Chapter 21: Descent into Madness
It didn't take much.
Just one small pack that she could sling over her shoulder, and a larger sack for other items. She packed these with the usual essentials. Clothes. Money.
Mostly she packed loose, flowing robes made of regular material. Nothing that would single her out as a woman or importance, but she didn't look like a poor beggar either. They would allow for easy movement, especially since her pregnant belly didn't seem to be getting any smaller. There was money to pay for a fast merchant ship sailing to the Earth Kingdom, and more than enough left over to take care of details like food and lodging.
Katara went out the next morning, and pretended to share a cup of tea with her guard, along with a friendly chat. The white sleeping powder dissolved quickly in hot liquids, and was completely odorless. In minutes, Wun was asleep and dreaming.
The hard part she saved for last.
When Kaz came to bring her breakfast, she told him that she had an urgent question for his mother, and would he please take her back for one more meeting? She would excuse him from his duties and make sure he still got paid. He agreed readily enough, and they left the palace quickly. Kaz either didn't notice the absence of her bodyguard, or didn't care enough to question it. Or thought it would be out of his place as a servant to ask her why.
Either way, Katara was fine with the silence.
Majin greeted them, and asked Katara why she was back again so soon. Had a problem come up with the baby?
Katara explained that something indeed had come up, but not with the baby. The problem was her husband, who apparently had suffered some kind of serious injury, and she'd only just received news about it. She wanted to be there with him while he healed, and was buying passage for herself on a merchant ship that was leaving for the Earth Kingdom tonight.
Taking a bag out of her cloak, she placed it on the table between herself and Majin. It jingled and settled, bulging, onto the wood.
Majin eyed it. "That is certainly a lot of money, Katara."
"It's enough for two people's ship fare to the Earth Kingdom."
"Two people?"
"I'll need help, especially with this big belly. A pregnant woman traveling by herself will also seem suspicious. I'll need a traveling companion."
All of a sudden, Kaz sat up straight and turned to Katara wonderingly. Katara remained quiet. He was a smart boy.
It took Majin a few more seconds to figure it out. "You want… you want my son to…"
Katara lifted yet another bag out from beneath her cloak, and settled it next to the first. It was the exact same size. "Half of the gold in that bag covers one year of Kaz's salary. The other half is a gift."
"You're intending to buy my son from me?" Majin's response was incredulous.
Katara felt only a bit offended. She wasn't a slave trader. But she supposed that was what it all looked like. "I know that's what it looks like-"
"You think money would ever replace my firstborn?"
"Ma," Kaz interrupted. "I want to go, really, I do. And think of what the money could do for our family. It could cover half a year's rent, pay for more of Sora's tuition and medical bills if something happens to the new baby."
Majin sat silently still, looking at first the money, and then her son.
"Besides, it's not like I'm going to be gone forever. Only a few months." Kaz tried reassuring his mother. But both the women could already see the feverish anticipation in his eyes. He'd never known anything more than work, work, and more work in his extremely young life. An all-expenses paid trip would be heaven for the boy. It was a chance for him to see the world, to experience life before he became an adult and shoved into increasing responsibilities. It was his last shot at a childhood, and his first shot at independence.
And Majin could see that. Although it hurt her deeply to think that her son would be so far away from her for such a long time, she could see how much he wanted this. How much he longed to get away from his tiny, closed-in world and really live. It would make him amazingly happy.
And really, what more did a mother want for her child other than happiness?
If it would make him happy, it would make her happy. It only sorrowed her to think that she could not be the one to give him this gift. At least a generous noblewoman like the Lady Katara had come along into Kaz's life and given him this chance. The least Majin could do was give her blessing.
"Please, ma?" Kaz begged. "Please can I go? I'll be perfectly safe, and someone has to look after the Lady Katara."
Katara merely nodded. There was really nothing she could do to encourage Majin's decision now. She'd put all she could offer on the table (literally) and it was up to the mother to decide what was best for her son.
