Chapter Fifty-Six: Advance Warning.
–
The Assassin.
Oh great, just what I needed. More teenage non-lethal fighters. Seriously, what's so hard to grasp about this concept? In war, people get killed. I think that's built in to the very definition of a war. But nooo, everyone has to be all 'we don't kill our enemies, Sokka', 'I'm psychologically traumatised, Sokka', 'I'm the Avatar, Sokka, so I fling my enemies off very tall buildings but it's the ground that kills them, not me. Avatars never kill people, and Air Nomads don't either'. Yeah. Look how far that got the Air Nomads.
Besides, these girls carry swords, for crying out loud. If you carry a lethal weapon but then aren't prepared to use the damn thing, then what's the point of carrying it in the first place?
Oh, my head hurts.
–
The Guardian.
The ruins were actually quite interesting, I thought. Certainly more so than I had expected.
Toph didn't agree.
"So, what's the real reason you dragged me out here?" she asked.
"You should always appreciate your history. Here's an actually quite large village that the forty-second Earth King just evicted everyone from, simply so he could have a better forest to hunt in. That sort of behaviour is positively Fire Lord-ish."
"Yeah, yeah, I had history lessons too."
"You should never snub the opportunity to witness these sorts of things first hand, you know," I answered mildly, examining a tree that had grown up right through the shattered roof of one building. It was... pleasingly anarchic, evocative of the most whimsical kind of nihilism, although I thought the squirrel-monkey perched in its branches was overdoing the message a bit.
"Mai, stop bluffing. It's not working."
"Who says I'm bluffing?" I asked.
"Okay, stop wasting my time, then."
I shook my head. "It's pretty egocentric to assume that this is anything to do with you."
"Just get to the point," she cried, throwing up her hands in melodramatic frustration.
Does everyone I know have to be so high-strung? It's very tiring.
"I just thought that Zuko looked like he wanted to talk to his uncle, that's all," I answered, getting a little irritated now. "No need to get so worked up over it."
"Oh." She seemed mollified by that, but I knew it couldn't last.
"So..." Yep, here it comes, "you told him yet?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Her pestering was beginning to get on my nerves.
"Why is it so important to you?" I'll admit, I snapped. No one has ever accused me of having an even temper.
"Because I think it's stupid of you not to. And besides, you two would probably be good for each other." She's so... assured in her naivete that I can barely stand it.
I rolled my eyes.
"Well, I'm sorry, but this time I don't think I'm going to bow to your obviously superior experience in the matter."
I think I hit a nerve there. For a second I was afraid that she was going to attack me, and then I would be in trouble.
"There's no call for that," she replied. "But if you're afraid to admit how you feel to him-"
Oh it's on now.
"Afraid? Afraid? I'm afraid" I find time for puns, even now "that you've got the wrong idea, Toph. It's nothing to do with me not wanting to take a chance, there's no chance to be taken. You felt my heartbeat when I talk to him, correct?" I didn't wait for a response. "That's only half of it. What happens to his heart?"
There was no response. That was response enough.
I felt my hopes sink, oddly. Of course, I had known for as long as I had known him that Zuko wasn't interested in me in the slightest, but hope is an insidious bastard, and it had been easy to imagine that somehow Zuko was as affected by me as I was by him.
But that was ridiculous, of course.
Toph had gotten over her moment of stunned silence (much to my chagrin) and was shouting. Again.
"So that's it? You're just giving up? You're not even going to try?"
"Look, as long as Zuko's not lying dead in some gutter, that's good enough for now. I have other things to worry about." I glanced at the sky. "Now come on, I suppose we'd better get back to camp."
–
The Assassin.
I wandered back into the bar, stretching experimentally. Katara had wanted me to rest another night, so she could give me another proper healing session. I had treated that idea with all the thought it deserved. She had replied with the politeness that my response had warranted, and I had eventually conceded that I could do with an hour's nap before the blood started dripping down the walls. A patch job on my wounds would do fine, and I would heal up naturally soon enough. After all, we've lost enough time as it is, and if we want to catch up to the schedule we won't have another opportunity for a long healing session before I'm back to fighting fitness anyway.
