I was busy yesterday, so I'll wish my French readers a happy belated 14th of July, from your neighbours across the channel.
Responses to reviews:
RonaldM40197867: There was a plan in the canon series 4 for Mako to fall in love with a Fire Nation Princess, though of course in canon that character probably wouldn't have been called Hotaru. In the end, it got cut for time. That's why they get together in my version of it.
Sharpe: Since Hotaru doesn't exist yet in canon, probably not because that would leave Izumi without an heir. With Hotaru existing, it is a bit more of a possibility, he does seem very attached to the Republic.
Zigzagdoublezee: Yes, I like Kyoshi as well. I can see why she's so popular, and I enjoy that she's more fleshed out now thanks to the novels.
Thunder: Izumi has the lives of her soldiers to think about, so she can't afford to be as gung-ho about it. Iroh also has the lives of his soldiers to think about, which is why he is gung-ho about it.
As Always, Please Review!
Bolin
Around 50 miles east of the city of Omashu, on the edge of the Si Wong Desert, stood a collection of buildings surrounded by a high fence. This was the Si Wong detention and corrective facility, founded by Kuvira three years previously, and deliberately placed in the Si Wong Desert in order to make the lives of the political prisoners sent there as nasty as possible.
Wind blew scorching sand across the complex, whipping against any exposed skin, and it piled up under walls, buildings, and anyone who stood still for too long. Prisoners trudged through the arid heat, into long buildings where they would be forced to work many hours each day doing jobs which were sometimes important, and sometimes completely pointless. The camp was designed to be hot, dry, and thoroughly unpleasant. It was also well guarded too, as it was the frequent target of sandbender raids. A road, with barriers set up either side to prevent sand from building up on it, led away from the complex and off into the distance, towards more pleasant lands.
From where he was lying, atop a sand dune overlooking the camp with Toph and Opal, Bolin knew they had succeeded. It would probably be a lot more unpleasant for him if not for Opal using her airbending to create a cool breeze for them. The camp was surrounded by a network of concrete bunkers designed to provide air cannons a place to fire from that could not easily be interfered with by sandbenders, and it was swarming with guards.
He retreated down the ledge and turned around so he was lying on his back looking into the evening sky.
"That looks very well guarded," he frowned. "This is going to be hard."
"We're not going in to fight anyway," Opal pointed out. "We'll need a disguise."
"And where are we going to get one?" Bolin asked.
"Ambush a guard?" Opal suggested.
"If we knew their movements," Toph pointed out. "But we don't."
"Where else can they go?" Opal gestured around. "This place is a wasteland. They can only go on that road. So we hit them there."
"But they'll know that!" Bolin retorted. "Kuvira's men are not stupid. Cruel and paranoid, yes, but not stupid."
"Alright then, so what's your plan?"
Bolin looked around, but seeing no other option, he nodded.
"We ambush some soldiers on the road, steal their uniforms, and sneak inside."
"Good, that's what I thought," Opal replied. "So now what?"
"We wait."
And so they waited, sheltered from the worst of the Si Wong weather by an artificial breeze. For a few hours, nothing happened, and as the sun set, spotlights began to light up the camp as the temperature plunged dramatically.
Suddenly, there was movement in the distance. Bolin turned his head to see headlights moving down the road towards the camp. Eventually, he made out twenty lorries escorted by satomobiles filled with soldiers and even a tank, rumbling down the street on wide treads. A turret with a small air cannon had been installed on the top. Bolin recognised the type, these ones were specifically built for speed over rough terrain. Every Satomobile and lorry had a higher ride height than usual, as well as larger, wider tyres, to allow them to drive over sand.
Eventually, the column reached the gates, and the lead car stopped. A man dressed in the uniform of an officer of Kuvira's Imperial Army got out, and presented papers to one of the guards. Satisfied, the man waved them through, and the officer got in as the gates were opened. The trucks entered the complex and parked up in a row. Then the doors on the back were opened, and the camp guards began pulling out what seemed like hundreds of new prisoners, each dressed in rags with bags over their heads and their hands tied. They presented a pitiful sight.
"Oh spirits," Opal said from beside him, in horror.
Bolin didn't know what he would have done then, but just as he was considering his next move Toph whipped around, or at least turned around as fast as she could.
"There's someone coming!" She hissed.
No sooner had she said this then several figures appeared out of the darkness behind them, weapons drawn. They stopped upon realizing they had been discovered.
Bolin initially panicked, thinking they were discovered, but then realized that these people were not dressed like the guards in the camp, or like any officers in Kuvira's military. And in such a desolate environment, if they weren't from the base, there was only one other group of people they could be.
He pointed.
"You're sandbenders, aren't you?"
"Who are you?" The lead sandbender eyed him suspiciously. "Two Airbenders and an old fart, is that it?"
"Who are you calling a fart?" Toph demanded.
Opal rushed forward to prevent a fight that could give them all away.
"We are Airbenders!" She said. "Well, I am. I'm Opal Beifong. This is Bolin, and this is Toph, my mother. We're here to rescue my mother and aunt from Kuvira."
"I thought Bolin worked for Kuvira," one of the other sandbenders, a woman, asked suspiciously.
"He did- I mean, I did," Bolin admitted, "but not any more. She lied to me and did terrible things, so I left her."
Some of the hostility seemed to leave the sandbenders at that, but they still seemed guarded.
"And why should we believe you? How do we know you're not secretly helping her?"
"Kuvira attacked my family and is holding my mother in that camp!" Opal pointed out. "What reason has she given us to be loyal to her?"
The sandbender leader sighed. "Very well, I'll believe you. But if you turn out to be a traitor, I'll sandblast your insides."
Opal nodded, clearly deciding not to ask what that meant.
"If you're here for a prison break too," the sandbender mused, "then perhaps we can help each other."
"Last time we met a sandbender, they stole Appa and left us to die in the desert," Toph growled.
But the leader waved a hand. "Please, I'm not here for your "Appa." I don't even know what that is."
"Appa was a sky-bison."
"I'm not here for any of those either. What I am here for is something infinitely more precious."
"Do you know what your precious Great Uniter has been doing in the Si Wong?" The man demanded. "She's been confiscating sand-skiffs, and demanding our loyalty. Our loyalty is to our families, our people, and when we told her ambassador that she began to squeeze us."
"How?" Bolin asked, horrified. How come he had never heard any of this before?"
"Well, firstly by attempting to arrest any high-ranking members of our society that she can get her hands on, which is not many because we are in our land and can vanish at will. But she got one."
His voice broke. "My wife."
Opal walked up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she said. "We can help you get her."
"Thank you," the man said. "My name is Ganzorig, by the way. These are my companions. Nergui, Borte, Abaka, and Chimeg."
Each nodded as they were introduced. Bolin could see nothing but fierce green eyes under the wrappings each wore over their face.
Ganzorig moved his arm, and the sand shifted, an invisible hand with an invisible stick carving a plan of the camp in it as he outlined his thinking.
"We can't take this place by storm, it's too heavily guarded and they've put thought into defending against sandbenders. We can't besiege it because it would pin us down in one place for too long, and we might accidentally hurt the inmates. So we need to sneak in."
"We need uniforms for that!" Opal said.
"Way ahead of you, airbender," Ganzorig replied with pride. He clicked his fingers, and one of the figures with him (Chimeg, apparently) produced a sack.
"Now," Ganzorig said. "Who wants to go in and who wants to stay out here to watch? We've only got four costumes."