Burnt the House; I Don't Belong. This Place has Done me Wrong.
Pico the Great

And of course the bloody Avatar had gotten away. That was what galled, beside the burnt ships and his old master. They'd both made fools of him, with no apparent effort on the part of either. And one of them a third his age.

Zhao waded to land, not without a little trouble, cursing the both of them. Garnering a flame, he began to dry his armor. It was then that his men burst out of the forest's edge. They stopped almost comically fast, stumbling to a halt as the sight in front of them registered. One of them turned to him. "Sir?"

Zhao's flame disintegrated, and he held his chin high. "The Avatar," he announced, pointing to the fast-sinking wrecks, "has learned Firebending."

Not giving the men time to think, he continued. "Lord Ozai must learn of this. Immediately." Ji and Cao, the runners, nodded, and Zhao nodded back. "Leave. Now."

The two were already a long way downstream, sand kicking up behind as they ran.

Zhao nodded to himself and spoke to the rest of his men. "And the deserter?"

"Gone, sir," one of them said, and Zhao's fists twitched involuntarily. "But we've found-"

"What?" the admiral snapped.

"Sir, we've found his village."

Zhao stood at the top of the hill. Village. Yes, you could call it a village, like you could call a raft a boat. Some six or seven reed-hide houses, blank and small, less in space than the closet of his lady's chamber. "No people?" Zhao asked over his shoulder, not looking completely away.

"No sir."

"Pity."

The Admiral nodded forward, and the men started downhill, checking the houses, slamming open doors; firebenders covered the treeline. "Take whatever we can use," said Zhao, stepping down off the hill. "Burn the rest."

The first house was aflame by the time Zhao reached the village. He ignored it and continued walking – the other place was by the water's edge, anyway, and no need to stop. There was the small path, there the hut by the water, and Zhao continued til the river was at his left and the hut in front of him.

Well, yes, it would look smaller. The place had seemed huge the last time he had seen it, but then he had only been twelve, and remembered quite clearly the last sneer, the turning his back, the hiding on the river's far side while his master's voice, quavering even then, was calling his name, and joined by the others of the village. It would have been weak to stay and train when he knew enough. Training he'd known he'd get enough of when he joined up with the Fire Nation navy, and he'd fought with full-grown men and won, and he'd beaten boys his age bloody.

Why not be proud of that?

The hut was silent, and the sluggish, reed-choked river. Zhao had hated the silence – he wanted the noise back, the rummaging sounds that were always at the edge of hearing when you lived as close to the court as he had. He wanted the people back: the men he could impress with his skills, the older boys trying to fight him and failing. This place was none of that, only a couple of old fools and their river.

Zhao elbowed the door open.

The curtain-door flapped at his heels, and closed once more, and the place was silent again.

There was no one in here, of course. Zhao had not expected there to be. It was bare, and small, with only the old tree and the hide-reed walls and the earth floor. And of course, the candles. There was another thing, where Master had said "Concentrate!" and he'd lit all the candles with a swipe of his arm. And Zhao had tried, and tried, and tried, and never gotten more than half. And Master said it was because he wasn't concentrating! Boy, you're weak! You'll never rise with such a lack of power! And he'd turned his back and Zhao had tried again-

Damn! but he had to remember this now! It was embarrassing enough that he had actually tried to please the old man, for so long, until he realized the man was not to be pleased, he was always saying "later" when there were things he needed now.

Well, Zhao had gotten his now.

The admiral stepped closer, once, then again. Standing before the half-ring of cold candles, he raised a hand, and swiped wide. All of them, course, every single one-

Except that single thick taper at the tree's base, the double-wicked one.

The men looked down as the hut by the river burst into flame: the wet wood smoked, but the hides had long been dry, and would not have held such a fire at any rate. They saw the Admiral emerge, disdainfully flipping the curtains aside, and, once outside, sending another sickle of flame across the doorway, that the front of the house caught fire. He turned up the hill.

Behind him, part of the roof caved in. The men at the hill's top had no view of the hut's inside, but by the lowest houses, one man caught sight of the tree ringed with candles, all of them burning now, and none left within the moment. The man looked back up, and realized the Admiral had reached his level. He snapped to attention, but the Admiral ignored him.

"Gather what you've taken," he announced to the troops. "We're returning to the city."