Upon arrival at the training camp shortly after dusk, the new recruits were marched off to one of three large tents where each boy was handed a rucksack full of clothing, and then pointed to a bunk. No sooner were they settled into their beds, a higher-ranking fire bender whisked out the lanterns and plunged them all into darkness with strict orders to keep silent.
Although his body ached from the long march and sleep was quickly overtaking him, Sokka couldn't help but berate himself for upping the age printed on his forged traveling papers. Never mind that his birthday was only a few months away; he just had to say he was sixteen already.
Stupid! Stupid, stup-
The silent tirade faded into nothing as he let out a loud snore.
Stars still glittered overhead, and only the barest tinge of crimson bled into the violet sky to the east. Inside the tents, the new recruits were still snoring soundly when suddenly the crash and clash of metal jolted them with various shouts of surprise and alarm from their bunks.
"Wake up, girlies!" shouted a gruff officer, "fire bender or not, everyone here rises with the sun!"
"What sun?" groaned a sleepy Sokka before he could think better of it. He realized his mistake when a shouting face thrust itself into his own.
"The one that's going to blister your flesh when I assign you to dig privies all day if you give me anymore lip, soldier!"
Sokka gulped nervously before yelping, "Yes, Sir!"
Straightening up and addressing the rest of the bleary-eyed assembly, the officer continued.
"Let's move it, ladies!" he goaded, "anyone not in the mess tent in five minutes goes without food for the day!"
The sounds of shuffling and stumbling throughout the room shuddered to a halt as everyone stopped dead in their tracks. None of them had any dinner upon arrival the night before, and the thought of missing another meal was not a pleasant prospect. It took a moment for the hungry teens to process this grave threat, but as soon as they did, the tent burst into raucous activity as they all scrambled over one another to get dressed and out the door.
As it turned out, 'food' was a generous description for the breakfast being served. Heaping ladles of lukewarm brown mush were scooped out of a large vat and unceremoniously plopped onto each tray as it passed. When Sokka's portion was slammed into the center of his waiting plate, he looked down at it with a mixture of disappointment and disgust.
"What is it?" he wondered aloud, taking a tentative sniff and then immediately drawing away from the pungent odor.
"Something you'll learn to like unless you want to starve," answered the teen ahead of him with a short chuckle. Sokka recognized him as the same young soldier who broke up the previous day's argument.
"I'd tell you what's in it," he continued amicably as he moved down the line and grabbed a cup of some tart smelling liquid, "but it'll go down easier if you don't know." He pulled a slight face as if recollecting an unpleasant memory, and then added with a knowing smile, "Trust me."
With that, the boy walked away to join a group of older soldiers, leaving Sokka alone to find a place to sit as well. Seeing some of the others he'd walked alongside on the journey there, he stuck with what little familiarity he could get under the unsettling circumstances and sat down beside them. By the looks on their faces as they ate, they weren't very thrilled with the cuisine.
Sokka apprehensively took up a glob in his chopsticks and put it in his mouth, fearing the worst. A few thoughtful chews later however, his face brightened. It actually tasted much better than it smelled. The meat mixture was almost overwhelmingly briny, with a strong gamey flavor not unlike frost-dried tiger-seal.
About the only difference was the texture; this stuff required far less chewing. So it was with fond reflection of his familiar homeland dish that he began digging in, ignoring the conversation around him.
"Bleh! This stuff tastes like salted meat-mash!" complained Zhi'Ru.
"More like over-salted meat-mash!" bemoaned another, letting a glop of the stuff fall back onto his plate with a gooey splat. "They don't really expect us to eat this do they?"
By now, Sokka was already halfway done with his food, attracting the attention of the others seated with him. It wasn't until silence descended on the table that the misplaced warrior looked up and realized his dinner companions were staring at him with jaws agape in a mixture of awe and disbelief.
Still chewing on a mouthful of food, he glanced around with a guileless shrug.
"What?"
