Chapter 27 - Lessons


Hikoshu and the others spent two days on the mountain being chased by the sound of imaginary soldiers. Yet for all of their desperate attempts to escape, there was no indication they were even being pursued.

"We could be staying ahead of them," Yan-lin explained on the second night, as they once more shivered in an earthen dug-out heated only by bodies, since fire would have given them away. "We might be doing such an efficient job of hiding that we've already lost them." Hikoshu could hear in her voice that even she didn't believe her own excuses.

"No matter that being the case, we still have to keep low. Take no chances." Diem had pulled the neck of his outer robe over his head in the semblance of a cap, his face framed by its lapels as if he were a Ba Sing Se Earth Cleric. Hikoshu agreed silently, but didn't say as much. It was almost too cold to speak.

In reality, he wasn't sure what this meant. His thoughts flew back to the night they escaped Omashu, and how they narrowly evaded capture at the gate. But had they? The guards hadn't seemed suspicious. And while it was true the Gangzhou soldiers had arrested them, the men hadn't even appeared to be looking for Yan-lin. It was as if the soldiers had merely stumbled on them in the plaza, realizing at the last moment that maybe they would need to detain her.

No, it didn't seem like Du Gong had put much effort into trying to recapture Yan-lin. Hikoshu had faced worse adversity while skipping airbending lessons back at the Western Air Temple.

He could tell Yan-lin was having the same doubts, though she didn't express them as the trio continued in their mad flight through the mountain wilderness. He suspected that, like him, she found it curious but had no desire to question their good luck. It may have not made a lot of sense, but it didn't change what he needed to do. In fact, it actually helped, and so Hikoshu tried not to worry as he hid their tracks from the back of Yan-lin's ostrich-horse.

They had to stop frequently as they descended the mountain, mostly because Hikoshu now had no coat to protect him from the elements. He derived some warmth from Yan-lin while they rode, but after a few hours the constant breeze wore him down and forced him to pause long enough to heat his own hands. Diem watched the roads nervously all the while, as if someone could see the tiny flame from several miles away, then catch them before they could take to the trail again.

Three days passed from that night in Gangzhou to the morning that they reached the grasslands. The mountain had fallen away steeply, and gray foothills now directed them forward, keeping them on narrow, gravelly paths that skirted ice-covered rivers. The snow had thinned as well, and Diem explained it was because of the mountain range, which caught storm clouds on its peaks and prevented rain from reaching the eastern lands. That also explained why 'grassland' was a term of such modest exaggeration: the gray hills gradually stooped into plains of black dirt and brittle shrubs, as if the area hadn't seen rain in years. There certainly was no grass.

The ostrich-horses, however, after so many days of pine nuts, delighted in this change of environment, where they could forage for more appetizing seeds. They almost seemed adapted for the plains, their beaks pecking through the prickly sedge. Unfortunately, their humans weren't quite so well adapted, forcing them to survive on the dwindling rations Diem had bought in Gangzhou as well as whatever Hikoshu could catch in the foothills. Which hadn't been much—he was never a very good hunter. Shaman Kinu had said it was because hunting ran contrary to his need for balance. Hikoshu just thought he'd had too much of death to want to inflict it on anything else.

On the second day of riding through the plains, when the range had faded to a hazy blue behind them and the sun had heated the air enough to make them shed their coats, Hikoshu decided this was easily the most boring land he'd ever seen. The view was flat—as flat as the ocean on a still day. Even the sky refused to be interesting, thin clouds huddling at the horizon as if afraid to venture out into the open.

"Well, it's not got sweeping mountains or lazy oceans," Diem had said with a frown when Hikoshu asked if there was anything more to it. "But what it doesn't have in landforms, it makes up with in spirit."

Apparently, Diem thought 'spirit' was another term for 'prairie gophers.' And, yes. It had plenty of those.

Halfway through the second day on the plains, Yan-lin surprised him. They'd been riding in their usual silence, Hikoshu's thoughts beyond the gray horizon and the strange stickiness that had formed wherever his body touched hers. Diem followed a faint trail that likely hadn't been used for years, almost entirely black dirt and burr plants that had started to creep past its borders. They in turn rode a small distance behind him.

"Ready to learn how to ride a horstrich?" she said, shaking Hikoshu from his stupor.

"You're ready to teach me?"

