Disclaimer: I don't own AtLA.
AN: I realized while rereading the transcript of the episode that the Zhang leader was a woman. I'm so embarrassed, but not enough to change it. I'm all for feminism, it's just too much work for me to bother. So, yeah. The Zhang leader is a man in this.
Read, review and enjoy!
Chapter Seventeen
Healing Scars
The Great Divide, Earth Kingdom: Huǒyàorì (Tues) 22nd dōngyuè (Nov, Win); 99 AG
Guide Bao's arms were broken. He had been too flushed with adrenaline to notice the pain at first, but when he went to bend it became obvious. And Kai had too little water left after helping Asha hide Appa when they combined their bending to cloudbend together to heal him. All the young healer could do was set them with some discarded branches and gauze from their medical supplies. Unfortunately, the fact that Bao could no longer bend meant they were stuck in the canyon.
"This is your fault, you fools!" Dorji yelled, glaring accusingly at the Zhang, who glowered back. "You took food down with us and drew the canyon crawler to us!"
"Us?" Jigme snarled back. "If anybody took food down it was you! You pampered fools can't go a few hours without food!"
"I hope you're happy," Dorji hissed. "We're stuck here now with no way to escape!"
"Why don't you thank yourself, food hider?" Jigme retorted, eyes flashing. As the two leaders argued, the other members of the tribe began to argue too. Bao looked to Asha, his expression alarmed at the quickly deteriorating situation.
"Look," Asha tried to calm down the tribes. "The only way we will get out of this is by working toget-"
"I refuse to take another step with the likes of them!" Jigme cried, turning on Asha. Her eyes widened at the audacity of the man, daring to raise his voice to her. She could not recall anyone ever doing so, and found she disliked the experience. Her past lives stirred indignantly at the act, grumbling complaints at the disrespect. Disrespect to Them was disrespect to Raava, and that was never acceptable.
"That is something we can agree on!" Dorji snapped, glaring at both Jigme and Asha.
"That is enough!" Iroh snapped, stepping between his liege lady and the two men. The others of Asha's small retinue had hands hovering over their knives (or sword, in Lu Ten's case), glaring at the pair furiously for their disrespect. "How dare you raise your voice to the Voice of the Spirits? I have never known someone to be so sacrilegious! There are Fire Nation men with more respect for the Mahant than you just showed!"
It dawned on the tribespeople what the two leaders had just done, and horror grew on their faces. Dorji and Jigme fell to their knees and bowed their heads in submission.
"Great Mahant, you cannot imagine my regret at speaking to you in such an appalling manner," Dorji fumbled to say. "My anger was at the Zhang, never You, I swear it on the lives of my daughters! I beseech You for Your forgiveness!"
"I was not speaking to You, Honoured One," Jigme said hastily. "There is none that I respect more than You, please, forgive me."
Despite her indignation, it was not in Asha's nature to hold a grudge. Keeping her expression mostly neutral with a hint of disapproval, she nodded graciously.
"You are forgiven, this time," she told them pointedly. "But recall who you are speaking to next time. Now, if you will allow me to finish, if we wish to escape this situation alive, we must work together. I will not tolerate objections. You are leaders, entrusted with the safety of your people. This is how you might fulfil your duties in this situation."
Clearly reluctant, the pair bent their heads in acceptance of the Avatar's will.
"However," Asha went on, "I would not have ourselves endangered by your arguments. As such, I would have us walk in two lines. The Gan Jing will be on the left, and the Zhang the right. Sokka will walk with the Zhang and Kai with the Gan Jing, while my other companions will remain as my guards. Let it be done."
The tribes quickly arranged themselves, while Asha took the opportunity to whisper to her Water varlets.
"Try and find out what is the source of the feud," she murmured to the brothers. "Maybe if we know the source, we can heal the wound."
They nodded seriously and hurried off to fulfil their Avatar's wishes.
Asha had chosen rightly when sending her two companions to their respective tribes. Sokka and the Zhang got along well, sharing similar opinions, and it was the same for Kai with the Gan Jing. That evening, as the sun began to set and they settled down for the night, the two Water boys remained with their assigned groups while Asha, the two Kotsunagas and Bao gathered in the middle.
"Would you like something to eat, Kai?" Dorji offered, passing the young man a chunk of spiced flatbread, a specialty of his people.