As soon as the first tear trickled down Majin's cheek, Katara knew what the answer would be. When Majin's body began to shake with sobs, Kaz understood and immediately rose to embrace his mother.
"It's only for a little while, Ma. Only a little bit and then I'll be back… just imagine what the money could do for Sora and the baby… imagine the new clothes you'll be able to buy!" He murmured, hugging Majin. Tears continued to trickle down her cheeks.
Katara rose from the table and walked outside, understanding that anything more she said now would be intrusive and non-essential. She leaned against the wall, and wondered if she'd be able to keep her own children with her forever. Would she have to let go of her baby one day too? Would she have to make the choice to let her children grow up and leave her?
Of course she would. Every parent had to let go, even if all they wanted to do was hold on forever. Her own parents, on the other hand, had never gotten to experience that sorrow and happiness. They'd left her and Sokka much too soon for that.
After awhile, Katara turned around as a red-eyed but smiling Majin came outside along with Kaz and Sora.
"Thank you." Was all Majin could choke out. Kaz looked tear-eyed too, but kept himself in check as he bent down to kiss his younger sister good-bye. Both Sora and Majin hugged him at once, and he tried to laugh it off at the same time he tried not to cry.
"I'll be back in a couple months! No big deal!"
After many more tears and good-byes and I-love-yous, Katara and Kaz left for the walk down to the harbor. She lifted the smaller pack onto her shoulder, while Kaz took the larger one and his own small knapsack he'd packed in a hurry.
"Ready?" She asked him.
"Yeah." He said, taking in a deep breath. "I think I've been ready for this for all of my life."
"I'm glad."
They walked in silence for a few more minutes, passing out of the neighborhood district and into the busy market.
"Why are you really leaving, Katara?" Kaz asked seriously. "Is the Fire Lord really hurt? I know that can't be it."
"You're right, Kaz. I did lie to your mother. But since you didn't tell her who the father of my child is… I wasn't sure if you wanted her to know at all."
"I didn't. I guessed you wanted to keep it a secret."
"I did."
"That doesn't answer my question though. Why are we going to the army?"
"Business has… come up."
"What business?"
Kaz was curiously persistent today. Usually he took all of her subtle hints well and shut up. But she supposed that since he was coming along with her on this journey, he felt that he deserved to know more information. And he probably did. But that didn't meant she was willing to trust even Kaz with anything concerning her reasons for traveling.
"The Fire Lord wrote a couple days back, and wants me to join him at the army camp." I want to see his expression when I show up so suddenly, Katara thought to herself. How will he deal with it, that lying bastard.
Kaz looked slightly incredulous. "That's unusual. Women don't usually accompany the men on war campaigns."
"Zuko is the Fire Lord. He can do anything unusual and people will wonder, but they'll still listen to him." Or risk having their head chopped off.
"Is it because of the baby?"
"Yes." She was lying through her teeth, and Kaz didn't suspect a thing. He didn't have to know the all the real information. One of which was that Zuko had no idea he had a baby.
They boarded the ship that night without any further difficulties.
Now all they had to do was wait. They'd be at the shore of the Earth Kingdom in roughly a month, the weather permitting. The captain of the merchant ship Dove was polite and accommodating, especially to a woman in Katara's condition. She passed Kaz off as a younger brother accompanying her on a trip to see her sick husband, who was in the army.
By her calculations, when they finally docked in the Earth Kingdom, she would be seven months along in her pregnancy. Like it or not, her baby would most likely be born in an army camp. Not in a luxurious palace, or a tribe surrounded by loving family and friends. A war camp.
What an auspicious beginning it would be.
Zuko cursed every time he opened a letter and it turned out to be a report from a border patrol or an inventory list from the supply ships. His entire life seemed to hang on the mail brought in by carrier birds. He anticipated every single letter with a sort of desperate urgency, and felt like going out and carving up an army of rebels when he found out for the thousandth time that Katara had not written him.
