An Idea That Is Not Dangerous: Zuko of Honoiro
Rei Lin Earth Kingdom, 97 AG
"Earth soldiers," Kuzon murmurs suddenly, and I echo him, hissing it to the others. There's a brief scrambling - we'd been kitted out to fight firebenders in as many layers of thick, red cloth as we'd been able to reasonably buy on our very meagre budget. Red to deflect suspicion, and layers to keep and fire away from our skin. Luckily we'd left our normal geen robes on underneath all the red.
We'd been expecting Fire Nation soldiers based off of the word of mouth from the last village. We'd passed through it for Rei to check up on the patients she'd had last time she came this way, but their murmuring about the patrol would have been hard to avoid. Here in the bad lands - the large stretch of desert and near-desert between the Foggy Swamp and the return of water in Omashu - the hold of the Earth Kings was weak enough that you never knew if the next group you saw would be Fire or Earth.
We pile our shucked clothing together messily on the ground, and Toph sinks the pile, leaving Rei and Nuan to redistribute the dust so the ground looks undisturbed by bending.
I can feel Kuzon as a prickling presence in the distance, still watching the soldiers' movements as I make a beeline for Nuan and duck under his arm to press myself against his side.
"Samir, Toph," I hiss. "You're my friends, we took you in when your parents died. Don't say why, just leave it vague. Akane-"
"Husband dear," she says, sitting herself down next to Nuan and leaning against his shoulder.
"What-" Nuan starts
"Remember, my name is Lee and I'm your younger brother.," I say. I don't need Kuzon's return to know that the soldiers are close enough to hear us because I can hear the sound of their footsteps through the trees.
"Well, well, well," the leader of the soldiers says as he strolls into the clearing ahead of the rest of his group, "Look what we have here boys. Another group of useless refugees."
"Sir," Nuan murmurs almost voicelessly, ducking his head next to me, his arm tightening around me.
I fight the urge to throw off his arm and stand up for us. I remind myself that not all citizens of the Earth Kingdoms are like this - I remind myself of Jian, who'd helped me when I was fresh off the boat; Mu who hid me when my Fire Nation soldiers were still looking me; Ping, who'd fed me and taught me how to forage in the Earth Kingdoms, taught me what herbs in the forest the people or healers would buy.
"Remember Vasuman," Kuzon breaths into my ear, and it echoes in my head, my own mind turning it vicious.
Remember Vasuman, who I'd come to realize when I had more people to compare him to, was not Fire in the same way Samir is not Earth.
"And what are you two pretty ladies doing with this deserter?" the leader asks, dismissing Nuan. "Why don't you come with us, we can show you a good time!"
Behind him, even as some of his men laugh and nod, most wince and look miserable at their captain's words.
"My brother is ill," Rei says sharply, one hand on top of her medicine cabinet, her other arm around Samir. He's got his face buried in her chest and he's trembling ever so slightly, even with Toph pressed against his other side and glaring at the soldiers. I wonder if these soldiers remind him of the Fire Nation soldiers who killed his tribe.
Behind the three of them, Rei's dog growls slightly, pacing forwards out of the shadows of the forest. They've still got blood on their muzzle from whatever they'd been eating, but given how pale most of the soldiers went at the sound of their growl, I wouldn't be surprised if they would have been scared away even without the blood.
Still, the captain, his own face pale, makes a quick bow and says something vague along the lines of "Honored to meet you," and "If you need help we're here," before he hurriedly chivies his unit down the road.
(The ostrich camels, picketed at the edge of the clearing, ignore the dog, even though by all rights they should be just as terrified of them.)
"Masks," I hiss the moment I think they're out of earshot, and the others don't hesitate to pull on the masks we'd had waiting for when the Fire Nation patrol showed up. Some of the Earth soldiers at the back of the unit glance back at us before the road curves enough to take them out of sight, and they go even paler at the sight of our masks, all watching them.
When they're finally gone, Nuan sighs and lets his mask slip down his face. Kuzon slips around the clearing to take up the spot across from me that had been his customary spot when Toph and Samir and Nuan first insisted on traveling me, where we could see each other without me too obviously looking away to get his confirmation.
"Well, they definitely think we're spirits now."
"Good," I say. "That was the plan."
The dog lets out a little whine as they sit back and start cleaning themself.
"It was?" Toph asks, letting her mask fall to her lap. She stays pressed against Samir as he turns slightly, peering out at the clearing from under Rei's arm.
"Better that both sides think we're a band of spirits protecting the area than a group of locals doing the same," I say, letting my own mask slide down. "They can retaliate against the locals and set a warning. Spirits without a fixed base to return to? Hurting the locals would do very little to a group of spirits, and it would only likely only enrage them further. That's why I was wearing a mask in the first place."
The others stare at me blankly.