"So it was you who smuggled the food!" Kai exclaimed.
"Oh come now," Dorji replied with a bit of condescension in his voice. "Do you really think that tribe of thieves are not smuggling food? Why should my people go hungry when the sneaky Zhangs are stuffing their faces?"
Kai hesitated, but Dorji seemed so kind and knowledgeable. For all his experience in waterbending, he was still young, with little knowledge of the world beyond the Southern Water Tribes. Dorji was easily able to persuade the young bender. Besides, he was hungry.
"Well, I suppose if everyone else is doing it," he agreed, accepting the bread and wolfing it down eagerly. "So," he said once he had swallowed, recalling Asha's order. "Why does your tribe hate the Zhang so much?"
"You seem like a smart boy Kai, I bet you would enjoy hearing some history," Dorji replied, eager to persuade another into hating his tribe's old enemy. "Over a century ago, shortly after the death of Mahant Roku, the patriarch of our tribe, Jin Wei, was an earthbender warrior who was assigned an important duty, transporting our sacred orb from the great eastern gate, to the great western gate. Taking the orb from the east to the west represents the sun's rising and setting. It was our tribe's ancient redemption ritual. But as he approached the gate, Jin Wei was attacked by one of the Zhang, a vermin named Wei Jin, who looked at the orb with envy. That coward Wei Jin knocked Jin Wei to the ground, and stole our sacred orb. Our people have never forgotten. You can never trust a Zhang." Kai scowled at the Zhang, disgusted by the story.
Dorji smirked triumphantly at the sight of Kai's belief, hoping that having persuaded the Avatar's companion to his side would aid him in getting the Host of Light to side with him regarding the feud and settle it in his people's favour.
A short distance away, Sokka sat with the Zhang, ripping some meat apart with his teeth.
"I know what you must be thinking," Jigme told him. "We are terrible people, to bring food with us knowing of the danger."
"Uhm," Sokka mumbled, more focused on his food that Jigme's rambles. He was starving, not having eaten during the whole day of intense exertion.
"The Gan Jin think so badly of us, they probably assumed we brought food in and decided to bring food in themselves. That's why we brought food in," Jigme explained.
Sokka nodded and swallowed. "Makes sense," he stated. Glancing at his companion, he remembered his orders from Asha. "So, why do you all hate each other so much?" He wondered casually.
Jigme's expression darkened. "Our conflict with the Gan Jin goes back over a hundred years," he informed Sokka. "Our forefather Wei Jin was leaving the western gate of our village, when he saw a figure in the distance. It was a man of the Gan Jin tribe, Jin Wei, collapsed on the ground. Noble Wei Jin stopped to help him. Jin Wei was transporting a sacred orb, a very powerful relic used in his tribe's redemption ritual. Wei Jin tried to tend to the man's wounds but Jin Wei insisted the orb was more important, and asked him to take it back to his tribe. Kind Wei Jin promised to send help for the man as soon as he could, but as Wei Jin crossed the border to return the orb into Gan Jin territory, he was arrested. Instead of thanking him for his kind and selfless deed, they sentenced him to twenty long years in prison. We Zhangs will never forget that injustice."
"That's terrible," Sokka stated. He eyed a piece of meat Jigme hadn't touched. "Are you going to eat that?"
Asha, Iroh, Lu Ten and Bao sat a distance away, Lu Ten telling the young Avatar a story to distract her from her missing friends. She looked small and lonely as she clutched at her shawl, every so often glancing back at the tribes with a furrowed brow before turning back to Lu Ten, though clearly thoughts on how to repair the relationship between the tribes and her missing friends weighed heavily on her mind.
"Must be hard," Bao murmured. "To be impartial."
Asha turned to him, a solemn look in her stormy eyes. She inclined her head. "The life of an Avatar is always a lonely one, but that is my burden to bear," she stated, her shoulders slumped in resignation.
"May I say something, Your Reverence?"
"Of course."
Bao stood and kneeled, "Thank you for the sacrifices you make for the world."
Asha smiled. "It is my duty and my honour," she replied.
"It will be fine," Lu Ten assured her. "All we have to do is get them out of this canyon alive."
"I would like to convince them to get along as well," Asha commented ruefully.
"I'm not so sure that the two problems are unrelated," Bao muttered, earning glances from the other three, none of whom disagreed.
