Chapter 18 – Our Fathers
Fire unfurled across the sea like a satin ribbon as the Northern fleet checked the blockade. In the center of their arrangement, one of the blue-and-white ships featured the countering efforts of the two firebenders allied with Chief Arnook. Jeong Jeong, perhaps the greatest living firebender, anticipated the concentrated attack of the immediate opposing vessels focusing the brunt of the assault on him, and in one motion he suppressed the entirety of it. The ribbon's center submerged under the ocean completely extinguished. In that lacuna the allied waterbenders at last landed their puncturing ice against the opposing vessels and rendered ninety seconds of devastating damage against the fleet of Zhao while their deserter singlehandedly suppressed the efforts of one hundred aggressors. By the time his strength reached its limitation and he rested, they had put critical damage to seven ships in the first successful counterattack since the breakout of the naval battle. Zhao's fleet numbered a hundred and twenty-five.
Zuko grasped the edge of the saddle in silent veneration. Sokka, at the reins, was taking them on a pass-over. While the ships were engaged in combat none could reroute to pursue them, even if they did, through the tumult, notice the lone air bison at a high elevation dotting against the sun. They watched the southern waters absent of the promised allies. If they didn't make it in time, the Northern fleet would not be able to hold out for long. A breeze swept past them, feeling as if the bulk of its airmass lay below them. Waves crested sharply, driving north. If they were coming, the current would bolster their speed. The group reluctantly broke from staking out the battle, and Zuko watched the explosive scene grow small with the distance. They passed over the empty water southward, slowly dropping their elevation to standard.
No one wanted to make conversation, nor comment on the battle they'd just parted, thinking of their own challenges ahead, and even the saddle felt bare as they'd dumped any unnecessary load to make the bison just a fraction more deft. Sokka clutched a jian he had been gifted by Piandao, and Zuko had his own broadswords. Katara and Aang each had two waterskins, and the latter also his glider, with the paper wings folded neatly inside the chassis by a delicate mechanism he'd shown off proudly to them in times before. He was four or five years younger than Zuko and retained the simplicity and mannerisms of a child but, once in a while, his expression took on a quiet, contemplative look, something he must have picked up from his mentor, the monk in saffron. Aang toyed with a wooden sphere that Sokka had whittled for him, which had three spirals carved into the surface at equal distance from each other. It fit well in his hand, and he had been spending most of the time since launch gently turning it over and feeling across the spiral detail. It was made of walnut wood, fragrant and enduring, in a dark, calm brown.
Sokka called out, "Wait, there they are!"
Across the entire length of the southern panorama a line of green-sailed vessels reared over the curvature of the ocean. At the front were a dozen smaller ships in wood and canvas, blue-sailed, with a symbol of the ocean wrapped in the moon stitched in white at the center of the sailcloth.
The air bison dropped. The siblings looked down, Sokka from the reins and Katara by the saddle's edge, as they moved directly over the center of the formation. Katara shouted, "Dad!" and reached her hand down towards Hakoda, who stood at the prow of the centermost ship, his own hand extended overhead as far as he could reach. Zuko grabbed her waist to support her as she reached down as far as possible, the bison slowed and dropped tilted at an angle, and Katara's fingertips briefly grazed the hand of her father. They were separated by their opposing motion, and his hand slipped from hers. Zuko helped her back up, brushed her hair from her face, and wiped her tears with the back of his finger before the others saw them. She pushed her face into his chest and he held her there, one hand on her back feeling her chest rise and fall, as her fingers curled into the fabric of his cotton jacket, giving away how worried she was for Hakoda. Sokka continued to sit wordlessly at the front with his back to them. Suki watched him with concern, pressed her lips together, and ventured forward. She straddled the animal so she could rest behind him, with her chest against his back and her arms around his waist. They were speaking, but Zuko could not make out what they said.
They hadn't been told that Hakoda's fleet would be joining the operation, and they must have sailed all the way from the shores of Ba Sing Se's outer limit together in a united front with the navy of the Earth Kingdom. The Southern force had not a single waterbender at call. Zuko, knowing well the abilities of his own nation's fleet, worried for them. They were going into battle outnumbered. The reinforcements would join with the main battlefront within twenty minutes, but they would not learn the outcome until after their own mission concluded.
