Yeah... It's been a while and I know it's not a very big chapter.
I still think you'll enjoy it before we continue the journey.
I'm not gonna bore you with my life and why it took so long for another chapter, also since rambling on to who knows who even reads this seems a bit... eh?
BUT! I'm not giving up on this story. Nope nope nope!
So without further hoopla, let's answer some comments.
Resurrection99: Thank you
FanFicKing3245: Welp, there's a new word for my vocabulary that I didn't know I didn't need. Thanks for pointing it out!
Mando-Vet: It is not abandoned and it wont be!
Buterflypuss: Still going strong!
.upg: Now you have to wait fo a bit more
Chinchilla berserker: THank you.
Troyanfire: Aaaw, thank you. Hope this makes you happy.
Malinkody: You're welcome
tiran187: Who knows what's gonna happen later
DragrexTheBrit: Thank you so much! Warms my heart.
Puk627: Here's an update. I hope you're not disappointed that I'm not answering all your reviews, but I do read them. Hope I'll have more time to write soon, but so far it's not looking like it. I'll try though.
Chapter 05
"No."
"But!"
"No."
"I"
"No."
"Ha-"
"No."
"Plea-"
"No."
"Ugh!"
Katara and Sokka were enjoying the back and forth between Aang and Hari.
The reason for their argument happened just a few moments earlier, but let us go all the way back till morning.
.
.
.
They had traveled to the most southern point on the Earth Kingdom continent where, during resupplying at a they heard about the locals celebrating 'Avatar Day'.
Aang and Katara were all for it, while Sokka and Hari were skeptical. After some discussion even Sokka was convinced with the promise of festival food and Hari was outvoted.
When they went down to the village it was decorated with green lanterns hanging over the street as well as stalls with food and a general festive mood.
On the tightly packed main street people slowly separated as if to make way for something, making Katara look down the street gasping in surprise.
"Look!" She said as she pointed, "They made a giant Kyoshi float!"
Up the street was pulled a giant Avatar Kyoshi float and behind it…
"Here comes Avatar Roku!" Sokka said as they moved with the floats to the main square, where it seemed that the whole village was gathered.
"Having a huge festival in your honor is great, but frankly, it's just nice to be appreciated." Aang said as he smiled.
"And it's nice to appreciate their deep-fried festival food!" Sokka said as he took a huge bite of his food, "U ond wanna?" Sokka asked as he reached a deep fried squid on a stick out to Hari who took it while scanning his surroundings and keeping an eye on Aang and Katara.
"Aang, look!" Katara explained as she pointed at a giant float of Aang that was pulled to join the other two.
"That's the biggest me I've ever seen!" Aang said out loud, his eyes the biggest Hari had ever seen.
As the floats were placed next to each other there were sounds of celebration from down the street and when they looked they saw a villager carrying a torch running down the street.
"Now a torch," Sokka said, "that's a nice prop. It's bright, dangerous… smells manly!"
"I wonder what that guy's doing." Katara wondered out loud.
Speeding up and with a loud shout, the runner ran towards and jumped through the Kyoshi float, setting it on fire as the villagers started to chant while the Kyoshi float, no, effigy was consumed by flames "Down with the Avatar!" and "Murderer!"
Looking in shock it took a moment before Katara reacted and set into action, Aang following her, but they didn't get far as they were both grabbed by the back of their collar and pulled away. It took them a couple of seconds before they realized what happened and looked over their shoulders seeing Hari's back as he was dragging them through the alleys and out of the village, bringing us back to Aang and Hari's back and forth.
"Can you let me finish?" Aang said in frustration.
"Okay," Hari said, "I'll let you finish if you have something other to say than you want to stop them from burning the effigies."
*Silence*
"Thought so…" Hari said, shaking his head. "Aang," he continued, getting the young avatar's attention, "it seemed to me like the whole village was part of it. It looked like a tradition they have been doing ever since Avatar Kyoshi and then added avatars as they came."
"But why? The Avatar is good, the keeper of the balance!" Katara said passionately.
"Katara," Hari interrupted her, "You know more about Avatars than anyone here. Can you honestly say that the Avatar never been seen in a bad light?"
She opened her mouth to retort but closed it again, having a thoughtful expression. After a couple of seconds she sighed.
"The Avatar is the keeper of peace and balance. There has been times where the Avatar ended wars so… no… I can't say that the Avatar never seen as bad…" She sounded defeated.
"But that doesn't mean that what they shouted was true!" Aang said, stomping his foot.
"We don't know, but we can find out." Sokka exclaimed.
The others turned to look at him and for a moment Hari wondered if Sokka knew transfiguration since he seemingly out of nowhere had gotten a strange hat with an attached monocle and a dragon-shaped pipe.
"Investigation time!" Sokka said, as he adjusted the monocle and blew bubbles out of the pipe.
"Minnie, help me…" Hari sighed and put his head in his hands.
.
.
.
Before Hari let anyone go back into the village they made a plan.
