The moment Katar saw the place he struggled to understand the living conditions inside the Oasis.
There was a sizable pocket earthbent out of a wall with a fireplace not yet lit. Around the not yet fire - dwellings of wooden walls and wooden doors spanning half a circle. Katar counted seven rooms, but a quick glance just outside showed that there were at least two times that, and he just counted the kids who laid the land, ran the bushes in trained silence.
"Wan, my right hand!" A woman scuttled up to the group and the handicapped teen on the floor. She: hazel eyed, in a long-sleeve of patched out holes and long, fractured hair; feeling very much under pressure. "What happened to you?" she asked, seeing Wan not even trying to get up.
"Jun, I feel a sharp pain up my neck, shoulders. Hard to move."
Jun regarded the group by one, then back to Wan, up to others - making a decision. "Thank you for bringing him here," she finally said and led: "Please, bring him after me."
Jun's room was not dark, the candlelight managed to fill this five step space. Habitat of an obvious caretaker, Katar noted two beds in the room. One already taken by a girl sleeping in a sickly slow rhythm. Varied trinkets and birch papers littered her desk - pictures knifed by children and art by woeful hands. An overcoat looked about to break the weak backrest of a chair beside it. Everything that was in here, including the beds, was made by the first or, at best, third effort at construction.
"Help me turn Wan over," the lady requested. Katar was the most fit for this job.
Jun got him halfway naked, prepared a batch of short black metal needles, to be pierced into his lower back.
"What are you doing? Those are not his shoulders," Koarsa interjected.
"We, well, I am a sort of person who believes in getting to the root of the problem first. And the root of most pain, I find, is in the back. If you don't have a strong back," she left the thought unfinished, needled Wan instead and the teen's face swam from relaxation. "Is that it?" She looked at Wan, surprised, half her pricks still ready to go.
"That's it. You know how these things are sometimes," he winked.
"What happened?" She continued working.
"These four scared Heito and Lee away. I got to fall."
"Fall? I told you not to go about recklessly."
Wan glanced over the strangers, not exactly the time for this conversation. "We are getting scarce," he gritted. "We need to do something."
"I know. But you're drawing attention," Jun said and turned to acknowledge more firmly the four newcomers. "Again, thank you for bringing this fool back to me. Who are you people?"
"We are people of the road," Nite quickly said. "And the road is of excessive length."
"I promised them a meal for bringing me here," Wan explained.
"Is it so?" The woman asked. "We'll be making dinner quite soon."
"I'm so hungry," Kai said.
"You're all free to wait outside," Jun said. "Thank you, again."
"Thanks for not destroying everything this time," Wan waved them out.
By the fireplace Kai stopped mid-step, turned his head to hear better.
"What is it?" Katar asked.
"Something's rumbling. The ground."
"Not even going to humor this, Kai." Nite shoved them into a group.
"No, I'm serious." Kai held his finger up. "Listen."
"I do not care." And by Nite's words a wave came trembling, rumbling the underground stronger and stronger. Louder. An earthquake.
"Thunders!" Jun ran out to the green oasis. "Children, thunders!"
Ears perked up, fear on the lips, children quickly tumbled under the roof in the pocket of a wall. A pair of kids took hold of hanging ropes and pulled - a plank wall tilted up from the ground and shut the area off, leaving everyone walled off in darkness.
The earthquake was stronger than the last time. Shaking the room, breaking wood... Or so it seemed. In such a compact space, the sound and the feeling was mountains more offensive, lifted even more by the flock of shuddering kids.
"The light," one child pleaded.
"Please, the light!"
And as the third one began to call for it, a flame sprang up. Katar caught her, Jun, slighting the fire from her hand onto a torch. She was firenation. They were firenation, Wan is not an earth kingdom name, neither is Lee or Heito. The woman, the teens, the kids... Why are they here?
"Come, children. Come closer to the light," the woman said and they listened. Huddled in around the fire like nothing else. But the light didn't seem to be much help. Outside was a chaos, rumble and roar of dragons as far as the smallest one's knew. So over the light, the crying and rising panic Jun began to sing.
"Oh, warm spirit of the willow tree, won't you bring my son to me?
Oh, big bend of Higo river, turn his ship round hither.
For I miss his laughter and young nights of fear, the fire of his heart, scented shirt from the pier.
So, great spirit of the willow tree, please, bring my son back to me..." Jun echoed through the small confines, trying to smother the shaking walls and the crying and the bellowing. Soon, her kin joined the tune, hushing the tone of beasts outside and come another verse - walls themselves were soothed and soaked in song. And as the wave of thunder moved away they sang the last lines into silence. They, in true old fashion, were the same as in the beginning - strong, chaotic and beautiful.
