Before anything else, I own nothing but the original characters, and content therein related to them. Avatar: The Last Airbender is owned by Nickelodeon, and any mentioned creator's work belongs to them, and them alone.
Chapter 2 An Understanding.
The following morning, Azula sat in a room the prison's warden had set aside for her within the prison guard quarters, a detachment of soldiers standing outside for her protection. She was deep in thought. Atop the desk before her were the scrolls Cahnor had drawn on, with his broken feather and pistol beside them. The candle they'd managed to begin communications with was illuminating the room from the corner of the desk.
Azula was not a particularly spiritual person. She considered most tales of encounters with spirits and the spirit world to be mere ghost stories and fictionalized versions of more or less forgotten true stories… But that was before Cahnor had arrived. There were legends of spirits taking people to other planes of existence, namely the spirit world, but never had Azula heard of the opposite, where a man was taken from his world and planted into theirs. Though still only an unproven theory at this point, Azula banished the thought from her mind, as she attempted to focus on what was real and tangible.
A man who could not be understood, nor could understand others, was in prison for murder. He was offering to make weapons that could kill a man from great distances, in exchange for his freedom, and Azula was tasked with learning all she could about this man, and his purpose… Azula stood from her stool, and snuffed the candle out.
By the time first light shined through the bars of Connor's cell, he was already awake, just waiting for the guards to unlock the doors so that he and the rest of the inmates could go to breakfast. Oddly, four guards came to the door instead of the regular two, and after they opened Connor's cell, the extras grabbed him by the arms, cuffed him, and started dragging him down the hall. Connor uttered a string of curses as he tried to walk unassisted, before finding himself being sat in the same room and chair that he was in the other day.
Azula entered the room with several scrolls tucked under her arm, ink in a cup, a brush, and Connor's improvised quill. She laid the scrolls flat, revealing that they were blank, and placed the quill on Connor's side of the table, and the brush on her side. "More school… Great…" Connor said with an eye roll. Azula seemed to catch his tone or eye roll, and paused, scowling at him. "Wot?" Connor asked.
Azula scoffed, as she dipped her brush into the ink and began to paint. She spoke to him, after having created what looked like a cottage of some sort, then showing him. Connor only understood one word of her sentence, being home. Connor huffed. "Suppose that's asking where I'm from… Again…" Connor cleared his throat, as he started to draw what he could remember of the world map. "I'm from a place called New York, but that's just a city, in a state by the same name, which is in a country called the United States. North America, Earth." Connor said, as he finished hastily drawing his world map. He'd left out a lot of larger islands, and Africa was far bigger than it probably should have been, but it got the point across.
"Earth." Connor said, gesturing to the whole map with his free hand.
"Earrrrth." Azula said, before she swallowed a lump in her throat.
"America." Connor circled the western half of the map, as Azula mimicked his words again. "United States." Connor circled everything east of the Spanish territories. "New York." He made a box where his state should be. "New York City." He poked the paper where his home city would have been. "Home. Jia." Connor poked the paper twice more to emphasize his point.
Azula began to paint on her paper more. When she turned it so Connor could see what she'd made, he chuckled in amusement. It looked like a mastless ship, with a small stick figure on it. Beside the artistically created ship was a complicated set of brush strokes that created a symbol. "Chuán?" She asked, pointing to the image of the ship, then the character strokes beside it.
Connor took the paper and spelled out "Chuan means ship then… S-H-I-P… Ship." He said, as he drew masts and sails onto it. "S-A-I-L… Sail." He spelled, then pointed to the drawing of the sails. "I was on a sail ship, in the ocean, before a storm took me here." Connor said, as he drew on his map, the rough location of his ship when he'd been knocked unconscious. "Storm." Connor said, as he started drawing clouds over the boat, and lighting coming from them. "I'm here now." He pointed around the room loosely. "Wherever here is, God only knows."
Azula looked at the drawing Cahnor had made, and narrowed her eyes. "Stɔːm…" She repeated the single word. "That could mean any number of things. Though I suppose the storm clouds and lightning means you were in bad weather… But that still doesn't explain how you arrived here… It's a coincidence at best. Storms don't just randomly send people to other worlds, or else this sort of thing would happen all the time." Azula said, as Cahnor began to draw more, a long string of symbols then below it, nearly a dozen more. "What's this?" She asked, before recognizing a few of the symbols on the paper from words he'd written out.
"ˈLɛtəz… Nʌmbəz." Chanor said, underlying both lightly, before circling the first symbol. "Æ, ɔː, eɪ." He then drew a small four legged animal of some sort. "Kæt, siː, ə, ti." The middle letter was the same first symbol, though he had pronounced it differently nearly three times.
