Avatar:
The Last Airbender
Created By: Michael
Dante DiMartino,
Bryan
Konietzko
Avatar:
The Last Airbender
Owned By: Nickelodeon, a subsidiary of Viacom
All original content
and characters © Acastus
Chapter XVII – Long After Midnight: Part I
It was long after midnight and Iroh stood alone outside his tent. He looked up with little joy at the waxing moon and then at the camp before him bathed in its pale light. The area immediately in front of the tent was littered with dozens of crates. Some of these were open and contained armor, weapons and other supplies. Others were closed. Chieng's tank train had been loaded with hundreds of these containers before heading northeast only a few hours after the council had concluded. The landscape beyond the camp was still and silent.
After Chieng had gone, the preparations for the departure of Tien Shin's army seemed to Iroh to have created more noise than the fiercest combat at the height of the battle of the Arno, an event which now seemed strangely distant to the Crown Prince. That time of clarity, confidence and hope had now receded into a glooming twilight of uncertainty and dread. Iroh had felt reasonably confident that they were proceeding on the right course when the council had ended, but now he felt uneasy. The doubts expressed so well by his friends echoed stubbornly in his mind.
The sound of footsteps alerted him that he was no longer alone. Turning quickly he was unsurprised to see Nikon, still in his armor and with his helmet tucked under his right arm.
"Up so late, my friend?" Iroh asked, forcing a smile.
Nikon replied, his expression bleak, "I should ask the same of you, Your Highness. But I don't need to ask why you're awake. No amount of tea will make our problems go away, will it?"
Iroh laughed with some bitterness and replied, "No, even my cousin would have to admit that."
The young commoner put his helmet down gently on a nearby crate and continued, "It's a few hours until dawn. Then I must head to the Meiji," he paused, looked away as if embarrassed, then looked back at his friend and concluded, "I wanted to take my leave of you while it was still quiet enough… to say goodbye."
Iroh's chest tightened as he replied more sternly than he intended, "We're not saying goodbye."
The wind sighed among the tents as Nikon stood before him.
"It's a trap, Iroh… and Tien Shin knows it."
"Then why, why did he support the attack?" asked Iroh, his hands spread wide in a sudden, visceral expression of the frustration that had been building inside him.
"I don't know."
"It doesn't make any sense! If it's a trap, what advantage is there in it for him?"
"None that I can see," Nikon admitted with a sigh.
"He's going to be right there, for heaven's sake! If it's a trap, he's going to be trapped too. It doesn't make any sense," Iroh insisted, "My step brother is anything but stupid. He would not participate if he believed it to be a suicide mission."
"But you're still out here thinking about it, aren't you?" the young tank commander countered, "If you were still convinced this was a good idea you'd be in there," he said, pointing his thumb back over his shoulder at the tent behind them, "sleeping like a baby."
"I'm confused," Iroh admitted in turn, "it felt like Tien Shin bullied my cousin into this course of action for some reason I don't understand, but by the same token I don't think I'd have chosen differently if I were in Xian's position."
"It's killing him, Iroh," said Nikon, lowering his voice, "Xian, I mean. You see that, don't you?"
Iroh winced visibly at the statement of this simple truth.
"Yes, I know that now," Iroh admitted after a pause. The shock of seeing his cousin so changed at the council had not yet worn off.
"Is he sick, do you think?"
"No, I don't think so, not his body anyway," answered Iroh after a short pause to consider, "He wouldn't let me see him after the meeting, but… I think it's the uncertainty. The stress of the uncertainty is eating him alive. My cousin worries about everything and everyone. He's been that way my whole life, and everyone has loved him for it, even my father."
"What about your brother?" Nikon ventured hesitantly, for he was terrified of Prince Ozai, and it was rare that Iroh spoke of him.
Iroh smiled and replied, "Yes, even my brother, in his own way."
"Wow!" the young commoner offered involuntarily, "Then your cousin is too good for his own good, isn't he?"
"Yes. He told me as much before we left."
Nikon's eyebrows rose in surprise, "What?"
Briefly Iroh recounted Xian's suspicions surrounding the Fire Lord's motives for appointing him to lead the new army.
"I didn't believe him. I didn't want to believe him," the young Prince said heavily, "Xian has been a pillar of strength and wisdom for me as long as I've known him, but…" Iroh hesitated as he struggled to continue. He did not like criticizing his cousin. It felt like a betrayal. Forcing himself to go on despite the discomfort he concluded, "…maybe he was right to say he was not the best man to lead this campaign. He is wiser than I, but… he is governed by his fears."
