Chapter 2: The Impossible Escape
Rei I
There were too many books, Rei decided, and added another to the pile regardless.
The room would have been messy, had she enough possessions to fill it, leaving the overall effect looking like someone had placed a handful of objects in odd places. The only order seemed to resonate from the bookcase, which stood proudly in the corner of the room, showcasing well over a hundred volumes.
Rei studied the contents of her bag, running through her mental checklist. Oils, tea set, tea leaves, quill, paper, maps…should I bring a bathing suit? It is approaching summer, but no other climate is as hot as the Fire Nation, well, apart from the Si Wong Desert. Do they have anywhere to bathe there? I wonder how the residents keep themselves clean with a scarcity of water…
The candles on the wall glowed softly, casting its dark brown interior in a warm glow. Rei added soap to her bag.
For a high stakes mission such as this, Rei contemplated, there were too many things that could go wrong. The trick was to keep things simple – too many steps meant too many variables, and that lead to too many risks. She began to run through the escape checklist under her breath for the seventeenth time that day, folding clothes as she did so. "Find the pot. Find the gate. Find the trolley. Find the cell. Tulok into trolley…" The sound of unfamiliar voices under window caught her attention and she trailed off, moving towards the sound and peeking out through the curtains.
"Yusun, please see sense." The man speaking was wearing stately robes, suggesting he was an important member of Sozin's court. "The girl needs discipline."
They were talking about her. She immediately ducked underneath the window frame, pressing herself against the wall.
"We have overlooked your loitering on this island long enough. We have accommodated her prison excursions in the name of…research." Another voice spoke, the tone distasteful. "You must return to Dizin, or there will be more than questions."
"My esteemed councilmen." That was her father talking. "Is it so wrong that I spend my time in my own residence? The library is functioning perfectly well in my absence. I still have two more weeks of vacation left."
"Your daughter—"
"Is interrogating our only known prisoner from the water tribes for information! Is she not furthering our lord's cause?"
"…is a known pacifist." The first councilman finished, through gritted teeth. "That airbender propaganda in Harbour City was traced back to her."
"A weak link, and one that was never proven." Yusun gently placated. Rei felt stabs of guilt swarm her chest and dropped her forehead to her knees. Even four years later her father was still paying for her irresponsibility.
"Yusun, we must insist we speak with your daughter. Her disobedience can no longer be tolerated by this court." The second councilman remained unconvinced.
"Gentlemen, it is late." She could hear her father stepping up to the front door. "I promise I will bring her by tomorrow so that you may talk to her yourselves. Although," he paused, then continued meaningfully. "I have my suspicions she has already received your message."
Rei glanced up at the open window. Perceptive as always.
The sound of the door opening startled her back into the present, and she shot up, knowing that her father was presently seconds away from entering her room. She leapt over her bed, pulling her half-packed bag off its edge and pushing it underneath in one fluid motion, which would have been graceful had she not also toppled the teetering pile of books next to it.
The door swiftly opened and Yusun surveyed his book-covered daughter with a raised eyebrow. "Did you get tired of reading them? I'm not sure books are meant to be used in any other capacity."
"Father." Rei greeted him back weakly and pushed the mound of literature off her chest and onto the floor. "I was thinking about trying a new classification system."
He raised an eyebrow. "I would have believed you, had you not sworn allegiance to the Chun Mao Classification since you were ten years of age." He moved over as if to help her up, prompting her to quickly stand up and move in front of the bed, concealing the bag underneath it.
The subject needed to be changed, quickly. "I thought we could spend another couple of days then move on? It would be interesting to visit the Fire Nation colonies."
Her father froze abruptly and stared at her. "You want to leave the Fire Nation altogether?"
"I mean technically the colonies are part of the Fire N—"
"You know what I meant." He crossed his arms. "This is too much, even for the curiosity I know you possess."
They had slammed headfirst into another topic she'd wanted to avoid, but at least this one was preferable to discussing her prison break preparations. "I heard what you and the councilmen were discussing. What they were saying about me."