First of all they made sure that Aang wore a bandana that covered his tattoo. Then they split up to gather as much information they could before meeting at the shrine on the edge of town.
Hari wouldn't let anyone go by themselves so Aang and Sokka went together which left Hari and Katara.
Aang and Sokka went straight to the main square.
Aang flinched when he saw the effigy of himself burning brightly while people cheered.
Sokka placed a hand on his shoulder before turning to the person next to him.
"Excuse me, good sir. I'm new here and I wondered how Avatar Day came into existence." Sokka smiled at the guy.
The guy turned to him with a smile.
"You really must come from far away then. Welcome!" The guy stroked his chin as he thought. "Well, you see, it was Long ago when Avatar Kyoshi struck down our glorious leader, Chin the Great! You see we used to be a great society before she killed our leader."
It seemed like Aang wanted to argue, so Sokka stuffed a fried bread into Aang's mouth and went on.
"How did she kill him?" Sokka asked.
"You're telling the story of Chin the Great?" Someone chimed in.
"Yep, but I don't remember how he was killed."
"Avatar Kyoshi did it!" An old man with a crooked cane said.
"I know that, but I don't remember how."
"She fed him to a badgermole!" A fourth person shouted.
"That's not true, she crushed his head with her left hand!" A fifth one one argued.
"No no no no, she buried him alive."
"What, no, she fried him and ate him! That's why we fry stuff!"
"Ew! That's stupid, she…"
As people started to argue about what actually happened, Aang and Sokka moved on, not knowing that they had accidentally started a movement for truth, since the villagers would come to realize that no one actually knew what happened. The stories would range from Kyoshi snapping her fingers and sending him to the Spirit World where he still wandered for eternity to a heroic battle that only ended after Chin took Kyoshi's poisoned arrow to the knee which turned him into the statue that you could see at the shrine.
Many years later, the village that used to be dedicated to Chin would be known as the Village of Thinkers, filled with people wanting proof and multiple accounts of facts before believing in something, but that's many years into the future.
.
.
.
Hari and Katara took a different route and decided to talk to some of the vendors that seemed to not be local. Hari hoped that they could get an outside point of view of the whole Avatar Day.
There were a lot of people and lots of stalls but unfortunately for Katara and Hari it seemed like it was mostly locals that had set up stalls. They were starting to think that they might just ask the locals, at least until Hari saw someone he just knew he had seen in other cities during their travels.
"My, my, isn't that the merchant and proprietor of the finest cabbages in the Earth Kingdom?" Hari said as he neared a short man wearing Earth Kingdom garb.
"Why, welcome young sir!" The man said with a smile, "Yes it is! My cabbages are the finest in the Earth Kingdom, no, in the world, if I say so myself!"
Hari smiled at him as he looked over the cabbage, and with his knowledge of greens he had to agree, these were some of the best cabbage he had seen.
"I'm inclined to agree with you, these are the best cabbage I have seen. One please." Hari said.
"So nice to see young people being interested in important things." The merchant said as he packed the cabbage and handed it over, "Many don't realise how amazing cabbages are."
"That is true." Hari nodded.
"What are you doing?" Katara whispered to him.
"Buttering him up." He whispered back before looking back at the merchant, "It's good in soup."
"It's good in salad!" The merchant followed up.
"For your skin it's great!" Hari continued.
"And your gut, don't forget!" The merchant was stomping a beat.
"If you want an easy meal and don't know what to eat." Hari was snapping his fingers now.
"Just boil some cabbage and your life is sweet." The merchant sang.
"If you need to wrap your food while it's warm?"
"Pack it in a cabbage leaf and your problem is gone!"
"You can cut it, cop it, shred it, grind it."
"Fry it, boil it, bake it, wrap it!"
"It beat beets and cauliflower."
"It's perfect raw or marinated sour."
"Want to eat something more than average?"
"Grab yourself a nice fresh cabbage!" They both sang together, ending the song arms draped over eathother.
People started to clap as they came over to buy a head of cabbage, even though Katara seemed to try to make herself as small as possible.
As people dispersed and things quieted down the cabbage merchant turned to Hari.
"Thank you so much young man! It was the best sale I've ever had! Is there anything I could do to repay you?"
"You're welcome," Hari said, "Actually, there is a thing. You're travelling a lot…"
"That I do!" The merchant said with a smile.
"What can you tell us about this Avatar Day?"
.
.
.
Not only was the merchant well-traveled but also knowledgable, which meant that they had gotten a lot of great information from the merchant.
He told them about how the village hated the Avatar because Avatar Kyoshi 370 years ago had indirectly killed their leader 'Chin the Great'. Chin 'the Conqueror' as he was more known as was taking over what was now know as the Earth Kingdom until he reached this place, the Yokoya peninsula. He wanted to take over Avatar Kyoshi's village. Avatar Kyoshi told him to leave, but he didn't take a single step backwards. Kyoshi then Yokoya from the mainland which was now own as Kyoshi Island. Unfortunately, Chin still didn't take a step back as the ground crumbled beneath his feet and he fell to his death.