"Kæt?" Azula asked. Cahnor nodded. Azula couldn't resist rubbing her right temple. His language was immensely confusing at a base level. There were thirty six symbols on the paper in total, and thus far she'd recognized a bunch of them from the written words he'd shown her. They each seemed to represent a sound, or multiple sounds, with no inherent meaning of their own until they were strung together to create words, and presumably sentences.
Cahnor pointed to the first of the ten symbols below the first string. "ˈzɪərəʊ." He said. Before inking the same symbol below. "wʌn" He made a tally under the second one. "tuː" And under the third symbol he made 2 talies.
"Oh, that's a numerical system." Azula said, realizing that there were only twenty six symbols in his language that would be used to create words. "The first number is a zero then, an absent value." Cahnor continued to make tally marks for each symbol until there were nine tallys below the last symbol, before he then put two symbols together, the second, and then the first, before putting ten tally marks below it. "That's positional notation… Amazing, we have a nearly identical base of ten numerical system." Azula said, before she began to brush her own numbers above Cahnor's, leaving a blank space before the first horizontal mark that was a one. Cahnor seemed impressed. Then drew out on the paper a three digit number. "100." Azula looked over the symbols of his language, and then wrote the equivalent number in her own. "That's one hundred isn't it?" She asked, though assumed she was correct, if the base ten rule was being applied. Cahnor just shrugged at her.
Azula pinched the bridge of her nose. "This is going to take a while." She knew that when she'd decided that the two of them would need to reach a decent level of understanding before Cahnor's story could be straightened out, and the report given to her father about his purpose in the Fire Nation. But the more she learned, and in turn Cahnor learned, the more she realized that the process of gathering information was going to take much longer than she'd liked, even with Cahnor's near full cooperation, due simply to the fact he was completely and totally alien, and thus far the only similarities the two had was the fact they had a base ten system for numerals, and were both human… At least Azula assumed Cahnor was human, if an odd looking one.
Taking an unmarked scroll, Azula began to write a letter intended for her father. Once completed, she created a ball of bright blue fire and used it's heat to expediently dry the ink. Cahnor, like a fascinated child, sat and watched her do this. "You know you look like a hog monkey that's just been shown a magic trick right?" Azula asked, catching Cahnor staring at the fire, before she snuffed it.
"kæn ˈɛvrɪwʌn duː ðæt hɪə?" Cahnor asked in his language.
"I have no clue what you just said." Azula returned, though she recognized the sound of the first symbol of his language sprinkled in twice.
"Fire, firebending." Cahnor said, though his pronunciation was rough. "Azula kæn firebending. " He pointed at her. "Kæn Cahnor Firebending?" He pointed at himself.
Azula narrowed her eyes in concentration. Ignoring the mispronunciation. "What word is that? kæn…? That's a word denoting action… I'm assuming in simple speech, that's; Azula can firebend… Then, you're asking if you can firebend?" Azula paused, and nearly chuckled, before looking at Cahnor. "No…" She shook her head. "Cahnor can not firebending." trying not to chuckle as she spoke to Cahnor like he was a baby. He seemed to understand this, and sighed, muttering something under his breath. "Wherever you're from must not have any bending at all if you don't know whether or not you can bend." Azula said, mostly musing to herself. "Another mystery yet to be solved."
As the days went by, Connor was dragged out of his cell in the morning, taken to the same room, where he and Azula would spend hours on end progressively learning as much as they could about each other's languages, break for lunch, and then return to attempt further learning. After the first few days, Connor had managed to communicate that he was always missing breakfast, and politely asked if either their sessions could start later, or if one of the guards could bring a bowl of the morning rice to the room. By a week's time, the two had managed to achieve something close to single sentence communications consistently, and were moving from establishing an understanding, and on to sorting out the larger pictures respectively.
The day started like any other. Connor was escorted to the small visitation room, now free to walk with just one guard thanks to his good behavior, though still cuffed. He sat, eating his breakfast as he and Azula identified words within both of their languages, until Connor decidedly ventured beyond physical objects.
With his improvised quill, Connor began to etch out the symbol of broken chains he had before. Azula took notice of this, and frowned at him. "Freedom." Connor said. "I've done no wrong. I'm willing to help your people… Is that not enough?" Connor asked, knowing Azula was only probably catching a fraction of his words.
She uttered something in her language, Putonghua or "Common speech," as he'd learned it was called, before she spoke his own. "You killed…" She hadn't quite managed to understand the grammatical concept of contractions. "You violent… You not Fire Country man."