Zuko embraced her and thought of his own situation. There hadn't even been time enough between his father's letter and the invasion force's arrival for him to have concluded the task of killing the chieftain and princess and escaped back to the Fire Nation shores, leading him to think, had he chosen that path, that he would have, as he fled, met face with Zhao and been eliminated on the water in a nameless place between the two nations, far from any familiar shore, facing over a hundred vessels alone. That was how his father had offered to welcome him home. Katara, shuddering at his chest, had saved him from that as well. He stroked her hair fondly, and she laid her cheek at his shoulder.
The ocean was wide and lonely as they proceeded.
Their flight would take four days in total, and the entire body of the naval force was locked in battle at the northern ocean unable to overtake the speed of the air bison. They stopped only once to let the animal rest overnight. They disembarked onto a beach held under a strained atmosphere of tension. Somehow the base actions of daily life, setting camp, collecting food, and washing themselves clean in the tide, seemed vulgar in knowledge that their allies were coming into the conclusion of their own battle under terms they couldn't guess. It was possible their father was already dead, that Agna Qel'a was already suffering a cannonade of the surviving and victorious enemy navy with no defenders left to stop them. No one had appetite, but they forced the meal down, knowing they needed energy to endure their own upcoming trial.
In the darkness, Katara and Zuko laid their sleeping sacks out beside each other, and they curled together in the night wrapped in each other's warmth. It was the first night they'd slept that way and might be their last.
In the morning they loaded the bison and made to depart. Aang, at the last moment, took the lemur off his shoulder and pushed him away towards shore. "You'll die if you come," he told Momo. "Stay here." The lemur looked hurt and lonely. Its green eyes watched them lift off and set across the waves without him, tail lying motionless across the sand and ears draped back.
They passed over a long, empty corridor of ocean, all directions equal and blank, and their second and final stretch of flight passed in darkness. The five looked above at the starscape, which did not shift no matter how far they rode.
Noon blazed down upon them as they came to an island at the northern reach of the archipelago. A wide cove angled toward them as if making to swallow the bison and group. Zuko said, "That's Ember Island. It's a beach resort for the wealthy." They dropped altitude until he could see the palm trees and cottages in detail, and he felt out of sorts to see a place he'd walked through so many times from an aerial view, which put the island and clusters of houses and resorts into a different perspective. Something was off about it, and he made a quick decision to call out, "Wait, land here."
"What? But I thought we were going to the palace at Caldera City," Sokka said. "Why here?"
"I don't know, I just have a feeling. There's no military presence here, so don't worry about that." He scanned the area as they lowered to the ground and the bison touched into the soft sand. In a moment he realized what the nagging sensation of something amiss had been—there were lights inside his family's vacation home. He stared at the building with unease. It was a clear day and there would have been no mistaking the bison's descent if anyone was watching. His friends were curious for his reasoning, and he pointed towards the property and explained, "My father owns that house, we used to vacation here every year, back when we were still happy and things were still good, before my mother left. My father would never let someone outside the family use the property, my uncle is at the health institution, my sister is in a prison cell, and my mother hasn't been seen since I was a kid. So, who is in there?"
"Your father?" guessed Suki.
"I'm not sure, but it's worth checking while we're here, because I can't think of another explanation."
Sokka asked, "Why wouldn't he be at the palace like usual? You said he pretty much never leaves."
"Our flight path should have been further west, but I didn't want to take us over the volcanoes because there's no cover there and no supply of water. It would be disadvantageous for our group, so, with the navy gone out to battle, I was planning to keep to the water for our approach. But if we had gone in a straight flightpath, we wouldn't have ended up here."
"Was he trying to dodge us?"
"Maybe, so we would waste our efforts, but he hadn't expected us to come. Rather, if you think about the geography, Ember Island is the closest point of the Fire Nation's main territory to the naval battle. It would be the first place to receive news of the conclusion, and the returning ships would have passed here. The house would overlook the return path. Maybe he was waiting to hear word of it as soon as possible."
"If the Firelord is really in that house, isn't that great for us?" Aang asked. "He can't have many guards and there are no fortifications."
"In theory, yes, but we should still be cautious. My father isn't the type to leave himself vulnerable."
Sokka said, "It's too good of a chance for us to pass up. We've got to check it out. If we can corner him here, we won't have to infiltrate the capital city."
