Chapter 10: It's A Long, Long Way to Ba Sing Se
"What now?"
They were all thinking it – except maybe Zhi – but Sokka was the one to say it. "What are we going to do?" He scowled at the sand dunes rippling on forever. "We have information that could be vital, but we don't know when this next solar eclipse is. We have no Appa, no Jiao, and for all intents and purposes, no Toph."
Zhi moaned.
"She isn't dead," Katara repeated from where she was bent over Toph, running water over her as if that would make things make sense again. "Just… asleep. Sort of." She'd never really felt anything like this before. Toph's body was still functioning, just slowly. At the brink of hibernation. And nothing Katara did would wake the younger girl up.
"I failed," Zhi muttered, grabbing his face. "Failed Toph, failed Jiao, failed my parents. I should have protected them. Why didn't I stay out here? Should have, it's my fault, failed, failed, failed."
"We can't go back in the Library," Sokka continued grimly. Katara winced at the memory of the enraged fox spirits that confronted them when they tried to get back inside the Library to get help for Toph. "We can't stay here for long, either, for the same reason."
Everyone glanced up, at the tower behind them. Angry eyes stared down at them, hostility radiating off of the knowledge seekers. Katara instinctively knew that the spirits felt that they were still trespassing, and would not be appeased until all the humans had departed. They needed to leave, before the spirits "took care" of all of them like they did for Toph.
"We have one smashed sandsailer, with no sandbenders to sail it may I add. One Avatar. One waterbender. One Water Tribe warrior. One Earth Kingdom noble guy. One limp body. One professor. Some maybe-useless parchments and maps from the Library. And not much time." He looked back at the tower again. "Um. Any suggestions?"
"You're the idea guy," Aang snapped. "Think of something!" He put a hand on Toph's forehead, closing his eyes. "Maybe she's in the Spirit World. If I meditate into the Spirit World I might be able to find her-"
"Not now," Sokka said urgently. "It'll have to wait. First we need to get away from here."
"But what if Appa and Jiao come back?" Aang opened his eyes. "We can't leave!"
"Aang, we have no idea what happened here." Sokka gestured. "If they flew away to get away from danger, they should have been back by now. We know that sandbenders were here. They might have captured Jiao and Appa. They might have all been kidnapped by spirits. Point is, staying here is no guarantee that they will come back. Besides, if we stay much longer, I think those spirits are going to start getting nasty. Well, nastier than they were before."
"But what if they do come back?"
"We can leave a message," Katara suggested, sitting back.
"With what?" Sokka said, frustrated. "All of our writing stuff is on Appa. The wind will blow away anything in the sand in minutes. And the Library itself is obviously off-limits. We'll just have to trust Appa and Jiao to find us."
"Where are we going?"Aang persisted.
"I… don't know."
"Ba Sing Se."
Everyone looked at Professor Zei, who had spent the last while staring mournfully at the Library. He now faced them. "The Ba Sing Se University is one of the best in the world. We certainly have astronomical information and calculations that you can use to find your eclipse. You might be able to find a shaman or spirit worker to help your young friend, as well. And it's said that all roads lead to Ba Sing Se. What better place to go, if you hope to rendezvous with the bison and young Jiao?" He looked back at the Library. "And now that I know where this is, I can launch a better-funded expedition… more resources… the organization system is fascinating, I'd love to get a second opinion…" He trailed off into mumbles, seeming to forget their plight.
"Ba Sing Se," Sokka repeated thoughtfully. "I… that actually… that makes sense."
"We can't leave," Aang whispered.
"We have to," Sokka said.
Aang's jaw tightened, and he stood, snapping out his glider. "We can't just abandon Appa," he growled. "He and Jiao are out there somewhere. I'm going to find them."
"Aang." Katara reached for him, but he jerked away. "Please. Don't-"
Aang turned and ran several steps across the sand, air gathering under his glider and lofting him into the sky. He quickly shrank, leaving a forlorn group at the base of the Library's spire.
"We'd better get moving," Katara finally said, glancing at the Library. "We need to get to Ba Sing Se if we want to help Toph and find out when the next solar eclipse is."
Zhi rose silently, Toph's limp body cradled in his arms. He looked almost dead, like Toph and Jiao had taken all his energy with them.
"That way," Sokka said, looking up from one of Professor Zei's maps and pointing. "Northwest. Full Moon Bay, here we come."
;=;=;=;=;
"The Order of what?"
"The White Lotus."
"You're part of… a flower society?" Father sank into a chair and rubbed his temples. "Why do I keep expecting this to make sense?"