"The view's getting monotonous, and I'd like to take a nap."

He kind of wished he could take a nap, but it'd require taking one on her, and that didn't sound so comfortable for either of them. "I think I pretty much have it figured out."

"Oh?" Her voice was wry.

"Well, I've been on an ostrich-horse for nearly a week. I'd have to be pretty unobservant not to know how, at this point."

"Then care to show me?" Suddenly, Yan-lin drew the animal to a halt and shoved the reins between Hikoshu's fingers. Diem, ahead of them, slowly became aware that they'd stopped moving and drew his ostrich-horse up sharply to face them.

"Yan-lin, what're you doing?"

"Hikoshu says he's got Ben-Pao covered," she said with amusement, and Hikoshu began to suspect this might be an elaborate joke. "I'm just giving him the reins."

Diem frowned, then urged his ostrich-horse off the road. As if afraid that Hikoshu might end up running him over. Really, a true testament of faith.

"So what's first?" She turned to pin him with a grin. "It's all yours."

"Don't I need to be in front?" he protested, to which she laughed.

"I think I'll stay in front for now. Don't want you knocking me off, too." He realized she was clutching the horn of the saddle. So, essentially, neither of them believed in him.

"Oh, come on. It's not hard." To prove his point, Hikoshu tapped his heels into the flanks of the ostrich-horse—a gentle nudge, just as Yan-lin always gave to get the bird into motion. In response, the ostrich-horse screeched.

And abruptly, he was on the ground, staring up at the sky, while a heavy cloud of dust settled on him.

Diem nearly fell off of his own ostrich-horse in laughter, literally bent over its neck and holding his stomach as he gasped for breath. Yan-lin was laughing, too, having brought the dumb beast under control several yards away. They both ambled back calmly, though Ben-Pao's glassy eyes seemed to be glaring.

"Next time, try not to kick it in the gizzard," Diem said as he leaned down from his saddle to help Hikoshu up. Hurting more from embarrassment than from the fall, Hikoshu attempted to dust off both his robes and his pride.

"You knew I was going to do that."

"Of course. If you hadn't, it wouldn't've been funny."

Yan-lin smirked broadly as she dismounted. "You can put your feet in the stirrups from now on. So you don't spur it in the wrong place. Horstriches can be moody when they're kicked wrong."

After she felt he was humbled enough to receive instruction, Yan-lin was a much kinder teacher. She still sat in front—as a precaution, she told him—but she let him take both the reins and the stirrups, holding the back of his hands to keep balance. By the end of the day, Hikoshu could at least keep Ben-Pao from wandering off the road. Stopping seemed to be just out of his reach, though, as well as commands for the ostrich-horse to go faster. But that was fine. He only really wanted the animal to go slow.

The next morning, Yan-lin trusted him enough not to hold his hands. By noon, she'd reclined against his chest, balancing herself between his arms. When Hikoshu asked if she was getting comfortable, she merely shrugged.

"I told you, I wanted to take a nap." And that was exactly what she did. Within an hour, her head drooped, slipping along his shoulder until it found a stable spot against a dip in his bicep.

"I see she's taking advantage of you," Diem said with some mirth, falling back on the trail to ride alongside him. Hikoshu glanced down at the top of her head, noting how relaxed she now felt.

"Well, I'm glad she's using me for something. I'm just surprised how upfront she was about it."

Diem laughed and rubbed at his jaw, his beard not so neat as it'd been in previous days. "Yeah, Yan-lin doesn't beat around her bushes. She's pretty good about beating right over them." In fact, they all looked pretty ragged. But that was usually how it went out on the road. If there was anything Hikoshu could miss about Omashu, it was civilization and hot baths.

Which sparked a question he had been wanting to ask for a while. "Diem, why did you come back here? To us?"

"Honest answer?"

"You have a dishonest one?"

That made him laugh again as he paused to beat the black trail dust out of his pants leg. "Tell me something, Hikoshu. Do you believe in fate?"

That was an odd question. Especially since the answer should be obvious. "I'm the Avatar. Everything I do pretty much revolves around the concept of fate."

"Well," Diem continued, "I kind of buy into fate, myself. And after I left you two, I got to thinking. I mean, you needed some way to reach the sandbenders. Somehow, that led you to Yan-lin, who then led you to me. Most people who believe in fate would say that the Avatar landing on their doorstump is something that only fate could bring."

