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 XXVII – Hail Who?

"You two are bastards," Gan accused crossly.

Nikon held up his hands in a protest of innocence.

"We were just being honest!"

"You're manipulating her."

"Yes," Iroh agreed with a small, but sympathetic, laugh, "I am, but I prefer to look at it as simply providing encouragement. I spoke only the truth. She can solve this problem. I just hope she has enough time."

"Besides, Gan," Nikon inserted smoothly, "when did you get so protective of our foul mouthed Lady of the Dreadnoughts?"

"Oh please," the accountant replied, rolling his eyes, "probably about the same time you started handing her compliments like candy. I'm surprised you haven't tried to pick her up yet, nothing daunts you in that department. Plus you've had all this danger, combat, and narrow escapes with her – and that's always sexy."

Iroh coughed, slightly uncomfortable with the sudden turn the conversation had taken.

Laughing for the first time since he had returned, Nikon remarked drily, "Must have slipped my mind, my friend, we were too busy, you know, avoiding death. Besides," he concluded with a wink, "I thought it best under the circumstances to make peace with the enemy rather than provoke her anymore."

"Very wise," the Qu'ai Tau mused, one eyebrow rising in his stock gesture of appraisal, "I don't know, Iroh, could it be our friend here is finally growing up?"

"Fair to say I think we all have."

Gan nodded once in agreement.

"Right, I'll get the recall orders dispatched then, your Highness," Gan ended, switching to a slightly more formal address as he implicitly asked for permission to withdraw.

"Yes, Gan, go, and review the coding yourself. Every messenger sent to the Arno is at risk for capture."

"Will do."

The accountant saluted and left the tent.

The two remaining friends regarded each other.

"Well, my friend," Iroh finally offered with a wry expression, "you survived at least and here I was sure I would lose both of you."

"Yes, but…I don't know if I'm happy about it or not," Nikon replied without a trace of humor.

"Let's sit down."

Iroh walked over to the chair he'd used to read Xian's letter, waving Nikon into the one opposite him, the table in between. Nikon seated himself while Iroh poured them two drinks of a clear liquid from a silver beaker.

"We could use these, I think."

Nikon took one of the glasses, examined the contents briefly, and then stared at the floor once again. He was exhausted, his countenance once again haunted after the animated strategic discussion had concluded.

The new general raised his glass.

"To Prince Xian and all those who passed with him, may their sacrifice be not in vain!"

Both drained their glasses in one shot. The liquid burned pleasantly down their throats. A few moments passed in silence, each lost in his own thoughts.

"Thank you for not killing yourself by the way," Iroh remarked suddenly.

Nikon, startled, looked at Iroh with a shocked expression.

"How did you…?"

"I'd be a pretty poor friend if I didn't know you'd at least try," Iroh replied with a small, knowing laugh, "That is, if the enemy didn't kill you first."

"You did the right thing, my friend," the new general continued, "suicide would not have done anyone any good, but I have to ask, why didn't you go through with it? I know it's not for lack of courage."

Nikon coughed, clearly embarrassed.

"Well, Chieng stopped me," he confessed.

"Really?" Iroh exclaimed in surprise, "How?"

"She… kind of kicked my ass," then, clearly trying to explain away the fact, "but, hey, she totally caught me by surprise!"

Quickly he related the mortifying episode on Cemetery Ridge, to his credit not leaving out the new found feelings of respect and admiration for the harsh engineer.

"Wonderful!" Iroh commented at the conclusion of the story, clapping his hands once in approval, "Truly that is a wonderful story all around. Chieng once again proves herself… uh…most remarkable, and you as the resident damsel in distress are saved against your will, resulting in both of you surviving to return to me. All things considered, I'll take it."

"But," Nikon continued with a sigh, "Tien Shin was right, and Chieng for that matter, about Cam'ron. I know killing myself won't help, and I promise I won't try again unless you command it," Iroh snorted in utter disdain at this idea, but Nikon continued, "but, no I'll never forget or forgive myself for it. Why should I?"

"Everyone's made mistakes in this campaign, Nikon. You, me, Xian, Chieng, even Tien Shin. Since he's almost certainly dead I can't help but think he was either catastrophically wrong with whatever game he was playing or maybe he just hugely miscalculated."

"Yes," Nikon replied, brightening slightly, "At this point I'd never wish death on anyone, Iroh, but I can't say I mourn that guy's loss."

"Me neither," Iroh agreed, "Anyway, we should never forget our mistakes, because our main responsibility is to learn from them and make sure we do not repeat them. I only ask that you consider whether continuing to punish yourself helps you to do your job or hurts."

Nikon blew out a breath.

"Okay, I'll deal with it."

"I hope so, because you're going to be very busy."

Something in the way Iroh said this caused Nikon to refocus on his friend.

"What?" he finally said with a trace of suspicion.

Iroh stood, Nikon followed suit.

"Commander Orlando," he began formally, "I appoint you daimyo of the Army of the Great Divide."

Nikon started at his friend in horror.

"Iroh, I don't think I can –"

"Yes, you can," Iroh contradicted.

