Chapter Seven: The Sins of the Fatherlord
In the end, Lancelot and Elena chose to join them. Gwen seemed quite pleased by this development and led the two airbenders off towards the barracks to choose their bunks; Arthur watched their retreating backs with mixed feelings, wondering if Gwen's eagerness was due only to her natural friendliness, or perhaps something deeper. Lancelot's eyes seemed to rarely leave Gwen's face. That alone left Arthur feeling like smacking something, but what really worried him was how Gwen actually seemed to enjoy talking with Lancelot, and how she would stammer and blush just like how she had previously only done with Arthur. Only Merlin's question about their next destination kept him from going after them. Arthur and Mithian shared an awkward glance, both wondering who should take charge, and Arthur suggested, "The Northern Water Tribe? Olaf will have more information about Cendred and Morgana, I hope. Also closer than the Air Temple."
Mithian nodded decisively. "We'll go there at once. If we hurry, we should be there by midday tomorrow." She frowned, turning to head up towards the control room. "I've heard Chief Olaf is quite the character."
Arthur snorted as he, Merlin, and Leon followed her. "Not as much as his daughter, Vivian."
The Earth Princess looked surprised. "You've met them?"
"Olaf isn't a bender, so my father had no qualms about him coming to the Fire Nation. He brought Vivian along, and she may be very beautiful, but that's honestly about all she has going for her. She's quite the shrew."
Mithian smiled at him. "I'll keep that in mind," she said, and Arthur smiled back, thinking what a perfect ally Mithian was turning out to be.
Merlin looked between them, his brow furrowed. "Alright, Northern Water Tribe it is, then."
When Arthur woke up that morning, once again feeling like he hadn't slept at all, he staggered up to the control room with none of his usual grace. He'd had the dream again that night, only this time it was Gaius who disappeared beneath the waves. When he reached the control room, Leon and Elyan were nowhere to be seen (possibly down with the engines), but Gwen, Mithian, and Elena were chatting comfortably by the window, while Merlin and Lancelot sat on the floor by the door. Arthur hesitated for a moment, then decided to let the women have their chat and slumped on the floor next to Merlin.
"Sleep well, Arthur?" Lancelot asked in a friendly tone. Arthur had been feeling annoyed at the airbender's obvious attraction to Gwen, but he tried to remind himself that Lancelot was actually a pleasant human being before he answered.
"Well enough, I suppose," he said, not finding it within himself to put a smile on his tired face. "Yourself?"
"I would have slept better if Merlin hadn't been pestering me with questions about airbending," Lancelot teased.
Merlin shrugged. "I know I'm not an airbender, but I love learning about other bending styles! Besides, firebending doesn't really have any defensive moves, and I thought . . . "
And within a few moments the two were engrossed again in a conversation; Arthur felt content to sit next to them and listen to Merlin's laugh and Lancelot's deep, steady tones.
He looked up at Gwen, and found she was looking back. She blushed to be caught staring, but gave him a sweet smile. Although he still felt unsure about the situation with Lancelot-the airbender would certainly be a lot less complicated choice for her-he found himself relaxing a little at the sight.
Within the hour, Leon and Elyan came up, sweaty and sooty from the engine room and chatting like old friends. Arthur looked at all the camaraderie around him, and instead of feeling jealous or left out, he felt like he had finally come home.
The feeling did not last long, unfortunately. Leon and Elyan joined the other men on the floor, and Gwen, Mithian, and Elena soon drifted over. Gwen, sitting next to Arthur, smiled at him again, but Arthur also noticed Lancelot's besotted look, which only served irritate him.
"We have to discuss what our plans are for the next few weeks, at least," Leon said, ever the practical man. "What is our end goal? How are we going to prepare to face the Firelord?"
"First order of business," Mithian chimed in, "we are heading towards the Northern Water Tribe and should arrive in a few hours. Our goal there is to strike an alliance with Chief Olaf and enlist his help in defeating Morgana. We'll just have to be as diplomatic as possible."
"And all you men, keep your eyes off Lady Vivian," Arthur warned. "Olaf is protective of her, so anyone who so much as looks at her does so at extreme peril."
"We also have to think about the airships that are probably still following us," Leon pointed out. "There are too few of the Fire Nation soldiers to attempt an attack on the Water Tribe, but they might call for reinforcements. There's no telling what Olaf would do then."
Merlin frowned. "I don't know much about him, other than Chief Cendred has been pressuring him to ally with Morgana. Do you think he would turn us in?"