"And is that what you say?" he asked curiously, which made Diem shrug as he looked out at the distance.

"I don't know. But I realized that if someday, somebody asks me, 'Who are you?' I don't want to be the man who turned away the Avatar because he was afraid." He glanced back at Hikoshu. "Know what I mean?"

Kind of, if from the opposite side. Hikoshu didn't want to be known as the man who turned away from the world because he was afraid. It was unfortunate that all of his choices seemed to be based on fear. Reluctant to consider that, he gave himself a shake, and Yan-lin moaned softly at the movement.

"What are you afraid of, Diem?" he said, shifting the topic away from him. Diem in turn frowned, as if he too was now thinking about a subject he'd rather let alone.

"Suppose I should tell you, since we're headed that way." He nodded toward the empty path before them. "I had to leave my tribe when I was younger. The general helped me escape."

"I gathered as much. But what made you leave?"

"I didn't agree with all their beliefs," Diem said vaguely, suddenly growing guarded. "Ever felt that sometimes, you just don't fit in?"

"On occasion." Even if Diem didn't recognize the understatement, he could probably hear the dryness in Hikoshu's voice. Grinning, the leather worker shook his head.

"Yeah, guess you would. Well, despite my best attempts at it, I simply didn't fit in. My father was a freedman—an artisan by class—and as a consequence, I was destined to be the same. But try as I might, I soon came to realize that I wasn't going to be who they wanted me to be, and I wasn't going to be able to change, either. General Gi-Luon then offered me an opportunity to get away from that before I got trapped in a role I wasn't made for. And I took it."

"Do you ever look back?"

"Not at all," Diem said swiftly. "You may not have much of a high opinion of Omashu. And like any other place, it's got its share of faults. But what you consider an evil city, some of us—a lot of us—consider a haven. A dream we couldn't have anywhere else. I had my future laid out for me, a fate if anyone could call it that. And Omashu allowed me to change it." His face was somber, and the smile he flashed Hikoshu was even sadder. "Sometimes it's hard to see the good in things, but you might like to try."

"I think I might, too." He tried to make his own smile reassuring. It was true; he hated Omashu, and he'd vowed on more than one occasion to save it from itself or raze the whole thing. But maybe he was only seeing it from one point-of-view. Maybe—like with Yan-lin—he had to find some good in it, too.

They fell silent after that, though Diem lingered beside him. The trail had become much more defined, and Hikoshu could easily follow it. So they spent the rest of the waning day next to each other, saying little but enjoying the afternoon anyhow. There was an ease in Diem's manner that was calming, such as the way he slouched back in his saddle or how he held his reins loosely in two fingers of one hand. His head seemed to rock with the rhythmic gait of his ostrich-horse, as if he were silently agreeing or entranced in a song only he could hear. Quickly, Hikoshu grew accustomed to the man's relaxed demeanor, to the point that he felt he'd known Diem for years rather than just a week.

Close to sunset, the trail cut through a field of golden-flowered shrubs, which seemed to delight Diem. He abruptly sat straighter in his saddle, then looked to Hikoshu with a certain mischievous glimmer. Jerking his head toward one of the bushes, he nodded for him to inspect the flowers more closely. Hikoshu did as much as he could without bending over, as Yan-lin still balanced against his arm.

The flowers weren't flowers at all—they were clusters of butterflies. Struck by Diem's sudden enthusiasm, Hikoshu realized what the sandbender wanted him to do. Carefully, so as not to disturb Yan-lin, he lowered one hand toward the trail and bended a breeze across the tops of the shrubs.

The butterflies took off like a fluttering wave, their bronze wings flashing in the sunset. That golden wave swept over the field as more and more butterflies took to the air, the breathtaking sight filling the sky and startling the ostrich-horses so much that they stopped their trot. Diem laughed heartily, his voice carrying his joy.

"Copper fritillaries. They're migrating late this year." The deluge of butterflies cleared enough for him to catch a glimpse of Diem, who was dotted with a number of the insects. Diem must have spied him, too, for his eyes grew wide with sudden awe. "Hikoshu."

Hikoshu glanced down at himself, only to find he was covered in butterflies, as if he wore a blanket of copper. They had spared Yan-lin, who still slept soundly, as well as the ostrich-horse, but there was barely an inch of cloth visible on him. Uncomfortably he shrugged, though it didn't dislodge any of his new friends.