Yusun gave a heavy sigh, and sat on the couch opposite her. "You make everyone nervous. It is only a matter of time before someone thinks of you as enough of a threat to speak to Sozin about it."
She refused to look in his direction, choosing instead to flick through a thick stack of scrolls. The silence dragged on uncomfortably.
She heard her father sigh again and shift slightly. "You know what I must do."
"I know what you think you must do based on the orders of some very small minded individuals."
"Rei." The infliction in his voice made her look back at the couch. He was sitting with his hands clasped, staring at the ground. "You will have to go back to capital city, my child."
She inhaled sharply and gripped a scroll in her hand tightly. Her face felt numb, like she could feel the blood draining away from it. "When?" She croaked.
"Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?!" She whirled around, scroll still grasped tightly in her hand. "Father, you can't!"
He stood, still refusing to look at her. "The only way I avoid delivering you to the councilmen tomorrow is to deliver you to Sozin himself." He brushed his robes down. "The Fire Lord will not hurt you, my beloved child. But you must reassure him that your days of marching about spreading false narratives are over."
"You used to believe in those false narratives." She was keenly aware of a lump at the back of her throat.
"Things were different then. Our life is much better now, don't you see?"
"…we were never the ones suffering." Rei tipped her chin and tried to blink away the tears that had started to gather.
She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder and her head rolled back forwards, allowing her tears to cut a searing path across her cheeks.
"I am not abandoning you, my child. I am saving you." He moved in to hug her but she couldn't move, arms firmly rooted to her sides. "Pack for home. We leave tomorrow."
They stood together for a moment, Rei savouring the warmth of her father's embrace, before he drew back with a tired smile and left the room.
Rei stood for a second, letting the tears continue to fall softly. The setting sun cast an golden glow across her room and glinted off her dresser mirror. She quickly strode over to it and took a look at herself, poking her puffy face into submission.
Just like that, everything had fallen to pieces. Her plans to get Tulok out the country, her plans to do literally anything other than be an accessory in Sozin's court.
Feeling the impending panic begin to rise, she quickly blew out the candle on her dresser and lit another. Breathing in and out steadily, she waited until the familiar scent of lavender and chamomile began to swirl through her nostrils and throat.
Firstly, her father was taking her back to their home tomorrow. Which meant anything she was to do about it would have to be tonight. Secondly, she needed to get Tulok away from the Fire Nation, which meant breaking him out of prison also had to happen that night. And thirdly, she wasn't going to be able to keep Tulok at the house as that contradicted the first statement which meant…both of them had to leave the island that night.
Rei screamed silently and attempted to remind herself that there was a bright side - she'd almost finished packing.
She rose up, then stood still and listened. No movement, or any indicator that anyone would be disturbing her soon. She quickly crossed over to her bookcase, and selected a book about clay consistencies she knew no one in the household would consider touching and flicked forward a few pages.
There, nestled within the carved out interior was her collection of forbidden scrolls. Classified documents that had been sent to the incinerator within her father's library by the Fire Lord's decree, and that she had plucked away before they'd met a fiery end. Her treasure.
Her hands sifted through the small stash until she found the small, slightly tattered scroll that contained the cherished prophecy. She carefully placed it into a cloth purse, followed by two other scrolls detailing the life of Avatar Roku. She glanced briefly at the others, electing to add a small scroll that contained airbender chakra teaching and another that mentioned something to do with a 'darkest day' into the purse before drawing it shut.
She sat down on her bed, listening to the wind gently caress the trees outside, and the familiar hum of activity in the town.
"Find the pot. Find the gate. Find the trolley. Find the cell …" Rei repeated her mantra under her breath, again and again, finding solace in the steady rhythm as she carved the words into her skull.
Her man on the inside had, rather annoyingly, left the pot a fraction too high for her to reach. She inelegantly leapt up to grab it, slightly relieved that the nature of her middle-of-the-night, breaking-out-a-prisoner escapade meant no one was around to witness it. Sticking her hand inside and fumbling around, she was relived to feel the outline of the ring of keys. It looked like he'd received her hastily written carrier hawk message after all.
