Hello, everybody! Not much to say this time around, other than a bit of information for everyone:
-FFN has implemented a very questionable policy about email alerts, and you have to manually reactivate those alerts on your profile every few months. Be wary of this or you could fail to receive any notifications regarding the update of this story (or any story!)
-As always, there is a Discord channel available for anyone who wants to join. You can talk about anything you want there, and it is often home to some riveting discussions about ATLA, if you've been looking for fellow fans to converse with. It's also not a bad way to stay constantly appraised of when this story gets updated, thanks to the problem with FFN's new policies mentioned above.
-As with the last chapter or two, this chapter talks a lot about the actual mechanics of bending. I did try to stay grounded in source material as best I can, but just like last time, canon isn't really that detailed when it comes to these things. So, remember that this is a fic and not a word of god testament about how bending works in canon content. I will say, I almost entirely write this story from the information ATLA provided, and nothing else. So while I understand that Korra or some supplementary material may have altered, changed, or simply lessened the restrictions on some techniques, I did not take those into consideration. Canon techniques are considered to function exactly how ATLA portrayed or described them. If the mechanics bother anyone too severely, well, you'll just have to consider the story AU in that regard too.
Anyway, that's all I have to say right now. I am pleased to announce that we are very close to the start of the Ba Sing Se arc. In fact, perhaps only one chapter away. I'm kind of excited myself!
Returning to some semblance of peace after a near-death encounter was always a bit of an odd thing. When close to death, you considered all sorts of deep existential questions, and often convinced yourself that you would radically alter the course of your life if you lived, generally to avoid regrets or something of that nature. But once you actually survived the situation, and your life was no longer on the line, you kind of forgot about that and settled back into your old ways. It was like those people who constantly promised to live a new year differently, but never actually did.
At any rate, it was a bit weird going back to relatively calm sailing on the open ocean after the occupants of the Fire Nation ship had almost been sunk to the bottom of it. But, so it was. The last few days had seen nothing even remotely close to danger following the encounter with the Earth Kingdom Navy vessel. Even Xisheng's personal life had mostly gone back to normal: his odd situation with Ty Lee was willfully ignored, as per the usual. That was easy to do, since they had talked about it a fair deal a few days ago. Needless to say, Xisheng was far from fully appraised of the situation, but he at least somewhat understood Ty Lee's current position on the matter of their relationship with a bit more clarity than before. He wasn't truly content with it, but he was happy to accept his small victories and not push his luck too hard.
As for he and Mai, they had mostly returned to their usual form, what with the introspective conversations, witty sarcasm, and contentedness in being alone with each other. But even though there was a veneer of the old normalcy present once again, Xisheng could tell that some elements of their prior situation still remained: every once in a while, he would notice Mai's expression grow a little awkward when they were talking. She'd get a little quieter and often focus on some far off point, though she never went fully silent or expressed discomfort in any other way. It was obvious that whatever problem had been bothering her a few days ago was not fully forgotten. But it was also obvious that the young woman was trying to push past the issue and not allow it to interfere with their friendship. For now, Xisheng could only hope that his own behavior was helping her overcome her qualms, whatever they may have been. He had some suspicions, of course, but for now he didn't know how to confirm them or even what he would do about it if they were confirmed. It wasn't the same as Ty Lee, who was likely to actually talk to him if he put her on the spot. Mai wasn't the type of person to react to that approach very well.
As for Azula, things were mostly the same as usual, but not entirely. Xisheng had underestimated just how excited she had truly been about their combined Firebending technique on the day of their naval skirmish. She had grown extremely invested in furthering his abilities afterward. Not that she hadn't been invested before, but prior to that fight, the Princess had seen fit to take a more hands-off approach to his advancement: she had provided him with the building blocks and left it to him to actually make something out of it.
Now though, Azula was so eager for him to master the technique that she had been giving very direct and involved tutelage for several hours a day since the skirmish. Needless to say, she pushed Xisheng harder than he likely would have on his own. But at the same time, her direct involvement really did make a big difference. Though it had only been a few days, Xisheng had greatly improved his ability to compress Firebending. He was not far off at all from the benchmark Azula had set for him at the beginning.
Of course, it wasn't like he was actually nearing her level just because of that. The young ruler-to-be made that very clear as she appraised her student on the rear deck of their small vessel, calmly sailing over the waves.
"Frankly, I'd say that using two hands to achieve a goal I set with one is cheating, but... well, I'd be a fool for criticizing the effective use of everything you have at your disposal. Good job, Xisheng, I'm impressed."
Honestly, Xisheng wondered if Azula was even capable of offering a pure compliment that wasn't backhanded in any regard at all. But ultimately, he didn't mind too much. He was too pleased by the very compact sphere of flame held between his two hands: an orange sphere that only slightly flickered in resistance, and sported the slightest of yellow tinges. It was indeed a far cry from Azula's compressed Firebending, but this was a monumental leap in ability considering that he had only recently started training in this technique.
Of course, as Azula rightly pointed out, it did take both of his hands to achieve this result, which was a bit misleading since Azula could achieve the same with just one. Xisheng's wounded arm, bashed by Toph some time ago, was not fully healed, technically. But it was nearly there. Xisheng practically had his full range of motion back, even if using that full range was still quite uncomfortable and even painful at the worst. Even so, it had healed enough by this point that Xisheng could freely use both arms, and compressing his Firebending with both hands made it a lot easier to achieve better results. After all, the ability to split the strain between two limbs significantly lessened the difficulty.
"Thank you, Princess. It's all thanks to you."
The young girl smirked. "Considering that you only even thought to try this technique because of me, yes, that is mostly true. Still, even the best teacher can't turn a hopeless case into a success. Even if you have to use two hands to achieve it, mastering compression to this degree in such a short time is very admirable. Your natural talent and drive to improve are both a large part of that."
Xisheng smiled. Humility still wasn't Azula's strong suit, but she really had become more generous with her praise and support lately. She always worded things in a pretty factual manner, but there was a time when you'd really have to drag any sort of genuine compliment out of her.
"Maybe so, but your focused tutelage these past few days really helped more than any amount of motivation or effort could have. Your explanation of chi management and accumulation really altered how well I was tackling the problem. Honestly, I feel kind of bad that I learn so much from you but never have any knowledge to offer in return..."
Azula's expression grew slightly sheepish for a moment. Honestly, she'd be lying if she said she hadn't learned anything from Xisheng since the beginning of their relationship. Even if it hadn't been in the form of a lesson, he had taught her many things simply by merit of how he carried himself: how to be a better leader, what it was like for those cogs and gears that made up the Fire Nation machine, the consequences and victories that could be the results of a leader's decisions, and the value of honest loyalty from those that served her.
She was not one for humility, but in the confines and safety of her own mind, Azula was willing to admit that she had learned more about leadership from Xisheng, someone who had never even been in such a position prior to their meeting, than her father, the sovereign of an entire nation. A big part of her hated to admit that: Azula truly admired her father and his resolve, ruthlessness, and tenacity. But his lessons on governance had extended little further than imparting some notion of 'be so strong and ruthless that your followers are too fearful to defy you'.
And to his credit, no one had openly defied Ozai and his rule, other than Zuko in that notorious war meeting. In the past, Azula would have considered that more than sufficient, but Xisheng's lessons, intended or not, had changed her perspective on the matter. People often hated things they were afraid of. And when you hated someone, you would often look for opportunities to cause them harm, however slight and inconsequential. Who could say how many servants had spread a nasty rumor? How many officers had sown subtle dissent? How many soldiers would abandon their duties if it came down to their life or their lord?
There was no telling how many malcontents and conspirators Ozai's policy of fearful obedience had created. Whether or not they had done anything so far, their mere existence posed a potential threat to the Royal Family and the government as a whole. Maybe they were too scared to try anything, or maybe they were busy plotting. Maybe they had plots in motion at this moment, and they just hadn't made themselves known yet. Either way, Azula now truly believed that her father's policy on leadership and rule had glaring flaws, though she would likely never share this sentiment with him.
She attributed this shift in perspective to Xisheng's influence, though she supposed it wasn't like he had actually been trying to 'teach' her anything, save one or two times. Azula wasn't sure if she should actually tell the man all of this: it might not be a good idea to tell a low-ranking officer that his actions were turning the political perspective of the Crown Princess against the political policies of the Fire Lord. She trusted him, but that didn't seem like a prudent decision. Still, she had to say something.
"At the very least, you've taught me how valuable the unwavering loyalty of a truly dedicated man and soldier is. I want to be glad for that, but I digress: I imagine the high expectations for my subordinates that you've instilled in me will be constantly met with disappointment in the future."
Xisheng couldn't help but chuckle. "That might be a little unfair to the rest of the rank and file, Princess. I've always been considered overly idealistic and invested by my comrades. People who join the military for a higher purpose are an exception, not the norm."
A little intrigued by this line of conversation, Azula folded her arms and cocked an eyebrow at her partner. "Is that so? Do tell, what else compels one to enter a life such as yours? According to you, your military career has been rife with stress, danger, and occasionally appalling living conditions. That seems like a lot to go into willingly if you lack some noble motivation."