Where was her letter? Why hadn't she written back after his last delivery? Her letters usually arrived within a week after he sent his own off.
Every day that passed without her reply further cemented the suspicions Sakai and Huang had planted in his mind.
Those two men were oily snakes who would take advantage of the weakest beggar child if something was to be earned from him. But their words were convincing. Zuko knew that they might be just trying to manipulate him, but the seeds of their words had taken root and would not let go.
Every night after they pitched camp and army business was concluded, Zuko paced his tent over and over again, wondering and cursing and pleading for a letter to come from Katara.
Nothing came, and Zuko slipped further and further into the paranoia and suspicion that was beginning to grip him.
Katara had almost forgotten what it was like to sail on a ship again. The first night she woke up in the darkness, desperately feeling for Zuko's warmth next to her, the way she had done every night since he'd left. There was another person in the cabin with her, but it was not Zuko's deep, slow breathing that greeted her ears.
She strained to see the faint outline of the rise and fall of Kaz's sleeping body on the bunk opposite her own, and his peaceful, lighter breathing was calm next to her own harsh breaths.
It was hard to fall asleep sometimes, mostly because the baby chose to kick right when Katara felt the most tired. However obnoxious this became, Katara was glad the baby moved. It would be much worse if the child stopped kicking.
She lay shakily back down in her sheets, and tried not to think anymore about Zuko. With every fiber of her being, she wished that the anonymous letter had been lying. About Sokka, and about Juiko.
But if the author of the letter had been lying, that would mean Wun, her drugged guard, and Kaz, her most trusted friend, were lying as well. That was already three peoples' words that countered what Zuko had originally told her.
The odds are already building up against you, Zuko. Hurry and prove them wrong. Please.
That's why she was taking this trip. To prove that Zuko had not lied to her, and everything they had together was real.
It took one long, long month to reach the Earth Kingdom, and Kaz had gotten over his seasickness by then.
When they stepped off the merchant ship and bid goodbye to the captain, Kaz stared at Port Yeriv in amazement. Yeriv was a small, out-of-the-way trading station on the shore of the Earth Kingdom. It in no way matched up to the grand magnificence of Menthat, the other trading city Katara had visited before. But to Kaz, it was a whole new world.
"Are all their cities like this?" He asked, following slowly behind Katara as they navigated their way through the crowds.
Katara smiled to herself. Of course Kaz would be in awe. He'd never seen anything outside of Kotzut. Earth Kingdom architecture, customs, accents, and art would seem dramatically different from the usual Fire Nation styles Kaz was used to.
"You should see Omashu." Katara remarked, sidestepping a harried cabbage seller who was haphazardly wheeling his large produce cart down the crowded street.
However, Kaz, who was still gaping wide-eyed at everything around him, wasn't so careful. He ran smack dab into the wooden cart, causing the tower of cabbages to shudder and begin dropping it's load.
Mouth opened in horror, Kaz quickly snatched one, two, three cabbages as they began tumbling down around the poor boy. Luckily Kaz had only jarred the cart, and only one more cabbage fell into his grasp.
All three of them, Katara, Kaz, and the cabbage seller, breathed a sigh of relief.
"I'm so sorry!" Kaz said breathlessly to the merchant, trying to replace the cabbages that had dropped. But the nervous boy miscalculated and overreached, losing his balance and crashing into the cart again, knocking over all the rest of the cabbages. They came raining down in a flurry of green blobs, rolling every which way into the street. Several unlucky pedestrians who hadn't been watching where they were going were tripped up by the flying vegetables. They fell, cursing, to the ground.
The cabbage man howled in disbelief and horror as Kaz nimbly leapt out of the way of the falling green balls.
"Why me? Why me?" The merchant clutched his head in his hands as if he were in extreme pain. "Every single time I get it all set up – I'll never make a profit at this rate-"
Kaz blushed furiously and Katara fought to keep a smile off her face. For some reason, the cabbage man looked familiar to her. Had the last cabbage seller she, Sokka, and Aang had met been this same one?