Rei gazed down the shadowy alley to her left, shuddering slightly. Heists sounded a lot more exciting and a lot less terrifying in books than they were in real life. She started down the narrow pathway, further and further into the darkness and away from the bright lights of the main street.
The side gate she was looking for revealed itself maybe a minute later, hidden behind the thick vines that carpeted the side of a very tall building. Selecting the big iron key with a circular looped hilt that she'd memorised, she gently inserted it into the lock and twisted. The lock gave a mean grumble like an old man waking up from a long sleep, before it relented and unlocked. She pushed the door gently open to reveal an extremely narrow path between the buildings, leading down to a small open window at the other end.
Heart pounding, she stole down the alley, looking back every few seconds as though she expected to see a legion of soldiers bearing down on her. Not before long she reached the window, which was about a metre off the ground, and hoisted herself onto the ledge, wincing as her clothes snagged on the sharp edges of the sill.
Inside the room the air was cold and stale, the mouldy scent of mildew seeping from a pile of washed laundry in the corner. The silence felt even louder now she was in the facility, her roar of her blood now even louder in her ears.
Turning slightly, she spotted the trolley she was looking for parked innocuously next to the door, and jogged towards it. It had been emptied, save for a couple of sheets folded neatly on top. Giving it a cautious tug, Rei winced as a gentle squeak reverberated around the room, then steeled herself and continued to wheel it out the door.
The soft sound of the trolley's wheels pierced the otherwise deathly quiet of the corridors. Rei took quick shallow breaths, desperate not to add to the noise. The maze of doors had already begun to confuse her, there was seemingly no pattern to their distribution or number. She remembered faintly at the back of her mind being told that the conversion of the building into a detainment facility had been done rapidly over one and a half years.
Finally, after what felt like an age, she caught sight of an unmistakable smudge of dust on a door, one that resembled a spiral too much to be an accident. Hands shaking, she picked up one of the sheets on the trolley to wipe it off, feeling silly that the idea of dirtying the sheet was so upsetting. She then reached for a different key on the ring this time, slimmer and newer looking, and cautiously unlocked the door, wincing at the sound of metal on metal that seemed to resonate without mercy in the deafening silence of the compound. She reached to open the door, but no sooner had her hands grasped the handle than the door shot open, almost hitting her squarely in the nose. She looked up to see the familiar sight of Tulok's scowling face.
"You're supposed to be here in two days' time, not tonight!"
"Yes well….plans have changed. We're leaving the island tonight." She watched him react to the news, his eyes wide and nostrils flaring.
He growled at the back of his throat, stepping out of his room with his bag and carefully shutting the door behind himself. "We've lost our advantage of the cover of darkness, it's almost morning!"
Rei took a split second to recall her own, somewhat cowardly, procrastinations earlier that night. So she'd been forced to go back to the house to collect a forgotten item. On four separate occasions. "I don't mean this in a bad way, but you're actually very lucky I'm here at all." She tried to avoid his eyes.
"What? You mean you almost got caught?" Rei pretended to adjust something on the trolley whilst debating on how best to answer the question. Honestly was the best policy, but an irritated Tulok always left her worried that he'd rupture a blood vessel.
"Well, um, I mean I almost didn't leave the house." She sneaked a look and tried to smother her nervous giggle at the sight of the vein on the left side of his forehead throbbing.
"YOU—" she quickly slapped a hand over his mouth and they both stilled, listening out. Seemingly the building slept on. Tulok continued at a whisper. "You were the one that wanted to do this! I can't believe you almost bailed on me!"
"We're doing something very scary and illegal! Of course I almost bailed!" Rei crossed her arms. "And would it have mattered if I didn't show? Nothing would change for you. No one would have known you were going to break out of prison, let alone to do so in order to dismantle the Fire Lord's empire."