Meilin, more practical, frowned. "What is it for? What do you do?"
Her mother pulled a large box from the back of her closet that Meilin had never seen before. "In past eras, the Order dealt in information and knowledge. In times of war, such as now, we strive to mitigate damage, preserve lives and knowledge, and bring peace. All of which is difficult to do when we operate in secret. But secrecy is a luxury we can no longer afford, not when the world is in such dire straits."
"How… big is this Order?" Father asked.
"Global. It spans nations." Mother pried the lid off the box, revealing folded clothes. "Its reach is vast. The Order has been shrinking of late – a hundred years of war have not been kind to us – but we are still many." She held up a tunic appraisingly. It was made of a tough, coarse weave, and looked more like a farmer's garment than a noblewoman's attire.
"What is your position? Do you hold some authority in this order?" Meilin asked, instead of more painful questions, like How long have you hidden this from your family? and Why didn't you tell us?
Mother started pulling more clothes out of the box. "I hold reasonable authority. Of late, I have found myself being turned to more and more by others in the Order. The Grand Lotus, the highest authority in the Order, has disappeared, and none have been able to contact him for some months. Of the three just below him, one died recently, one has been imprisoned by the Fire Nation, and one is currently unable to be contacted. With the entire leadership of the Order effectively out of commission, however temporarily, I and several others have been informally promoted."
"So you are one of the leaders of a giant organization of peacekeeping scholars," Meilin summed up flatly.
"Unfortunately, I find myself falling short," Mother said. "I simply do not know enough to function for long in such a capacity. And this morning, I received a very disturbing message from a member of the Order in Ba Sing Se."
"Disturbing how?" Meilin asked.
"Suffice it to say, the Order there is in danger, and thus the world is in danger." Mother hesitated for a moment, seeming to teeter on the edge of a decision, before sighing. "Have you ever heard of the Heart of the World?"
Father spoke up. "Oh, come. That is a child's spirit tale, Poppy."
Mother snorted, turning the box over and dumping all the clothes out. "We live in a spirit tale, Lao. Believe me when I tell you the Heart of the World is as real as you or I, and critically necessary."
Meilin frowned, not sure what they were talking about. "What is the Heart of the World?"
"It's a story," Father said. "Four elements, one object that powers the whole world, some such foolishness-"
"It is more than a story," Mother said sharply.
Father folded his arms mulishly. "Surely you can't believe in the whole 'element spirit' story. It's ridiculous."
"Ridiculous as the story may be, the Heart is real. I doubt the legend about its creation is true. I really don't care. But its importance to the world is very true, and very relevant. It channels the power of every spirit there is. There is no other single object in the world that holds as much power."
"What legend?" Meilin broke in impatiently.
Mother shot Father a look, before turning to Meilin. "When the world was new, so the story goes, the four spirits of the elements, of Water, Earth, Air, and Fire, gathered. In those days, the physical world and the spirit world were not connected. The spirit world was shapeless and wild, and the physical world was hard and lifeless. The four spirits of the elements wanted to change this, so they created an artifact from physical material, and infused it with their spirit energy. It was the first time anything like it had been done, pairing spirit and physical matter. They poured their very essence into this artifact, and in doing so, linked themselves irrevocably to the physical world in a way that no spirits had ever done before. This artifact became the Heart of the World, and it allowed other spirits to likewise join with the physical world. The Heart tied the physical and spirit worlds together, and both took on aspects of the other. The spirit world gained form and substance, and the physical world gained life and energy." Mother idly sorted through the clothes without really seeming to see them. "Regardless of its true origins, the Heart has continued to tie the worlds together ever since. If if fails and dies, then the worlds are ripped apart, and that is worse than you could imagine."
"Why?" Meilin asked.
"Over time, they have become more and more dependent on each other. If the worlds broke apart, all life would disappear from the physical world. Anything alive, anything changing, anything that grows or breathes or shifts, would all die. More than die. They would be unmade. The spirit world, without the solid anchor of the physical world, would dissolve. At the most basic level that we know it, reality would cease to exist," Mother finished grimly.
"A ridiculous claim," Father insisted.
"Not so ridiculous," Mother said. "The confirmed existence and location of the Heart is a precious secret that has been jealously guarded by the Order of the White Lotus for many thousands of years. An outpost was erected over the location, and then a small town sprang up, and then a greater one. Gradually, the energy from the Heart gave birth to the greatest city in the world: the massive walled city of Ba Sing Se."
"Ba Sing Se?" Father said in disbelief.