Katara handed the merchant three full gold coins, enough to cover the cost of the vegetables and more. He was momentarily silenced by the sight of the money, and Katara took the opportunity to grasp Kaz by the arm and lead him off, laughing silently.
They spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the marketplace and asking questions of the civilians.
Had the Fire Nation army passed through here recently? Yes, how long ago? A few months? Would you mind telling us which way they went?
At the end of the day, Katara had managed to buy two healthy horses from a farmer for the price of two gold coins. She was overpaying him, as she hadn't bothered to bargain, but she was in a hurry and she had money to spend. The farmer had stared at the money in surprise, almost as if he hadn't been sure it was real. Then he'd scurried away, thinking that this was his lucky day.
Moving an entire army through a forest will leave obvious traces of your path. Chopped down trees for firewood, burnt-out campfires and human waste were all clear markers for Katara and Kaz to follow. Most of the traces were months old, but the two of them riding on horses moved much faster than an enormous army. Traveling with an army was like moving a mobile city, and it was slow-going, the way they had to set up camp every night, and take down camp every morning. They had to unpack wagons of supplies and repack them in the morning. It was a chaotic process.
A two-person team took much less time. They rode on horseback during the day, and at night, built a small campfire for the two of them, ate from the supplies Katara had purchased in the city, and slept. The next morning, they merely packed up their blankets and got back on horseback again.
During the days, they mostly rode in silence.
What am I doing here? was the thought that swarmed Katara's mind most often. What am I going to say once I see him again? I'm here to confront him about my brother. What if he admits it? What if he denies it?
She desperately wanted him to deny it, even though in some deep dark part of her, she knew that the anonymous letter had spoken true. There had been too much evidence presented against Zuko.
But she wasn't willing to let go of her fairy-tale fantasy yet. The fantasy where she could give birth to a child who would grow up in a happy family. The fantasy where she would be able to stay with Zuko, and they would live happily ever after.
It was probably the stupidest thing she'd ever believed in. The possibility of a happily ever after for Katara was impossible. Less than zero.
Yet, she refused to let go of her dream. She refused to return to reality, even though the whole reason she was on this trip was because a stranger's letter had shown her the reality.
She was as stubborn as an ass. As gullible as the youngest child.
And worst of all, she was a foolish dreamer.
Foolish dreamers never had happily ever afters, even if their whole life was spent dreaming about a happily ever after.
In less than two weeks, Katara and Kaz were on the tail end of the traveling army. At night, they could see the soldiers' burning campfires and hear the noises of thousands of men living together and traveling together.
"When are we going to join the camp, Katara?" asked Kaz one late night. He would never say it out loud, but he was getting tired of waiting and watching.
Katara knew she'd been putting it off. She still didn't know what the hell she'd say to Zuko once she saw him again.
"We'll join them tomorrow," she said firmly, unrolling her blankets and settling on her side to sleep.
"Tomorrow." She repeated quietly to herself, as if saying it again would make it more of a possibility. As if saying it twice meant she couldn't go back on her word.
She told herself before drifting off to sleep that everything would work out alright tomorrow morning.
Everything would work out alright.
When one of his officers woke him up early one morning, Zuko's instant reaction was to pull out his sword in reflex, his other hand ready to Fire bend.
The officer gulped, pasty-faced, at the lethal point of a sword at his throat, and said in a hoarse voice, "You have a guest, your Majesty."
Zuko was extremely irritated, and lowered his sword. "You woke me up for a guest?"
"It's… it's a woman, my Lord."
Zuko could feel the blood drain from his face, and it took him awhile to find his voice. Was it who he thought it was…?
"Bring her in, then get out," he said. Has she come to tell me, finally? After all these long months of waiting, would he finally find out the truth from her, face-to-face?
Oh, how he'd missed her.