Aang replied, "Let's go. The sooner we reach there the less time he has to escape. Yip yip!"
He pulled on the backscabbard with his dao as they approached. Beside him, Katara was checking over her water reserves, then came to him and asked, "Are you okay?"
"It's just a house, it doesn't matter anymore. Don't let your guard down. You've seen my sister? Well, he's a lot stronger than her."
He led their approach low above the water to the private beach, where a small dock was at their back. Appa landed in the ground-pepper-colored sand and the group climbed off the saddle. To their front was a corridor of dark sand cut between the cliffs, then a short zig-zagging pathway up to the house partially overgrown by ferns and shrubs. Set apart from the other houses by a mile, their family residence was set in a lonely stretch of wind-swept hills. It was cornered on three sides by bare-rock peaks and the last faced the waterfront. The main structure was supported on wooden stilts to protect against floodwater from typhoons. Red giwa tile uplifted into golden-cornered gables flaring at the edges, and a wide staircase of pale wood led to the main entryway. A courtyard at the rear featured a wide, paved area bordered between a grove and a trellised walkway supporting vining morning glories and trumpet flowers. At the center of the patio was a round stone fountain, cut off from water flow to rest silent and still. The property had been vacant for over a decade and was in disrepair. While other parts of the island were planted in artificially curated palms with tidy landscaping, this section had been left in its natural state of soft beachgrass and undulating hills. Generous and tall paper-screened windows let in plentiful light, but they were all closed, so he wasn't sure if the occupant had spotted them yet. Lanterns were set inside, their glow showing as a subtle motion against the screens.
A small yacht was tied at the dock, and Zuko walked to it and smoothed a hand over the wooden railing enclosing a squared-off, covered deck with cushioned seating. "This is the boat my family would always take to get here. There's not room on it for more than ten people. If he has any guards, they can't be many."
The five progressed through the corridor with tide-washed stone to either side and black volcanic sand under their feet. Above them rose the crimson roof, its golden du yin glinting in the strong daylight.
#
Aang took his gaze from the crest of the roof down to the back of Zuko, who walked at the front of their group to guide them. His firebending instructor was tense. They were leaving everything to him, as he was familiar with the property, but Aang thought about how difficult it must be for him to confront the man who tendered such a hideous action to him when he was only a child, to lead his former enemies to confront his own father. Aang clutched his glider-staff and tried to focus on his own task. The monks had taught him to never take a life, while Roku had advised him on his own previous experience with the grandfather of Ozai, the man who had gone on to eradicate Aang's people without provocation or forewarning—Sozin. Once friends, the two ended in tragedy as they were torn apart by their respective duty and ambition. The current situation inverted that story. Once enemies, Aang and Zuko now walked in unison towards a common goal. Aang felt that, if nothing else, he had at least already returned some level of closure for the benefit of his own past life, and that it was a larger accomplishment than could be articulated in words.
In a slow, steady pace, they approached the beachhouse along the front trail. Nothing and no one stirred, and they heard no sounds or voices. The yacht was unmistakable evidence that someone was present and, once behind those washed-wood doors, the mystery would resolve one way or another. Aang's leg brushed against the leaves of a fern, glossy in vitality, which had grown into the pathway. The note of Zuko's footsteps halted, and he shouted, "Get back!" just as the air cracked apart with splitting light. Twisted, aggressive energy rocketed towards them. Zuko shoved him back and extended a hand towards the approaching lightning, grunted, and struggled with it as it tore through his body. He stepped forward and unloaded the sum of it through his other hand, where it burst forth and impacted the house, blowing away half the roof. He shivered and dropped to one knee. At the edges of its destruction the structure ignited into a slow burn from the residual heat.
From its origin stood a man at a sideporch, whose appearance resembled both Zuko and his sister. "That's a good idea," said the man. "Destroy everything here. Neither of us needs these memories anymore, Prince Zuko." He wore a crimson jacket of silk with broad, upturned shoulders, and his dark hair was kept long in a topknot peaked by a golden ornament. "Where did you learn that move?"
"My uncle taught me, and now I know why. Everything I've needed to survive, he placed into my hand. Not you."