Still attributing some of his focus to the sphere of yellow-orange flame in his hands, Xisheng shrugged. "Well, I'd be remiss to not mention the obvious: not everyone joined willingly. I don't know how this stacks up to the actual average across the board, but the last time we received new recruits on the EK battle line before the North Pole invasion, a little more than half of them had been drafted. There are plenty of people that didn't want to be soldiers and never would have become one if the government hadn't made them."
Azula wasn't sure what to say to that. "Fair enough, I suppose..."
"As for the rest of them, it could be a number of things. But it's usually the inherent benefits of joining the military. Worldwide travel with a bill footed by the government, the respect and prestige you'll have when you return home as a victorious warrior... but for a lot of people, it's just that being a soldier pays pretty well compared to a lot of other viable careers."
This time, Azula scoffed. "Money? Really? How does that make such 'soldiers' any different from mere mercenaries?"
Xisheng offered one of those looks that mildly irritated Azula. The 'you poor ignorant soul' kind of look. She knew he wasn't actually looking down on her, but the thought of someone pitying her lack of knowledge was still a source of agitation. That said, Azula didn't say anything, since she had already asked Xisheng a question and he was about to answer.
"Not to sound accusatory, Princess, but money is a very fair motivator for those who aren't a member of the Royal Family of a powerful nation. Unfortunately, living isn't free for the common masses. Paying rent to a landlord, buying land and paying for the construction of a home, food, clothes, medicine, tools you need for your trade, common amenities... people have to buy these things, and they need money to do it. If you don't make enough money, your quality of living, and that of your family, is in jeopardy. A lot of people do things they don't really want to do just to make enough money to live. That includes soldiers, many of whom enlist so they can make a hefty wage that can be sent back home to support their families."
Once again, Azula found herself unsure of what to say. She sometimes hated how easily Xisheng did that to her. Not that it mattered, since the man wasn't done talking.
"As for what separates soldiers who enlist primarily for the money from mercenaries... well, most soldiers still have loyalty and love for their country. They just want to make good wages while serving it. After all, if money was well and truly the only motivator for those men and women, why not just actually become mercenaries? There's no need to fight for the Fire Nation, submit to regimented subordinate life, or obey the orders of hapless superiors if profit is all you want. You could have much more independence and probably even more money as a mercenary. So, most soldiers do still want to contribute to their homeland, even if that isn't the sole reason they enlist."
Now sensing that he was done with his spiel, Azula breathed a sigh after pondering his words. "Xisheng, doesn't it tire you to constantly consider every perspective and every angle for every person in this wretched world? I never thought that I of all people would say this, but you truly do think too much about everything."
This time, Xisheng was the one who looked a little sheepish. "Well, that's what mind-numbing boredom on the front-lines will do to you... you have to find some way to entertain yourself out there or you'll go crazy. Guess I just chose to become excruciatingly philosophical. I was often told that I talk too much..."
"It's not that, Xisheng. I just don't know how all of this thinking about relatively menial things at every hour of the day doesn't drain you. I'm not sure we've ever discussed something that you didn't have a very lengthy opinion on. I like to dwell on things of import to me, but I honestly believe I could ask you a question about absolutely anything, and you'd have enough thoughts on the matter to write a small book. It sounds exhausting."
Not really sure if Azula was complimenting him, debasing him, or both, Xisheng tried to deny the girl's claims. "Come now, that's an exaggeration..."
Azula cocked an eyebrow at him. "Stop me when I mention something you have nothing to say about at all: economics, the spirits, human nature, colors, social strata, equipment production, political theory, morality, the animal kingdom, anatomy, gender equality, physics, language-"
Xisheng couldn't help but cut the Princess short. "OK, OK, I get it! Yeah, you might have a point..."
"Indeed. Some of those things aren't even important. What could you possibly have to discuss at length about them?"
"Come on, Azula: you aren't the slightest bit curious why everyone in the world speaks the same language even though we have distinctly different cultures? Or how color names are totally arbitrary and you could teach a kid all the wrong names and his idea of 'red' would be 'blue' for everyone else? Why did the Moon spirit take the form of a fish? Is there a physical manifestation of a Sun spirit somewhere? How many people have to agree that something is morally right or wrong before it becomes accepted ethics? And-"
His young conversation partner cut Xisheng short with a raised hand. "Enough, Xisheng. I stand corrected. No, I really don't think about any of that, nor do I care to. Life is too short to dwell on things that have no effect on me, in my opinion."
Even though he had been stopped, Xisheng muttered something under his breath. "Well, some of that has an effect on you, technically..."
Maybe Azula didn't hear him, or she just didn't think it was worth calling out. Either way, she continued with her own piece. "Still... I suppose someone has to think so hard about literally everything. Perhaps you can become a prestigious philosopher one day. So long as you can keep your focus when it counts. Now, I think it's about time you got rid of that fireball in your hands. Your fingers are quivering."
Glancing down at his hands, Xisheng realized that Azula was right. He had been forcefully compressing his bending over the past several minutes of conversation, hardly noticing the strain while engrossed in their talk. Now that he was paying attention again, the soldier couldn't ignore the slight shaking of his fingertips as the exertion continued to press him.
Knowing full well that Azula would rather see the destructive power his bending rather than him allowing it to dissipate, Xisheng stepped up to the railing of the ship and launched the compressed fireball out to sea. It wasn't quite as impressive as Azula's demonstrations, no doubt due to the fact that the bending wasn't as focused as her own. The lance of flame was a little less concentrated and didn't cut through the air quite as cleanly, but it was still a relatively narrow spear of orange and yellow fire that blasted water and steam several feet into the air upon impact. Not too shabby for a technique he had only learned a short time ago.
Azula apparently felt the same way, based on her appraisal. "Not bad, not bad at all... a far cry from our results against that Earth Kingdom ship, but to be fair, half of that was me. Either way, I think it's safe to say that your level of control over powerful chi is close to where it needs to be for... well, for the other things I am thinking of teaching you."
Naturally, Xisheng was excited to hear this. Technically, Azula had yet to actually identify this powerful skill she had in mind to teach him. But he couldn't imagine what else it could be besides lightning. To think, he would become one of the few Firebenders in the entire world, heck, in all of history, to possess such a powerful and legendary skill. He could scarcely imagine it. Maybe his excitement was evident on his face, because Azula commented on it immediately.
"Now, don't get too ahead of yourself, Xisheng. There's more to this technique than being able to control and focus large amounts of chi. This is merely a precursor capability you must possess in order to even dream of the using the ultimate Firebending technique. That said... I can't imagine that you won't have what it takes. Take pride in that: I'm not easily impressed."
Truly feeling the weight of such praise and acknowledgment, Xisheng earnestly thanked Azula for her faith in him. "I appreciate your confidence in me, Azula. I will do everything in my power to meet your expectations."
At this, even the Crown Princess couldn't help but smile a bit. "I know you will. That's a large part of my assurance. That said, we can't start right away. It will have to wait until we are on land once again."
Xisheng merely cocked an eyebrow at this, which was question enough in and of itself. Azula clearly picked up on the implication of his gesture, because she explained things to him immediately.
"What I have to teach is one of the most closely guarded secrets in all of Firebending. Simply put, I will not speak of the intricacies of this technique while those I do not trust implicitly are in earshot. There is nowhere to go on this ship to ensure that there are no eavesdroppers at any point in time. It will have to wait until we can be certain that we are alone to practice."
Admittedly, Xisheng was a little disappointed that he would have to wait even longer after his hopes had been gotten up, but at the same time, he understood Azula's reasoning here. Besides, he was a little happy about what she had said about implicit trust and who was included in that fold.
"I understand, Princess. But until then...?"
"Until then, keep practicing your compressed Firebending. The greater degree of control you can muster, and over a greater amount of chi, the better prepared you will be for mastering lightning. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to consult with the captain and see just how long we'll have to wait before making landfall."
Announcing her exit, Azula offered a slight wave along with it before taking her leave. Xisheng merely waved back, doing his best to rein in his excitement. It wouldn't do to waste all of that energy being giddy if it was going to be several more days before he was able to do anything with it.
The last few days of sailing to their destination were excruciatingly slow. They trudged by at a snail's pace, thanks to many factors. Aside from the typical monotony of traveling by sea, Xisheng's routine every day was practically identical. All it involved was sleeping, eating, and training. He'd wake up and eat whatever was being served to the rest of the crew, because even if Mai would tolerate cooking something in the later hours of the day, she was certainly not willing to get up early and do the same for breakfast.
Admittedly, going back to typical military rations after eating anything made personally by someone was kind of debilitating. Though he knew it was nowhere near the same as a married couple, Xisheng couldn't help but feel much happier eating something he knew was made with him in mind to some extent.
After that, he would assess the current situation on the ship, which was always the same: nothing out of the ordinary, with everything proceeding as planned. The only plus here was that Ty Lee would always be on the deck somewhere, going through some stretches in the light of the morning sun. Naturally, Xisheng took some time each morning to talk with her, but nothing of particular note was discussed on any of those days. Her wound was healing nicely, to the point that it hardly bothered her any longer. She always asked how his training was going and what he was writing about, but that was about it. Still, even though the conversations were merely casual exchanges, they were nice. The whole point of being comfortable with someone was that you didn't have to make every interaction something particularly deep or meaningful.