He sat stock-still on his camp bed, and listened as the officer brought the "guest" inside, and left, closing the door flap behind him. Zuko strained, and he could hear the rustles and movements of the woman in the outer room of his tent. Was she sitting down? Was she standing? Was she as nervous as he was?
Taking a deep breath, he stood up and put his hand to the dividing flap between his room and the rest of the tent.
Pulling it back, he stepped into the dim light of dawn, and felt those two wonderful blue eyes lock onto his own amber ones.
"Hello, Zuko."
A/N: First off, if anyone bothered to read my profile, it explains there my long absence. I was on vacation for a week in California, without internet connection. I was going to update as soon as I got back.
But the day I did, I was seized with this unbelievable allergic attack. I have no idea what caused it, but the whole deal happened to me. Breaking out in hives and redness, pounding headaches, dry throat, the whole shebang. We're still trying to find out what caused it, because I've never been allergic to any foods in my entire life.
I've spent most of the last week doped up on Benadryl and other drugs, so it was kind of hard to tell the keyboard apart from the computer monitor. You understand, of course.
However, I was able to post two chapters today; one for this story, and one for my new story, Love Thy Enemy. Some reviewers already know I have a new story up, but I have to warn you:
IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS FOR THATP, DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT READ THE NEW STORY.
Because it is sort of a sequel, or at least it ties into THATP.
That's all, I'm done and I'm turning in to bed after ingesting a few more antihistamines and drugs of sorts. Oh, yeah, rejoice at the appearance of Cabbage Man. I managed to squeeze him in, but not in a very good fashion, I don't think.
Q&A Time:
I'm going to ask you a few questions: How do you keep all of the names straight? Will the baby be taken from her? Why doesn't Zuko just kill Haung and Sakai off? When are you going to update?… Sry, if I sound way too friendly for my first review. –SnufflesWillRiseI keep all the names straight because I'm a super-smart genius (just kidding. I just sort of… do). And for all of you curious ones… ALL INFORMATION ABOUT THE BABY IS CLASSIFIED AND KEPT UNDER A THREE-PASSWORD, CODED, KEYLOCKED FILE ON MY COMPUTER. Try and break through that, fools! XD And Zuko can't just kill Huang and Sakai because… I already explained this in… Chapter 17, the war council scene. And I like friendly reviews. They're much better than mean ones. XD
It's a good thing for that author's note, because
otherwise I would've been really confused as to why Katara trusted
Jet. But if all you really wanted was someone from Katara's past whom
she trusted, why not Haru, the Earthbender? –NybCR
This
is all the way back in… Chapter 9, yes? Well the answer is because
I had no idea Haru existed. Now that you say it though, it does seem
like a logical choice. When I started writing this story, I had
watched exactly one Avatar episode, and that was Waterbending Scroll.
To this day, I've watched exactly two, including King of Omashu.
I'm really winging it here guys, so thanks for all your generous
support. XD
One question: Didn't u once say that the money
Katara gave Kaz went to the new baby's craddle? –Mushrambolover
Of
course. Remember Kaz's mother is pregnant? That's going to be the
new baby.
ARGH! I just reread chap 19, and noticed that you
mentioned a sequel to this story...that means a sad ending right?
–Arwey
Yup.
You're right… it's going to be sad. But I promise you the
sequel WILL make up for it.
I was sort of basing it on the current military procedures. Soldiers get to come back every two years or so, depending on their contract and terms of leave. So, that's when the loving happens. Haha. As for the current baby… aw shit. I'm really stupid, aren't I? No explanation there. I thought more people would catch it but I think you're the only one…
Sakai and Huang have
me confused... they're evil and all, but was the ending really an
act? And how did Adia know if Katara was cloak-less this one time?
–whomever
It
was an act, yes. As for the Adia thing, that was a lie. Huang
couldn't very well say "Well the ex-Admiral Zhao told us all
about your wife's little condition." He had to make up something,
right? Adia doesn't know a thing, still.