Ty Lee was sitting cross-legged on a stool, talking to the innkeeper.
Yes, she was sitting cross legged. As in, cross legged like you would sit on the floor. But on a stool.
Don't ask me. It's just part of the Ty Lee package. You hardly notice it after a while.
"So, how long have you- Sokka! Feeling better?"
"I've got a headache, but nothing major. We ready to leave?"
"You haven't paid yet," the bartender interjected.
"Ah. Of course. Ty, go make sure everyone's ready to roll, would you? Thanks."
As she made her way outside, humming as she went, I fished around for the money pouch.
"Your friend was just telling me that I reminded her of someone," the innkeeper commented while I wondered which laden pocket I had put the stupid thing in. "I told her that that happens a lot."
I had to contain a snort of disbelief. Sure, there a lot of six-foot tall, obviously Fire Nation, well-educated women around here? I found the pouch, finally.
"Anyway, she was kind enough to fill me in on the details of what exactly is going on in the world right now- we don't get a lot of news out here, unless we get someone to mail it from a different, less isolated town. But anyway, I will certainly be following the exploits of your group with great interest."
Yes, yes, very cryptic. Somewhat spoiled by the facts that a: I don't know what you're trying to get at, and b: I don't really care. "So, how much do I owe you?"
"Ten gold pieces."
What?
"But-"
"Nine copper pieces for the rooms, nine for breakfasts, twenty-seven for lunches and dinners, and you blew up my bar."
"Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that."
I considered arguing that I had already paid her three gold pieces, but I couldn't be bothered in the end. I paid up.
Hey, it's not like it's my money. Azula is still funding this whole trip, though I'm not sure for how much longer. Money bag's getting kind of light.
–
The Guardian.
It was getting dark, and we should have been back by now. The sun was almost down.
Idly, I wondered if we'd actually make any progress before camping for the night. After all, the path is hard enough to make out in broad daylight, let alone the middle of the night.
Toph was very quiet, for which I was thankful, and the sounds of the forest- that is, worryingly noisy chittering, rustling, squeaking, and occasionally the screams of the dying- wafted through the air.
I shall never know why some people consider this relaxing.
So we walked, tramping through the ferns, guided more by the fact that we were retracing our footsteps than the overgrown footpath we had followed in full daylight.
And then suddenly something was wrong.
I've always had excellent hearing, as well as (I say without the taint of modesty) phenomenal vision. It's part of what makes me such a good aim.
And something was off. Just slightly, but it was as though there was a... hole in the sounds of the forest. Like there was a patch animals were avoiding, for some reason.
It screamed danger.
"Something wrong?" Toph asked.
"No one's nearby, are they?"
She paused.
"No one that I can feel. You getting spooked?"
I blinked.
"No. Let's keep moving."
We walked on, quieter than before. But there was... something still that was just wrong about this whole scenario.
Two minutes later.
To our right, almost behind me, a group of birds took off, spooked by a-
shape moving in the blackness don't react don't react just adjust your stance as subtly as you can and take a knife and it's got a spear or something and...
It's a bow, but I'm not the target.
Toph has moved on, not noticing or not caring that I just stopped dead, and the figure is taking aim right at her. Why can't she sense this guy?
The trees. She can't see things in the treetops.
The figure looses-
Faster than thought, my first knife flows from my hand into the air, the throw smooth and natural like it's what I was born to do.
It collides with the arrow in mid-air.
The second knife hits the figure right between the eyes. He hits the undergrowth with a crash and a rustle. But not a pop, because that would be weird.
"What the- what was that?" Toph is flabbergasted. Or confused. But I like flabbergasted better. It rolls of the tongue.
"That," I inform her, walking over to the body and hauling it up by the lapels to find out what exactly it is I am going to inform her of, "is... is... a buh, a buh..."
"What? What just happened? …Is that a body?" Toph pays no attention to my increasingly panicked gibbering.
"Oh yeah. It's a body alright. And it gets better." I turned to face her, and grinned (two utterly useless gestures) as I let the corpse's shirt drop, the figure's tattooed face getting caught in the moonlight as the body slumped back before being swallowed by the ferns. "Yu Yan."