Zuko rose with the first rays of the sun, although the tiny one room cottage was still shrouded in deep shadows. Careful not to wake the kind old woman who had taken him in for the night, he summoned a tiny bit of flame in one hand so he could find his way to the door. As he stole across the open space, he passed by the dining table and was surprised to find a note there next to a plate of fresh fruit and a small, lidded basket bound with twine.
Holding the flame closer to the paper as he picked it up, he read it in a whisper.
"You can't travel on an empty stomach. Have some breakfast and take the basket for the road."
A smile flickered across his face as he set the page down and glanced over at his host who was still snoring softly on her pallet near the hearth. Shaking his head in slight wonder at her foresight (how did she know he'd try to sneak away at dawn?), he handed a large papaya to the lemur perched on his shoulder, nestled the basket into his bag, and then took a couple peaches for himself.
Just as he was about to step over the threshold into the cool morning air, he turned toward the sleeping form and bowed, softly uttering his sincere gratitude.
"Thank you…for everything."
At the soft click of the door latching shut, the old woman's eyes cracked open. Even in the dim gloom, she could see that the basket on the table was gone, and a good portion of the fruit was missing as well. Tucking a wry, knowing grin into the corner of her wrinkled mouth, she rolled over and went back to sleep.
With a short but sufficient night's rest and a full stomach, Sokka was finally able to think clearly about his situation. But as he and the other recruits gathered for their first day of training, he came to the conclusion that things didn't look too promising.
There was no way he'd be able to get a message to the others and, looking around at the multitude of soldiers moving throughout the complex, figured there was little to no chance of simply sneaking away from camp. And without Appa to make a clean get away, he knew that Aang and the others would not try something as dangerous and foolhardy as busting him out of there…at least they better not.
So all he could really do was stick it out and bide his time. If he kept a low profile and avoided getting too friendly with anyone, he could make a break for it the first chance he got and (hopefully) not be missed. It was well known that deserters didn't get very far; Chey and Jeong Jeong were the rare exception.
In the meantime, there just might be some advantages to spending a day or two among the ranks of the Fire Nation military. If nothing else, he could keep his eyes and ears open for information; find weakness in the enemy's defense that could possibly be exploited on the Day of Black Sun.
Yeah, he could make this work.
Cheered by his new plan, he immediately put it into motion by listening attentively to the conversation of the surrounding recruits.
"Hey, Zhi'Ru," asked one of the boys, "your brother is in the army, any idea what's going on?"
Sokka glanced over at the gangly teen, equally eager for a response, and he noticed that the boy looked rather pale and apprehensive.
"Skill assessment," Zhi'Ru answered faintly.
"What's that?" wondered another boy.
"Well, from what my brother told me," began Zhi'Ru, "First they-"
"All right, everyone! Listen up!" interrupted a young corporal approaching the assembly. "If there any of you here with fire bending abilities, I want you front and center, now!"
Apparently, Chan was the only fire bender among them, for when he stepped forward he did so alone. The officer looked him over appraisingly.
"Demonstrate your highest level set," he ordered.
Chan smirked as he took his stance, and then quickly launched into an impressive fire bending display that Sokka instantly recognized from watching Aang and Zuko train. It was, in fact, the same set Aang had showed them that night they spent at the abandoned temple just before leaving for the Fire Nation. He also noted with a hint of inexplicable pride that Aang had performed it better.
"Wow, he's pretty good," whispered a boy next to Sokka.
"Eh, I've seen a twelve-year old do better," quipped the water tribesman with an unimpressed shrug, ignorant of the incredulous looks he earned from those who caught the exchange.
Still, it seemed sufficient for the corporal, for he nodded in approval.
"That will do," he stated curtly, "if you will come with me."
Turning on his heel, the officer strode off. Chan paused only long enough to glance over his shoulder with a haughty sneer.
"See ya around, losers!"
The other boys only glared at Chan's retreating back, Zhi'Ru crossing his arms with an irritated scowl.
