Hi, all! Sorry this took so long, Indi hadn't finished editing last weekend, and I was crazy stressed– my SATs cancelled AGAIN. But now it's out! Also, if you'd like to see what Indi and I are like when we're just chatting, please check out worldofdedanan dot wordpresss dot com /2020/10/11/the-snow-globe-experiment. Indi's Aoife on there and I'm Tamara, just in case you're weirded out by the name change. We're discussing Hamlet, POTO, and the sexy lamp test. Hope to see you there! I update every weekend, although some posts are more thorough/interesting than others. :)
So. Thus far no one seems to have realized what is going to happen.
Probably for the best. This chapter is the longest so far, so hopefully it's worth the wait. Updates are mostly going to take longer from now on, because I don't have much more written. I might, however, ask Alyce to start posting some of the random drabbles and oneshots I write in a collection. Those go much faster. Also I already have some done.
Chapter 9: Hot Springs
(Are Very Dangerous)
Back on the Wani, a messenger hawk lands with a crimson-ribbon scroll. Urgent military communication.
Zuko unrolls it immediately, out on deck.
It's from Commodore Zhao.
The paper quietly begins to smolder. Just at the edges. It does not contain any other important information.
That evening, the same hawk leaves for the Fire Nation capital, with an actually important letter to Father, along with Ember, the hawk he sends whenever he has a letter for Azula. Father's is the usual somewhat-edited report of the week's events. Azula's is a less edited version of everything that's happened since he last wrote to her. For the first time in two years, Zuko asks her what to do. How to get out of this mess.
(She still won't write back (he never has))
They won't respond at all, ever, probably, and Zuko needs something to do, so he visits the rhinos.
Rhino feed is an important ship expense. And he hasn't checked the border in weeks.
The Blue Spirit ghosts through the port town, unheard and invisible. Yukai Stronghold is at the edge of town, in what is strategically the best location for kilometers: a smallish hill.
The builders failed to account for a small blind spot, caused by a dip in the hill. The Blue Spirit uses that and the shadow cast by the forest to get to the wall unseen.
He stands slowly, the wall rough against his back. Good. That will make it easier to climb.
The Blue Spirit turns. He presses his gloved palms flat against the wall and moves them along it, searching for grips. It doesn't take long to find them, tiny ridges where one stone block doesn't meet another perfectly and places where the stone is cracked or gouged. He reaches up to find handholds, then raises one foot, wiggling the tips of his toes into a crevice, and repeating the process higher up with the other foot before pulling himself up by his fingertips.
The process is easy, familiar, except for the silk around his wrist. Soon, the Blue Spirit falls into a rhythm. Pull and step and pull and step and breathe and search and pull and step…
In half a degree he's just below the top of the wall. He pauses to let two guards go by, one in each direction, before vaulting up onto the walkway. Neither guard looks back. Even if they did, they probably wouldn't see him in the dark.
The Blue Spirit pads across the wall and climbs down the other side, then sneaks across the even-darker-than-the-wall courtyard.
The office building is, if anything, easier to climb than the wall, and soon the Blue Spirit is climbing through the second highest window. There are books and scrolls everywhere. On shelves lining the walls and in drawers under the large table in the middle of the room. The Blue Spirit rifles through the rolled-up maps in one drawer, looking for the ones he needs.
These aren't maps. Wrong drawer.
The Blue Spirit finally finds the first map in another drawer. He spreads it out under the table, pulls his own map out to update it, and takes the inkwell and pen off the table. Breathing carefully, the Blue Spirit heats all the ink without fire, then, when the ink is warm enough to tell exactly where it is on the papers, the Blue Spirit carefully marks off troop movements, Fire Nation and neutral ports, and the current border. He repeats the process three more times, for maps of specific parts of the Earth Kingdom.
Afterwards, the Blue Spirit finds Yukai Stronghold's storage buildings and takes two large bags of rhino feed.
On his way back through town, the Blue Spirit sees children sleeping in an alley, curled around each other for warmth. He hesitates a moment, then moves on.
After leaving the rhino feed on the Wani, the Blue Spirit sneaks into another storehouse. It won't take him long, the military warehouses are near the docks anyway.
So were the kids he saw. How many more are there farther from the water?
The Blue Spirit grabs another bag.
Dia opens her eyes.
Something woke her up, which means possible danger. She looks from side to side without moving her head, then up and down.
She still hasn't heard anything.
Then, movement. A dark figure dropping into their alley. Dia pushes herself up, ready to attack.
The figure turns and Dia sees a blue-and-white mask. She stops her punch, a split second too late to keep a tongue of flame from appearing.