From then until lunch, Xisheng would continue training his compressed Firebending technique. For hours at a time, he would simply stand or sit around, and commit his time to trying to squeeze that sphere of flame smaller and smaller. With such focused commitment, he had made some more progress, being a mere hair's breadth from Azula benchmark. But at the same time, he'd discovered new problems with the whole thing.
It was difficult for him to focus so intently on just this one thing, especially when he had to do it everyday and the progress was so painstakingly minimal compared to his investments in time and effort. You had to focus so intently, with such dedication to the one singular goal, and Xisheng... wasn't really good at that. At all. Sure, he could focus on an important task, in a manner of speaking. But his focus always encompassed a dozen aspects of the situation at hand.
For instance, when they had fought Aang and his friends in Gaoling: his focus had been on the fight, but it had really been on many different aspects of it. What would the Avatar do next? Would Toph intervene? How were his allies faring? What would happen to the war effort if they won? What would happen to them if they lost? Should he strike high or feint low? All of this and more had constantly been on his mind while they were fighting.
This wide scope of awareness and forethought was helpful in many ways, particularly when it come to strategic planning and long-term prediction, but it was detrimental when you really needed precise, nigh unflinching focus on one singular thing. For instance, this compressed Firebending training. He needed to focus on one thing and one thing alone: the process of condensing his bending to a particular level. Everything else was irrelevant to his training.
But everything else still occurred to him anyway. Was there a better method to achieve the result he wanted? What if he couldn't do any better than this? Would Azula be disappointed in him? It wasn't just doubts either. Tactical applications, the value of this technique compared to others, how it could be applied to other aspects of his skill-set, how it could synergize with the abilities of his allies... even though he knew these tangential thoughts were impairing his progress, Xisheng couldn't prevent them from arising, nor could he completely stop himself from entertaining them. He just wasn't built that way. He was a thinker. He thought about everything, all the time, and he couldn't help himself.
Perhaps Azula had been right about this aspect of him being a liability as well as a boon.
While he certainly wasn't able to train with maximum efficiency due to this reality, it wasn't like Xisheng wasn't progressing at all, so at least he avoided the despair that an absolute skill plateau would have caused him. When lunch rolled around, he took a break and partook in it, then allowed his body to rest from its fairly intense chi exertions by getting more chi blocking tutelage from Ty Lee. Mostly theoretical aspects of the skill, considering their limited training space.
Azula would inquire about his Firebending progress and focus on direct tutelage for a few hours, then Xisheng spent what was left of the evening writing in his newly minted journal until dinner, after which he spoke to Mai for a time if she felt like talking, or retired for the night if she didn't.
All in all, the days were hardly bad by any stretch: but with an eagerness to finally get to land, not only for a change of pace but also to potentially learn one of the most legendary Firebending techniques of all time, Xisheng was utterly exasperated with how slow they passed. Heck, by the fourth day, he was mindlessly staring out to sea in the early hours of the morning, having stopped near the ship railing before even getting to the spot on the deck Ty Lee was usually doing her thing.
He wasn't really staring at anything. Just the great beyond, as the encompassing feeling of dreadful boredom and lacking motivation encompassed him from seemingly nowhere. Perhaps he had just been keeping it contained over the past few days. Damn, was this what Mai felt like when she was bored? No wonder she was willing to try almost anything to get a break from it.
For a moment, Xisheng pondered whether or not he really wanted to repeat the same routine again today. Obviously, the answer was no, but ultimately, that didn't mean he wouldn't. A big part of discipline was pushing yourself to do things you didn't want to just because you knew you needed to. Still, it was difficult to muster up the motivation...
Before he could possibly talk himself out of the whole ordeal, Xisheng's thoughts were interrupted by a clanging bell echoing through the communication pipes. For a moment, he was worried about its meaning, but it wasn't as urgent of a tempo compared to how the bell was used when something was actually wrong. This seemed more like something that was just used to get the crew's attention.
"Attention all crew, land ahead! Prepare to bring the vessel to shore."
Some other instructions were mentioned after this, but Xisheng didn't hear them. He was too busy getting excited over the news itself.
"Thank you, finally!"
"Tell me about it!"
Apparently, the soldier was so happy that he hadn't even noticed that he'd said that aloud. He did, however, recognize the voice of Ty Lee, who was walking up to the front of the ship where he was standing. Maybe she was coming up here to try and see the supposed land they were approaching. Either way, she continued her sentiment without pause.
"I can't wait to be off of this thing! I mean, it wasn't all bad with the captain's medicine, but I'll be much happier with solid ground underneath me again."
Xisheng smiled in understanding. "Sounds like something an Earthbender would say as opposed to the two of us. But I don't disagree. You don't realize how small a ship like this really is until it's all you have to look at for a week or two."
Now standing beside him near the ship's front railing, Ty Lee leaned over it a bit to peer out to sea. "That's way too true. But you know, I don't really see anything out there..."
Xisheng followed the girl's hazel gaze out to sea, noting that he also couldn't see anything that resembled land. "Well, the guys on the bridge have telescopes. I'm sure it will be a bit before we can see what they're seeing. But as long as someone sees it, that's good enough for me."
While she'd been happy for a moment, Ty Lee's face fell for some reason not long after Xisheng said this. "Yeah..."
Naturally, the soldier in question didn't miss this. "Something wrong? I can't imagine what part of finally landing would make you feel bad."
His comrade's expression grew a little sad. "Well, it's just that getting back on land means getting on track to more fighting, right? Other than that scary run-in with the enemy ship, this voyage was peaceful and relaxing, if a little boring. I kind of liked knowing that there wasn't much fighting to expect while we were riding this thing."
He hadn't thought of it that way yet, but Xisheng supposed that Ty Lee had a point. The encounter with the Earth Kingdom Navy had been a totally unexpected development. Aside from that, they had spent most of this leg of the trip feeling at ease and not expecting to engage with any danger. Something about that was kind of nice. Once they were on land again, they would surely be wasting little time in proceeding towards Ba Sing Se, which was expected to be one of the fiercest battles the war had seen in years.
Sure, they were technically riding this boat to move towards Ba Sing Se in the first place, but since it was just a transition period between ground travel, it had been easy to compartmentalize and ignore that aspect of the journey. That would be hard to do once they were on the ground again, since they would inevitably lay eyes on the giant walls of Ba Sing Se eventually.
"I get what you mean. But don't worry about it too much, Ty Lee. There's no way you'll be expected to fight at Ba Sing Se. That's a job that will be left up to soldiers like me."
While he thought this would be reassuring, Ty Lee's expression made it clear that it didn't ease her nerves at all. "Exactly. I don't feel better knowing that you're going to be in danger even if I'm safe."
Even now, Xisheng wondered how such sentiments slipped by his awareness sometimes. Of course it made sense that his friends would worry about him fighting a major battle. That only made sense. Maybe he always overlooked that because he took his participation in combat as a given. That was his job, after all.
"Well... maybe it won't be directly on the frontlines. Unless she relinquishes me to another commander, I'll still be answering directly to Azula at Ba Sing Se, and I doubt she'll be leading a charge right on the frontlines. Though I also doubt she'll sit back and choose not to participate at all..."
"I hope she does. A Princess should command from the rear, right? At least then we'll all be safe..."
Noticing the wishful look on her face, Xisheng refrained from saying what he was thinking. He didn't just doubt that Azula would sit out of the fight, he knew that she wouldn't. She just wasn't that type of person. They would fight in the battle, it was just a matter of how. Still, maybe it was possible she would leave Mai and Ty Lee out of it. They weren't soldiers, or any form of representative of the Fire Nation military. It would make sense to leave them out of an official engagement.
Xisheng's silence must not have been lost on Ty Lee, as she clearly picked up on his deeper thoughts, to some extent. While it could only have been a guess, she did a good job at nailing what he was thinking about. "Well, that's probably wishful thinking since we're talking about Azula. But I guess it'll be better if we get to fight together as a group. At least then I can protect you."
Ty Lee gave him a beaming smile at this, which caught Xisheng off guard. He hadn't expected her to carry such a sentiment, at least not specifically in regard to him. He couldn't help but smile back. "Hold on now, it would be even better if you didn't have to protect me. Hopefully I can take care of myself."
His partner cocked an eyebrow at him. "Aren't you the one who always talks about how no one person can be ready for everything on the battlefield?"
"Well, yes... but still, that doesn't mean I can't try to ensure none of you have to risk yourself to cover me."
"I guess that's fair... even so, you always protect us in fights so well. I'd like to be able to return the favor to you one of these days..."
While the sentiment was sweet, Xisheng couldn't help but frown at its mention. Prior to now, most of their combats had been fairly tame. Sure, Katara had actually gone for a killing blow in their most recent conflict, but that was about the only time their fighting had escalated to that level during their journey. At Ba Sing Se, it would be a full-blown military operation. Soldiers fighting soldiers, doing their best to kill each other at every opportunity. If there was a moment when Xisheng was in danger and needed to be protected... it was likely that protection would necessitate killing his attacker. Frankly, he didn't think Ty Lee was ready for that kind of thing. And if she somehow managed to bring herself to do it in the heat of the moment... he didn't even want to think about what that would do to her.