Connor leaned back in his chair. "So wot? I'm not a citizen, I can become one can't I? Wo xiang bangmang." Connor said to her. "Help you. Help Azula."
Azula sighed to herself. Connor, not Cahnor, as she'd learned once he'd spelled his name and explained he had a regional dialect's influence creeping into his pronunciations, was once more begging for his release. Offering the same tired excuse of wishing to help. Wanting to arm the Fire Nation with the knowledge his world possessed. In truth she wasn't sure if it was such a bad offer at this point. There was simply a question as to where his loyalties lay. From the map he'd made, and the limited world history he could communicate, his position was a confusing mess.
Being a complete stranger to her world as all evidence suggested, Connor had no real opinions or knowledge of the four nations, and more importantly, Azula could let him rot, suffering no regrets, or need to worry about the consequences of setting him free. Though it would ultimately be her father who decided what would be done with him, depending on what she told him of course.
Historically however, Connor's freedom would be a massive gamble. His mother was from some nobile house on an island called Ireland, that was taken over by another island called Britain, that became one of his world's great empires. His father was from the northern half of the colonizing island, a region called Scotland, which itself was subject to colonization by the British. They'd moved to an entirely new land called America just before a bloody yet successful revolt to separate from their rulers, of which his father participated in. The new nation was broken into smaller nations which all worked under a single ruler called a "President." The past two being, a military leader, then his second in command, and the current ruler, being one of the men who'd originally came up with the idea to sever their ties to their former monarchs.
Their entire world seemed to hold a similar belief to the Fire Nation that there was an inherent pecking order of the races, of which they seemed to place darker skin tones and less advanced people lower, though Connor himself being Irish was apparently lesser than an "Anglo." Which Azula saw as a potential positive, since he'd more than likely think Fire Nation subjects were at least his equals, and all others beneath him.
That said, the crown which previously ruled this "America," was butting heads with the new nation, and Connor was apparently something of an arms dealer, or war profiteer, taking weapons from one of the other empires of his world, "France," to sell them to America, as a personal knock against Britain.
Realistically Connor was liable to dislike the Fire Nation's monarchy, sympathize with the Fire Colonies and their grievances, see the Water Tribes and Earth Kingdom themselves as inferior, but be willing to look past it all for his own personal gain… Perhaps Azula could inform Connor of her own world's history while he was in a controlled environment. It would do well to convince him his loyalty should be given to the rightful rulers and the greatest nation in the history of the world.
"Four elements." She started, knowing he understood that much at least, as she began creating visual aids. "Four nations." Azula thankfully had started always bringing a paper map with her for these communications sessions. "Fire Nation." She circled the Western Archipelago. "Air Nomads." She ticked off where the temples were roughly. "Water tribes." She underlined the polar north and south. "Earth Kingdom." She didn't mark the map. "The Fire Nation became the greatest of them, and over one hundred years ago began to share its greatness with the world. Technology, food, art. The Fire Nation claimed territory in the East, and spread from there uncontested." Azula began to mark off the colonies. "Only The Avatar was capable of disputing our claims to land, but once he died our empire grew. However the Avatar does not stay dead. He is born again as a bender of the next element in the cycle of fire, air, water, and earth. The next avatar was born an Air bender…" Azula drew a stick figure popping up on one of the Air Nomad's temples. "And so, on the day of Sozin's comet, a day every one hundred years when firebenders gain one thousand fold their strength, the fire benders of the Fire Nation army set out to kill him again, and at the same time lead a preemptive strike on the Air Nomads before they could attack the Fire Nation under the Avatar's command. Truthfully this was a foolish move, as his likely reincarnation would have simply meant he'd be born again a water bender. But, for whatever reason the Avatar has remained missing for over one hundred years. Popular theory is that he fled into the spirit world." Azula said, as she then circled the Earth Kingdom.
"As the colonies grew, the Earth Kingdom claimed the land was theirs despite the colonies having existed for nearly thirty years, and we've been at war with them ever since. Eventually the Southern Water Tribe became involved, and as they are a less advanced people, the Fire Nation utterly crushed them." Azula scribbled the Southern Water Tribe off the map.
"French and Indian war." Connor said. Azula raised an eyebrow at his comment. "French claimed land. British colony land. Indians work with French. British and colonies fought them. British won. Same as war here." He said.
"Yes, very similar…" Azula narrowed her eyes, as Connor looked at her, one of his eyebrows raised.
"Colonies free?" He asked.
Azula nearly chuckled. "The Fire Nation citizens of the Colonies are given all the same freedoms as the Fire Nation citizens of the homeland. Yes, the colonies are free." Connor seemed placated by that, giving a nod.