The vein was reaching critical levels of throb. Tulok was making no attempts to hide the look in his eyes that assured her just how much he wanted to strangle her. "Well, thanks for the reassurance that I can trust you not to ditch me at the first sign of danger." He hissed.
Rei felt herself flush, ashamed of her own cowardice but unable to summon any false bluster to cover it up. She instead gestured at the cart, voice croaking in the uncomfortable silence, "Shall we get going?"
It was Tulok's turn to look nervous. "Actually, about that…"
"If you've changed your mind about breaking out of prison in the middle of said prison break…"
"No! But…I sorta invited someone?"
There was a pause. Rei envisioned her immaculate, carefully constructed plan begin to teeter, and wondered if Tulok could now see her own temple throb.
"Why would…why do….why? What in Agni's name possessed you to invite someone to our scary and very illegal prison break?"
"I wasn't planning on it! This guy is crazy intimidating! And he's been protecting me these past few weeks and—"
"Oh…oh! Oh he's your…I didn't realise—"
"No!" Tulok's now purple face was clashing horribly with his prison garb. "No that's not what this is! I'm not…I mean he isn't…" he trailed off.
Her mental image of Tulok with a big beefy prison boyfriend quickly readjusted itself. "This is a serious deviation from my plan."
"Please Rei. He's my friend." Tulok admitted, somewhat reluctantly.
She growled at the back of her throat. "He'd better not be far from here."
The door creaked open, seemingly softer this time. She could see Tulok's friend resting, the moonlight from the window bathing his sharp features in a stark white glow. Rei moved forwards, more confidently this time, motioning at Tulok to follow her. Already the deviation from the perfectly crafted plan was beginning to thrum in her head and itch her skin.
Looking behind her, Tulok seemed preoccupied with keeping watch down the corridor. She quickly grasped the man's shoulder and gave it a sharp tug, trying at the same time to give Tulok a pointed glare that radiated the message "you should really be the person he sees when he wakes up, not me".
As fate would have it, at that particular moment, Ha Jun's eyes, which had been blinking slowly awake, bulged open and he shot up out of his cot. Rei quickly flung herself over his upper body, sending it crashing back down into the mattress and making the springs cry out shrilly. She heard a flurry of footsteps and looked round in time to see Tulok careen into the room and attach himself to the flailing legs next to her, smacking his head into hers in the process with a large thwack sound. Rei allowed herself a high-pitched, yet quiet, shriek as her vision flashed a hot white, and her head began to ring from the sharp blow.
"WHO THE F—" the deep voice bellowed from the head of the bed. Rei spun around dizzily, and ungracefully slammed her hand down onto Ha Jun's mouth, cutting him off mid-tirade. He made a guttural noise in the back of his throat and tried to wrench his head free.
This was not going to plan. "I'm so sorry, please this isn't what it looks like. We're here to rescue you! Tulok is here with me, everything is going to be OK, just please be quiet and calm down."
Ha Jun wiggled harder. Tulok began making spluttering noises.
Rei looked heavenwards and gathered up as much fire and anger as she could before fixing her detainee with as stony a glare as she could muster. "I need you to calm. Down. The sooner you stop being so ridiculous the sooner we can leave."
"…Rei…"
"Hush, Tulok. Don't interrupt me when I'm demonstrating my authority." She narrowed her eyes. "Now I'm going to count to three, release my hand, and we're all going to go, nice and quietly."
"Rei…"
"One…two.."
"REI!" She spun her head round at Tulok's horrified shout of whisper, fixing him with the stony glare she'd worked so hard on.
"What?! What is so important, right now?"
He grimaced. "That…isn't Ha Jun."
Rei took a shallow breath. They looked at each other. Rei took a deeper breath, in and out. They both looked at the man in the bed. He looked back at them.
"Oh spirits I…OK go. Gogogogo NOW-" they bolted, reaching the door just as the man began to scream for help. They slammed the door behind them, wincing as a thump reverberated through the door almost a second after, signifying the unlucky prisoner had run headfirst into it.