But he certainly wasn't going to say any of this to her. These concerns were valid, but there was no point in burdening Ty Lee with these thoughts long before they would be relevant. It would be far better to end this on a good note as they moved towards the next leg of their journey.
"I'll be glad to have you at my side regardless. I'll do my best to protect you too."
Ty Lee smiled at him, clearly happy to know he trusted her. Xisheng smiled back, doing his best to hide his dire thoughts for the near future.
Though they hadn't been able to see the shore when it was first announced that they were near it, it only took about an hour to make landfall after said announcement. The place they landed was nothing special: the foot of some cliffs that led up to the edge of a forest, with nothing of note present in the vicinity. Quite frankly, it seemed like they had decided to land at the very first point they had been able to lay eyes on.
Then again, Xisheng wasn't particularly surprised by this. For one, he certainly hadn't expected a Fire Nation base to be out here, as it was far too deep in EK territory. Secondly, there wasn't much of actual value out here as far as cities were concerned, and that meant few landmarks were marked on maps either. Oddly enough, the land to the Southeast of Ba Sing Se was mostly uninhabited, save for scattered, small villages. Maybe that made sense, since the Earth Kingdom hadn't been in much of a position to expand over the past hundred years or so.
Point being, they were far away from any other signs of civilization, which raised an important question: where were they going to go from here, and how? Certainly, the nearest Fire Nation base had to be several days of travel away, and that was if they had a vehicle like the Overlord available to them. Needless to say, the small boat that had ferried them here had been unable to bring along anything of that size. There just wasn't any cargo space for something like that.
That said, if they had to walk to the nearest Fire Nation outpost, which was probably quite far to the west of Ba Sing Se, they'd be on the road for weeks, if not months. Surely that wasn't the plan. At the moment, Xisheng didn't know how they were going to tackle this problem, but he was fairly confident Azula or someone in this outfit had a plan to get around it. After all, surely the Princess had considered this problem long before they had ever set sail in the first place.
Still, he was curious to know what the exact solution would be. Right now, the crew of the small tug was just finishing up with camp: after some time at sea, no one was going to frown on the chance to sleep on solid ground for as long as they had to be here. Considering the crew was only about fifteen men, said camp consisted of little more than a few tents and a patch of dirt carved away to make space for a campfire, but anything felt pretty good after sleeping on a rocking boat.
Placing down a crate of some food that he had helped carry to their new campsite, Xisheng glanced around to see where everyone was, or more specifically, where Azula was. He figured the best thing to do was just ask her about their next step. Thankfully, with a small camp and a small number of people around, it wasn't particularly hard to do that: off to the side, away from the bustling hands of the rest of the crew, Azula stood talking with the Captain, along with another of the men, who was currently tending to a large red-feathered bird of some sort. Xisheng wasted no time in moving towards them, so it didn't take long to pick up on their discussion.
"Do you know how long this is going to take?"
That question was asked by Azula, directly to the crew member with the large bird, which looked like some sort of hawk. Xisheng recognized it as one of the common messenger birds often used by the Fire Nation military, but off the top of his head, he didn't actually know what species it was. The man in question looked a little nervous to have the Princess speaking directly to him, but to his credit, he kept it together pretty well.
"I'm afraid I can't say with exact certainty, Princess. There are many factors that could impact the time frame in question, such as weather and hunting for food, but... I estimate it should only take about three or four days."
"In its entirety, or just to get there?"
Perhaps seeing a followup question as a sign of unhappiness, the sailor balked a little, but he ultimately reclaimed his nerve. "T-that's just for the bird to reach its destination, your Highness. I can't speak for how quickly the unit it reaches will respond..."
Azula looked a little miffed to hear that, but seemingly understood that the person in front of her couldn't be held accountable for what other people somewhere far away did or didn't do. She noticed Xisheng approaching them before she could respond directly to the statement made by the sailor.
"Ah, Lieutenant. I assume you are here to be appraised of the situation?"
"Yes, Princess."
The young girl motioned at the red-feathered bird not far from her. Said creature was remarkably well-mannered and quiet, though that was to be expected of any animal trained for military use.
"Well, as you can see, there's nothing of note around here, and as I'm sure you know, we are quite far to the southeast of Ba Sing Se. Wherever the nearest Fire Nation outpost is, it is undoubtedly somewhere to the west of Ba Sing Se, quite some distance from us. Needless to say, walking is not an option. Fortunately, we have a means of long-distance communication with us, since this problem was fairly easily to predict from the outset of this journey."
Xisheng glanced at the bird the sailor next to the Captain was holding as Azula continued. "This creature will make its way to the nearest possible Fire Nation outpost, relay our message, then guide a detachment with suitable transport back to our location. At least, that is how I believe this works."
Azula glanced at the sailor with the bird again, though the Captain spoke for him this time. "That is correct, your Highness. Not to worry, the hawks of the Fire Nation are some of the best trained messenger birds in the world. We'll have transport for you and your allies in no time."
Honestly, Xisheng was curious to know how that all worked. How did the bird know to fly west? What was stopping it from going east, or even straight north to Ba Sing Se? And even if Azula and company didn't move from this very spot, would it really be able to fly several dozen miles away, then fly back to this exact destination? That sounded kind of crazy.
Then again, he didn't know what these birds were capable of or what their training was like. There were some pretty amazing animals out there: you had mountable reptiles that could run over water, buffalo that could fly, and according to one story he had heard, some sort of shrew thing that could allegedly track a scent anywhere around the world. It wasn't too far-fetched to think that a bird had really good navigational ability.
"Sounds quite impressive. I suppose that means we'll be staying out here for at least a week?"
"So it would seem. Admittedly, I'd prefer to be on my way sooner than that, but I understand that there's nothing to be done about it. You and I will have some things to attend to during that time, but for today, you may relax. There is little for any of us to do other than wait."
Since he had been given express permission to do so, Xisheng bowed before turning to take his leave. Admittedly, it was a little weird to be ordered to relax right after landing, but he supposed Azula had a point in saying there was nothing else to do. Setting up camp for such a small contingent of people was already over and done with. Considering they were practically in the middle of nowhere, there was effectively no need for a patrol either. It would be prudent to have a sentry just in case, but that job would probably fall to someone else.
As for training with lightning... well, originally Xisheng had assumed that Azula wouldn't do that until their group had separated from the ship crew. But now that they were going to be with them for some time still, perhaps the Princess didn't want to wait so long. They'd probably just remove themselves significantly from the camp to train when that time came. Xisheng couldn't imagine what else Azula could have meant when she said they would have some things to attend to. It made sense anyway: Azula wasn't one to let an entire week go by without anything meaningful being achieved.
As for relaxing for the rest of the evening, that wasn't terribly hard to do: with everyone happy to be on land again, the crew broke out 'the good stuff' though it didn't really mean much more than a keg of barely passable alcohol and some rations that weren't the kind intended to last for six months. A far cry from a truly great meal, but it probably seemed great for the average enlisted trooper.
Someone started a campfire, and crates, suitable stumps, or simply clean patches of grass became everyone's seats. The light revelry began soon after, since there was almost no concern of being seen or heard out here. Even though that was the case, Xisheng didn't partake in any of the drinking: for one, he didn't see the appeal in it, himself. He preferred to remain in full control of his mental and physical faculties at all times. Two, he had seen what became of a drunk man when he got ambushed. Surviving a surprise attack was hard enough when you weren't wasted. You were either doomed yourself or putting a great burden on your allies if you weren't even in full control of yourself when an attack happened.
Sure, Xisheng highly doubted that they would face any danger out here in the wilderness, but that was what he had thought about the open ocean as well, and they had almost been killed out there. He'd prefer to play it safe. As for everyone else, the young soldier admitted that he was pretty curious about what they would do. Mai and Ty Lee were technically allowed to drink if they wanted to, by the most common Fire Nation laws. Azula technically couldn't, but she was the Crown Princess. It wasn't like anyone could stop her if she wanted to do it. That said, Xisheng couldn't imagine that either Mai or Azula would be able to stomach the cheap swill being passed around right now. Ty Lee, maybe, but that was only because Xisheng had no clue what she may have actually gotten up to in her circus days.
So far though, he hadn't seen any of the girls drinking. Ty Lee had been persuaded to put on a little bit of an acrobatics show by the eager crew: something she seemed to be having a lot of fun with, if the smile illuminated by the campfire were any indication. Ordinarily, Xisheng would be a little concerned about a young girl putting on a physical performance for a crew full of slightly intoxicated men with little female interaction. Not to say that all soldiers were degenerates, but he knew how taxing it could be on one's restraint when you ended up stationed at a base with no women for months on end. There were women in the military now, but Xisheng hadn't seen any at the outpost before they left.