"It's an Avatar thing," Hikoshu said, unsure if the explanation would make any sense. He'd had butterflies do this before. And spiny-eyed bees, which the latter had proved to be a disaster. "They won't go away until after dark." But he had no desire to wait that long, so he pressed his fist into his palm, while still holding both the reins and Yan-lin, and created a globe of wind that plucked the fritillaries from his clothes. The sudden burst of air startled Ben-Pao, who threw himself forward in a mad, short sprint, and woke up Yan-lin, who dug her nails into Hikoshu's thighs as if convinced they were going off of a cliff. Her terror sent Diem into a fit of guffaws, and her bleary-eyed confusion at the ebbing tide of butterfly wings brought a grin from Hikoshu.

All in all, it made for a pleasant start to the evening.

The following day, Diem stopped them early to teach Hikoshu some earthbending, much to Yan-lin's frustration.

"If we delay any longer, we won't make Aksu until tomorrow." She'd seated herself, cross-legged, next to the pen Diem had created for the ostrich-horses. He simply tossed her his canteen.

"Hold onto that. We're going to need it in a moment." Then he turned to Hikoshu as he undid his leather belt. "You might want to strip if you want to keep your clothes clean."

"How much dirtier can they get?" he said with a frown. He was pretty sure his robes had been green when he left Gangzhou. Now, they were some weird shade of yellow-brown.

"Just warning you. But you should definitely take off your shoes." A moment later, Diem was barefoot and naked to his waist, his skin a dusky color that was about a shade lighter than that of a Water Tribesman. His physique, too, resembled that of a waterbender, very much unlike the earthbenders Hikoshu had seen in Omashu. His muscles were smooth and lean, underemphasized and far less rugged than his fellow countrymen. Made more for movement, he lacked the stocky build of an Earth Kingdom man.

Mindful of Yan-lin's eyes on them, Hikoshu took off his remaining boot and what shreds were left of the bandage around his other foot. Diem didn't even wait for him to finish, already widening his stance with his knees slightly bent.

"Now most people think—earthbenders included—that earth is about strength and grounding. But they'd be wrong. Earth takes many forms. It can be hard, like stone, but in its purer forms, it can be malleable like gold. If it's fine enough, it's like water, and if it's soft enough, it's like air. The key to earthbending is understanding how earth can change, and changing your bending with it."

"Adaptation," Hikoshu said, surprised. "Like the waterbenders."

Diem grinned. "The problem with all benders, not just the earth ones, is they believe that we fall into categories. But categories are an illusion. We can say that waterbenders are adaptors, and firebenders are powerful, but that's not all that true. Every bending form borrows a little from the others, and it's the understanding of all forms that give a person power. It's what gives you power, Avatar."

Hikoshu stared at him, mouth agape. He'd never considered until now how right Diem was. With every bending art he learned, Hikoshu had to carry over some knowledge of the form before. They were all interconnected.

Yan-lin was the first to speak. "Wow. Diem…that's really profound." She sounded sincere. "I didn't know you were such a philosopher."

Diem puffed his chest proudly, straightening. "Well, of all the benders, the sandbenders are most in tune with the unity of the bending arts. After all, we have to use earth that flows like water, burns like fire, and floats like air. So we pretty much have to master every form, anyway."

"Can we skip about three-fourths of that lesson, then?" Hikoshu rubbed at his neck, glancing at the sky to judge the time. "I've already got those covered."

"Today, I'm just teaching you the basics." He assumed his original stance. "How to find water."

"I'm not following you. We're earthbending…for water?" At Diem's nod, he gestured wide, toward the expansive plain. "Were you planning to earthbend a river?"

"I'm sure you've seen a well, haven't you?"

"Yes, but…"

"Well, that's what we're doing. A quick, messy well. So, again, you might want to strip." Quirking his eyebrows, Diem mimed removing his robes, his hands pulling at invisible lapels. Hikoshu spared him a level look before complying. Though the temperature was somewhere between cool and comfortably warm, his skin still prickled upon touching air. He thought, perhaps, it was the breeze. Or maybe the way Yan-lin was staring at him. Severely, he made himself focus, and emulated Diem's prepared stance.

"Alright, so the first thing to know about earthbending is that it requires the bender to be strong."