The wooden wall fell down and the green of the Oasis shone in. There was fear in this room moments before, and the seven-to-nine year olds seemed to be terrified even now, but terror was supplanted by the song and the flame. As they fell away the day began again.
Katar suspected that this was happening too often here. Like "the light" and the song were becoming rituals, a circle to live by. They must be crushed in some way, he thought, for rituals to have such a strong presence.
"You know these 'thunders' are coming from the Wall," Katar stated.
"I know," Jun said. "I sometimes wish it just moved on further."
"Wishful..."
"Not really. But it hasn't for quite a while."
"What?" Kai's face turned in befuddlement. "What?"
"It's a moving thing," Wan said.
"The Wall?"
"Yes, the Wall," Nite confirmed.
"How?"
"You're a bender, think," Nite said and Kai raised a confused brow.
"They build a wall, force the fire nation to fight where they want them to. And when they loose the earhbenders move the Wall forward," Katar explained. "Basic tactic."
"It's been over two months since they last moved it," Wan said, carefully coming up while Nite peered at him. "But for whatever reason they are not moving ahead."
"They pushed it over our heads out here, at night," Jun said. "It was so loud and grading..."
"Anyway," Wan addressed Nite, "if you've reconsidered to leave now, I'll ask you not to."
"Why not?" Nite was dispassionate.
"After the thunders, we all keep here, in the circle. It calms the kids," Jun explained.
The man looked around. This little camp was littered by kids in desperate need of calm and quiet, and firm world.
"We do not ask for more than an hour. Your meals will be ready by then," Wan bargained.
"It's the right thing-" Kai started.
"Shut it, you!" Nite angered at Kai with his prosthetic finger. "And no more than that."
An hour to kill, that's a lot of time to be not moving forward. That's a lot of time to crunch in a small space. The easiest way was to break for a nap, but Katar grew more wary of sleeping. He never knew what might happen once he went under. What kind of strange dreams or ghosts he might foolishly fall into believing again?
Thoughts laid elsewhere anyway, as he tried to think of ways to convince Nite, a man who already had his mind made up about everything, to do something out of his ordinary.
"It's all about trust," Edin, Katar's late father's friend explained to him when he was still small enough to lean down to.
"What's it like in the battlefield?" Katar asked and his own old man just plain refused to answer. Luckily, his compatriot Edin was there to take it.
"It's all about trust and I wouldn't trust anyone else with my life other than your father or my wife!" The bellied man gave his father an overbearing hug. "The way people listen to this man sometimes, you'd swear he was commanding!"
"Don't," Jian said, "he could get ideas about things."
"Hopefully good ones, eh? Listen bud," Edin leaned in, gave the hand on the shoulder explanation: "You want people to listen, to hear what you say? You've got to make them trust you first. Show smarts, fortitude. You understand?" Katar nodded, "He gets it!"
Simple kid, Katar thought. Simpler time. The man Katar had to face now didn't even like him, much less trusted him. How was he going to convince Nite to break him out of prison?
The man sat with his legs spread wide, his back resting against the boarder of the Oasis. Katar surmised, Nite Doraku found the optimal place to rest, even if he wasn't going to stay here for more than an hour. The rising sun peeked over and onto his corner first of all, and before it could get too hot the shade of the nearby tree would fall on him letting his eyes rest from too strong a light. Not only this was the best spot to rest, it was also a good place to be aware of his surroundings, as the rest of the Circle laid plainly before him.
"Nite," the bounty hunter looked up expectantly, "about our deal. I want to change one small thing." The man sat stone-faced, awaiting Katar's offer. The teen expected this to be a conversation, this would have been easier if it was a conversation.
"When we get to Taku, before I go to jail-"
"No," Nite was flat.
"Okay... After I go to jail and you get your money-"
"No."
In small defeat, Katar glanced at his hands. His wrists were dawned by Nite's metal rings and glass shining from the inside.
"One small thing..." the man puffed.
"I'm serious. I'll need your help."
"I see no reason to change the commitment between us."
"It's about my... condition," Katar tried to explain. He couldn't imagine himself just strolling into city where he's a famous murderer of a beloved avatar. Protection was needed, somebody stronger than he or Kai was needed just to walk in. Never-minding the thought of getting knocked out and letting go in the city full of people. Never hope that... Katar had no real plan yet and anything not involving his captor was just not worth considering.