"It's a pleasure to see that you are still a whinging, precocious child, but this is the first time you've ever been of benefit to me. Zhao begged me for the chance to confront the Avatar and bring him to me in your stead, and I granted his request, but now you've gone and fetched him to me regardless. Sit there and watch. This will be educational for you."
He punched out a shot of fire. Aang moved forward, pivoted, and used his staff to hurl it aside. His teacher struggled to his feet, and he wasn't sure that, in the face of another strike of lightning, he'd be able to handle the strain again. Aang took the initiative and launched a dervish at his center, which he countered with an equal amount of firepower, and where the two forces met issued an explosion of sparks. Zuko pulled up a course of fire to block the worst of it, then hurled it towards his father, who parted it with a single hand about his body. The fire smashed against the corner of the house and turned the foliage to charcoal.
"Get back!" he shouted to his friends. Sokka pulled the two women aside to take cover behind a cliff, allowing the pair to engage with leeway. He and Zuko supported each other through a heavy barrage of fire, and in the opponent Aang saw a more powerful, more perfected version of Zuko's own bending style, but absent a certain element, which must have come from the influence of his uncle. Zuko mentioned that Iroh had studied other bending forms and, as they returned the attack, Aang witnessed that in his mentor. Outside of the restriction of teaching firebending, he was borrowing forms from elsewhere, motions similar to those he'd seen Katara make, and similar also to the earthbending teachers. The lightning redirection had seemed to him distinctly a waterbending technique adapted. He wasn't sure Zuko was even aware of it. Ozai had greater purity, greater intensity, and greater mastery, but Aang lent airbending to their own moves to bolster them and used wind to enhance the flames. Between them was an ocean of flame, exchanging across the yard in dramatic waves and tight punches.
They had been sparring for months, and the pair kept in step with each other, easily supporting the other, covering for each other, and joining together to double the force of their attacks. Flames they generated spilled together and shot across the distance, exploding around the opponent to the point the ground he walked on was aflame. The blaze flickered around the outline of Ozai as he kicked forward, punched, and swept his leg around. Aang countered, and Zuko returned.
The firestorm expanded across the grass and ferns, licked up the palmtrees, and consumed the beachhouse. Support beams cracked apart. The trunks of the palms popped and sputtered. He breathed in smoke and scorching heat.
"Roku," he whispered, and he closed his eyes a moment. He felt the exhilaration of the Avatar State come on, as his predecessor had promised. Aang felt apart from himself, as merely one consciousness in a long, connected line, and fell under the influence of inherited memory. When he lifted his arm it felt weightless, like another was raising it for him, and a power previously unknown erupted forth. The comet-like fireshot impacted Ozai and took him off his feet. He was blasted backwards through the remaining corner of the beachhouse's gabled roof and flew into the distance. Aang crouched down then launched himself into pursuit. Zuko, left behind, called out to him, but his control was shared within the pool, and his instructor held the distance of a stranger to him now.
Aang's landing positioned him atop Ozai with a heavy leg swinging down towards his chest. He intended to crush his sternum, but the man rolled to the side a fraction before his heel landed, and he caught distance using the wave of force and wind. He leapt to his feet and Aang, like a marionette, squared off to continue.
At the same time he was present within his body, Aang also viewed the spectacle from outside it, giving a double vision effect that was feverish and dizzy. His body, with glowing eyes and arrows, rolled up a wave of earth and brought it down atop Ozai, intending to crush him. The imprisoning sphere of stone was blasted apart to fragments that jettisoned back and impacted across Aang's body. He felt the pain as a muted sensation of pressure and saw in his own eyes terrifying wrath as he pulled into the next recourse. Flame, wind, and earth battered the opponent. Aang, outside himself and his body controlled for the purpose of attack, had all but abandoned defence against his reprisals with the singular intention of inflicting as much overwhelming offence as possible. His body took a spattering of damage throughout the engagement. In the trancelike state it was a low concern for him, and the call of force kept him directed forwards.
He pulled up a rift of earth and flung it towards Ozai like a lance. With a sidestep he avoided catching it full-on, but his left arm was grazed, and that alone threw him like a ragdoll. The man bounced off the ground, scraped to standstill, and, as he struggled back to his feet, his arm hung limp at his side. Aang stepped forward, gathering every flicker of rage within himself to an infernal firebolt he held at ready overhead. He stepped down and felt slickness under his sole. When he looked beneath him, red wetness was smeared across the ground, and a trail of drops and splotches led to Ozai, who clutched his arm with his other hand as the blood ran down and dripped from his fingertips.