"I thought you said it didn't have anything to do with strength."

"Well, my speech wouldn't have sounded so eloquent if I said it did." Again, a grin that made his green eyes gleam with mischief. "You don't need physical strength—you need strength of will. Strength of self. Since rock is hard, it will not respond to you unless you tell it to move."

Hikoshu glanced at the ground below him. "Move, rock." Yan-lin snorted at the joke, though Diem didn't laugh. He rolled his eyes, bent his arms, and pushed his hands toward the sky. A perfect, circular hole burst from the ground in front of Hikoshu, dirt and plants showering him as the earth erupted.

"Strength of will," Diem said firmly as Hikoshu spat the grit out of his mouth and wiped his eyes clear. "It doesn't matter how much rock you have to move—the amount of strength needed to move a boulder is the same needed for a grain of sand. But it's the quality of strength that's different. It's easy to be stronger than a pebble, but a mountain is much more intimidating."

"So…I just have to think I'm stronger than the mountain?" Brushing the rest of the dirt off his chest, he gazed into the newly-created hole. It was dark, but not deep.

"Exactly. You must be stronger than whatever it is you're bending." Diem bended a small rock into his hand, then tossed it idly, catching it against his palm.

"Alright." Confidence wasn't a problem for Hikoshu, and so he shrugged. "What else?"

"Nothing else. You've just learned the basics of earthbending."

That caught him by surprise, and for a moment, he thought Diem was teasing him again. "Wait…you mean…that's it?"

Diem stared at him blankly, then turned to Yan-lin. "He is pretty cocky, isn't he?" She smirked in answer, making the comment rankle for Hikoshu. But Diem had already moved on, facing him once more. "Yes. That's all there is. But seeing as it's one of the hardest elements to learn, I think you better give it a try before you decide if 'that's it.'"

Hikoshu imagined the other three elements would be impossible for Diem to learn, but kept the quip to himself. Instead, he emulated Diem's gestures, bending at the knees and folding up his arms, then focused on a new spot on the ground.

It was if a New Year firework had exploded. Earth flew everywhere, and only Diem's deft earthbending as well as Hikoshu's airbending saved them all from being pelted. When the dust finally cleared, the spot he was aiming for was now a large crater.

Yan-lin whistled as she lowered her arms, a fine layer of dirt coating her. "That's the worst bending I think I've ever seen you do." That made Hikoshu blush in both mortification and wounded pride. But before he could find a retort suitable enough, Diem signaled for his attention.

"Alright, there's such a thing as too much strength. Which you might have." His grin didn't seem so friendly now. "Earthbending is an art of finesse." His eyes narrowed as he held up his hands, his fingers and thumbs touching as he searched for some transcendental meaning in the sky. "Many think it's all about throwing big rocks. But the most lethal moves are often caused by the tiniest stones. You just have to learn how to apply your strength correctly."

"Diem, you're teaching him how to dig a well," Yan-lin said, finally showing some impatience. "Not spout metaphysical haikus. Can't we speed this up?"

With such critical commentary of his lesson, Diem looked offended. "You can't rush art, Yan-lin."

Nor did he rush. In fact, the earthbending lesson went long into the afternoon. Diem insisted that Hikoshu be the one to dig a suitable well, so that even though the leather worker had built at least three decent wells by the time Hikoshu had made one, he'd filled them up and refused to use them. Instead, he chose to rely on Hikoshu's uneven, slightly tilted hole.

"Now, here's the fun part," Diem said, kneeling next to it. "We'll create a stone bucket to haul the water up, and then find a decent sandy loam to form a water scr—" He cut off with a frown as Hikoshu bended water from the well, its muddy form roiling around them. "Well, that's not very fun."

"Fun for me. Hey, is it possible to bend the dirt out of the water? I could hold onto the water while you remove the mud."

Diem actually seemed disappointed when it worked, and the now-crystal water slipped into the canteen at Hikoshu's command. He must have really been proud of his purification system, but Hikoshu was muddy and tired. And he didn't need to learn to make waterscreens when he could simply waterbend.

Dusk had fallen by the time they finished, the sky a stunning mixture of colors from blazing gold to deep purple. With the impending night, a cool wind rolled off the mountains, making Hikoshu desperately want to dress. Unfortunately, though, he was still caked in red-brown mud, which looked like it would take a good scrubbing to remove.