Two days of walking later and they were nearly to the end of the canyon.
"Alright, we're almost there," Asha stated. She turned to her Water varlets. "Kai, Sokka, will the tribespeople cooperate long enough for us to escape the canyon?"
"I don't think so Asha," Kai admitted. "The Zhang really wronged the Gan Jin. They stole the sacred orb from Jin Wei and attacked him!"
"What?" Asha asked, bemused.
"Yes, what?" Sokka added. "The Zhang didn't wrong the Gan Jin, it was the other way around. The Gan Jin wrongfully punished Wei Jin after he tried to help Jin Wei."
"He wasn't punished enough if you ask me," Kai grumbled. Sokka's eyes flashed, and he glowered venomously at his brother, who glared right back.
That was when things began to devolve. Soon the Gan Jin and Zhang began to fight, ignoring Asha's frantic demands to stop, and then the food the two tribes had smuggled in was unveiled and the canyon crawlers showed up.
"They have returned for me!" Bao cried fearfully.
Asha attacked the canyon crawlers and soon had them in a pile, while her companions and the tribespeople watched the young Avatar's skill in awe. Unfortunately, there was only one of Asha and a dozen of the crawlers, and they soon recovered and went for the screaming tribespeople. Though the tribe leaders, Asha and her companions all fought hard to hold them back, they were quickly being overwhelmed. Lu Ten and Iroh exchanged glances and began preparing to firebend. So far, to keep the tribespeople from realizing they were firebenders, they had been fighting with their swords, but that wasn't good enough now. That was when Asha called out to everyone.
"Everyone, watch me and do I as I do!"
She distracted a crawler with a piece of food, leaped on its back, and threw a bag over its snout. The two tribes mimicked her, actually working together.
"Follow me!" Asha cried, riding her crawler with grace like she'd done so a thousand times and guiding it with a bag of food she used her glider to hold out in front of her.
The group rode, cheering in triumph at their lucky escape.
"I never knew a Gan Jin could get his hands dirty like that," Jigme mused, the two tribes actually getting along for once. Asha was gleeful, but hiding it.
"And I never knew a Zhang could be so handy in a pinch," Dorji smiled.
"Perhaps we're not so different after all," Jigme suggested.
"Too bad we can't rewrite history," Dorji stated, his smile turning into a scowl as he drew his sword. "You thieves stole our sacred orb from Jin Wei!"
"You tyrants unjustly imprisoned Wei Jin for twenty long years!" Jigme cried, drawing his own weapon. The tribespeople started to scowl at each other again.
"Wait, wait!" Asha said, raising her hands in a calming gesture. "Jin Wei? Wei Jin? I knew them!"
"Yes yes, we all know the story," Dorji said dismissively.
"Do not speak to Her Holiness like that!" Jigme stormed at him furiously.
"No, no I literally knew them," Asha slipped between the arguing pair, making her liegemen flinch and jerk forward in worry for her safety. "We were friends. I know I look like a fourteen-year-old, but I was born over a century ago. I was there one hundred years ago on the day you're talking about. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what happened.
First of all, Jin Wei and Wei Jin weren't enemies. They were brothers, twins in fact, and they were eight; and most importantly, they were just playing a game! The sacred orb from the legend, that was the ball! And the eastern and western gates were the goal posts. Jin Wei had the ball and was running toward the goal when he fell and fumbled it. Wei Jin didn't steal the ball, he picked it up and started running it toward the other goal, but he stepped out of bounds, so the official put him in the penalty box. Not for twenty long years but for two short minutes. There was no stealing and no putting anyone in imprison, it was just a game."
"You're saying the sacred orb was actually a sacred ball?" Jigme asked doubtfully.
"No, just a regular ball," Asha assured him.
"What about our tribe's redemption ritual?" Dorji protested.
"That's what the game was called, redemption," Asha explained. "As soon as you got the ball from one end to the other, everyone would yell "redemption"! Yes, Jin Wei was a bit arrogant and Wei Jin rough around the edges, it is true. But they respected each other's differences enough to share the same playing field."
"I suppose it's time we forget the past," Jigme said after a moment.
Dorji bowed to him. "And look to the future."
Asha smiled widely.
Maybe she did have a chance at healing the years of anger and hatred that had scarred the world and its people after all. This was a small, but good first step.