"Ba Sing Se," Mother confirmed. "It has always been tended by a very select group, and the Order cares for the city more broadly. The Heart is sensitive to balance in the world, and when the rest of the world was out of balance, we strove to keep Ba Sing Se as a place of order and balance, to keep the Heart from being too badly affected. But recent years have taken their toll. The assassination of of Earth King Haoi and his family, twenty years ago, and the subsequent chaos and imbalance, nearly caused the Heart to fail; only the desperate efforts of the Order to mitigate the damage and protect the Heart at all costs prevented its failing. And now, the Order in Ba Sing Se is being targeted and taken down, leaving no one to care for the Heart and do what needs to be done to keep it stable. Which leads to our problem."
"Are you going to Ba Sing Se?" Meilin asked.
"It's… not that simple. Remember that I said that I don't have the knowledge to lead the Order? I do not know enough about the Heart or its functions, or how to care for it, how to help. I need to find someone who is higher in authority and knows what to do.
"Unfortunately, my choices are limited. The Grand Lotus is unavailable. Of the three below him, I cannot go to the one in the Fire Nation-"
"The Fire Nation!" Meilin said, startled.
"Yes, the Fire Nation. I told you this Order spans nations," Mother said. "I certainly can't go to the dead one. All that leaves is King Bumi."
"What," Father said weakly.
"King Bumi of Omashu, my third option. He should be able to help us."
"Except," Meilin said, "that he is imprisoned. In Omashu. By the Fire Nation. If you'd forgotten."
"Well, that's a shame," Mother said. "We'll have to go break him out."
"What," Father repeated.
Mother smiled like a hungry crocomander: toothy and dangerous.
;=;=;=;=;
They were lost.
Jiao cried, because he didn't know what else to do. He could be brave, when he had Zhi next to him, and Toph backing him up, and Meilin watching over him. But out here it was just him. Him, and Appa (who was exhausted from hours of maddened flight, far past his normal limits, and slept by a riverbank like a dead thing), and the moose-lion cub (who was no help; it did nothing besides chewing on Jiao's shirt and looking forlorn).
They were out of the worst of the desert. Appa had landed – crashed – by a river, liquid winding through the tan landscape. Scrubby trees grew on the banks, and faded green bushes dotted the sandy soil. It wasn't the dead, baking sandscape of the inner Si Wong. Jiao had no idea where it was, though. He didn't know where the Library was in relation to them. He didn't know where they had come from. He had no idea how to get back.
And the last he'd seen at the Library, Toph had been – not killed, that was impossible, just… knocked out by those fox spirits, and everyone else was trapped inside with more of those angry spirits and who knew what had happened to them, and even just the thought of those bristling foxes made Jiao cry harder. Because he was weak and cowardly on his own.
At least there was no one there to see how weak he was.
He didn't know how long he spent, huddled against the rim of the saddle, crying and trembling, his throat tight and hard to breathe through, nausea welling inside his stomach. He'd never been alone like this. At home, there was always someone around. Guards, or servants, or visitors. And when he left home… it was kind of scary, but Toph and Zhi were always there, and so were Katara and Sokka and Aang. It was easy to be brave when he had people around him.
But here he was on his own. It was his responsibility to get Appa back and help the others, but he couldn't, because he didn't know where they were.
Jiao had never realized that he was terrified of being alone. Now he knew.
As the sun drifted below the horizon and stars started to stud the darkening sky, Jiao uncurled and crawled over to the packs, pulling out a blanket. He climbed out of the saddle, wrapped up in the blanket, and burrowed into Appa's big, warm side.
The moose-lion cub scrambled down after Jiao, worming in next to Jiao. It licked his face.
Jiao closed his eyes and drifted into an exhausted sleep, cheeks still streaked with tears.
;=;=;=;=;
"We need to head more north," Sokka said, frowning thoughtfully at the map he held. "We're heading too far west. We're going to overshoot Full Moon Bay if we keep going this way."
"Is this the only way?" Katara asked wearily. She looked pretty droopy. Even her hair loopies had given out; one had come loose and hung down by her shoulder, and the other was tucked behind her ear.
"Pretty much," Sokka said, rolling up the map and stuffing it back in his bag. "Unless Aang finds Appa, and I don't think he's going to."
"Why not?" Katara asked.
"I don't know. Instincts."
Katara snorted, and Sokka threw her a mock glare.
"I just hope Aang can find us," Katara added, glancing away over the dunes, where their shadows stretched out in the late sunlight.
"He'll probably be fine," Sokka said. "...Probably."