Iroh paused and looked down at the broken ground before him, uncertain whether to mention Xian's final comment during their conversation from so long ago.
"And?" his friend asked, cocking his head to one side in response to his friend's hesitation.
"Well, he also told me he was having nightmares… dark premonitions… things like that."
"You don't believe in any of that stuff, do you?" Nikon returned with some surprise, "You remember that Gan made my life hell for spouting that "gutter trash superstition" when we first met. I thought the nobility looked down on all the hocus pocus of the underclass."
"I don't, or I didn't, now I don't really know what to believe. The world seems a bit wider now than it used to. Besides, it doesn't matter what I believe, it only matters what my cousin believes."
"Did he say what his dreams were about?"
"No, but I know he's been dreading a conundrum like we now face for months. It's probably been gnawing at him since before we even left home. He's had to make a very hard decision and the risk he is taking is very large."
"Will he break do you think?" Nikon asked, his eyes widening with fear.
Iroh considered this and replied, "No."
Finding no comfort in Iroh's stubborn expression of confidence, Nikon shook his head in exasperation, "I just don't get it. What the hell's happened to us? How did we go from certain victory to this… this mess?"
"I don't know, my friend. The more successful we've become, the more the uncertainty has seemed to increase. It doesn't make sense, but it is nonetheless true."
Nikon crossed his arms, sighed in frustration, and then, changing the subject asked, "Were you mad at me for disagreeing with you at the council, by the way?"
Iroh laughed and replied, "No, of course not. I was more afraid you and Gan would be mad at me for agreeing with Tien Shin," then, in a more serious tone, "I value your opinion, and I would no more stop you from using your head than I would Gan. You both have an agility of mind that I admire."
Nikon smiled weakly and replied, "Thanks. Guess I need to stop and think more often instead of spending all my time chasing after hookers and trying to humiliate the daimyo, right?"
"I don't blame anyone for trying to humiliate my step brother," the Crown Prince replied with a wry smile, "but we could all do with some more wisdom and patience. I know I could."
Iroh leaned back against the crate behind him and, reading his friends troubled features, asked, "Are you afraid?"
"Yes, yes, I am," Nikon confessed with a single nod of his head, "At the Arno and Cam'ron I didn't have time to be afraid. I just collapsed in a puddle afterwards as soon as I was alone. This time though… it seems I've got all the time in the world."
"We're all afraid," Iroh injected, "Even Tien Shin."
"When the time comes, though, it won't matter," continued Nikon quietly, ignoring Iroh's comment, "just as it didn't matter in any of the battles I've fought until now. When the fighting starts, the world narrows... and everything else except the fighting just… goes away. I always wanted an education – never thought I'd get one like this."
The young commoner began to rub his arms as if he were cold and looked suddenly away.
"And…?" Iroh finally prompted, "Your turn, my friend."
Nikon nodded his head a few times and finally replied in a tone of quiet desperation, "It's selfish, I know, but I wish Master Chen were here. He always knew what to do, but… he's probably been dead for months now, hasn't he?"
Although phrased as a question, there was no doubt as to the young commoner's belief in the answer. Iroh began to utter a protest, but the words died on his lips. He studied his friend in the moonlight and discovered he could no longer offer such false assurances. The young rake who had trained recruits on Showa Field during the day and shamelessly caroused the city at night was diminishing before his eyes, replaced ever more clearly by the visage of the professional soldier that stood before him.
Iroh finally nodded in response.
"Okay, enough of that," Nikon said finally, squaring his shoulders. "Time for me to go."
He picked up his helmet, turned back to his friend and said simply, "Thank you. Thank you for everything you've done for me. I never had a real friend before you, and you've been the best friend –"
Iroh, his eyes tearing up instantly at the proffered goodbye, stepped forward and caught Nikon in a bear hug, "No, stop! I won't listen! We will meet again, alive and victorious in the southern pass, our enemy smashed between us, you'll see! You and Xian have to live," Iroh pleaded, "Please! What would I do without you both?"
The young commoner hugged him back and replied with conviction, "You'd go on, somehow, but no one's giving up, Your Highness, I swear."
They released each other with one final pat on the other's back. Nikon stepped away and saluted, a gesture his friend returned, before turning and walking back the way he had come without uttering another word. Iroh watched him go, his feet kicking up dust as he went. A few moments later he was gone, leaving the camp shrouded once again under the unnatural blanket of perfect silence and leaden expectation.
