Chapter Five: Kyoshi (or: "Sokka Practices Proverbs")
Zuko was sprawled back on the tatami mats. Not because he was gulping in air and his everything hurt—that was just what he wanted them to think. He was just lowering their guard, one wheeze-groan at a time.
"I hear you, little buddy," the Water Tribe peasant said, from a similarly horizontal arrangement. Somehow he made it look more comfortable, like laying around was a particular skill of his.
"Shut," Zuko wheezed, "up."
"Don't think I'm physically capable of that, little buddy. But I'll take it under advisement."
Zuko growled vaguely in his direction.
"Now that you're all tuckered out," the insufferable had-to-be-cheating-somehow leader of the local teenaged kidnapping squad smirked, "It's time to go for walksies. Come on. The headman is ready to see you."
Zuko elbowed a ribcage or two in token protest as they took away his swords and tied him up again, but mostly he was just very sulky dead weight. Because he was conserving his strength. Not because he was tuckered out.
"Are you going to blindfold us again?" He glowered off to the side, so no one would think he actually cared about the answer.
"Are you going to memorize the layout of our village and use it for nefarious purposes?"
Zuko's head snapped around. "Um. ...No?"
"All right, then. No blindfolds. Come on, Sokka. You can come too. Aang's going to help judge them."
"Who's Aang?" Zuko asked.
Uncle sighed quietly, in that way he did when Zuko had missed an answer days ago.
Pro: Aang hadn't been eaten by the unagi.
Con: Getting eaten by the unagi was probably the only way to catch Katara's attention. He'd have to try harder. (To get Katara's attention. Not to get eaten.)
Pro: Everyone on Kyoshi loved him. He had a whole fan club!
Con: But nobody wanted to see his marble trick anymore.
Pro: The village headman had called on him to help judge Fire Nation refugees. This was great, it practically proved that all four nations could live together again!
Con: The unagi had looked really hangry the last time it had snapped at him. And for that matter, why had it snapped at him? Most wild animals, especially marine ones, didn't just leap out and try to eat people. Unless they'd gotten used to it. Maybe from having bound-and-wriggling prisoners dumped into the ocean enough times that it got over its aversion to small-weird-biped-things and finally took a bite and decided 'now I have tasted of the flesh of men, and no elephant koi shall ever sate me again!' (He had to say that part in a really dramatic theatre voice in his head, and laugh a little nervously out loud afterwards, because if he didn't laugh than it might not be funny and—)
Not that he was going to accuse anyone of murdering people! Traditional island greetings were great and it had been a lot of (scary) fun (of the good kind!) to be ambushed and blindfolded and tied to a statue of his past life and threatened with unagi death, but they'd let him and Sokka and Katara and Momo go right away, and Appa hadn't even shown up for any of it, so he must never have been in serious danger at all! It was just a… a quaint local greeting! Aang was sure they'd never been serious. About the feeding. To the unagi. Which seemed to really, really home in on anyone who jumped in the water, like people where its favorite treats...
Maybe one of their prisoners had just gotten scared at some point, and run off the end of the pier. By accident. Definitely not on purpose. Or with pushing. People didn't do that to each other, especially not the people of Kyoshi, everyone here was so nice! (To the Avatar.) (But what if he wasn't?)
Pro: And besides, he was definitely judging that the refugees could stay no matter who they were, so it wouldn't be a problem anyway!
"Fans are stupid," Sokka's new little fiery-tempered buddy said, with all the blunt stubbornness two hours of getting right back up immediately after Suki had beaten him down had led Sokka to expect. "You need a sword."
Sokka stumbled like he was the one tied up in excessive rope. "Ix-nay on the tupid-say an-fay, eah-yay?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to Suki. Who was walking right behind them. And, judging by that raised eyebrow, was waiting to hear exactly how stupid the little guy thought fans were and exactly how much Sokka (definitely did not!) agree with him so she could decide exactly how hard to make them both eat dirt. Of which there was plenty, in this road up to the village meeting house. Plenty, and hard-packed, and with lots of embedded rocks whose acquaintance he was not eager to make.
"I have no idea what you just said. Where those even words? Does the Water Tribe lose the ability to talk coherently when confronted with logic?"
What logic, 'fans are stupid' is NOT logic and Her fans sure seemed to beat your swords, and what was with the—admittedly cool—dual-wielding anyway, aren't you a little young to be overcompensating and Racist, much? all tried to come out of Sokka's mouth at the same time, resulting in sputtering. Very eloquent, semi-coherent sputtering.