Katara gave him a dirty look, then turned back and started walking. "At least he should have the sense not to drink from random cactus plants," she said pointedly.
Sokka's cheeks warmed. "It was a plant! It had water inside! How was I supposed to know that it would scramble my brain?"
"All I'm saying is, it's a good thing we have Professor Zei with us," Katara said, rolling her eyes. "Thankfully he stopped you before you actually drank any of the stuff."
"But now I'm thirsty," Sokka said plaintively.
"Deal with it, you big baby."
Sokka made a face at Katara's back, then glanced around to assess the conditions of the rest of the group. Zhi looked dead on his feet, but he refused to let anyone else carry Toph. Professor Zei was distractedly mumbling something to himself – he sounded kind of like the Mechanist, actually; but where the Mechanist got excited by new machines and clever innovations, Zei got excited over ancient relics and things from the past. Momo rode on Zei's shoulder, picking at the man's ear.
Katara gasped, and Sokka jerked around in alarm, to see a massive dust cloud rising up in the distance, sand billowing out in a mushroom shape.
"What is that?" Katara asked softly.
"I don't know," Sokka said grimly, though he had an idea of who caused it. "Let's just… keep moving."
"I hope Aang's okay," Katara murmured, glancing back at the ominous billow.
I hope we'll be okay, Sokka thought. "Yeah."
He looked around at their little group again, his gaze pausing on Toph. We'll get through this. Somehow. We'll find Appa and Jiao, Aang will come back, Toph will wake up. It'll be fine. Spirits, let things be okay.
La, Yue, if you're listening, please let it be okay.
;=;=;=;=;=;
Sunlight warmed the land as Appa slowly flew, still weary from his exertion the day before. Jiao sat at the bison's head, reins held in his still-trembling hands. Not that he was using them. He had no idea where they were going.
A cold nose nudged his arm, and he looked over at the moose-lion cub, nested against his side, half-buried in Appa's thick fur. "Do you have an idea?" he asked, because obviously talking to the animals was silly, but it made him feel a little less alone.
It snorted and rubbed its head against his side, then looked out again, its short fur rippling in the wind.
"We have to get back to the Library," Jiao said finally.
Appa groaned.
"Sorry, Appa," Jiao said. "But we can't just leave everyone. They could be in trouble. We've got to get them." He swallowed hard, fighting back the worry that started to knot up his stomach again.
The cub clambered away from Jiao and up Appa's neck, scrabbling into the saddle. A few minutes later, it was back with a strip of jerky in his mouth. It settled down next to him again, chewing contentedly.
It startled Jiao into laughter. "At least one of us can take care of ourselves," he said, looking forward again, where low, scrub-covered hills rolled away beneath them.
There was a small camp tucked away in between the hills, that came into view as they flew over; several small tents, a couple of ostrich-horses, a campfire sending a thin ribbon of smoke into the sky. There were a few people there, and they all looked up at Appa. Jiao could just make out the pale ovals of their faces. He thought about bringing Appa down and asking where they were, but he didn't want to trust any strangers, and Appa was already flying away.
They passed over a herd of wild ostrich-horses some time later. The animals were startled into motion as Appa flew near, and they all galloped away, dust billowing in their wake. Jiao watched them run into the distance to the east, disappearing behind another hill.
Sometime after noon, as the sun beat down bright and hot, a tawny hawk with red-tipped feathers and a small case strapped to its back lit on the edge of the saddle, seemingly to take a brief rest. It didn't seem afraid of Jiao.
"Hello," Jiao said, edging closer to it. It was a pretty bird. The saber-tooth moose-lion cub whimpered and backed away into one of Appa's horns.
The hawk cocked its head, looking at Jiao.
"Where'd you come from?" Jiao asked, gently reaching a hand out to it. It didn't move as he gently stroked its feathers.
Jiao considered investigating the small case on its back, but the hawk stretched its wings, gave a shrieking cry that was pretty awesome sounding but too close to Jiao's ears, and took off, peeling away from Appa's saddle and curving west.
The landscape continued to roll beneath them, stained bright by the sun. The moose-lion cub chewed silently on jerky. Jiao napped, and prayed to whatever spirits he could think of that Appa knew where he was going.
Appa landed once the sun had disappeared, rolling onto his side and closing his eyes. Jiao and the saber-tooth moose-lion cub snuggled into his side again, dozing lightly as the air chilled and the stars turned above them.