When he made an offhand comment about it to Diem, the earthbender grinned. And with just a jerk of his hands, the dried mud flew off of Hikoshu, taking a good amount of body hair with it. "Earthbenders clean up fast."

"But not very well." As his nerves slowly calmed from the abrupt depilation, Hikoshu regarded his forearms. Where the mud had been, the skin was now stained red.

"Well, earthbending can only do so much. The rest you take care of with a nice bath." Diem's grin turned whimsical as he stretched his arms behind his head. "Good thing we got this well dug. Plenty of water now."

They made camp beside the well that evening, once Yan-lin woke up from her boredom-induced nap and declared that the Aksu gates would be closed long before they came within sight of the town. That meant their trip would have to extend into the next day, but for once, Hikoshu didn't feel pressured. They were within a day of finding sandbenders, and that seemed good enough progress to him. So for one evening, he allowed himself to relax, soaking in the heat of a fire Diem only now felt safe enough to let him build.

Dinner was at its most meager, as they were now using the seed Diem had brought for his ostrich-horse to make a thin gruel. Yan-lin handled it the worst, her expression souring at the unpleasant smell, and she was forced to turn away her own ration.

"You have to eat," Hikoshu insisted, and she gave him a look that said she didn't have to do any such thing.

"I'll eat in Aksu."

"Look, I know it's not a high-end Omashu meal made for royalty, but as long as you pretend—"

The next look she gave him told him to stop talking.

Diem, as usual, ignored their squabbling, his attention occupied by Ben-Pao's saddle. The weight of two people had taken its toll, and one of the stirrup flaps had torn. There wasn't much Diem could do out in the plains, when civilization was still a day's ride away, so he struggled to mend what he could with the few tools that he carried.

"Maybe I could find some wild herbs to flavor it."

"Hikoshu." Yan-lin imbued her words with the weariness of a full week on the road. "I don't want any. Why are you so eager to see that I eat?"

"Because it doesn't make sense. We have food, even if it's not all that appetizing—"

"Frankly, I think this has more to do with your paternalistic control issues than my appetite."

"My what? Fine, if you don't want to eat—"

"—I don't—"

"—I'm not going to force you."

Yan-lin stared at him like he was ridiculous to assume he could force her to do anything. Chagrinned, Hikoshu found himself agreeing.

"Hey, stop fighting," Diem said, catching them both by surprise. The command was unnecessary, as Hikoshu had already conceded silently and Yan-lin had claimed her victory with sullen reticence. Instead, it startled them that Diem had commented at all, as his general philosophy was one of non-involvement. The arguments usually ended quickly after they began, and Diem's easy-going manner didn't lend him to annoyance. "Stop fighting," he repeated. They watched him quizzically as he pushed the saddle from his lap and stood.

"What is it?" Yan-lin asked with more than a little trepidation. His strange behavior had introduced a nervous tension, and Hikoshu leaned forward to extinguish the fire. Diem shushed them again, however, and gestured for him to leave it.

"Do you hear that?" He was mesmerized by something outside of the firelight.

Hikoshu looked out on the lonely night, and listened. There were the obvious sounds—the chirping night insects, the whisper of wind across the heads of overgrown grass. Under those were the not-so-obvious sounds, the ones that Hikoshu knew no one but he could hear. He might not have been in touch with his more spiritual side, but that spiritual side still existed. As a result, he felt connections other people missed. Most of the time, they manifested just below his awareness as an instinct, directing him how to act. But sometimes, as with the butterflies, they appeared as something more. When it was quiet, and he concentrated hard, Hikoshu could hear the earth: a hum so low that it seemed to make everything quake as if dancing, or breathing. The energy would swell and abate, like his own chi, and in his younger years, he'd suspected that he might be able to tap into it. But if it were possible, Hikoshu simply wasn't trained to do it, so he marveled from afar at the unheard chorus of a living world.

That sound was there this evening, though he knew Diem wasn't listening to it. Instead, barely on the edge of hearing, another sound floated from the wilds. It was a long, unwavering note, pure enough that Hikoshu could hardly discern it from the general hum of life. Moments later, a second note joined it, equally constant but significantly higher in tone. The addition roused Diem, and he closed his eyes with a pleasant smile as he swayed in time to the duet.