Leon shrugged. "Hard to say. Olaf is a tough fellow, not one take bullying lying down. But we'd best be careful."
"Noted," Elyan replied. "So, assuming we gain Olaf's support, where next? Western Air Temple?"
"Right," Mithian agreed. "Our next objective will be to meet the Avatar and plead our case before him. I can't imagine why he would turn us away. In fact, I don't know why he hasn't done something already."
"One thing I don't understand," Gwen remarked suddenly, "is why everyone says the Avatar is an Air Nomad. Since Avatar Anhora was from the Earth Kingdom, doesn't that mean his successor is from the Fire Nation?"
Lancelot looked surprised at her question. "What, you don't know why that is?"
"The story was never widely spread in the Earth Kingdom," Mithian admitted. "Most of us only heard the bare essentials from those that escaped." She turned to Arthur with a steely look. "Since you were there, perhaps you'd like to enlighten us on what really happened?"
Arthur and Merlin both looked at each other for half a second, then quickly away. Arthur had known that this subject would come up eventually, but that did not mean he wanted to talk about it.
Merlin coughed a little. "You've got to understand that we weren't there, not really. I was only three years old, and Arthur would have been, what-?"
"Five or six," Arthur muttered, not looking at him.
"Yeah, so we were in the Fire Nation, but we weren't really there, if you know what I mean," Merlin finished. Gwen looked more confused than ever. "I suppose if you really want to know, we could tell you, er, what happened."
He looked at Arthur beseechingly. The Fire Prince was playing with his mother's ring again, but he looked upward with a sigh. He took in the small group around him, their watchful eyes. Leon looked sad.
"The first thing you have to understand," Arthur began slowly, "is how my father came to hate benders so much. He was the first non-bender born to the Royal Family in, well, ever. Firebending was just so strong in our blood that there never had been a non-bender. Then, he married my mother and I was born. The chances of me also not being a bender were really quite astronomical.
"There were a lot of people who felt having a non-bender on the throne was an insult to our nation. Some of them were even angry enough to act on it. When I was just a baby, a group tried to assassinate my father, but my mother was caught in the crossfire and killed." Gwen reached out and placed a comforting hand on Arthur's arm. He did not look at her; he couldn't. "Even before then my father distrusted benders. He had replaced a lot of my grandfather's councilors with newer ones who followed his own line of thought, which I think made it a lot easier when he illegalized bending."
"That's how the Great Purge started?" Elena asked. "When Uther decided to rid his kingdom of all benders?" Arthur nodded.
"Any bender or any suspected bender was brought to the citadel and executed. Firebenders were drowned: my father thought it was a kind of poetic justice to kill benders using their opposite element. Not just firebenders either; any benders who came into the kingdom were fair game. Eventually people just stopped coming. It seemed like a war could start at any moment."
"My father was desperate to stop all of it," Mithian said quietly, then she laughed. "I remember he even wrote to your father, offering my hand in marriage to you if Uther relaxed his anti-bending laws." Arthur nodded, remembering how Uther had reacted. "He sent back a reply post-haste, saying he wasn't going to have his son marry an earthbender."
The Fire Prince squirmed a little, and Gwen, laughing with Mithian, took his hand. "He was very opposed to it," Arthur admitted, watching how their fingers entwined on his knee. "I'm really not sure why Caerleon wasn't as opposed to it as well, considering how bloody the Purge had become."
"But this would have been after everything with the Avatar," Elyan insisted. "What happened before?"
Arthur took a deep breath. "Right. Not long after the Purge started, the Earth Kingdom Avatar, Anhora, died; he had been ill for some time. I don't know how long the news took to reach the Fire Nation, or when my father made up his mind about what he was going to do, but he decided he wasn't going to have the Avatar in his kingdom. He started what is sometimes called the Little Purge, where he started tracking down everyone who would have been the right age and slaughtering them."
Elyan stared. "But . . . the Avatar would have been a child. Just a few years old."
Arthur nodded, very slowly. A horrible sort of realization was starting to dawn on the blacksmith's face, and Gwen's hand was squeezing his so hard it hurt.
Merlin, taking pity on Arthur, cut in. "That's why I was raised in the Earth Kingdom. It was really hard for anyone to leave the islands in those days, especially if you had a child of the right age, and my father died getting me and my mother out. It was a really awful time, for everyone."