Rei sprinted to the door next to it, fumbling with the keys as murmurs and shouts began to echo around the once deathly silent chamber. Her hands shook, the key missing the lock two, three times before she finally managed to slide it in and twist.
The door swung open to reveal a tall, slender man with a shockingly handsome face, hair tied up high and a packed travelling sack on his back.
He raised a single eyebrow. "I am Ha Jun."
"Oh," offered Rei shakily in response, her stomach flip flopping.
He looked behind her and tipped his head. "Tulok." He flung his bag at the other man, who caught it with a scowl. "We need to move fast before the guards wake up."
Tulok made an irritated noise at the back of his throat, the kind someone makes after being told to do what they were already going to do, and chucked the bag into the trolley next to his own. The commotion in the background had risen to a dull roar, against which the sound of the bag hitting the metal barely made an impact. "OK, what are we doing next? Hello? Hey!"
Rei squeezed her hands tight and tried to focus her breathing. The amount to which they'd already deviated from the plan burned through her brain. They'd be caught before they'd even truly started, Tulok would be sent to a higher security containment facility, she'd be reprimanded, her father out of a job-
"-Miss! Hey!" A warm hand clapped down heavily onto her shoulder. She glanced up to her right and found Ha Jun's eyes, laced with panic. "What's next?"
"I…I don't…we're going to-"
"-don't worry. We're getting out of here." He frowned and squeezed her shoulder. "What's our next step?"
Find the trolley. Find the cell. Tulok into trolley. Rei snapped into focus. "Deliveries. We need to get you both into the trolley and to deliveries."
Tulok pulled a face. "Why do we need to get into the trolley?"
Rei ran over. "So I can sneak you both out of here!"
"Isn't a little late considering we've woken the entire damn prison?!"
Seething, she drummed her balled fists in the air and imagined it was Tulok's stupid face. "We wouldn't have woken everyone up if you'd not messed up my plan!"
"Ahem." They both turned quickly at the sound of a loudly cleared throat to see Ha Jun sitting regally on the trolley, hands resting gently on his knees. "More than happy to mediate this particular argument and any others provided we conclude breaking out of prison, yes?"
"You say that thinking it's not going to happen…but oh man will it." Tulok paced quickly over to the trolley and sat behind his companion, albeit not as elegantly.
Rei quickly moved to the bars and gripped them firmly. "Let's get out of here," she declared and pushed.
And pushed.
Unsurprisingly, given her lack of upper body strength and the estimated weight of two fully grown men, the trolley didn't budge.
"Are you FUCKING kidding me?" Tulok snarled as he leapt off the trolley, scooped Rei up and dumped her in his place. She blinked rapidly and felt her stomach backflip once more.
Tulok flexed his biceps. "Let's roll."
Suddenly there was motion. Rei fell, her head hitting the back of the trolley, as they accelerated and started to speed down the corridor, gathering momentum. Over the roaring of her bloodstream she could hear clanging as doors somewhere were starting to open, no doubt with guards pouring out.
The cart suddenly veered sharply to the left as Tulok rounded the corner, causing her chin to collide with the small of Ha Jun's back. Dazed, she collapsed back and blinked several times as the world around her began to lurch and sway, the shouts of her companions and others blending into one.
Just as her vision swam into focus, she spotted the hallway that lead towards deliveries, but no sooner had she done so than two guards positioned themselves in front of the opening, hands raised. She turned back to Tulok, feeling queasy as she did so. "They've blocked our escape. We need to find a different way out!"
"Courtyard!" Came a yell from behind her. She spun her head around and then winced once more as the nausea threatened to overtake her. She heard Tulok yell "On it!" in response to Ha Jun and the cart twisted through the furnishings of the large room they were in, before bursting into the moonlight.
Ha Jun clenched his fists and held them at his sides as they drew closer to the wall on the far side, Tulok showing no signs of slowing down.
"Tulok? TULOK?" Her screams faded into the ugly crash of rock on rock as they collided into the wall. She felt someone grab her waist as they were flung from the trolley, landing none too gently and rolling slightly before coming to a standstill.