In the morning they started flying again. Jiao sat in the saddle, having no reason to sit at Appa's head, and read the waterbending scrolls in Aang's bag. Then he read the book of spirit tales that Katara had found for him, in a small market. Then he went through all their food and water supplies to see what they had. Then he slumped over the side of the saddle and watched Appa's small, wavering shadow ripple over the ground below. It looked tiny and insignificant, and Jiao was choking up again before he realized it, his breath coming in fast bursts, tight and panicked.
The cub climbed into his lap and butted its head against Jiao's hand. When Jiao didn't start scratching it, it lightly dug claws into his legs.
"Ouch!" Jarred out of his panic, Jiao wrenched his eyes away from the ground beneath them and scratched behind the cub's ears. It gave a squeaky sort-of purr, and melted into him.
Jiao focused on scratching its warm body, and on Appa's movement beneath him. He wasn't alone. He wasn't. Even if his only companions were animals, that was still better than nothing.
Eventually scrubland gave way to sandy rises, and then they were well and truly back in the desert. Just golden sand dunes, stretching out everywhere they looked, rippled and identical. Jiao licked his drying lips and scooted to the front of the saddle, squinting out at the Si Wong. "It's out here somewhere, Appa," he said. "We'll find them."
The bison was silent, keeping his energy for flying.
Jiao tried not to think about the days it had taken them to find the Library the first time.
(He thought about it anyway.)
(He ended up curled in the saddle, choking and crying as the world spun around him, because he knew that even if they did find the Library again, the others probably wouldn't be there anymore.)
He slept, finally, physically and mentally worn.
When he woke up, his skin was flushed red and painful from sunburn where it was exposed. Tears had dried on his cheeks. He sat up, wincing, and checked the sun. It was midafternoon low, casting slanting shadows across Appa's saddle and the desert dunes below.
After a long drink and some bread and jerky, Jiao felt a little better. He climbed down to Appa's head because it was less lonely than sitting in that huge saddle by himself, and leaned back into the bison's soft fur.
They seemed to be following a meandering path across the desert. Jiao didn't know if it was because Appa was looking for the others, or the Library, or retracing their route they left on, or was simply lost and had no destination in mind.
They passed over four sandsailers once, spinning along over the dunes, sand billowing up behind them. Jiao immediately hauled at Appa's reins, pulling him higher, and cast wary glances behind them until the sandsailers were gone.
Other than the occasional rock formation or cactus, there was nothing to break up the monotony, especially as they flew deeper into the heart of the arid Si Wong. Jiao sang to try and drive off the boredom. He sang everything he could think of – battle songs, lullabies, folk songs, that one about the fishermen that Toph had taught him, songs about the ocean, spirit songs, scary songs, silly songs, nursery rhymes. By the time his throat grew so dry that he had to crawl, coughing, up into the saddle to get a drink, the sun had reached the edge of the horizon. The sky shaded into lavender at the edges, and the sand was stained red.
Jiao climbed back down to Appa's head, taking care not to dislodge the moose-lion cub, and gazed out over the desert again. It took a moment for the long, needlelike shadow to register in his mind; when it did, he gasped and jerked his gaze back.
There. A long, stabbing dark shadow. Something tall and thin jutting out of the sand.
They'd found the Library.
Jiao grabbed at the reins, but Appa bellowed and dove down undirected. They circled the tower, the last remaining evidence of the Spirit Library in this mortal world, and then Appa landed heavily by the base.
No one was there.
Jiao had known they probably wouldn't be, but he'd hoped, somewhere in the corner of his heart, that everyone would still be standing around the tower, and now the fear rushed back in to fill the gap where his hope had been. He felt the ominous symptoms of another panic attack as his breathing shortened and the world tilted around him, and grabbed the side of the saddle.
Sharp pain cut through his dizziness, and he yelped, wrenching his arm away from the moose-lion cub and staring at the tooth marks on his skin, blood welling up in a couple of the deeper marks. "You bit me!"
The cub whined and nudged its wide tan muzzle into his side.
Jiao swallowed. "Maybe they're inside," he said, his voice small against the vastness of the desert. "We… I should… I can't – can't-" He drew a shuddering breath, as Toph collapsing played through his mind over and over, and the looming faces of the furious foxes seemed to appear in the desert dunes. "But I've got to," he managed. "If they – if they're in there, I need to tell them we're here. And if they aren't -" If they aren't there, what then? "We can… find them…"
Appa lowed mournfully.
Jiao swallowed, hard, and looked up at the tower, noting that there were no marks to show where Toph had ripped into the stone. Before his courage could completely desert him again, he said, "Yip yip."
