14. WE LEFT AT MIDNIGHT. Our send-off was quiet and informal, the camp watching us fly away in silence. Hakoda was the picture of The Chief, strong and calm. He embraced his children, and they embraced him back. All three were moved, but no tears were shed, even when Hakoda told them, a quiver in his voice, how very proud he was of them. For Toph there was a kind hair ruffle, and for me, a bow and a clasping of hands. He pulled me in close, whispered in my ear, "Bring them back to me, young man."
"Yes, sir," I said, my voice thick in my throat. He looked at me for a few more moments before he spoke again.
"You're a far better man than you give yourself credit for, far better than you have any right to be. Your father's not half the man you are. Never forget that."
I can't begin to say how much that meant to me, still means to me.
Our last sight of the camp was a thousand torches (or so it seemed) flickering in the night, as every man there bowed to the ground as we flew away.
We traveled by night, fast and low. Lobsang was a quiet man, but kind, and had forgotten about air bison than any of us – even Aang, I'll wager – will ever know. We avoided human contact, sticking to the deserted stretches of the countryside. Rivers flowed like strings of pearls beneath us, and endless fields of sighing grass stretched out into the horizon. Vast forests swayed in the wind, and villages twinkled to life beneath us and, just as quickly, vanished from sight.
We made good time, three nights on and one night off. We swung to the north, followed a great shallow arc around Ba Sing Se, then dipped to the south and west. As soon as the sun would begin to rise, we'd set down in an empty place, pitch camp, sleep and rest through most of the day. In the evening, we'd wake, eat, let Sokka sneak off to kill something for Katara and I to cook. Lobsang, to our surprise, partook in this carnivorous diet. It was true, he admitted, that Air Nomads prefer to be vegetarian, but, he pointed out, not all principles are equally important in times like ours.
Toph and Lobsang seemed to find each other endlessly fascinating, and often talked all through the night. He had an impressive repertoire of dirty jokes and stories and songs, and Toph never tired of them. While they talked and Sokka hunted, Katara and I would take our walks, have our smokes, indulge in our talks. It was hard to hide that we were growing very close, and even Sokka began to join in the gibes and sniggers when we would return. Toph still took the lead, though, typically trotting out the latest ditty Lobsang had taught her when we got back to camp.
And through it all, the Avatar slept.
A week went by, and then another. We were in the far west of the Earth Kingdom now, and the signs of war were everywhere. Villages burned, bodies floated down rivers, and armies left their detritus and debris all over the land. There was war and rumor of war, and more than once we flew over columns of refugees staggering through the night. Not a day passed that we didn't see smoke curling into the sky somewhere in the distance, and the patrols from all sides became harder and harder to avoid.
We pressed on. There was no stopping, no turning back, no helping. A deep sense of foreboding settled down into our bones, and sleep became harder as the nights grew shorter and the days grew longer. Summer was here, and with it came the heat and the bugs. Once again, we grew haggard and dirty, and Sokka came back from the hunt empty-handed more and more. We dared not venture into wherever people were, and had to settle for foraging what we could as our supplies grew short. We were loathe to trust anyone, and besides, we doubted there was much food to be had, anyways.
Through it all, amazingly, we did not fight or argue. Tempers did not flare, and angry words did not fly. We were in this together, to the end, and no matter what, we had to stick it through. We never voiced our doubts, our fears, our confusions. We had said them often enough, and even with our silence, they were writ plain on our faces. When we talked, we talked of happy things, of Lobsang's dirty jokes and Sokka's ever-evolving fantasy of Aang's Spirit World Feast. When Katara and I walked, we spoke of pointless things, meaningless tidbits and useless information that we had gathered through our lives. As often as not, we said nothing, merely sat, my arm around her, her head on my shoulders, and watched the sun crawl through the sky.
And through the night, we flew, our progress marked by the stages of the moon.
A short one, but important. I'm painting a scene here, going for an atmosphere. I hope it's working. By the way, I get Lobsang's sense of humor from the one the Dalai Lama is reported to have. Apparently, that crazy old monk loves a solid dirty joke.
In the next chapter, people die. It's going to be interesting.