waltz. If this chapter is successful, I should be able to stop whining like an insecure little twelve-year-old and just write like I do on my other stories sort of.
From the outskirts of Ba Sing Se, you couldn't have been able to tell what was going on inside the city. Only faint trails of smoke dotting the horizon betrayed the state the city was in. Aang noticed the smoke, but didn't let it worry him. The city's Main South Gate loomed tall over even giant Appa's head. Aang and Katara never saw this weakness in the city's great wall with less than twenty guards in the year plus they had lived there. Today, there were two guards at the base of the wall and not a soul to be seen atop. This couldn't help but worry Aang. From the look on Katara's face, she felt the same.
The couple approached the strangely small guard to gain passage into the city. "I'm the Avatar," Aang said as he approached, "I heard there was trouble in the city. I'd like to see if I can help."
"You heard wrong," one guard said sharply.
"Then you won't mind if we take a look around…" Katara said, trying to shoo the guard aside with a harsh glare.
"No one is permitted to enter or exit the city at this time," the guard reported in a stern and practiced manner.
"But surely the Avatar-" Katara started before the guard cut her off.
"No one," the guard emphasized, "is permitted to enter the city at this time." The guard turned away, a none too subtle way of saying the conversation was over.
Katara and Aang stepped away from the wall with Appa in disbelief. Fortunately, a wall was no obstacle to the Avatar. Going into a city without permission always left a bad taste in Aang's mouth, but sometimes, it had to be done. They moved away from the gate that they had approached and flew over the least populated section of the wall they could find. No need to antagonize the people they were trying to help. The strange part was that almost all of the wall was virtually unpopulated. There was only the bare minimum guard on what was supposed to be the best defended city on earth. Something was definitely wrong. Were all the guards in the city?
As Aang and Katara flew over the farmlands between the outer wall and the first of the inner walls, they noticed some of the land was being taken over by a strange building project. Fields were replaced by strange stone structures. They looked like spikes, angled around forty-five degrees in the direction of the outer wall, but they were hollow and had no point. The base of the structures was open. The other thing to notice was the absence of people. No one was there, not even the farmers. It was just an hour or two past noon! Someone should have been out there! Half way to the city (there were several miles between the outer wall and the city) the teens finally noticed a lone farmer tending one of the enormous fields. They swooped down to speak with him. Maybe he knew what was going on.
The farmer, in the last decade of working age or so, noticed Appa coming in to land on a nearby pathway. The man put down his tools and walked briskly to the bison. "Thank heavens!" he sighed, "The Avatar."
"Do you know what's going on here?" Katara asked the graying farmer.
"Some of the young folk didn't like the way we're treated by the nobles in the upper ring. Said it's unfair that we do all the work an' they live in the lap of luxury," he said. There was subtle urgency in his voice. Not the tone you take with an imminent threat, like an army attacking the outer wall, but still one that deserves immediate attention. "They're hearts' 're in the right place, I feel, but they're goin' about it the wrong way. Not many of us stayed behind. If they don't come back to tend the fields soon, this year's harvest could fail! The whole city could starve!"
"The farmers feel they're being mistreated?" Aang asked.
"'Lotta folks, actually." The farmer scratched his head as he had recalled the events of the last few weeks. "Little while ago, a whole mob came down, recrutin' for this protest they kept goin' on about. Talked to us about a lot of stuff. Wages, 'n taxes, 'n 'civil rights', whatever that means… Anyway, most of the farmers, near all the youngn's gathered up their families and headed off to the city. Said they were going to protest at the foot of the throne of the Earth Kingdom itself!"
"But how would they get into the upper ring?" Katara asked.
"It isn't just the lower ring that's protestin'," the farmer emphasized, "Most are the farmers and the lower ring, but a good number are students and such from the middle ring. And their leader is a noble from the upper ring!"
"A noble?" Aang and Katara gasped in unison.
"I had a mind to join 'em myself," the man continued, "He was mighty convincing. I knew leaving our fields, especially now, was putin' the whole city at risk… But what those high-class folk said… It made so much sense. But then I got a look at that noble's eyes."
"His eyes?" Aang asked.
"That boy had a snake's eyes," the farmer said dangerously. He gave the teens a knowing look. "I was in the army before I settled down here," the farmer looked away and paced next to Appa, "I had a commander once send two squads, green as could be, into an old road crossing in the woods alone. I watched from a ways down the road with the rest of our troops. I didn't like it. Something was wrong. When those kids got to the crossroads, they were ambushed by some Fire Nation troops lying in wait. That commander knew about that ambush. He used those kids to lure the enemy out." The story sank in in a few seconds of deafening silence. "That noble and my old commander, they had the same eyes…"
The air was tense. "Do you know the noble's name?" Aang asked, trying to suppress the hesitation in his voice.
"It was…" the man thought for a minute. As he thought, with the subject at least slightly changed, a weight seemed to lift off Aang and Katara. There was something foreboding about the way the old farmer was talking when he talked about this noble's "snake eyes". It came back to him in a flash, "It was Tengo if memory serves. Hyaki Tengo."
"Thank you for your help," Aang bowed politely.
"My pleasure, young man. And see if you can't talk some sense into those young folk 'n get 'em back here."
"We'll do our best!" Aang called back, Appa already being several feet in the air. As the Avatar flew off toward the city, the farmer returned to his fields with optimism. No. "Optimism" was too strong a word…
So there's kind of a little less Gundam influence, sort of… So… that's a thing.
I was expecting to get to Ba Sing Se this chapter, but I think it works out better this way. I may as well be direct about it since I never get any help anyway. What kind of sense do you get from this chapter? What kind of feeling is there? If you're going to review, (and don't just tell me "good chapter, update soon") as much as I appreciate critiques on the mechanics and spelling and such, I'd much prefer more subjective feedback. Of course, this all assumes anyone is reading this. I rather doubt it. (Even when I'm not being pessimistic about my writing, I can still manage to be pessimistic about something else. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go be pessimistic about that…)