Appa took off, flying to the top of the tower and hovering to let Jiao disembark. The rope, strangely enough, was still there, attached to a fancy embellishment on the inside of the tower. Jiao stepped onto the small stone walk ringing the top of the tower, and stared down into the gloom. His knees weakened.
Garrowr, the moose-lion cub offered, clambering through the window as well.
Jiao wanted to tell it to go back, to stay with Appa, but he – he just couldn't. There was no way he would be able to descend into the terrible gloom of the Library on his own. So he picked it up and tucked it inside his tunic, then leaned out the window. "Wait for me, Appa. I'll be back."
Appa grumbled. Jiao took that as agreement, and turned back to the rope. Sliding down it wasn't difficult, though he had to be careful of the cub tucked into his tunic.
The Library was huge, so much bigger than Jiao had ever imagined that he just stood at the bottom of the rope and gaped around him. It went down, floor after floor after floor into a fuzzy darkness that wasn't really dark, just... not. It stretched out on all sides, crammed with shelves and racks of more knowledge than Jiao thought could exist.
It was vast, and abandoned.
Jiao hugged the cub, hard. It squeaked, but he didn't loosen his grip until it poked its claws into his ribs. He stared around, mouth dry, heart hammering.
"Zhi?" he said. His voice was tiny, but it seemed to hang in the air, so out of place in this tomb-silent edifice. Jiao felt a pain in his chest as he finally knew what he'd suspected all along.
They aren't here.
Then a deep voice spoke behind him, a voice that buzzed at the edges and held a terrifyingly otherworldly quality. "Humans really are quite stupid."
Jiao turned slowly, and bit back a cry as he saw the massive owl that towered over him, eyes dark and pitiless, feathers fluffed. Around him were several foxes, all watching Jiao with unwavering gazes.
"Here I was," the owl who could only be Wan Shi Tong said, "thinking that I was finally rid of the lying humans that defiled my Library. And then another falls out of the sky." He narrowed his terrifying gaze. "I shall not make the mistake of letting this one live."
;=;=;=;=;
Night was a small comfort. The blazing heat of day gave way to a surprisingly biting chill that made Katara shiver and rub her arms as their small group slogged through the sand.
Aang had returned near sundown, grim and silent, lines of pain tightening the corners of his eyes. Zhi had glanced up for a brief, heartbreakingly hopeful moment as Aang landed, but when he saw that there was no Appa, no Jiao, his face crumpled again and he looked back down.
Professor Zei and Sokka were studying a map of the stars. Sokka looked up, one finger rising to trace a line that Katara couldn't see, before dipping down to match it to the star map. Zei said something, too soft to hear, and Sokka nodded.
"We're heading pretty much in the right direction, no course correction needed," Sokka announced, straightening up. Professor Zei rolled the map back up, stowing it in his bag.
"We should stop for a rest," Katara said. "Everyone's exhausted."
"But we need to travel at night," Sokka protested. "It's too hot to keep traveling in the day-"
"Then we'll rest for a few hours and keep moving, okay? We can't keep going right now. Everyone needs some rest. Especially since I'm out of water."
Sokka nodded grimly. "You're right."
They curled up on the sand, with no furs or bedrolls. Zhi still held his little sister, unwilling to let her go. Toph was still alive… but how much good did that do them? How much good did it do her? What if there was no way to get her back? What if Toph remained a limp, comatose form for the rest of her life?
Katara bit her lip hard, but it didn't keep the tears from spilling down her cheeks, precious moisture her body couldn't afford to lose. She'd failed when it had mattered most. Months in the North, learning to heal as well as fight, but for all her healing abilities she couldn't fix Toph. What was the point, when she couldn't do what was truly important? Why would the spirits curse them like this?
She wiped her face on her sleeve and curled tighter around herself, trying to clear her mind and rest. Despite her exhaustion, sleep was slow to come.
A few hours later, Katara woke, shivering. She took a moment to gather herself, then slowly picked herself up off the chilly sand and went to wake the others. "We need to keep moving now," she said wearily. "We can rest during the day."
It took some cajoling to get their little group up, but finally they started moving again. The walking helped warm Katara, and she stopped shivering, though her muscles clenched with tiredness. Walking across the entire Si Wong, especially after months on bisonback, was going to be… interesting.
Aang was able to draw the water from a stray cloud into Katara's waterskin, giving them more water, but not much. They trudged on, silent for the most part, until the sky lightened with the first rays of dawn.
"We need to find shelter," Sokka said as the stars faded. "We can't spend another day out in the sun. It'll kill us."
"Well, that's just great," Katara snapped. "Good thing there's an igloo right over the next dune!"