"He thinks he's so special just because he's a bender," he muttered.
"Pft, aren't they all that way?" scoffed another teen.
"No," answered Sokka impulsively, more to himself that anyone around him. But a handful of boys overheard, and they regarded him with surprise as he finished quietly, "they aren't."
All conversation was hastily ended when a host of soldiers approached, breaking apart the group of boys, and fitting them up with padded armor. Wooden swords were handed to each before they were thrust into small, individually roped-off areas.
In the pen beside him, Sokka noticed that Zhi'Ru was the only one who didn't appear bewildered like the others, and the way Sokka himself felt. Instead, the lanky teen was standing with shoulders slumped in a posture of defeat. Sokka only barely caught the sound of a disheartened sigh.
"I'm not going to last ten seconds."
Before Sokka had a chance to ask Zhi'Ru what he meant, his attention was drawn to Sergeant Kang, who stepped forward surrounded by more soldiers wearing padded armor, their faces hidden by slotted faceguards.
Although their brown, padded leather outfits were markedly different from traditional Fire Nation uniforms, Sokka couldn't help but be cowed somewhat by their formidable appearance. The sight of so many masked visages was ominously reminiscent of times he'd faced the Fire Nation in the past: such as the day that they invaded his tribe, taking the life his mother (among others), or when they marched down the crystalline streets of the Northern Water Tribe, leaving a swath of destruction in their wake.
His breath came in short gasps for a few moments before he finally got a hold of himself. But nothing could dispel the sense of surrealism with which he was faced; they thought he was one of them. And they expected him to do what they told him out of a sense of duty to the very cause he was trying to end. It was like a bad dream.
As a single massive unit, the masked soldiers quickly moved forward and stepped into each occupied pen. Silence descended on the field as the new recruits watched the sergeant, waiting for him to speak.
"At the sound of the gong, each of you will attack your opponent," he explained, "and you will continue fighting until one of you declares defeat."
Sokka's blood was rushing so loudly in his ears that it completely drowned out the sergeant's speech, and his hands were sweating as they gripped the handle of the wooden sword until his knuckles blanched. Glancing down and seeing this, he forced himself to relax. In his mind, he could hear Zuko's voice during the only sword lesson he'd managed to get from the fire bender before they'd parted ways in Kazimizu.
"You need to loosen your grip, Sokka," Zuko admonished. "Think of the sword as an extension of your own arm. It's part of you, and should be able to move as freely as you do."
"But won't I drop it?"
Zuko cocked his head to one side with a sardonic smirk. "If I hit your fist, would your hand fall off?"
"Well...um...no."
"And why not?"
"Because it's attached! Besides, I can absorb the force of the blow and-" Sokka stopped abruptly as the instruction clicked in his brain. "Use the momentum to reposition for an attack!" he finished triumphantly.
"Exactly," Zuko grinned. It was one of the first full smiles Sokka had ever seen on Zuko's face.
With a deep breath, the disoriented warrior finally found a sense of calm. And he was still lost in these helpful recollections when a sudden deep-toned chime rent the tranquil air.
The gong had sounded and it was time to fight.
Author's Note: Well, I tried to get this up before the year ended, but I just couldn't seem to get myself motivated. Review counts on the first three chapters were a lot lower than I had hoped, and of the over 250 people that I estimate are reading this series, only about 50 deigned give me the one present I wanted most for Christmas…a review. I'm afraid it left me a little depressed. Ah well, the reviews I did get were deeply appreciated and greatly enjoyed. Thank you!
On a much happier note!
I FINALLY got my first piece of fan-art from one of my readers. I've seen other writers sporting links to awesome drawings done by their fans, and after going at this project for over a year, I was beginning to think I'd never be so lucky as to have one done for me. But someone did, and I'm absolutely THRILLED.
So to anyone who'd like see the hilarious piece Steamboat Ghost did of Sokka with the rhino, jump on over to my bio page and click the link near the top. Thank you, Steamboat; that was the best present ever!
