Chapter Ten: The Web Snaps.
The Assassin.
Footsteps. Three sets of them. I can hear them thumping onto the bare earth, but I can't see them.
I don't think I can take this. I have to get out of here.
...I know that's impossible, alright? Give me a break, I'm not feeling all that rational at the moment.
One by one, the footsteps stop. The slap of the earthbender is first, and I instinctively try to map out where she is. About five paces away, if the other footsteps are any indication.
The second, a strong pace, taller than the others, stops directly behind me. Is this...her?
And the last, feet so light it's hard to tell that anyone is there at all, stop directly in front of me, and I find myself staring at a pair of brown shoes.
"Toph said she caught you sneaking up on her." The voice of the boy in front of me speaks up. This must be the Avatar. "Who are you? What do you want?"
He's trying to sound tough. He's very bad at it.
The... person... behind me moves, and stops a little way away. There's the shik of tearing steel, and a short exclamation. Whoever it is has found my stick.
"Aang, look at this."
That voice...
Whatever doubt I have is washed away in a tide. Penguin sledging when we were supposed to be helping repair the igloos, snowball fights in the village which I could never win because she would always cheat with her bending, making a fort in the snow, which she accidentally pulled down when she threw a tantrum, giving me a spear she made for my sixth birthday...
Blood on the snow. Mom telling me to look after Katara, telling us both to run...Katara screaming... both of us starting to run... Katara was fast, faster than me. She never saw.
Mom was never a fighter.
I thought I was.
But within an instant, my doubts reasserted themselves. I had to be sure.
The Avatar looked angry, what I could see of him below this hat. I think he might have figured out why I was here. I didn't really care.
"Katara?" I croaked.
Even saying her name was an exercise in control.
Everyone went quiet.
"How... how do you know my name?"
"Katara of the Southern Water Tribe? Only daughter of Chief Hakoda?"
She moves around, and I see the bottom half of a blue dress, with dark leggings and leather boots.
"What's this about?"
"Are you the daughter of Chief Hakoda?" I'm forceful. It helps keep my voice under control.
"Yes. Now what do you want?"
My heart has stopped.
My ribs are folding inwards, punching into my lungs.
I can't think.
What do I say?
"Could... could you take my hat off, please?"
After a beat, she squats down, and pulls my hat from my head. And I am confronted with a face.
It's her. Seven years older, but it's her. She looks more like Mom now, but it's her.
And I'm calm. My mind accepts this new reality.
But I'm crying. I'm sobbing, bawling like a child, my ribs are crushing me and my eyes are blurred and it's so frustrating because I can't say what I need to say and my mind is under control so why can't I stop crying?
I breathe deeply, my throat rasping.
"I- it's me," I hiccup.
No. Stupid body. That's no good. How in the world is she supposed to understand that?
I try again.
"It's me. S... Sokka. I'm Sokka. ...Hi."
That's all I can manage before my body decides it's time to start shaking again. There's an argument going on all around me, and I try to listen to it.
"Let him out." "But" "Let him out." "Katara-" "Now." "Katara, calm down. What's going on?" "Let. Him. Out." "Are you crazy? He tried to kill me!" "Katara, what's this about?" "He's my brother."
"What?" "Are you sure?!" "How..." "...You never said you had a brother..."
"Let him OUT!"
The next thing I know, the ground is shifting beneath and around me, pushing me upwards. As soon as my arms are free, I drag myself out, like a drowning man from the sea, gasping for air. As soon as I'm on my knees, a pair of hands grabs my head, pulling it upwards, until I'm staring into a pair of blue eyes.
She really does look like Mom. It's almost uncanny.
She's looking for something in my face, and she must find it, because after a moment, she grabs me in a fierce hug. I return it, awkwardly- she looks so fragile, like I might break her- and we kneel there, on the bare earth, locked in an embrace, both crying, while the other two look on, thoroughly confused.
--
The Guardian.
Late that day, the crewmen return with enough coal to get us to the command station, a couple of miles from the front. We disembarked, and Ty Lee noted the huge trebuchets, being packed in carts. They were quite impressive.
"Useless," Azula noted when I made the mistake of idly commenting on this. "They won't be what wins this war."
You got a bigger one tucked away somewhere, or something?
"No, I think a far subtler weapon is needed. Uncle proved that brute force will not crack Ba Sing Se."
...Did I say that out loud? I didn't say that out loud, did I? ...I didn't mean to say that out loud. It must be a chronic lack of food causing my head to go all... bleh.
Azula ditched us once again, vanishing into the command tent. Not that I was complaining, but it wouldn't have hurt to direct us to some food of some kind.
--
The Assassin.
It's much, much later. I'm sitting by the camp fire. It took a long time, but I've managed to get through my story as best I can. The earthbender looks grim, but Katara and Aang look horrified. I almost feel bad about telling them. Maybe I shouldn't have. But I'm basically winging it at the moment.
The evening is... strained. They made their introductions, but the fact remained that two of them were complete strangers, one of whom I had tried to murder earlier that day. Understandably, everything was a little awkward.