Arthur took a deep breath to center himself and said, "So, the moment the Air Nomads knew the Avatar had, in fact, been reborn into their nation, they contacted my father and begged him to stop all the bloodshed, saying it was no longer needed. He did, eventually. And . . . that is the story of why the Fire Nation has no Avatar," he finished lamely.
He risked a glance in Gwen's direction, but she was not looking at him but at the floor. She had taken her hand away while he was speaking, and he felt the loss keenly. He knew there was no way she could blame him for what had happened-he had been five years old-but the fact that he must have stood at his father's side when he grew older and accepted everything the Firelord did was probably a bit too much for her.
Elyan was shaking his head. "I don't believe it," he said, face scrunching up in anger. "That man deserved everything he got. Morgana deserves a medal for killing him!" Arthur tried to swallow around the lump in his throat at these words.
Merlin, who had been watching everyone's reactions pensively, replied quickly, "Morgana has inherited a lot of Uther's qualities. He believed in his own philosophy, and wouldn't let anything get in his way." Merlin seemed sad as he continued. "I've talked with a lot of people who used to know him, and over the years, Morgana has become a lot more like Uther than she would ever care to admit."
Elyan scoffed violently, waving his arm through the air. "What, and he hasn't?" he demanded, pointing at Arthur. Then the metalbender jumped to his feet and stalked away, muttering. Gwen hesitated, then, without looking at Arthur, darted after her brother.
Elena watched them go, her mouth a little open. Lancelot, who had not commented since the beginning, looked about to say something, and Arthur discovered that he could not bear the idea of listening to them talk anymore. He stood slowly, forestalling whatever Lancelot wanted to say, and walked out.
He found himself on the catwalks once again. He supposed it was good a place as any, and it was not like Gwen or Elyan would come out there. He clenched the railing tight and watched the ocean slip by. The air was colder now, but Arthur was pretty sure the coldness inside of him had nothing to do with the temperature. He supposed he should feel grateful; he had imagined many different that particular conversation could have gone, and many of them had ended far worse. He could not muster any feeling but regret and guilt.
Someone scrambled down the ladder behind him, the stumbling steps and flash of red in his peripheral vision telling him it was Merlin. He looked away, annoyance coupled with anger rising inside of him.
"Arthur," Merlin began, but Arthur could not stand it anymore.
"You know, this whole situation is really stupid," Arthur growled. "All of you mean for me to defeat Morgana and become the next Firelord, but the truth is, none of you trust me. When you look at me, all you see is my father and my sister. When you look at me, you see a man who condoned the slaughter of your kind, who stood at his father's side during executions, who opposed Morgana even before her cause became unjust. You see someone who can't be trusted, but for some reason you feel the need to drag this out anyway. Why? What do you possibly have to gain? What can I give you that you pretend I'm really part of your revolution?"
Merlin did not say anything for several moments, and Arthur huffed, turning away to lean on the railings again.
"You didn't eat your breakfast."
Arthur blinked at the sudden change in topic, and turned back to see Merlin offering him a piece of cured meat and one of the soft rolls the Air Nomads had given them. The firebender watched him steadily as Arthur slowly reached out and took them, but did not eat.
"Did you ever wonder why I came to find you, Arthur?" Merlin asked.
Arthur stared out at the passing ocean in confusion, fingering the food Merlin had given him. The truth was, he had wondered why Merlin had trusted him so quickly and so easily.
"Gaius told me all about you."
Arthur halfway turned, his heart-rate spiking. "Gaius? He survived Morgana's coup?"
"He had to go into hiding, but yes, he did. When he found out I was in the Fire Nation, we got into contact with each other. As far as I know, he's still safe from the Firelord." Merlin came forward to rest his forearms on the railing next to Arthur. "Whenever I could get away, we would talk with each other; he would talk about life before the Purge, and after as well. He taught me a lot of bending techniques even Nimueh didn't know." As he spoke, Merlin brought his hands up to his face and conjured a tiny flame to warm his fingers and nose.
Arthur's jaw clenched. "Nimueh? The lightningbender?"
"Yes." Merlin looked at him curiously. "Did you know her? I know she looks young, but apparently she's older than the Purge. She says it's the sea baths that keep her looking so fresh."
"She was the one who killed my mother," Arthur said shortly.