But he trusted these guys, for the most part. Aside from the fact that their cheering and clapping and weirdly innocent praise for Ty Lee's performance didn't put off any bad vibes, Ty Lee herself seemed to trust them. By the way she'd talked during the sailing trip, she thought well of the crew. Based on a few things he'd heard in passing from the crew members themselves, it seemed they saw Ty Lee in a sisterly way more than anything else. Or maybe like a mascot. Either way, Ty Lee was a good judge of character most of the time, so Xisheng wasn't worried if she wasn't.
Besides, it wasn't like anyone could get away with much considering the situation. If Ty Lee didn't drop an assailant herself, said assailant would have to worry about her friends that would almost definitely be within thirty feet of her for most of this camping trip.
As for the other girls, it was difficult to pick Azula out in the darkness that had fallen over the wilderness, but a quick glance at the tents made it seem like she had retreated to the one she had claimed for herself. At least, her empty boots outside the entrance indicated as much.
Xisheng couldn't find similar signs of Mai hiding out in one of the tents, but he couldn't spot her anywhere around the campfire either. Well, that was no great surprise: she probably wasn't the type to care for all of the hooping and hollering going on right now. Still, after making a few glances around the immediate area, he was just slightly worried about her location. It was quite dark away from the fire, and unless someone had lit a torch for her, which he hadn't seen happen, it wasn't too far-fetched to imagine that she had tripped out in the dark somewhere. And with all this noise going on, they probably wouldn't hear her calling for help.
OK, so maybe that was all a bit paranoid and extreme, but Xisheng was thinking about it now, and it wasn't like he had anything better to do. So he rose from the dry stump he was sitting on, which caught Ty Lee's eye in the middle of one of her handstands. Answering her quizzical expression with a gesture of his own, Xisheng made it obvious that he was just walking away for a bit. The brunette seemed to get his message readily enough, as she simply smiled and waved as he made his exit: he wasn't sure if the chorus of cheers from the crew was them teasing her over that direct interaction, or just them being impressed that she didn't even need that second hand to hold herself up.
Leaving those sounds behind, it quickly grew quite dark for Xisheng, with the cloak of night before him and the firelight some way behind his back. He had half a mind to light a flame of his own to see, but on second thought, he elected not to. A firelight would illuminate his immediate surroundings, but make it very hard to see beyond that. He'd be better off waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark: there were enough stars in the sky, along with a half moon, to illuminate the wilderness well enough.
After standing around for a minute or two, Xisheng was able to see in the dark much better, though it didn't initially help him with his search. He didn't see Mai anywhere in the immediate vicinity, at least not in the direction of the forest. He couldn't imagine that she would have wandered so far as to not be able to see the light of the camp, since Xisheng knew for certain that she wasn't that reckless. Still, he supposed she could have been reclining against a tree at an angle that was impossible for him to see.
Before committing to searching the forest, the young soldier perused the opposite direction, which mostly involved the cliffs that overlooked the ocean. It was grassy enough at the top of them, and there were a few rocks suitable for reclining against, so it wasn't totally out of the question that she would be around there...
Wondering how long it would be reasonable to search before becoming legitimately worried, Xisheng was not initially met with success as he searched in this direction with a sweeping gaze. However, upon a return inspection, he fared better: one would think that Mai's extremely dark hair would make it difficult to see her in the dark, but oddly enough, it was quite the opposite. The blackness actually stood out against the background, an inky dark spot that broke up the consistency of the sky and stars beyond. Maybe the relatively brightly lit sea helped with that.
Either way, Xisheng took a moment to wonder if he should bother the girl considering that she had clearly elected to be alone in the first place. But ultimately, he decided there was no harm in approaching. If she expressed a desire to be alone, he'd stop harrying her immediately.
With that thought in mind, the young Firebender approached quietly, not because he was trying to, but because the soft grass under his feet muffled his footsteps. It only took a few moments to come up behind Mai, who was reclining against an outcropping of rock and gazing out towards the ocean.
"I see our sailing trip has awakened you to the beauty of the open ocean, Mai."
Xisheng was a little worried that his sudden appearance would startle Mai, but she seemed perfectly calm as she glanced over her shoulder at him. Perhaps she had heard him coming, or she just wasn't prone to jump. Whichever the case, she replied to him immediately.
"You say that like it's terribly hard to see the open ocean in the Fire Nation. I have seen it before, you know. Honestly, the view is hardly any different here than it is anywhere else."
Turning her gaze back to said ocean, Mai smiled just slightly. "Still, I guess I didn't bother to just sit and stare at it for very long before. I'll admit, it has some charm once you stop to appreciate it. Particularly at night."
Following her gaze out to sea, Xisheng took note of the view. The water was quite clear, but in the darkness it was easy to see the bright reflections of the moon and stars, distorted only by the rhythmic passing of waves, the light sloshing of which could be heard even from up here. Indeed, it was even more amazing at night.
"I can't disagree with you there. For all of the drawbacks of being a solely island nation, I've always appreciated the Fire Nation's shores. Nice views, relaxing sounds, ocean-scented breezes: it's a nice plus. Kind of weird that a bunch of Firebenders have such a close societal relationship with water..."
Mai didn't say anything back to this immediately, prompting Xisheng to recall his earlier concern. "Anyway, I didn't mean to bother you, if you want to be alone. I just wanted to make sure you were alright out here. I'll return to the others, then..."
Xisheng didn't even get very far in turning around before Mai stopped him. "You don't have to leave if you don't want to. I mean, I did kind of want to be alone, but mostly just because everyone is so loud over there. I don't mind company, if it's you."
Admittedly quite happy to hear this, Xisheng took a seat next to Mai. The outcropping of rock she was leaning against was big enough for both of them, but that was fine. He had spent plenty of time in his life sitting without back support.
"High praise: I'm starting to wonder if anyone else receives such privilege from you."
The girl next to him picked up on his jesting tone without issue. "Probably not. I don't really consider you a person in that sense."
Needless to say, this exact phrasing threw Xisheng off, though he didn't immediately jump to conclusions since he figured Mai would extrapolate. Still, he did offer the young woman a confused expression, which didn't go unnoticed. Mai grimaced slightly upon acknowledging how her words had sounded.
"Yeah, I guess that probably sounds incredibly harsh... I don't really mean it in a bad way. I'm not quite sure how to put this, since I've never really had to explain it before... does dealing with people ever exhaust you, Gohan?"
Xisheng pondered his answer for a moment. "There's certainly people that exasperate me when I have to deal with them. But 'exhaust'? I don't know. Depends on what exactly you mean by that."
Mai glanced up at the stars as she internally questioned how to explain something that sometimes felt unique to her. At the very least, no one had ever expressed a similar sentiment to her directly.
"Well... I don't know, imagine it like the Overlord's engine. Throughout the day, being around people and interacting with them, it's kind of like putting coal in the engine. It's draining. And limited. If you keep shoveling coal in there, eventually you run out, and the engine doesn't burn anymore. I've got some coal every day, but when it runs out, I don't want to be around people anymore. I need time to myself, time to 'stock up' on more coal before I can tolerate being around others again. Pretty much everyone takes some coal to be around: strangers, my parents, Ty Lee and Azula... it's just a matter of how much they take."
Admittedly, Xisheng didn't really understand this line of reasoning, at least not as far as sympathy was concerned. Sure, he understood what Mai was saying: many introverted people needed time to themselves away from others on a regular basis in order to function normally. But he wasn't such a person himself. He liked having time to himself, but he didn't strictly require it. So, he understood the sentiment, he just couldn't sympathize with it personally. He didn't get to comment on this though, since Mai had to finish her thought.
"Then there's you... being around you doesn't seem to take any 'coal'. You don't even bother me when I'm already at the point where I don't want to be around anyone else. That's what I meant when I said you don't really count as a person in that sense. Unlike literally everyone else, I don't mind having you around at any time: it doesn't feel any different from being alone. I never really acknowledged it before, but that really does make you..."
Perhaps realizing where she was going with this before she actually spoke, Mai petered off, a somewhat bashful look on her face. Still, the word 'special' wasn't hard to pick up on even in the silence. Truly, now that she thought about it, Mai admitted that the whole thing was quite unique. Obviously her parents had always been the type of people to drain her, what with all of their demands on how she should act. She got along with Ty Lee and Azula, but even then, there was enough personality friction in some spots to make them a drain as well: just not a terribly taxing one. Even back when she and Zuko had been close, there had come a point every day when she'd prefer to be away from him for a time. He would occasionally get too loud, too ardently fervent about some lofty ideal, or just a little too whiny about life's travails. She hadn't held it against him, but he had fallen into the category of 'draining' just like everyone else, even if it hadn't been very severe.
What was it about Gohan that set him apart from all of those people? Apart from literally everyone else she had interacted with throughout life? Well, maybe it wasn't that hard to figure out: he understood her. He knew what got on her nerves and was always mindful to avoid those things. He never pressured her into anything, no matter how minor. He didn't try and force her to express herself if she didn't want to, didn't try and force her to have opinions about any particular thing, didn't try to force her to care about stuff that was only important to him. Granted, there were other people in her life who had never done those things, but those people had always expressed some sort of disappointment in her for failure to do them on her own.