"Listen," Nite said. "As far as I am aware, your muzzle remains on that wanted poster. For as long as it is - you are going to jail and staying there. I work to capture lawbreakers, people the country states them to be. Release demented thieves and cut-throats? On what reasoning would that be just?" Nite finished a sentiment Katar knew to expect. The man's idea of the situation just could not be altered beyond his principles. "What you do with your condition passed my job is your headache, not mine."
"What if I told you it's getting worse?"
"We would raise our pace. Is it?"
"Nite," Katar brushed the question aside, "you know how difficult it is to carry this thing with me."
"Yes, you've told me of it."
"So please, actually consider this."
And for a moment Nite seemed to, but his smug demeanor just couldn't be wiped away. Katar knew he'd take him for a fool. "You'd want me to withhold our arrangement. Possibly break you out of prison I am about to put you in."
"Yes."
"To do what?" The man was serious now.
"I'll try to heal myself. There is a way, but I'll need to be not in prison."
"No. I have no patience for attempts. That time is over."
"You can drag me back in right after," Katar rushed in a rebuttal.
"No, that's not the only reason why it will not happen."
"Then why?"
"Katar, you talk volumes and do little."
"So?"
"So I'm not even going to bother."
"Why not? You must see how important this is."
"You don't know how to take up responsibility for things."
"What does that have to do with anything?!" Katar raised his voice and Nite raised his smug smile back up like Katar was proving something. "Take responsibility... Like what? Like. Jun?" Katar pointed to the camp in a wall of the oasis where she was running from errand to errand, not sparring Katar a glance. "Look at her, she's barely walking straight!"
"You think she's taking up responsibility?" Nite laughed sharply. "That lady tucks her head away the second 'thunders' appear. She's not confronting anything, she's flees and hides. How healthy does she look from all that..."
"It's not like she has many choices."
"I doubt she possesses the ability to see her choices. She'd rather be among those who think that misfortune goes away like a wave and all they have to do is wait. Like there is nothing that they do to make things worse."
Katar took straight down on the man: "So is it a 'no'?"
"It's a no."
...and turned away. Great. This was just great. And how am I supposed to get anything done now, fix anything now, survive what will wait for me in Taku now?
He didn't think Nite would be so opposing. He thought Nite to be a practical man and it was just so self evident that something needed to be done. At least an attempt made. How he could not see this?
But the signs were already there, if he only looked for them. On the wall Nite left Katar for dead, the next day they ripped apart that train full of refugees and the man didn't even flinch. Doing the right thing... For all his talk about it Nite made sure he had a way out of it. Always a bullshit way out. The type of man he is to talk about justice and the right thing, and-
Damn! Did Nite manage to make Katar boil. He needed to go somewhere, somewhere off just so he could straighten his thoughts again.
"Don't wonder too far off," Nite commanded from behind. "I'm fond of where I am."
"I came with you by choice. I'm not some chicken-rabbit, that you have to watch me," Katar retorted back.
"Oh, but you very much are."
Kai was uncomplicated. That's why Wan liked him. There was a clear direction to his gaze, consumed on things he wanted to have. Like now, fixed on Wan's forearm, where the teen had a tattoo.
"You're staring at it," Wan shook Kai up, Wan laughed. "You know we could make one on you. You'll be among us."
Kai squirmed as if he saw something dirty. They were circling The Oasis as he often liked to do, half of which was being turned over for cultivation. Sacrificing half the grass here for that was his idea, but it still needed too much work and too much time.
"We?" Kai came in late.
"My friend, Heitaro. She could put one on you."
"Yours are made?" Kai was surprised.
"What do you mean? Of course!"
"Made? Like... ma-ade?"
"Yes," Wah laughed again as Kai cranked the heavy gears in his head.
"H-h-how?"
"Needles and ink under the skin."
And there was another pause from Kai, "And... nothing happens?"
"Sometimes they catch a small rash, not much else."
The boy scratched under the cast of his caged broken arm: "I've heard they bring bad luck. Changes how spirits see you."
"They're just pictures, Kai. I don't think they can do that."
"Sure," he said distantly. "Jun has none."
"You noticed?"
"That's strange."
"She doesn't really need them, we all know her and what she's like."
There was a limit to Kai's weirdness Wan was willing to trust. The boy got close to it when he started stuttering over nothing. "I don't understand. Why she has you marked?"
"There's so many kids here and she's the only adult. There needs to be some system behind watching us over. Listen, think of them like small portraits. This one's kind, that one's a quick learner... These circles tell others what we're like and what we're not."
"A mark... to let others know."