The Blue Spirit cocks his head. It's then that she realizes he's carrying three large bags.
"What is it?" Dia whispers. Oh. He saw her bend. "Are you not going to help us anymore? Since I'm a firebender?"
He shakes his head, hard, and kneels, swinging the bags around in front of him. He gestures toward her, then the bags.
"You- you brought these all for us?"
The Blue Spirit shakes his head and holds up one finger.
"One for us?"
A nod.
"Just a second, please." Dia turns back to her family. Her brother was on the edge last night, like normal. When she finds him, she shakes him awake. "Meng, wake up."
Her twin blinks sleepily as he sits up, till he sees the Blue Spirit and his amber eyes stay open.
"Meng, the Blue Spirit brought food for us. Do you want to pick which bag we keep?"
Meng nods, moving with her to the bags. He stares up at the Spirit, who is kneeling neatly next to the food. Dia holds out her hand, lighting a flame so he can see better. Her brother glances at her uneasily.
"It's ok," she tells him. "He saw already and he's still helping us."
"Ok." Meng looks at the bags, pointing at one of them. "This one."
The Blue Spirit stands, picking up the bag Meng pointed at, and takes two long steps before setting it down next to their family and going back to the other bags.
Meng carefully sinks the ground the bag is on down and slides a layer of earth over it to hide it while Dia thanks Blue. He's watching her brother earthbend.
When Meng turns back, Blue crouches and beckons them forward. They shuffle closer. He holds out his hands, circling them around each other, till he's holding a ball made of air.
Dia gasps. "You're an airbender!" She thought they were extinct. She holds out her hands and he tips the airball into them. Then Blue raises a finger to his mask's mouth. Don't tell anyone.
Meng takes her hand, whispering, "He can't be an airbender. They're all gone."
Wait… one person who can airbend even though the airbenders are gone. "Are you the Avatar?"
Blue pauses. He turns back and very emphatically shakes his head. Of course not. That's ridiculous.
He vaults up onto the roof and away.
While Uncle goes off to the hot springs and half the crew goes on shore leave, Zuko and the other half of the crew take care of resupplying. They have most of the things they need, but there's always something.
This time, it's new maps of the northern Earth Kingdom, rice, canned and pickled vegetables, coal, engine grease, and five sets of new bedding. Mostly.
Once Zuko has most of the supplies purchased and on the ship, he and Engineer Mizuki head out to get the coal and engine grease. The engineer because she knows the regular prices, and Zuko because when he has time, he gets the mechanical supplies, too, so he can make sure to spend as little as possible.
Engineer Mizuki should already have the engineering money with her, she always does when he comes. But he still brings the emergency fund, just in case. New brakes cost more than spare parts usually do, so the regular budget might be used up already.
Prince Shouts-A-Lot tags along when Mizuki goes for engineering supplies at Yukai. It's pretty much like normal: Mizuki gets lower prices through a show of indifference and her usual haggling. Then the prince jumps in and brings the price down even farther.
When he can barter like that, he has no right to complain about whatever allowance he gets. The Fire Lord is his father, and, disgraced or not, a budget too small to easily manage the expenses of a fully-staffed ship- which the Wani isn't- would be unheard of for a member of the royal family.
When the Royal Pain is off getting supplies and Prince Iroh is relaxing at the hot springs, Doctor Tazuma visits the bridge to inform Lieutenant Jee of his findings.
"Prince Zuko didn't have a concussion yesterday," he says, rather bluntly, when no one else is in the bridge.
Jee raises an eyebrow. Clearly he is not worried enough about this.
"Yesterday was his weekly examination. He didn't have a concussion. Or a sprained wrist or ankle, dislocated shoulder, or broken anything. You told us to report anything strange to you."
"Just how strange is that," Jee asks, in the manner of one who does not want to know.
"It's the second week in a row."
Which is pretty serious. Normally Zuko can't stay away from things that might get him killed for longer than the amount of time it takes them to travel between said things that might get him killed, which tends to mean a lot of minor injuries.
'Minor' because of his incredible reflexes. 'Injuries' because cliffs and wild animals attract teenage princes. He can't be trusted to report the injuries either, as Tazuma learned early on. Thus the checkups.
"It's like a scar," Sokka says.
"Like Zuko's scar!" Katara exclaims. "What do you think happened to it?"
Aang isn't sure whether she means the forest or Zuko's face. It's a good question either way.
But only the forest is his fault. He should have stopped this instead of getting stuck in an iceberg.
Aang takes another step forward, the burned earth crunching under his feet. He shouldn't have run away, he should have stopped the war. He's the Avatar, that's his job.
Well, probably. He's not convinced Zuko wasn't airbending.