Gohan not only didn't pressure her into anything, but it also wasn't a matter of him just pretending he was unbothered. He well and truly was perfectly accepting of how Mai was. He was fine with the way she acted, spoke, and thought at all times. Even if he didn't agree with something she said or did, he never actually condemned it on its own merits. There was never some backhanded remark about her being grim, or some passive aggressive comment about never smiling, or an accusatory assertion that she wasn't feminine enough. Everyone else in her life had, at least once, asserted that she would be 'better' if she changed in some way, but Gohan never did. Mai felt that he was perfectly content with her as she was, that he never looked at her and thought she was inferior to some 'better future self'. And thus, she was perfectly content around him.
It seemed that he really was quite special.
Perhaps misunderstanding the silence, or perhaps just feeling that it would be better to avoid a long silence at all, Xisheng spoke up. "Well, I'll admit, it sounds a lot better when you word it like that. I'm glad I manage to not tick you off even when everyone else does."
Admittedly, Xisheng somewhat doubted the absolute validity of Mai's words. After all, not very long ago at all she had been going to great lengths to avoid him. But then again, it was possible that this and that weren't the same. Maybe her motivations for avoiding him back then were wholly separate from this. Maybe, odd though it was to believe, the problem really had been her, and not him. Well, everyone needed some time to themselves to work things out occasionally. Either way, Xisheng wasn't going to express such thoughts. No need to ruin a good thing.
"And can I just say how amusing it is that the Overlord left such an impact on you, to the extent that you'd even turn to it for an analogy? And here I thought you didn't miss it at all."
Admittedly glad for a lighthearted diversion from their previous topic, Mai rolled her eyes. "It was a fitting analogy, alright? Don't look too far into it. It was still a bitch to sit in that chair."
"Come on, wouldn't you want to drive it just one more time? Maybe shoot some harpoons at a boulder for old times' sake?"
"Yeah, yeah... maybe just one more time."
For better or for worse, the rest of the night was spent with little focus on matters of intense import. Perhaps that wasn't a great use of anyone's time, but at the very least, it was relaxing, and no one was displeased with carrying on as they always did. Even so, there was no denying that new thoughts had taken root in a few minds, to be pondered in perpetuity, or until they would one day no longer be needed.
One thing that Xisheng hadn't particularly missed about regular army life was sleeping among lots of other people. Whether in the field or in the barracks, it was hard to deny that sleeping alongside many other soldiers was tough. Especially if any of them were loud sleepers. But the first night on the new shores of the Earth Kingdom, Xisheng hadn't been forced to return to that lifestyle, even though he had expected to. When he was ready to sleep for the night, one of the crew informed him that he had his own tent, as specifically instructed by Azula.
Subtle though it was, it was well and truly clear that he existed in a different echelon of value to her than common soldiers. Not that he had been unaware of that fact, but it was still a little shocking to know that Azula thought of such a small comfort on his behalf. That such a thing had even occurred to her at all spoke volumes of his current station.
Part of him was worried that the rest of the crew would be a little jealous about that, but after the escapade with the Earth Kingdom Navy vessel, Xisheng appeared to be on their collective good side. Made sense: he had played a vital role in keeping everyone alive there at the very end. Besides, it wasn't like this was really any different from the ship. He'd gotten his own small cabin there as well, rather than being forced to sleep in the crew quarters.
Either way, he had spent the night in a small but enclosed tent, which was nice. Unfortunately, he didn't get to enjoy the quiet of slumber for nearly as long as he would have liked. He wasn't quite sure what time it was when it occurred, but at some point in the early hours of the morning, Xisheng heard the flap to his tent being pushed aside, accompanied by a surge in brightness from the rising sun outside. Before he even got a chance to really respond to any of this from the grogginess of sleep, Xisheng heard what he could have sworn was a stifled yelp as the tent flap was closed once more, and quite suddenly.
Well, that warranted investigating. Especially since there were only three girls in camp, and it certainly wasn't any of the crew who had made a noise so... cute. Still, having been in the depths of slumber when this occurred, it took Xisheng a good minute to sit up, shake the stars out of his eyes, and stretch a kink out of his arm, coincidentally the one that had spent so long in a sling. Only after that did he manage to actually crawl towards the tent flap and push it open so he could appraise the outside world.
First, he noted that it was barely dawn. The sun was only just now rising above the horizon. It just happened to be at an angle that let it shine into his tent when the flap was open. Secondly, Azula was standing not far from said tent, with her back turned to him and fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. Of special note was the lack of her usual armor, which, in hindsight, Xisheng had rarely seen her without. Sometimes he forgot how slim and petite she really was under the imposing armor that added artificial broadness to her shoulders.
Either way, Xisheng was curious to know what was going on here. No one else appeared to be up at this time, so it wasn't like anyone else could have intruded on his sleep other than Azula.
"Uh, Princess?"
In what was a very rare display of nervousness, Azula jumped a little as she glanced over her shoulder at him, which seemed a little odd since she surely must have expected him to exit the tent after an intrusion. Or perhaps she hadn't thought he'd actually heard any of it. Either way, Xisheng noted that her face was beet red for some reason, almost matching the shade of her clothes. In this moment, she looked like a startled deerhound that had accidentally stumbled onto another animal. Needless to say, this wasn't a look Xisheng had ever seen on her, and he wasn't sure what to make of it. Granted, the early amber lightning of the dawn may have been responsible for the color he thought he was seeing, but still, her expression was confusing to him. Unfortunately, having just returned to the land of the living, he wasn't in any mental shape to start unraveling the mystery.
At any rate, Azula turned away from him almost immediately, crossing her arms and attempting to come off as nonchalant. Unfortunately for her, her nervous tone of voice, higher pitched than usual, betrayed her. That was to say nothing about the sense of her trying too hard to appear normal. She was way too stiff.
"Ah, X-Xisheng, good morning! What awakens you at this hour?"
The sleepy soldier cocked an eyebrow at her. "Uh, I'm pretty sure you did?"
"N-nonsense, my footfalls are hardly that loud. Surely you must be mistaken."
Xisheng squinted at the young girl's back, keenly aware of the fact that she was pointedly looking away from him and fidgeting a bit more than usual: fidgeting at all was more than Azula usually did. It didn't take an engineer to see that she was lying, and not very well at that, which was immensely surprising for her of all people.
Xisheng could press her on this matter further, but was it even worth doing so? The likely outcomes were that she would either continue to deny whatever was happening or she would get angry with him for not taking a hint. Besides, it always seemed smarter to him to investigate these odd moments in silence than to let people know he was thinking about them too hard, especially when said people were obviously trying to downplay the situation. For now, he'd let Azula think he was fooled. There was plenty of time to ponder this odd exchange later.
"I suppose so. I did have some weird dreams throughout the night, so maybe that just woke me up. Still, what are you doing up at this time?"
Under ordinary circumstances, Azula probably would have been very wary of things going this smoothly. But at the moment, she seemed more than content to accept what seemed like a win on the surface. "Well, I was coming to get you. I told you we would have things to do this week."
"That you did. This early though?"
"Of course. We have a long and hard-"
For some reason, Azula's face took on a bit more of that crimson hue for a moment, as she caught herself and rephrased. Very curious.
"-a task that will require a significant amount of time and effort to accomplish. E-especially if we wish to accomplish it before feasibly engaging in some battle once again. We mustn't let any time go to waste!"
Honestly, Xisheng was still really curious about Azula's odd behavior this morning, but knowing that she was referring to new lessons on the most powerful art of Firebending, he promptly shelved those thoughts in favor of the latter. Today was the day he might learn to control even the frightening power of lightning. He couldn't help but allow the thought of it to dominate his mind.
"Very well, Princess. I'm sure you know better than anyone. Just allow me to don my boots, and I'll be ready."
Honestly, Xisheng considered putting on his armor as well, even though it wasn't like he would really need it for anything. He was just so used to wearing it that he almost felt naked without it. But at the same time, he figured it would be nice to be free of the extra weight for a day. Besides, he didn't know what this training would entail, and perhaps the armor would get in the way. For now, he'd leave it in his tent. The possibility of needing it for some reason didn't leave his mind completely, but statistically speaking, he knew it was very unlikely, so Xisheng was comfortable enough with that knowledge.
Apparently, his decision to not further prod Azula about her odd behavior helped the young girl regain some semblance of stoicism, as by the time Xisheng had his boots on, she appeared to be back to her normal self. "Come on, then. We must find a place suitably removed from camp to train. I told the Captain last night to inform his men that they would do very well to stay far away from us during this training, but you never know what fool will disregard threats of death."
Xisheng cocked an eyebrow at Azula as he began to follow her away from the camp and towards the forest surrounding the camp. "Threats of death? Surely that's a bit dramatic..."
In stark contrast to but a few minutes earlier, Azula glanced back at him with deadly seriousness. "On the contrary. Bending lightning is one of, if not the most closely guarded secret in Firebending. I cannot allow that secret to be revealed to anyone that I don't trust implicitly."
Knowing full well that she wouldn't joke about something like that, Xisheng posed a question now that they had left the camp far behind them. He didn't know how much of this conversation was sensitive information.