"Oh . . . she never mentioned that," Merlin murmured awkwardly. "Well, I never liked her anyway. She told me a lot of conflicting things about you; then again, so did everyone else. The most interesting ones to talk to were definitely Morgana and Gaius though. It may surprise you to know that Morgana does not, in fact, hate you, despite what she says. I think she's mostly just sad about you, and maybe a little fearful, because she thinks that you can't be trusted. She doesn't think that you can ever rise above what your father did. We bonded a lot over stories of annoying siblings: I complained about my younger brother, Will, and she told me all sorts of embarrassing stories about your childhoods." The firebender let out a little laugh, and said, "Do you remember when you went to visit the Sun Warrior ruins?"
Arthur flinched a little, then stared in horror. "She never told you that story!" he said, gaping. "That little-"
Merlin was full-on laughing now. "Don't worry, the secret is safe with me, to be saved until I need blackmail." The Fire Prince glared. "She also told me that you went on a lot of vacations to Ember Island. Did you know I was born there? I went there a few times, ostensibly to relax or connect with family friends, but really to meet Gaius." Arthur smiled a bit at the name of his father's old advisor. "I wasn't sure whether to believe some of the things he said, but eventually I came to the conclusion that I needed to meet you if I could."
Merlin was quiet for several long moments after that, and Arthur wondered if that was all he had to say. "What exactly did Gaius say to convince you to want me to be the Firelord instead of Morgana?" he prodded, finally taking a bite out of the roll; he had not realized how hungry he was.
Again Merlin paused. "I wouldn't have sought you out if I didn't think Morgana was a unsatisfactory Firelord," he pointed out, "though going to war with the Earth Kingdom was enough to convince me of that." He looked pained as he continued. "As I got to know her, I also started to understand her. All of us were damaged by the Purge, and all of us coped with that damage in different ways. Gaius, bless his poor heart, decided to side with Uther beyond all reason. You"-he gave Arthur an exasperated look-"obviously turned to guilt. Morgana had been hurt and felt betrayed by everyone she loved, so she learned to lock everyone out. I had hoped that she and I might even be friends"-for some reason he blushed when he said this-"but I don't think she really has friends, except for maybe Morgause. She was afraid to give anyone power over her, so she decided she needed to have power over everyone else. She allowed the damage done to her to push her too far. I know Annis wishes that Morgana had just stayed in the Fire Nation, but honestly, it's not any better there. She's tearing it apart.
"But when Gaius told me about you, about your desire to be a good leader, about your kind heart, about how you tried to stand up to Morgana when you saw what she was doing to your country and your people, I felt hope. I remembered what Morgana said about how you cared for her, about how you were loyal, and I felt hope. That's why I wanted to find you. I really had no idea if you would be any better than her, but watching you these past few days, my hope is only rising."
Arthur looked at him in disbelief, swallowing his last bite of meat. This young firebender had hope that Arthur could be a good Firelord? When had Arthur ever deserved that? "How can you do that? Your father was killed . . . you had to flee the Fire Nation . . ."
Merlin smiled sadly. "When I look at you, I don't see the son of Uther, my friend. I see a man who was willing to risk everything to save an earthbender that he loved. Who was more worried about putting the Air Nomads in danger than winning. A man who stopped himself from killing me, a firebender, on the off-chance I might actually be an ally. That's what I see."
Arthur didn't know what to say to that, so he turned away. He told himself firmly he would not cry, he would not, even though Merlin's words meant more to him than the firebender could ever possibly comprehend. He watched the ocean appear and vanish behind a fast-rising fog, trying to order his thoughts into something coherent. Merlin did not seem to need to hear anything from him, though, because he just leaned back on the railing and watched with Arthur, a small smile on his face.
After a time, Lancelot and Elena came out onto the catwalks, both looking awkward. "You two alright down here?" Elena asked a little too loudly. "We were getting a little worried."
Lancelot looked between the two with a smile. "Tensions got a little high back there," he said, laying a friendly hand on Merlin's shoulder. "Just wanted to make sure everything was fine."
Arthur almost laughed. Really nothing about his life right now was fine, to be honest, but he supposed it was going somewhere. He was realizing he did have good allies-and perhaps friends. All he said was, "This fog is a good sign. It means we're getting close to the North Pole, though it will make it hard to navigate."
Lancelot nodded. "Should Elena and I go ahead and talk with them first?" It surprised Arthur that the airbender would defer to him.
"You should," he replied. "The tribesmen can come and lead our ship in to the city."
The two airbenders nodded their heads, then opened their ever-present gliders and swooped off into the mist. The last thing Arthur saw was Elena's exultant grin, and then they were gone.