"Yeah, you got it," Wan said cheerily. Okay, Kai might be a bit strange, but Wan didn't have that deep pool of choices and needed all the hands he could spin in for tonight. Just for one night and there will be less to worry about. "Can I be honest with you?"
"...um. Sure."
"You may have heard me talking to Jun, how we're growing short. Here's why." The teen paused and searched his pocket for a bronze coin. "Out here we are a magic trick. When we hear something happening outside our doors, we run and hide." Wan thumb-flipped the coin and snatched it with one hand down onto the other. Magic did happen, because when Wan lifted his hand the coin wasn't there. "We need to pretend that we don't exist," a quick twist of Wan's wrist and to Kai's surprise the coin popped into existence. The teen then proceeded to roll it in between his knuckles, "but we do and we need shelter, we need clothes, we need food. We're running out of food, Kai. Real bad. For now we eat everyday, but..." Wan said and Kai looked down to his guilty feet - he had them here to eat.
It was good of Kai to be as simple-minded as Wan expected him to be, as kind hearted as Wan observed him to be and as an important pivot as he surmised. Out of them four he was the youngest, so it'd be simple to mistake that he had no voting word to speak of, but in just five minutes Wan saw Kai get what he wanted - Wan taken care of after the fall. It was the morally right action to take, but even so, Kai managed to badger them into doing what he wanted.
There must have been some leniency on the big man's part. Koarsa was enabling and Katar did not have a word. So if Wan managed to drive Kai into his plan for tonight, then maybe he could have Nite as well, because he'd be lenient, he could have Koarsa, because she's enabling and he could have Katar, because he had no say otherwise. All of them - benders.
"We've lucked into some supplies and there is a lot, but it's nothing that's meant to last long, nothing that won't go bad in short time." Wan spared Kai as to how. Luck is not something grounded or even clean when happening twice.
The first time they've stumbled onto a food shipment for The Wall military encampment it easy taking. Not a soldier around, just a hornback-rhino pulling a car full of food from a patch of grass to a patch of grass. No one to stop them, not even a coachman, so they took it.
The second happened three weeks ago and Wan lied with eyes open at night if he thought about it. Soldiers, men and women alike laid flat on the ground, sleeping deeper than he thought possible. Like they fell, they stayed. Not a motion, not a sound or eye jitter under the lids, just gone, like they've disappeared from their own heads and only the vessel remained. Wan shuddered the spook away from his shoulders.
"What..." Kai looked down again. "What are you going to do? Can I help?" and looked up eagerly.
"I have this idea. I will not lie, it's dangerous and we can get caught."
"By who?"
"Wei state."
"The army? What's ... the idea?"
"Every wednesday, tonight, there's a smaller sized food shipment going for The Wall camp. If we could take that..."
And after a pause: "Wow," Kai pulled back, laughed amazed: "...wow."
"I know, I know. So we'd have to be very careful."
"Go all out," Kai suggested.
"We cannot let them see us or they could track us back here."
"Oh..."
"But there's a way to do this, I just need more people, benders," Wan applied pressure through eye contact. "Are you in?" Go, Wan hoped, take the bait. If he took it Wan wouldn't have to think of anything worse.
Kai stuttered again, "I- I don't know-"
"Shame," Wan cut off Kai and the kid embodied it with a stare at his shoes: shame. "Are you in?" Wan repeated.
"We can't stay," Kai finally said.
"But you can stay, can't you? And Koarsa? Catch up with others later," Wan said and he could see the boy with his mind in the middle. Just a push now.
Kai!" Nite called out when coming in. "Accompany me, master bender," and the muscle man carried the kid off like a bird its pray.
"Liven up," Nite said after a short walk away from Wan. Far enough that his influence could not be felt anymore. "I'll require you to be more present for this."
"For what?" Kai finally answered back, his eyes still followed the ground.
Nite let him take three full paces forward before he answered. Rather, ordered: "Take an earthbending stance."
"Why?"
"Because your form is mount atrocious. And by me that will not stand."
"I'm bending fine," Kai said distantly.
"You're bending like a dust cave simpleton. I imagine your sand bending is quite grotesque," Nite taunted.
"Gro-what?"
"Means - bad."
"Hey! That is hard."
"I am aware."
"So what?" Kai tried to brush the man off.
"So take your chance to receive help. Now, I do not particularly care about that just neglectful approach to bending you're teaching Katar. I find it quite amusing. You, however, have no excuses and a small period of half an hour to waste."
Kai squinted, then he laughed, then turned back to squinting, always a few seconds late to what Nite said. "If I agree, will you stop using such big words?"
"I make no promises."