"If you don't mind me asking, why is that? I've seen you use it, so I've no doubt that it's immensely powerful, but to be guarded that carefully?"
Azula returned her attention to the forest around her, likely looking for a suitable location to carry out their goals. "There are many reasons, I suppose. For one, it gives the Royal Family an edge in public perception. Our political system heavily relies on public perception of us being the most powerful and most suited to rule. Possessing a special technique that is nigh unheard of outside of the Royal Family certainly helps with that. On the other hand, it's just dangerous to have such a powerful technique available to the masses. It has the greatest range of all Firebending techniques, is extremely lethal, and even as far as I know, cannot be countered short of the attack being blocked or outright missing. It would be a very powerful tool of assassination. Call it paranoia, but I think it's fair that the Royal Family wouldn't want it to be common knowledge."
"Can't be countered...? Why? If a Firebender can generate lightning in the first place, it stands to reason that another Firebender could control it just like fire, right? You know, like when an opponent takes control of your fireball after you launch it."
To this, Azula merely shrugged. "Simply put, it's too powerful. I tried many times when my father was teaching me the technique. Loathe as I am to say it, even I could not exert my will over a bolt of lightning after it was in motion. With normal fire, you generate the attack, but it is easy to restrain and control. Lightning is also generated by you, but within moments it becomes too powerful to contain. Think of it like an explosion that occurs almost as soon as you light the fuse: while you may have been the one to light said fuse, the strength of the actual explosion is beyond your ability to control."
As the two of them continued walking even further from the camp, Xisheng figured he may as well keep asking questions. After all, this knowledge was all going to be relevant very soon. "But you said the entire reason I needed to learn compressed Firebending was to see if I could control large amounts of power. If lightning is too powerful to be controlled, what was the point of that?"
"That's a fair question. But you may as well wait for an answer until I am explaining the entire process, yes? It will make more sense in that context anyway. Besides, you won't have to wait long for it: I believe this location is far enough away from camp to avoid prying eyes and ears."
Looking around them, Xisheng noticed that they had stopped in a very small clearing. Honestly, calling it a clearing at all was probably a bit generous. There was only about thirty feet of space between any one tree and the one opposite of the clearing. "Here? There's not a lot of room to maneuver..."
Azula waved off his concern. "That's of no consequence. Generating lightning has little to do with the legs. You can perform the technique without ever moving from the place you stand, so a great deal of space is not necessary."
Considering that he had seen Azula generate lightning before in just such a fashion, Xisheng figured he wouldn't inquire any further on that front. Seeing that he wasn't going to ask anything else right away, Azula wasted no time in beginning her explanation of firebending's most legendary skill.
"Chi comes in two forms. Xisheng. Or rather, chi itself is a combination of two different types of energy. The physical, and the spiritual: yin and yang. All humans possess yin and yang energies, but they combine into chi on their own. This occurs naturally without any will or intent on a person's part, like our hearts beating or breathing. This is because the yin and yang energies are always striving to be together, to coalesce into a unified whole. Understanding this aspect of chi is the core principle behind generating lightning."
While he didn't quite understand where exactly this was going, Xisheng was at least following Azula's logic right this moment. "Alright..."
"These yin and yang energies may come together naturally, and there's nothing a bender has to do to make it happen. However, a Firebender can force the opposite to occur: you can separate the yin and yang energies from each other, dividing them into their raw states. It's incredibly taxing and can only be done very briefly, but that is all you need. You see, the yin and yang energies combine rather gently when left to their own devices. But when you forcefully drive a wedge between them, that changes. They struggle to reunite, pushing against the wedge holding them apart. When you take that wedge away, that reunification is unnaturally sudden, and thus, rather violent. There will be an explosion of chi unlike anything you have felt in normal firebending, and you will have to control it for the briefest of moments. That is why I had you train in compressed firebending before coming to this."
Xisheng stood quietly as he took all of this in. So far, it was all making sense. "I see. Er, what happens if you can't control that explosion of power? And how long do you actually have to control it?"
Azula focused her gaze on him. "Only for a moment. A split second, really. In fact, it's nearly impossible to hold onto it longer than that. Compressed firebending is as close as you can get to a similar experience, but make no mistake, it's several magnitudes less powerful. You cannot hold onto the power of lightning the same way you would a compressed flame. While difficult, you could feasibly compress firebending for several minutes and contain it without risk. Lightning is a different beast. As for what happens if you can't control it for the brief time it is required of you... suffice to say that the result is excruciating."
Considering that Azula had learned to bend lightning herself, and that she had admitted once to having to master things with time and effort just like everyone else, Xisheng couldn't help but feel a little anxious. What would someone like Azula consider 'excruciating'? Then again, he'd probably been hurt a lot more often than she had, so maybe her perception of pain was biased? Even so, that thought was only a small comfort.
"Well, I'll pretend that doesn't make me nervous."
"I'd say that you don't have to worry too much, but if I'm being honest with you, Xisheng, you will probably hurt yourself at least once or twice. I don't think anyone could master this skill without trial and error, seeing as how lightning bending is unlike any form of firebending you have done before."
"How so? Well, other than the whole separating yin and yang thing, of course..."
Azula took a fighting stance as she directed her attention to one of the nearby trees. "Unless you are an amateur, fire is always under the control of a Firebender. It does as you will, and does not stray from your control unless you allow it. Lightning does not bow to any master. Unlike typical firebending, which is well and truly manipulating an element in its entirety, 'controlling' lightning is only a matter of guiding its power in a direction of your choosing. Recall our explosive analogy: you can light the fuse, and you can choose where the explosion goes off, but you cannot actually control the explosion. You can only affect where it goes, and there is no stopping it once it occurs."
The Princess made a windmill like motion with one of her arms. "When you generate lightning, there will be an explosion. It cannot be contained, only directed."
She made the same motion with her other arm. "The explosion will start in your abdomen. It will attempt to spread throughout your body without direction or restraint at a frightening speed."
Azula pulled both arms together for a moment, the tips of her index and middle fingers on both hands hovering close to one another. "You must control it for a brief moment. Just long enough to guide it from your abdomen, through you torso, along your arm and through your fingers, to achieve...this."
The young girl jabbed her right arm forward, and a blue and white flash of light erupted from her fingertips. With the short distance between herself and the target, Xisheng barely caught a glimpse of the white streak of lightning she had created before it impacted a tree before them with an earsplitting crack. While Xisheng barely saw the actual attack, the aftermath was more than clear: the trunk of the target tree had split asunder, with its innards aflame. One half of the tree was falling to the earth moments afterward, thanks to the now lacking support of its destroyed trunk. The thud of the treetop colliding with dirt was difficult to even hear over the ringing in Xisheng's ears and the crackling flames that danced inside of the poor pillar of nature.
Releasing a breath, Azula glanced over at him as Xisheng admired her handiwork. "I promise you, anyone who had been hit by that directly would be dead. And though I hate to admit it, this isn't even the full potential of lightning. My father could generate a strike like that in the blink of an eye."
Xisheng swallowed hard, admittedly quite stricken by the destructive power of Azula's attack. It was hard to imagine what a direct hit against a human being would have looked like. For the briefest of moments, he had qualms about actually learning this, but ultimately, such doubts were swept away. If he did use this technique to take someone's life in the future, it wasn't like it was any different from doing it with any other method. If anything, an attack like this would probably result in much less pain simply by merit of how swift it did its work.
"It's truly incredible, I must admit. Do you... really trust me to learn this?"
Oddly enough, Azula actually seemed a little surprised by this question. It wasn't often that Xisheng expressed doubt in himself like that. "Well, I certainly trust that you won't use it for anything that would make me regret teaching you. As for whether or not I believe if you can master it at all, I wouldn't bother even trying to teach it to you at all if I thought otherwise. Try not to get too big of head, but... you are the best Firebender I know personally, outside of my family. You have my confidence on this matter."
Hearing all of that from Azula, and quite earnestly at that, Xisheng's doubts faded away. Certainly, Azula was someone who was certain of what she saw in others. He would surely meet her expectations. He had to.
"Thank you for your faith, Azula. I know that's not something that is given lightly."
Seeing that he was in a better mood, and specifically thanks to her, Azula hid a smile of her own by turning towards the tree she had destroyed a moment ago so she could smother the flames with her firebending before things got out of hand.
"Yes, well, let's focus on the actual mechanics of you pulling off this technique, shall we? The most important part of this entire technique is being able to separate the physical and spiritual energies that make up your chi, something you've never been required to do for any other firebending technique. Separating the physical energy is easy enough: you have plenty of experience in manipulating your chi from a physical point of view. It's the spiritual side of things that will be difficult to grasp at first. After all, it's difficult for some people to even get a firm grasp on what 'the spirit" is. What defines a person's spirit, Xisheng?"
Admittedly, this was kind of a hard answer to provide. After all, the concept of the human spirit was a little abstract. One could argue that it was like a person's soul, but then you had to ask what defined a person's soul, and that question was just as tricky.
"Well, uh... a sense of self, I guess? One's thoughts, emotions, consciousness, and the like. I can't really think of anything else that would describe a person's spirit, as it were."