Suki came to his rescue. Or the rescue of her island's traditional culture. Whichever. "Fans are the weapons Avatar Kyoshi herself left us."
"Yeah. Avatar Kyoshi. Who could airbend."
"You don't have to airbend to make full use of a war fan—"
Having spent all afternoon with him, Sokka was beginning to appreciate the gradations in the kid's glares. This one meant Think that through again, idiot, or maybe just Idiot with the rest implied in the subtext. It was really quite the skill. Sokka dared not dream of the teenie-tiny wrath that would be unleashed on the world when that bandage came off, and the kid could glare with both sides of his face.
Suki was sputtering (and some of her words sounded a lot like 'unagi'), so Sokka came to her rescue this time. Or possibly the kid's. Probably both, because a true hunter can hit two targets with one boomerang.
"If you are an expert of such unparalleled heights," he waved a hand over the kid's head because hey, bonus short joke, "then please, elucidate us lower mortals on the superiority of swords vis a vis fans."
"Did you just use every big word you know? Uncle, am I supposed to give him a cracker now?"
Sokka returned to sputtering. Some of his words sounded a lot like 'unagi', too.
"Ah," the old man said, tilting his head back to the sky. "I believe I have an appropriate proverb—"
"Okay fine. Fans are all right on Kyoshi but since I will hopefully never see you in makeup again, it's going to be really hard for you to find teachers off the island. Or weapons-smiths that can make or repair fans and not just charge you a ton of money for your exotic weapon needs while they pretend they know what they're doing. Swords are common, and they don't attract attention, and you can find teachers anywhere, which is really useful because even though sticking with one master is the smart thing to do sometimes you can't because stupid—" the kid trailed off into something unintelligible that sounded like a mixed between 'Pain-dao said Uncle couldn't pay him enough for this' and 'Azalea' (what did flowers have to do with anything? And wait, why were flowers setting things on fire?)
"So what you're saying," Sokka stroked his chin hairs. His beard-in-progress. His three little pride and joys that were definitely there and he didn't need to squint to see them, shut up Katara. "Is if I want to get straight answers out of you, I just need to threaten you with proverbs? Ooh, try this one! 'If a cowapotamus produces enough milk for cheese, isn't it grate?' No, sorry, that was just a pun. I'm not sure I actually know any proverbs. Oh, how about this one—'What did the flying bison say as he sent his son off to see the world?"
"I will murder you."
" 'Bison!' Okay, not my best, admittedly. Kind of put the punchline in the lead up. I penguin-otter be ashamed."
The kid's sputterings started to sound like 'unagi', too. It was just another bonding moment that they'd shared in this long, physically-and-mentally bruising afternoon. Sokka threw an arm over his little buddy's shoulders.
"Man, I love having a captive audience."
Suki giggle-snorted out her nose. It was the most beautiful sound in the world. (Actually, no, it was kind of gross. But adora-gross.)
And so they arrived at the village meeting house, having stripped their Fire Nation captives (one of them, anyway) of the desire to live. Just another day's work for Team Avatar's tactical genius and weaponized punster.
Aang and Katara were already seated up at the headman's long table, and there were villagers with murderous stares gathered all around that nice accusingly open space they'd left on the bare floor for the prisoners to kneel on. Yeah. Sokka kept up his steady stream of hilarity as they entered, because maybe his amazing people skills would rub off and someone would stop radiating unmitigated hate long enough to see that they were judging a jovial old guy and an injured kid, not… not the Fire Lord himself. Or something. Seriously. Sokka was not liking the vibes in this room. His last joke wandered off when he forgot the punchline (or maybe he'd said it twice?), and Katara was gesturing him towards an empty seat, so he kind of awkwardly pat-patted the kid on the shoulder one last time before he took a slow step sideways and—
And that's when Aang sat up straight and beamed like all his last hundred birthday parties had hit at once.
"I like your hair!" he said to the kid. "And I love your dress," he told Sokka.
Which was approximately the point the injured kid and the jovial old guy burned through their ropes and that whole in-retrospect-he-should-have-recognized thing kicked in and the Prince of the Fire Nation threw a fireball at Aang. Two fireballs, actually. They kind of fizzled out before they actually did any damage, but the way Aang had to stop talking to dodge was somehow deeply satisfying.
"...Aww. Was that second one for me?" Sokka asked.
The kid nodded tersely.
"Thanks, little buddy. Wait, no, not thanks. Thanks retracted—!"