First Hari thanked him but also questioned how in the natural world he knew so much to such detail. The merchant shrugged his shoulders and said that he got around and it was good to know the basics of the place where you were trying to sell stuff. Easier to not step on peoples toes and fit in.
Hari had agreed with him, thanked him once more for the information and in return offered him a deal.
Since he was so well-traveled and had a knack for gathering information, Hari wanted to hire him as an informant and main cabbage-supplier.
The merchant was unsure at first since he might be caught as a spy, but Hari convinced him that the messages could be hidden within the cabbage leaves since no one would suspect grade one cabbage for carrying information.
"Mark that another thing on the amazing use of cabbage." The merchant smiled.
"So, do we have a deal?" Hari asked and reached out his hand.
"That we do!" The merchant answered as he took Hari's hand and shook it.
"Wonderful doing business with you, good sir. I'm Hari."
"You're more than welcome, young Hari. I'm Jam Sie."
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Hari and Katara met with Aang and Sokka at the temple.
Team Aaka relayed their information which wasn't much, basically that the people in the village didn't know anything other than Avatar Kyoshi killed some guy with a great chin, 'Chin the Great' corrected Katara.
Team Hara then told everything they had been told by the merchant Jam Sie.
"That can't be true!" Aang said waving his arms around, "I would never take a life!"
"We know, Aang." Katara said, placing a hand on his shoulder as she smiled at him.
"But that doesn't mean that Avatar Kyoshi didn't." Sokka said hitting his pipe into his hand, making soap run out of it into the hand, making him first try to shake it off, then giving up and wiping it off in his pants.
"War does things to people." Hari said as he looked over the ocean and into the distance.
The others looked at him in silence until Aang spoke up; "Okay, but how do we make them like me?"
"Aang," Hari said softly, "you can't make people like you and I don't think we can just change their minds like that. They don't see you as a separate person from Kyoshi."
"Avatar Kyoshi." Katara said and for a split second Hari saw a bushy-haired girl in her place but shook his head. He waved his hand as he continued.
"They've already chosen to dislike you, even celebrate their dislike."
"He's right, Aang." Sokka said, "Think about it. Their hero is someone who fought against Avatar Kyoshi. I say we stock up and leave."
"But!" Aang tried but ended up sighing at the look from his friends.
Aang didn't like it, but ended up agreeing. Even as young as he was he knew that you couldn't make everyone like you and sometimes you just have to accept it. It didn't mean that he liked it. It was a hard pill to swallow that a previous incarnation of him had killed. It made him feel distant from his former lives. Had Avatar Roku killed as well? He didn't like thinking about it and tried not to but it didn't really help. It was like a lump was forming in his chest.
Hari went over to hug his brother in all but blood.
"I really don't like that they dislike you, Aang, but it is their right to do so. We can't choose how people see us but we can do our best to choose how it affects us."
Aang hugged him back.
"It sucks…" He mumbled into Hari's shirt.
"No shit sherlock." Hari said, making the others shake their head at another weird saying.
"Do you just make those up or are they really from your home?" Katara said, leaning to the side, her head tilted and resting in the palm of her right hand.
"Firstly," He said, "It definitely is a saying. Sokka reminded me of a character called Sherlock Holms who was a famous detective." Sokka perked up at this.
"And second…" He looked at the three in front of him, "this is my home."
"Ah man! It's a hugging moment isn't it…" Sokka moaned in annoyance.
"Shut up, you know you like it!" Katara said as she dragged him over to Aang and Hari where they all hugged.
They decided to call it a day but as they walked through the city, picking up stuff as they passed stalls when suddenly a blast shook the village.
"What now?" Hari sighed just as a loud voice rang through the village.
"We've come to claim this village for the Fire Lord! Now show me your leader so I may dethrone him!" The speaker was a broad shouldered Fire Nation soldier. He was sitting on top of a komodo rhino. His hair was tied up in a top bun but the bun wasn't visible since it was covered with two long feathers.
Behind him was four other komodo rhino riding soldiers, each with their own specific look and weapons. If Sokka were to guess, he would think that they each specialized in some form of combat.
As the gang looked on, the villagers grabbed their Mayor and pushed him towards the five Fire Nation soldiers.
"I think we should get out of here." Sokka said.
"Shouldn't we help them?" Aang said.
"I don't know…" Katara said, making the others look at her in surprise. "They obviously have no problem selling out their own to save themselves. This is not like Haru's village that was suppressed for a long time. This was an immediate reaction."
"But don't they deserved to be helped anyway?" Aang asked.
"Avatar!" They heard to mayor cry out making them turn to look.
"Curse you Avatar! This is your fault! If the Avatar hadn't killed Chin the Great this would never happen!" The mayor shouted while other villagers agreed.
"Yeah, let's go." Aang said as the four turned to leave the village of Chin the Great behind.