"Uncle?" Zuko calls. "We need to leave soon. Where are you?"
"Over here!" Iroh calls back.
His nephew walks into the clearing, pushing the low-hanging pineoak branches aside. "Uncle, we have to move on. We have a real chance to catch up with the Avatar!"
"You look tired, Prince Zuko," Iroh says. "Why don't you take some time in the hot springs to soak away your troubles?"
Agni knows his nephew could use even a little relaxation before discovering that his single path home is not viable.
"My troubles cannot be soaked away. I don't have time, anyway. We have to go."
Iroh thought that would be the answer.
"You really should take some time to relax. The Avatar won't go far while you do." He smiles. "The temperature is perfect. I'll even leave if you want so you can have some time to yourself."
Zuko sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You know what, take another few degrees. The crew hasn't quite finished loading everything. But be back in ten, or we're leaving without you!"
Iroh takes the threat as seriously as he always does, which is to say, he ignores it.
"Are you the Avatar child?"
Aang glances at Katara. She nods an ok, so he answers honestly. "I think so?"
"What do you mean, you think so?" the old man says.
"I mean, that's what they told me," Aang replies.
The man sighs. "My village needs your help."
Zuko said ten degrees, so it'll probably be at least fifteen degrees, or an Earth Kingdom hour, before Uncle is back. So he spars with Lieutenant Jee, and after that practices the moves from airbending scrolls down in the rhino hold.
The hawks like it. When he lets them out of their cages, they fly around him, coasting in circles over his head. Umeboshi even lands on his shoulder and nibbles at his phoenix plume. Usually Ember is the only one who does that.
Iroh lowers his hand to let the volemouse climb on. "A meadow vole! You startled me, little one."
"It seems I've dozed off and missed my nephew's deadline," he continues, setting the rodent down. The sun's heat is low in the west now, nearing sunset. Zuko will be irritated. "But it was a very sweet nap."
The volemouse hops frantically up and down, then the ground shakes, dust clouds rise, and his little friend scampers away. There's no getting out of this, and Iroh would prefer to keep his still-great martial prowess unknown to his attackers, so he waits for the earthbenders to show themselves and pretends to be surprised.
Unfortunately, they figure out who he is. And they won't let him put his clothes on.
"This isn't right," Sokka says. "We can't just cower here while Aang waits for some monster to show up." It's not the Water Tribe way. Their strength comes from standing together, from community, not from letting one person face danger alone.
And sometimes facing danger alone is what you have to do, but not when you're a goofy kid! And not when you're Sokka's little brother!
"If anyone can save us, it's him," the old guy who found them says.
"He still shouldn't have to do this alone," Sokka says.
The sun crosses the horizon.
"Where are you, Hei-Bai?" Aang shouts. "The sun has set! Um, if you're out there, I hereby ask you to leave this village in peace!"
He raises his arm- to twirl his staff, Sokka realizes- then turns and begins to walk back.
And a giant black-and-white monster follows him out of the woods.
Sokka takes a deep breath and doesn't charge out the door. It's just following Aang. Aang is the Avatar, it's not going to eat him.
Aang stops and turns back to the spirit. Which roars at him and starts destroying buildings.
Aang follows it around, yelling things Sokka mostly can't hear at it. Then he leaps onto a roof next to Hei-Bai and yells something else. Hei-Bai turns, swatting Aang off the building.
It's too far. Maybe even for an airbender, for all Sokka knows.
Sokka is not letting Aang get eaten by that thing by himself.
"Uncle, where are you?" Zuko calls, pushing the last pineoak branch out of his way and striding into the clearing. "Uncle?"
"Sir, maybe he thought you left without him?" Corporal Taiyo offers.
"No, something's wrong." Zuko peers into the spring, which was full of water and Uncle and is now full of rocks. Corporal Taiyo looks, too.
"It seems there's been a landslide, sir."
"Land doesn't slide uphill. These rocks didn't move naturally. My uncle's been captured by earthbenders!" Zuko straightens. "Back to the ship! Tell the hawker to ready three rhinos! We'll try to catch up and free my uncle by midnight."
"Help!" Sokka calls, reaching towards Aang.
Aang reaches back. Closer… closer… Aang grabs his hand and the spirit vanishes, taking Sokka with it. Aang looks up and swerves, narrowly avoiding crashing into a bear statue.
He failed. He let Sokka get taken. Aang wishes someone else was the Avatar. He doesn't want to have to figure this out all by himself.
But… what if someone else is the Avatar?
Aang knows what he has to do.
Guest: Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying the story!
Mr. Haziq: yeah, he leads an interesting life. What news?