"What is Avatar?" Connor asked.
"Right…" Azula said, nearly rolling her eyes at his total ignorance. "The Avatar is someone who can bend all four elements, not just one. Which makes them very powerful and dangerous. They can also communicate with spirits."
"Spirits?" Connor repeated. "I don't understand." He'd said that a lot once Azula taught him the phrase on their third day of communication.
Azula began to quickly paint a man, a gravestone, and another man afterwards. "Living, dead, and…" What were the words Connor used? Azula drew a cloud and a man atop it. "Gɒd? ˈeɪnʤəl, ˈdiːmən. gəʊst. All spirits."
"Ai." Connor said with a nod. Something close to a "Yes, I understand," in his dialect.
"Yes. The Avatar knows no nation, and has no loyalty." Azula said.
"saʊndz laɪk ə ˈdiːmən." Connor commented. Azula managed to catch the word similar in use to spirit, though with evil connotations… To be fair Azula couldn't see much of the difference in the drawings Connor offered. All of them were usually winged humanoids.
"Whatever you think of him, I've gone off topic. The Fire Nation has been at war with tribal people and the armies of Earth Kingdom states for decades… It's why when you were found the locals more than likely treated you with suspicion. At the time we did not know if you were Earth Kingdom, Water Tribe, or even a Fire Nation criminal." Azula said. "You understand our fear?"
Connor seemed to look saddened by this, as he broke eye contact and looked at the papers between them. "Yes." He said. Azula smirked for only a moment.
"But… How to say… Good until bad. Free until chained. Right until can be seen wrong." Connor said. "Is law in America."
"Your criminals, when caught, are treated as innocent until someone sees what they've done as wrong? That's preposterous. If someone gets caught stealing, it's obvious they're guilty otherwise they wouldn't get caught." Azula said mostly to herself, though Connor seemed to understand a chunk of what she said. As he looked up at her.
"What if man lies to hurt you? If you right, no… No proof, you go free. If you wrong, if you lie, try stay free, proof shows you wrong, you go to jail. I am right, good, but not free? Not Water Tribe, Not Earth Kingdom. Not Criminal. Want to help Fire Nation with war."
"Yet, you've murdered a man and five people saw it happen." Azula said.
Connor sort of shrugged. "People not see… Not understand… Boy attack me. I warn. I save me from firebending. Soldier attack me, I warn. He firebending. Pistol save life. Pistol work… Ask boy I hurt friend if I put sword away. I put sword away, I greet boy." Connor said in his ever broken speech, revealing a part of his story that Azula had not heard before. "I want good. Want Fire Nation people free, like America. End war. I want to help."
Azula took a breath before she began to quickly think. It was entirely possible that errors in communication could have led to Connor coming under attack upon his first meeting… And it wasn't as if the peasantry was particularly good at making judgment calls in the heat of the moment. Perhaps Azula could use this. If Connor was speaking the truth, spending the time to clear his name would mean the prison wouldn't be burdened with housing yet another person not contributing to society, and in turn, Connor was willing to provide his services to the Fire Nation. His own loyalties aside, the condition that he must work for the Fire Nation, or return to prison ought to scare him well enough into subservience, and if not, it wasn't like he was a threat. He was a non bender, and wouldn't be able to go running off to the Earth Kingdom to spill state secrets, he was too strange looking, and could hardly communicate as it was, spirits help him if he ran into any of the uncommon dialects out in the world.
Azula stepped out into the hallway where the Imperial Guard tasked to protect her were posted, and turned to the nearest one. "You. Take another Imperial guard, and see to it that the boy Connor wounded is found… Then find the boy's friend, and all of the guards that were involved in Connor's arrest… I want to know the whole truth about the encounter that led to the death of the village's guard captain, and I want to know as soon as possible." Azula said, looking up and down the guard's uniform.
"Yes, your highness. I shall send a messenger hawk as soon as I can." He said, before walking down the hall to complete his task.
Azula returned to the room, and found Connor with an inquisitive expression. "Who is Azula?" He asked. "Not guard. Dress like soldier… But woman… Give command. I not ask before…Want to know."
Azula sat at the table, and pursed her lips for a moment. She'd never needed to explain herself before. She was a princess of the Fire Nation. Anyone who didn't know her face knew a royal procession, or the Royal Family's mark, when they saw one. Anyone who knew her face had long since known her, and more importantly knew to fear her… But of course Connor wouldn't know, as an Earth Kingdom peasant wouldn't know, being a stranger from a strange world… Perhaps in the back of her mind she'd known this to be obvious, otherwise she'd have burned him alive for any number of indiscretions he'd made since they'd met… That and her father would likely be displeased if she'd killed the very same person she was tasked with learning about.