Aang hesitated. The fire gathering at his fingertips wavered, flickered, and dithered away. Sharp pain crested at his temples. He rubbed his head as the two viewpoints fused together and he was again in his own body, with the doorway to the greater power shut behind him, and his own blood and that of his opponent were exchanged across the ground. Monk Gyatso had told him not to take life. Perhaps—
The air blasted apart. Before his vision was a pure white energy hedged in blue, and an enormous power took him off his feet and launched him backwards. The wind was knocked from his chest and the air was electric around him. Aang's head cracked against the ground.
#
Wildfire raced across the grassland and through the hills. Katara raced forwards, winding and leaping her way between the inflamed shrubs and ferns. At the next cliff she paused, panting, as Zuko and Suki caught up, and she scanned the area the two had gone off towards. Fire burned out of control and threatened to overtake the entirety of the island. Wind pushed the flames racing through the dry grass at an astonishing speed and had reached the main body of the settlement. The heart of the inferno was the now-collapsed beachhouse, and they didn't know how they would ever make it back to the beach to retrieve Appa as the area was impassable. Below, the plain held between the sharp upturned hills was solid flame.
She looked behind her. "Where is my brother?"
Suki's eyes widened, and she whirled around and searched for him between the blackening gardens and dark-stone cliffs. "Sokka!" She called his name several times, increasing in pitch, and made to run off when Katara reached out and grabbed her wrist.
"You can't go back in there. You'll burn to death."
"But I thought he was just behind me. I can't leave him."
"He might have gone a different way around. I trust him. Help me find Aang. I don't see anyone out there and the entire island is going up."
The young woman held on stubbornly, still looking back, but then her pull slackened and she turned ahead. The trio skid down the hill as Zuko, who was still suffering from the imperfect redirection attempt, cleared a space around their path by suppressing the flames. Every square foot he extinguished for their passing reignited in their wake. Their periphery was the only circle of calm in the blazing field. "Wait," he said, and they paused with him. He took a wide stance, breathed in, and exhaled as his hands pushed outwards and dropped. A large perimeter around them was suppressed. In front of them they caught sight of a body lying across the blackened grass.
"Aang!"
He was at the verge of unconsciousness, and some reflex on the edge of his limit had kept a defence of air around him, which spared him of the wildfire. The ground was distorted like it had been impacted with something moving at a high speed. He was barely breathing. Katara looked him over while Zuko provided them cover. Suki said, "No one is around. The Firelord must have left."
"We need to get him somewhere safe for treatment. It's difficult to even breathe here."
"We're in the Fire Nation," Zuko said. "The residents are going to send firebenders to extinguish this as soon as they can organize a response. There will probably be some type of guard joining them, and I don't know what their numbers will be. I'm taking us to cover."
Suki carried him as they inched across the field, heading to a line of hills, and Zuko kept them protected. Smoke flowed to the sky and tarnished the blue into smoggy grey. The group slipped down and descended over bare rock towards a quiet house with no activity. If anyone had been inside they would have been taking action against the approaching flames, but they were alone in a sheltered beach spanning between two cliffpoints. Katara scouted the house and found it empty, and waved Suki up to bring Aang inside to shelter. Zuko remained outside to make sure the flames did not breach the gap of stone. Their fuelsource in that area was only the grass, which would burn off more quickly than anything else and not expand further, as the sand and rock offered the flames nothing.
She laid him down across a rug and Katara knelt beside him. Suki was anxious and restless, bothered by the extent of the injuries, and went to check over the house more thoroughly. Katara took out the gifted water and pulled it into her palm. She swirled it, feeling its strange properties, and wondered what a 'spirit oasis' might have been. It hadn't been clarified, and it was the first she'd ever heard of such a term. There was some dazzling internal quality to it she'd never encountered before and, pressed against the boy's chest which was burnt raw and pink, the difference was immediate. As he had been pulled along by the might of the spiritual state he'd entered, so she felt guiding, or being guided by, the precious and strange water. She let herself be carried by it, and knowledge came to her of its proper use. It felt like someone was speaking to her, taking her by the shoulder and leading her through the healing process for him, and she lost sense of time.