Panting with adrenaline, she lifted her head from under the arm shielding it and saw Tulok stumble to his feet a short distance away and dash towards the trolley. He lifted the three bags out, but no sooner had he done so than an arc of fire curved towards him, causing him to duck back behind the warped metal frame. The ground between them shuddered and lifted, a high ridge forming a path to Tulok. She looked to her left and saw Ha Jun, a lot more dishevelled, his fingers clenched into the dirt.
By this point, Tulok had run over to them with the bags, the wall of earth providing a meagre cover from the bursts of flame that were growing in power every second. He grabbed her arm. "Where are we going next?" he hissed frantically.
Rei attempted to grab her bag. "I'm supposed to meet a friend at the docks. He has passage off the island for us."
Ha Jun took his bag and, albeit pointlessly, brushed the dust from his tunic. "We need to move quickly, it won't take them very long before they shut down the port."
Tulok slung both bags over his shoulder. "Let's see how unfit I am after two years in a yard."
"OK, I didn't think it would be that bad," Tulok huffed, letting the bags slump to the ground.
"You should have just given me the bag," gasped Rei from her position face up on the floor. Tulok snorted and looked towards Ha Jun, who was watching the docked ships intently. At that moment, he straightened and gestured towards Tulok, who ambled across and peered over his shoulder. "I think I see the Desert Flower. But the gangplank isn't down."
"That's because it's not time to board." Tulok and Ha Jun whirled around at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, but Rei simply sighed in relief, clambering up to greet her friend.
"Kuzon. I'm so glad you've found us." She stepped forward and clasped his hands. "Your plan worked! We've almost made it."
He squeezed her hands gently before he dropped them, a serious expression replacing the small smile he'd been bearing. "There will only be a short window to board. The captain has been advised to leave port earlier than expected to avoid bad weather…which means he'll also avoid speaking to the guard."
Tulok and Ha Jun each gave a nod respectively before gathering up the bags, readying themselves to move when given the signal.
"Kuzon." Rei wasn't sure for how long she had been shaking, the shock of what they'd just done now starting to overtake the adrenaline. She swallowed, fighting back the lump in her throat. "Are you sure you don't want to come?"
Kuzon's smile was bittersweet as he grasped her shoulder. "I do not for a second regret helping you these last few months. But I can't be a traitor to my country."
Rei sniffed and wiped her eyes. "I know." Her hand found his and squeezed it. "Thank you for everything. I don't know what I would have done if you'd not reached out to me."
"Oi," interrupted Tulok, his usual irritated expression stark across his face. "The gangway has appeared."
Kuzon dropped his hand back to his side and turned towards the ship, alert. "You have two minutes. Move quickly."
They stole their way the short distance across the port, quickly and quietly. By this point, the sky had begun to grow light, shades of blue and peach beginning to wash over the horizon, and the moon becoming harder to see.
"Wait."
Rei turned back to Kuzon, who was gazing at her with a stricken expression on his face.
"Can you….when you find him…."
"What?"
"The…the Avatar. When you find the Avatar. Will you tell him I helped?"
Rei opened her mouth to reply, but in that moment was yanked sharply across the cobbles and onto the walkway. Twisting her head, she looked back only to catch Kuzon's stocky frame as it ducked between two buildings.
The captain nodded at them and gestured to a small crowd of other passengers grouped by the edge. No sooner had they joined them then the ship began to creak and groan, signifying the slow start of its departure from the mainland. The other passengers one by one began to disperse, some going below deck, others chatting to the captain and other sailors, until it was just the three of them that remained.
They stood for what seemed like an eternity, watching the shore. Rei felt relief and disbelief crowding her mind, numbing the back of her skull and the edges of her vision. She caught sight of her family's summer house, a stark white against the greenery of the hills and found herself unable to look away, determined to keep her eyes on it until the very last second.
"Hey."
She turned, along with Tulok, to Ha Jun, who was standing a bit behind them, arms crossed.
"At what point were you going to tell me you were on a mission to find the fucking Avatar?"