"Why did you think I insisted everyone has a mask once you were all determined to stay with me?" I ask, a little exasperated. I'd talked this all out with Kuzon back when I first decided to actively fight Fire Nation patrols.
"I thought you just wanted disguises," Nuan mumbles. "You said fine easily enough when Samir and Toph made those masks."
"Yes, well, you told me the whole spirit story right after. So not only were the masks you chose those of spirits, they were spirits that the locals recognise."
I feel confident for all of a few seconds before I realize that everyone's staring at me and I'm abruptly reminded of my time at court. I'm positive that disguising us as spirits was the right thing to do, but I'm not that old, maybe one of the adults has a better-
"Great job, Lee," Akane says with a smile, reaching out to pat my hair. Kuzon's smiling at me from across the clearing, though he doesn't say anything. It's that same smile he'd had when I was at Master Piandao's, learning how to be a swordmaster and earning his grudging complements. It's the smile he's been giving me more and more the longer we've been in the Earth Kingdoms as I work and figure out how to do things for myself. "Though, you know that the Fire Nation has been attempting to spread the belief that spirits aren't real, right?"
"I was the prince." I frown at her. "Besides, in order to explain why I was getting lessons on why spirits were important, they first had to tell me why someone else doesn't think so. And they also had to tell me why they were having such a hard time stamping out the belief entirely - turns out that constant rumors of spirits tend to make the troop superstitious. I figured, what's one more?"
"Then good job," Akane says. "Now," she glances back at Samir where he's rubbing his eyes, "let's get our fire outfits back on. We still have to see if there's a Fire patrol out here."
We wear our reds and shadow the Fire Nation patrol to the next town. They don't trouble anyone, so we only follow them from the shadows of the forest, Rei following an hour behind us with Samir and the ostrich camels.
The town is one that's currently under Fire Nation control, and it's rather large for the area too, probably due to the small river it had grown up around that leads to the Shandian Sea. Once we've watched the patrol into town, we all take off most of the red clothing to bundle up, leaving us with only one layer of red over our Earth greens.
A town this big, there's no way we're the only ones doing it. There's good odds that most of the villages that are still Earth in the area send in their own people wearing much the same regularly - a layer of red thrown over the top for town, and green underneath for travel so they aren't bothered by any Earth patrols in the area.
I run a hand over my bundle of red, grateful we hadn't needed them this time around. Oh, we'll wear the red clothing until it's full of burned holes protecting us from firebending, but it's rather expensive here, so far from actual established colonies.
"Alright," I say, turning to Nuan, Akane, and Toph. "Everyone got their bundles?"
"Yep!" Toph's answer rings out, louder than the two adults' as she lifts up the bundles of dried herbs I'd collected as we followed the patrol, and the others hefting their bundles of firewood.
"And is everyone clear on the plan?"
"Go into town, sell our stuff, meet back up when the sun's a finger above the horizon in the main square, where Rei and Samir should be waiting for us," the others say.
I nod. "Right. Toph-"
"I'm Toph of Tu Zin - which has the benefit of being true! - and this is my cousin Akane of Tu Zin," Toph says.
"Nuan-"
"Nuan of Nishiyama, traveling with my younger brother Lee of Nishiyama, I know," Nuan says. "You say this every time we go into town."
"Yeah, well, I want to make sure it sticks," I say, lifting the bundle of clothing. "Alright everyone, let's go."
We spit up fairly soon once we're past the first houses, Akane and Toph heading off to ask the first person they see where the apothecary is, Nuan and I heading for the main square. I'd remembers this place correctly - it's just big enough of a place that there's always a need for firewood and people rich enough to pay for it instead of gathering it or sending someone to gather it, which leaves Nuan free of his burden before long, and the both of us at leisure to wander around.
On a niggling sense of curiosity - more like Kuzon's half contained giggling and him waving at me - I pull Nuan over for a look at the notice board where wanted posters are.
Then I have to stifle a laugh because true to my words, there's a wanted poster for our little group - they'd even included Rei and Akane and given our group the name Kamikaze in this edition. And the description was written with a good amount of dismissal and paranoia too - calling us so-called spirits one breath and in the next advising the reader to get a blessing from the local Fire Sage and in even smaller writing advising that asking a priest of Oma and Shu or a priest of Lady Kun for help might also be a good choice.
"Oh! They must have consolidated the reports," I whisper gleefully to Nuan. "I recognize some of the abilities they list for me - they're from the time I got captured."
"You got captured?" Nuan hisses. "When was this?"
I give him a look and say dryly, "Some time in the almost two years between when I left home and when I met you, when did you think?"
Nuan makes a little despairing sound, but he doesn't protest when I spot a book cart on another edge of the square and start pulling him that way.
Title from the quote "An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all." by Oscar Wilde.