"You have kings in your world?" Azula asked, eyebrow raising for a moment.
"Ai." Connor said, raising his eyebrow in turn.
"The Fire Nation has a royal family. The leader of our Nation is the head of the family, titled Fire Lord, and their children are princes and princesses. The reigning Fire Lord is my father, Ozai… I am Princess Azula, heir to the throne." Azula said with a smirk.
Connor looked at her for a second, then tried to contain himself, before bursting into laughter. "Funny." He said, still chuckelling.
Azula's smirk disappeared, and for a moment she felt anger bubbelling within her, not once in her entire life had anyone invalidated her like this. Her lip started twitching, as she stood. "There is nothing funny about my claim to the throne of Fire Lord!"
Connor stopped laughing, and sort of held his hands up to his chest as he leaned back, realizing the lantern by the door that illuminated the room had begun to burn blue as it fell under Azula's control. "Sorry… But, why… Royal girl…" He didn't quite seem to have the word Princess memorized just yet, having only heard it ten seconds ago. "Why Azula, if royal, see me?" Connor asked. "I don't understand."
Azula sighed, still standing. "This is the first duty I was given as heir to the throne. You were considered a threat to the security of the Fire Nation, and in the Fire Lord's stead, I was asked to learn all I could about you, and determine what is to be done. I like to be hands-on in these matters rather than rely on others who might be less competent." Azula explained, as she sat back down.
"Prɪnˈsɛs." Connor said in his ugly tongue with a nod. "How old?"
"Fourteen, as of last summer." Azula said, nearly smirking.
Connor gave an expression that was a cross between confusion and astonishment. "kʊd hæv fuːld miː." He said in his language. "Look old… Short, but look… Sixteen."
"I'll take that as a complement of my mental and emotional maturity manifesting itself at the surface level." Azula said, her expression remaining neutral. "How old are you then?" She asked. "You look like someone well into his twenties, but your lack of facial hair convinces me otherwise… Though that could be normal for whatever your age is for your people." Azula muttered the last part.
Connor shrugged. "Sixteen… From ɒkˈtəʊbə." He said, the last word being one she did not know.
"Surprising… I assume your height and size is normal?" Azula asked, crossing her arms.
Connor shrugged once more. "Little tall… Thick." Azula took some small comfort in knowing that Connor wasn't the average, or worse, short for his people. Spirit's forbid the Fire Nation be invaded by giants all armed with cannons.
"What does that word, ɒkˈtəʊbə mean?" Azula asked. Before she could finish the question both of them understood in each other's language, Connor had already started writing. Twelve words, with lots of space between them, followed by seven more beneath the first word, followed by a series of numbers.
"This is a calendar system." Azula said, recognizing it before Connor could explain further.
"If I right… Today is, three, nəʊˈvɛmbə…" He poked the eleventh large word on the calendar. "Year of lord, one thousand eight hundred seven."
"Twelve names to blocks of time breaking up a year, with days, and named days of a seven day week… This is a sun calendar." Azula surmised.
"Ai" Connor said, as she started to make a chart. Each of the twelve names were repeated with numbers beside them. "Need day we both know… Sun come close to world then go far away?"
"You're referring to a solstice. Yes we have one." Azula said, ever intrigued by the new date keeping system.
"We North… North half of world… Is Fall now? Winter in my world North, start dɪˈsɛmbə twenty one. New year ˈʤænjʊəri one. Three hundred sixty five days, one more day in ˈfɛbrʊəri call jump day, every four years." Connor said, as he drew, marking the dates on the chart.
"In that case… Our world's calendar's are aligned to the day, minus your jump day… It is the ninety-ninth year of our calendar, and the one hundredth year approaches in… Little more than one of these, and we are nearing our Winter Solstice here in the North." Azula said, pointing to the 12th month.
Connor scratched his head. "Both worlds even."
Azula glanced between the crude representation of a calendar, and Connor. "You only just turned sixteen then." She said, sort of sounding out the word again, O something, and finding the word he'd written that would have matched it. Azula paused, before Connor looked at her. "What?" She asked quickly.
"You smart for age." Connor said. "Thought you older. Impressed."
"Is all of your knowledge common for your people and age as well?" Azula asked. Connor shook his head. "I find that hard to believe." Azula remarked with a raised eyebrow.
"I am smart. I learn fast." Connor said with a small grin.
Azula rolled her eyes one final time before continuing their session.