"What about your infantry commanders? Hirano, Jian and a bunch of the others have twenty years of experience or more and they're good! I respect them!"

"Yes, they are," Iroh agreed, "and I respect them as well, but I need you to do this, the Fire Nation needs you to do this."

His friend did not reply.

"Do you accept this responsibility, Commander?"

"I do," he finally agreed, remembering his interview with Xian long ago and deciding to cut to what he realized was the only possible conclusion.

Iroh smiled ruefully, "Not how we thought this would go, my friend? Is it?"

"No."

After a few moments of silence as Nikon tried to digest this news, Iroh continued, his face once again grave.

"Time for both of us to get some sleep. Tomorrow we must send word by messenger hawk to Mequon. I will code the messages myself and give them to you for transmission."

"Okay, sleep sounds good to me…," then, hesitantly, "but…Iroh, how come you never mentioned that girl before… what's her name again?"

"Rhiannon, and she isn't "that girl"," he corrected, his brows furrowing, "She's Lord Governor of Mequon. For god's sake remember that if we actually survive long enough to meet her."

Nikon smiled, accepting the admonishment with a dip of his head.

"Will she help us?" he asked, "You didn't look very happy when you spoke about her earlier."

"She'll help us… but…" Iroh replied, clearly uneasy, "but, we might not like the help we receive."

"What do you mean?"

Iroh panned around the tent to make sure they were alone before he continued in a hushed voice.

"She can… she can see things."

The new daimyo was confused. Iroh sat down once again and motioned for his friend to do the same.

"She has a gift, or, a curse, maybe," he explained, "Her mother was from Kyushu, a descendent of the Ainu people."

Nikon's eyes went wide. Kyushu was one of the western most islands of the Fire Nation and the Ainu were the original inhabitants of the archipelago before they were conquered long ago by people from the mainland.

"What do you mean? Visions or something?"

"Yes," Iroh replied with a heavy sigh, "and they are never pleasant."

"You mean the visions are painful? Or does she see bad things?"

"I think they are painful because she sees bad things. At least I have never known her to have a vision of anything good or joyful."

Nikon thought for a moment before asking, "Can she see the future?"

The young general nodded gravely.

"She has, yes."

"Like what?"

Iroh looked at the ground and folded his arms across his chest. He began to recite the examples he knew from his own experience.

"She foresaw my mother's death a few days before it happened. I was six or seven and Rhiannon had just come to the palace to be educated with us. She fell down in a faint, but her eyes were wide open. She didn't even know it was my mother she was talking about when she described the vision, that's why we couldn't prevent it… if we had known who she saw we might have saved her."

"Then a few years later she prophesized our defeat at the Song long before it happened. She couldn't bear to tell Xian, but she told me she saw his father die, strangled first with a garrote and then stabbed through the heart with a curved dagger. Later we found out that was exactly how it happened."

"Why wouldn't she tell him?"

"She loved him, even then, and couldn't bear to tell him his father was going to die."

"Did you tell him?"

"Yes, I did, and he even believed me, but there was very little we could do. Xian was maybe fifteen, Rhiannon was thirteen and Gan and I were ten. No one believed us. Xian wrote my uncle a letter, but he was dead and the battle long since lost before it reached him."

"Wow!" the daimyo exclaimed, undeniably excited, "Can she control the visions at all? Why doesn't the Fire Lord have her chained up somewhere, you know, pumped full of drugs and surrounded by legions of scribes or something?"

'Because he doesn't know!" Iroh retorted with a flash of anger, upset at even the suggestion of such a thing, "and no, she can't control them! If she could don't you think she would stop them?"

Nikon dropped his gaze to the floor, suddenly ashamed.

"I'm sorry, of course you're right."

"And my father must never know!" Iroh swore, his anger subsiding, but his voice losing none of its intensity, "and above all, if by some evil miracle Tien Shin has managed to survive, he must never know! Do you understand?"

Nikon agreed instantly, struggling to digest the information and all its implications.

"She hates it – most of all because none of these visions has ever done anyone any good. What good is a warning if you can't change the outcome? Besides, she is a patriot, Nikon. If she thought she could use her ability to help us win the war she'd have come forward long ago, but experience has taught her otherwise. Father and Tien Shin would never understand that – they would just try to use her exactly as you said. I only hope the spirits had mercy enough to spare her any foreknowledge of her father's murder."

The Crown Prince sighed once more, the emotion draining from his face. Suddenly he looked old and tired. He stood up once more and Nikon followed suit. Iroh put a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Let's not worry anymore about that tonight. We have no idea whether we'll even survive the desert… I'm afraid our trials are only just beginning, my friend."

Nikon sighed, "No doubt about that."

Iroh dropped his hand and looked out the doorway of his tent through which the stars peeked through.

"All right," he began again after a moment of silence, "time for sleep."

Iroh turned and saluted his friend, his countenance sober.

"Hail, daimyo Orlando. May you live long and win great glory for the Fire Nation."

"Hail, who?" the young commoner replied with a short laugh and an incredulous shake of his head.

Nikon returned the salute and left to assume his new duties, his mind drowned deep in the fantastic news of the day. Despite Iroh's command, there would be no sleep for either of them that night.