Eventually, the Avatar mentioned that it was getting late, and that everyone should get some sleep.
"Do you have a camp nearby, Sokka?"
I nodded. "About a mile west of here. I should go get my stuff."
He stood up. "I'll come with you."
He seemed perfectly cheerful, which immediately set off my suspicion alert. What was his thinking? Did he not want me running off, perhaps? Did he not trust me with either of the others?
If so, good. He should be wary. He shouldn't trust me. He's going to be a lot more canny than he has shown himself as if he's going to defeat the Fire Nation.
We left the camp, and walked towards the cave I had set up camp in.
"So, Sokka, I was wondering..." he seemed a little unsure of himself.
"How unlikely is it that I turn out to be the long-lost brother of one of your companions?" I supplied.
He scoffed. "Nah, nothing like that. I'm the Avatar, I'm a magnet for that kind of stuff. I was actually wondering what Princess Azula was like. If she's as important as you say..."
Yeah. I get you.
"She's crazy."
"Oh." He lapses into silence. Yeah, that kind of killed the conversation, didn't it?
"Let me rephrase that. When I pointed out that her uncle was a lot smarter than he let on, she decided that instead of trying to capture him and Zuko, it would be simpler all round if I just killed them both."
The Avatar froze in his tracks. "Wait, you were ordered after Zuko?"
"Yeah. You must have met him."
He nodded, and kept moving. "He's saved my life twice."
Well. That was unexpected.
"Why?"
The Avatar frowned. "First, it was because if he wasn't the one to capture me, apparently his father wouldn't let him come home. But the second time, he got himself hurt badly. When we were safe, Katara healed him, and he sat with his uncle for a while. When he came back, he said he was giving up on chasing me."
Okay. More surprises.
"Why?"
"He said he'd finally figured out that his father was never going to let him come home, if he captured me or not."
Hmm. It seems Zuzu isn't quite as dense as I had been led to believe. Or is that just the result of Iroh's meddling?
"He said he needed to find himself, and he told us he was going to-" the Avatar caught himself just in time.
I shook my head. "Don't worry. I was never going to kill him anyway."
I think I've confused him. "Why not?"
"Politics. Here we are." I pointed to my cave, and the Avatar dashed inside.
"Awk!"
And discovered my tripwires.
"I put those up so people can't sneak up on me while I'm asleep, since I don't have someone who can stand guard," I tell him, pointedly. I don't think he gets it.
"You have an ostrich-horse?"
"Well, how else was I supposed to get around? Check that the saddlebags are still secure, would you?"
It's not impossible that some animal or other could have got into them.
"Yep. Whoa, they're pretty heavy."
"I like to be prepared. Plus gold is kind of heavy."
He hefted the saddlebags onto Stinkella, who took the load stoically, while I undid my traps.
In a way, I felt sad to be leaving my cave. It was a kind of home, for a while. Sure, it was small, and windy, and uncomfortable, but it was somewhere I chose, and that was kind of important, in a completely unimportant way. I never had much choice in anything, and that wasn't about to change.
I didn't know that then, of course. It would be another few hours before I realised that I still wasn't as free as I seemed.
Or perhaps I had never been as enslaved as I had thought.
Huh.
--
I didn't sleep that night.
If anyone had asked, I would have been keeping watch. That would have been a half truth at best.
So much has changed, in such a short space of time. It feels like the ground is slipping away beneath my feet. I need a place to stand.
I stand, and retrieve my weapon. Maybe physical exercise would help. That at least hadn't changed.
Much to my instructors' chagrin, once I had learnt the basics of combat, I had twisted any style they had tried to teach me into something of my own. Perhaps it was a kind of rebellion, the only I could get away with. Once I had demonstrated the effectiveness of my fighting, they let me get on with it, and focused on theory instead.
There are four main forms in my fighting: Stone, Sea, Sky, and Flame. Sound familiar? Yeah.
Tonight, I would practice my stone forms.
I drew my blade from its sheath, placing the wood on the ground. Only the sky forms made use of that.
I rooted my feet, planting them wide apart, and took a two handed grip on the hilt of my sword. My back was straight, strong. Sure.
I began to practice, my blade hammering down in strong chops, deflecting invisible strikes, twisting imaginary blades aside before smashing down upon unseen monsters. It was... therapeutic, in a way. It reminded me that some things don't change, that some things can be relied on.
I could rely on my sword. I could rely on myself. Everything else was in flux, but those two stayed the same.
The stone forms left no room for anything other than utter concentration. Every blow was methodical, premeditated, everything mapped out beforehand. Just what I needed.
Also, exactly why it took me so long to notice the earthbender sitting on a rock a little way away, looking amused in an irritated way (if that makes any sense at all).
"Hi?" I tried, quietly enough not to wake anyone else up. "Is there something wrong?"
She walked up to me, the irritation now plain.
"Do you know how hard it is to sleep with you moving around like that?"
Huh?
--
Writer's Block? In my story?
It's more likely than you'd think.
Also, chronic lack of Stuff For Mai To Do made this chapter short. She mai have more to do next time.