Sokka looked over at her, and she instantly felt ashamed of her outburst. "Sorry, Sokka."
He shook his head, dismissing it, and looked back ahead of them. "It's all just sand and more sand, as far as I can see. We could dig a hole, I guess. Or find a sand dune that has shade, and move around it as the sun moves?"
Katara shook her head. "Won't work anytime near noon, and that's the hottest part of the day," she pointed out tiredly. "We'll have to make some sort of shelter."
"Out of what?" Sokka asked, and she had no answer.
"We could always follow the shirshu," Professor Zei suggested brightly.
Sokka and Katara turned to gape at him. Even Aang looked over.
"Shirshus, the desert cousins of badgermoles, are highly adapted diggers with paralyzing venom and rudimentary sandbending skills," Zei lectured. "They usually don't stray far from their warrens when they hunt, preferring to remain underground during the day. Their warrens often stretch extensively underneath the desert, deep enough to for the sand to insulate them; the warrens stay cool in the day, and warm in the night. Shirshus usually dig their warrens near water sources-"
"There's no water in the desert," Sokka protested.
"There is if you know where to look!" Zei said, sounding far too chipper for someone who just spent a sleep-deprived night stumbling through the desert. "And the shirshu's exceptionally advanced senses of smell helps it to find water deep underground where no one else could."
"...what shirshu?" Katara finally asked, since no one else was asking it.
"That one," Professor Zei said, pointing to a dark shape on a nearby dune that Katara had thought was a shadow. "They are proficient hunters, but often lie in wait for hours in hopes of prey."
"Oh, good," Katara said weakly. "We can go invade the home of a giant, paralyzing, carnivorous animal that wants to eat us for breakfast. I'd rather take my chances with the desert."
"Or… or maybe we could make it our friend," Sokka suggested, stroking his chin. "Professor, you said they are closely related to badgermoles?"
"Surprisingly close, considering the anatomical and dietary differences-"
Sokka cut him off, a smirk growing on his face that was a welcome change from hopeless exhaustion. "Do shirshus like music, by any chance?"
"I have no idea," Professor Zei said, nonplussed.
Sokka turned to Aang. "You still have that flute?"
Aang reached into the pocket of his pants, pulling out his small, handcarved wooden flute. "Yeah," he said dully.
"I hope playing for the prairie mocking-dogs warmed you up, Aang," Sokka said, "because you're about to play for something a little toothier."
;=;=;=;=;
"What?"
Poppy Beifong's voice was deceptively calm, but Lao could hear the icy steel underlying it, and he wished he didn't have to repeat his news. "Governor Peying has forbidden ingress or egress from the Gaoling Valley. The forces at the pass mouth and the caves have been ordered to prevent anyone from entering or exiting."
Poppy's face was always pale, but now what little color there was drained out. "He… closed the valley?" she breathed, sinking into a chair. "What – what was he thinking – but if anyone was going to evacuate, or – I. I can't even. Why did he do such a monumentally spirits-cursed idiotic thing?"
"The safety of the citizens," Lao said, remembering with disgust how the governor of Gaoling had oozed his weak logic at Lao. "He doesn't want Fire Nation spies getting in. And to prevent those who might be… less than loyal… to depart Gaoling in her time of need and weaken the defenses."
Poppy stared at him for a long moment, stunned into silence, before she found words. "That – that - Agni-dammed sludge-rotted spawn of a pigworm, what in blazing nights, curse his foul smoking carcass!" She slammed a fist down onto the decorative table by the chair, ignoring the ominous crack it made. "Ancestorsgot drunk on a moonless midnight, ice-born slimy-"
Lao eyed his wife, shocked and halfway impressed by her blistering language. "Listen, cursing our, ah, esteemed governor may be satisfying, but it won't make anything better. We need to change our plans."
Poppy still looked like she wanted very much to fill the esteemed governor full of throwing steel, but at least she stopped swearing. "I don't understand," she finally said, her voice mostly level. "How could he? Isn't the First Council supposed to prevent him from making awful decisions like that?"
"Peying overrode us," Lao said grimly. "Spouted some garbage about wartime emergencies and consolidating power to prevent confusion in military matters."