"Prairie gophers," Yan-lin said, looking to Hikoshu. "They're very musical creatures. Especially at night." By this time several other gophers had chimed in, and the night came alive with the distant choir. Diem's sway grew livelier as well; soon he was singing along wordlessly to the strange harmony, which made Yan-lin laugh. This caught his attention, and he danced over to her, drawing her up from the ground by the hand. Yan-lin went willingly, twirling into his arms and barely avoiding the fire in the process.

Hikoshu watched, perplexed, as the two danced. It was a silly dance, without technique or form, dictated by Diem's whims. He caught Yan-lin against his chest and spun her around, causing her to giggle childishly as she stepped quickly from one foot to the other. Diem, in turn, kept his eyes closed with an almost meditative peace, guided by night breezes and the prairie gopher song. Then suddenly, it was as if they heard that silent thrum of energy, as they moved in time to its ebbs and flows. Even the campfire seemed to surge with the music, and in those few seconds, everything in the world was in perfect harmony. The spirituality that Hikoshu so often ignored struck him, suffusing his mind.

Miyo. The world flashed white. She was injured, and it was cold—freezing. Her hands hurt—no, one hand, a bleeding gash through its tattoo. The snow tunnel under Rajio Bay was collapsing on top of her, and she couldn't breathe. No—not Rajio Bay. Miyo wasn't under the ice, but on the Northern bluffs. The snow surrounding her wasn't on top of her, but was being held against her nonetheless, suffocating her. Someone was commanding the snow—a Shaman. Natquik!

Yan-lin grabbed his arm, abruptly ending the trance. "Come dance!" Hikoshu resisted the movement, his thoughts still locked in that horrific moment as Miyo was dying. Was it a vision of the present? No, he felt like it hadn't happened yet. Something was terribly wrong with Miyo, but for now at least, she wasn't in danger.

But it also meant that she might soon be.

"Hikoshu?" Yan-lin asked when he didn't respond, the gaiety fading from her face. Suddenly, impatience and anxiety flooded him, forcing him to stand.

"Sorry," he mumbled, leaving the camp before they could stop him. His task now seemed more urgent, and the peace of the evening had dissipated. They had to get to the sandbenders; he had to get to Miyo.

Yan-lin caught him outside of the firelight—out of earshot of Diem, who watched them without following. "Hikoshu, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," he snapped, shaking her off. "I just don't want to dance." Yan-lin looked wounded.

"You don't think Diem and I…"

"Think you and Diem what?" Though the answer occurred to him almost immediately. She suspected he was jealous. "No, not that. Go ahead and dance with him; I don't care." The hurt in her eyes only worsened. Taking a deep breath, Hikoshu made himself stop. He was still reacting to the vision, when he wasn't even sure what it meant or why it had happened. But what could he do when he was stuck in the middle of the Earth Kingdom? How could he protect Miyo when she was a thousand leagues away? Once more, he felt powerless. "I'm sorry, Yan-lin, I didn't mean it that way."

"No, don't apologize. I didn't think—" she cut off awkwardly, and the waning sounds of prairie-gophers filled the silence between them. "I just wanted to make sure everything was fine."

It wasn't. "It's hard to remember when we're out here, away from everything, that there are people who are depending on me. People who are dying. And even if I can't see them, I'm still fighting for them. I simply don't have the luxury to be distracted by…"

"By me," she finished. Hikoshu didn't answer. He didn't know how to. "Well, then. I'm sorry for distracting you." She moved to leave.

"Wait." Hikoshu tried to seize her arm, but she lithely avoided his grip.

"Hikoshu, I know what it means to be bound by duty. So don't think you have to explain that you're working toward something greater than yourself. I swore I'd do everything for you, and this is exactly why. The Avatar can't be distracted from his purpose. There's too much at risk."

"But after this—"

"There is no 'after this.' You're the Avatar, as you'll always be. I have no illusions about that." Her expression was both sad and comforting. "If you forgive me for everything I've done to you, then I'll have accomplished more than I ever hoped for."

Had he forgiven her? Nothing he felt about Yan-lin made any sense, least of all that. Ever astute, Yan-lin saw his ambivalence and smiled.

"Goodnight, Hikoshu." She left him for the fire.


A/N: Back to Miyo and Natquik with the next chapter. Will post it tomorrow. Because I'm going to force myself to work through the night. Thanks to everyone who is sticking through my hiatuses (hiati?)!