"That b-" Poppy cut herself off, taking a deep breath. "What mad game is he playing? Why does he think that trapping everyone in the valley is going to help our cause? What about sending parties out to harass the Fire Nation? What about small-scale evacuation – even if they can't get out of the mountains, at least they could move out of the valley and the Fire Nation's direct path, it'd be safer-"
Lao rubbed his temples, feeling his headache returning. "It's the Underground resistance," he said, wishing there was another chair he could drop into. "Now that they've come out into the open to defend Gaoling, Peying's scared. He's not the only one with power now. People don't want to look to him for direction. They're looking to Lord Fulin, who's certainly more capable, and that frightens Peying. So rather than working with the Underground forces to protect Gaoling, he's trying to establish his power, and cut off any of Fulin's influence. You see, Lord Fulin and several other prominent figures in the Underground are currently outside the valley, investigating possible ambush sites in the pass."
Poppy stared at him for a long moment. "Lord Fulin is trapped outside the valley, by our own forces."
"Yes."
"So Peying is effectively dooming the entire valley because he's a greedy, power-hungry little warthog-fish," she said evenly.
Lao had no words to soften it. "Yes."
Poppy abruptly stood, knives flipping into her hands from her sleeves, then disappearing again. "That changes things," she said slowly. "It's going to be moons harder getting out, when we're fighting through our side as well as the enemy, but I no longer feel badly about abandoning the valley. Before, there was a chance that our presence might have made a difference in the battle. Now, Peying has destroyed any hope that Gaoling has of holding out or even putting up a decent fight, and we can't change that. Leaving immediately also no longer provides any advantage. We may well be better off waiting to depart until the initial Fire Nation attack, when the Gaoling forces should be much more concerned about keeping the Fire Nation out than keeping us in."
"What?" Lao made no effort to hide his consternation. "But that's horribly risky, Poppy. We can't leave in the middle of a battle! Listen, I can probably buy our way past the guards at the tunnels. Or bribe Peying himself, he would have no reason to hold us here – I might be able to convince him that if we don't leave, House Beifong's holdings are going to suffer, and that will harm Gaoling's tax income…" Lao scowled, rejecting his own ideas. "That's not going to work. Governor Peying's main supporter in this foolhardy idea is Lord Mencius, and he'll tell Peying to keep us here just because Mencius hates us. Maybe if I appeal to my Fire Nation contacts, ask for letters of passage or something, I could get us aid from them-"
"The Fire Army is not going to give anyone aid," Poppy said, her words clipped. "Blocking the pass didn't do as much damage to their troops as was hoped, and any advantage that was gained timewise has just been completely negated by Peying closing the valley. No, all we really accomplished was making the army angry. And it's led by General Iynni."
Lao was familiar with the name, but didn't know much about the woman. "Is that significant?"
Poppy's face stilled. "She is reasonable most of the time, for being a high-ranking National, but the blow in the pass will have angered her past reason. I do not think she will show Gaoling any mercy beyond what honor requires."
Lao frowned. "You sound awfully sure."
"Too sure," Poppy said grimly, and left the room.
;=;=;=;=;
Toph was blind.
She'd heard it more times than she could count, growing up. But it had never been a real problem. Even as a little girl she'd been able to feel things in the earth around her, and her other senses sharpened to make up for her sight. Once she met the badgermoles and really learned to earthbend, she'd very rarely been unable to perceive the world around her with greater clarity and fewer boundaries than most sighted people.
Now she was really blind, and it sucked.
Her bending… she wasn't sure what happened to it, but it wasn't there. She could still feel it, knew somehow that she hadn't lost it. But she couldn't use it.
She was in a maze. She'd guessed that much from wandering. She was probably in the spirit world, because she didn't get hungry, or thirsty, or tired, and she felt weird. Ethereal? Was that a feeling? In any case, that didn't really help her, because she had no idea how to get out.
It was always just on the edge of too cold. Not truly uncomfortable, but not pleasant. The floors and walls were made of the same smooth, flat material, completely regular and even. Toph didn't know if there was a ceiling. She'd shouted, to listen for echoes, but sound was weird here and she couldn't tell anything from the noise.
So she wandered, through corridors that all felt the same, the smooth not-stone chilly under her feet, sounds flat and echoless in her ears, unable to tell where walls and corners were until she touched them, or sometimes, crashed into them. Sometimes she screamed, hoping for reverberations, hoping for someone to hear her, hoping that something would happen in this awful not-real maze prison. It didn't make any difference.
Toph was pretty sure she was going to go mad. Not right this moment, the Blind Bandit was made of tougher stuff than that. But all alone, in this crazy neverending maze, where reality itself wasn't the same and she had no control over her environment, she didn't think her sanity was going to hold out.
Get me out of here. Aang, Zhi, whomever. I don't normally need rescuing, but… I can't get out of this one by myself.
She screamed again, to remind herself that there was still sound, that she could control at least that much of this forsaken place. And kept walking.