"It's as good of an explanation as any, isn't it? And probably quite close to the truth. After all, would you say that anything lacking those qualities has a spirit? Rocks? Grass? Water? Spirit is a combination of all the things you mentioned, the things that separate the sapient from the inanimate. That said, mental and emotional control are how one goes about manipulating their spiritual energy. To bend lightning, you will need both in spades: razor sharp mental focus and perfect emotionless clarity. Only then will you be able to manipulate both your mental and physical energies to generate lightning."
Xisheng's face fell almost immediately upon Azula's words. Those sounded like the exact things he had serious problems with. Well, not the emotional clarity part: he didn't have too much issue with emotional turmoil even at the worst of times, in his opinion. But razor sharp mental focus? Exactly how sharp really was that? Would an errant thought interrupt the whole process of generating lightning? If something else demanded his attention in the middle of a fight, while he was generating the attack, would it fail? If he allowed any part of his mind to wander somewhere else, no matter how important that somewhere else may be, would it prevent him from accomplishing his goal? If any of that was true, well... suffice to say, it would likely end up being the largest obstacle he had ever faced in training for any skill.
But he didn't raise these concerns to Azula. The last thing he wanted to do before he even tried was plant the seeds of doubt in her as to whether or not he could do this. Because he didn't say anything, Azula took this as a sign to continue her explanation.
"Once you have the ability to separate your yin and yang energy, it's just a matter of holding them apart for a moment to facilitate that explosive reunion. Once that happens, it will be quite similar to your compressed firebending training. You'll have to contain that immense power, prevent it from flowing into your body as a whole and ensure that the path of least resistance is through your arm and out of your fingertips. Just do what you did before with your firebending, except, instead of compressing the energy from all sides, you'll compress it from every side except one: the one direction that you want the energy to flow."
Still worried about the spiritual side of this entire exercise, Xisheng acknowledged what he was being told, but nothing more. "I understand..."
Azula cocked an eyebrow at him, a little surprised that he had no questions or comments. "Is that so? Well, the good news is, the first part of your training is mostly going to be nothing more than meditation. After all, you've never had to manipulate your chi in such a specific manner before. You likely don't even know how it feels to try and pick out the specific elements of your chi to manipulate them in the first place. You won't be moving onto anything physical until you can manage that part. Unfortunately, that is also a part I can't directly help you with. I can't exactly tell you how to meditate, or how to search within yourself, or how to best 'feel' what you need to feel. I imagine everyone has different ways of doing those things, and you'll have to figure out what works for you."
The Crown Princess turned towards the general direction of the camp they had left behind. "That also means I won't be staying with you for this part of the process, seeing as how I have nothing to offer for it. If anything, my presence would only make it more difficult for you to achieve the focus you need. Plus, I'm sure I can find something valuable to do with my time rather than sit around and watch you meditate, don't you think?"
Secretly, Xisheng was glad that Azula apparently had no intention of sticking around at this juncture. That would make it much easier on him, as he grappled with some serious problems that he could already foresee with this training. "Indeed, Princess. You're right on all of those points. Am I right in saying that I should remain out here for the day?"
"Well, unless you make some sort of incredible breakthrough that would require you to fetch me for guidance on the next step, that would probably be for the best. Though I of course won't fault you for returning for food when you require it. I have no other responsibilities for you to attend to until we leave this place, so you may as well devote your time fully to your training."
"Very well. In that case, I'll begin right away. Don't wait up on my account. I know your time is precious."
Frankly, Azula felt that her precious time had been perfectly well-spent this morning, but she wasn't going to say that out loud. "Indeed. Carry on, then. I will be at the camp."
With farewells said, it wasn't long before Xisheng found himself alone deep in the forest, with only the occasional chirping of birds to disturb the quiet. Taking a deep breath, he glanced up at the sky and contemplated the imminent travails of his life.
"...shit."
The first day of Xisheng's training was very uneventful. He sat alone, in a pose one would normally adopt for meditation, and tried his best to gain a new understanding of his chi and the elements that comprised it. On the surface, that sounded like a pretty easy thing to do, but it wasn't really. How did one just... 'feel' something they hadn't before? Especially something so vague? It was like asking someone to feel the actual functioning of an organ or something. You couldn't really just sit down and actually feel your lungs working. Sure, you could feel it in the sense that they pushed on other parts of you body as you breathed, but you didn't actually feel the lungs.
Or, if you could, it was probably a feeling that barely ever registered in someone's mind. After all, the brain liked to do this nifty little thing called ignoring the sensation of natural bodily functions. If you were constantly aware of every bodily function happening naturally all the time, that would be maddening. So the mind tuned those sorts of things out. Sometimes, you could focus on them intentionally and feel them again, but it wasn't always easy. Needless to say, chi, or rather, the yin and yang energies combining to make chi, was a natural process that most people weren't even aware of. So it was mentally difficult to actually pinpoint it, to even be aware of it and how it felt.
Needless to say, it was harder to gain new awareness of one's internal body and mind than it seemed. It was also especially hard for Xisheng.
As he had already come to realize, he was not the meditating type. There were two types of meditation: the type where you focused entirely on one thing, and the type where the goal was to become so unaware of your surroundings that you entered some sot of zen state. Xisheng was not suited for either of these, for the same particular reason.
He was a mental wanderer, and someone who saw everything as part of a larger web of relevant thoughts or possibilities. Hearing the crunch of a branch in the woods wasn't something that just passed over him without import. He had to ask what made the noise, had to consider whether or not he should be concerned, had to ask what had led to the noise and if the thing that had caused it was a potential problem. Thoughts like that led to thoughts of what kind of wildlife may be out here, and what he might need to do if something dangerous came across him. And thoughts like that led him to wonder whether or not the camp sentry was paying attention all the time, and whether or not the camp had the proper gear with them to tend to a serious injury if one occurred.
This was just how Xisheng was. An integral part of his consciousness. He was always paying attention to his surroundings, and always considering the far-reaching implications of things that occurred to him, even if he could acknowledge that those implications were unlikely to matter. Some might call this a lack of mental discipline, but he thought it was a form of mental discipline in its own way. Sure, there was value to being able to hyper fixate on one thing and one thing alone, but there was also value in being able to spread one's focus along a broader spectrum.
Still, whatever value it may have had, it didn't help Xisheng in this particular endeavor. There were moments of internal clarity as he tried to focus on his chi and its flow, but they never lasted long. Needless to say, instead of making one big breakthrough with this, he was putting it together piece by piece. By the end of the first day, Xisheng was fairly certain that he had at least gotten a feel for both the yin and yang energies of his chi, but he hadn't possessed enough time to actually attempt manipulating them in any way.
He had spent practically the entirety of that first day away from camp, and didn't make it back until night had already fallen and most everyone was asleep, so Xisheng ended up eating alone and going to bed without speaking to anyone. The following morning, he reported his progress to Azula, who, to her credit, didn't seem displeased with what Xisheng considered slow progress. After that, he had returned to the same place in the woods as before, and continued his training.
Aware of what he was working on today, Azula had recommended that Xisheng start very, very small. To separate the yin and yang energies in a very small amount, and for a very brief period of time. No point in trying to generate a full power bolt of lightning on his first try, when he didn't even have a feel for it in the first place.
Unfortunately, even starting small was turning out to be a problem for Xisheng. Manipulating the physical part of his chi was easy: it was the spiritual part that refused to cooperate with him. And without that, the whole thing was bust. If you were trying to pull something apart, you couldn't do that by pulling on just one side of it, because the other side would move with it. You had to pull from both ends. Being able to manipulate the physical energy alone didn't actually help Xisheng separate it from the spiritual energy, which was required to generate lightning at all.
Undoubtedly, the issue was that 'razor sharp mental focus and emotional clarity' thing that Azula had talked about. You needed both to be able to manipulate your spiritual energy, and due to not having one, Xisheng was pretty sure he didn't have either. He'd focus for a time, but inevitably lose it before achieving any type of result. Was there a better way to do this? Did some workaround exist? What if he just wasn't capable of it? Would Azula be disappointed in him?
Thinking those things invariably brought other thoughts to the fore, any one of which was enough to ruin Xisheng's attempt at bending lightning. Naturally, such failures frustrated and agitated him, further compounding the problem. And that was to say nothing about the anxiety and fear he felt at the notion of just not being able to do it at all. He was one of the few people in the whole world being granted the privilege to learn this legendary technique. He couldn't be incapable of it after that.
The second day ended with no results. For his own sanity, Xisheng told himself it was only due to problems that could easily be overcome the next day.
His report to Azula that day had earned a momentary frown, but ultimately she'd taken it in stride, and offered advice that likely sounded quite helpful from her point of view. Things like 'focus on the moment' and 'pretend that nothing else anywhere matters'. She'd talked about certain bending motions, but the problem was that she took for granted that Xisheng could get to the part where lightning was being generated in the first place. But even so, Xisheng hadn't told his teacher that such advice was worthless to him. For him, focusing on a moment meant acknowledging all of the things that one moment affected. As for trying to ignore everything that mattered except what he was doing, he was incapable of doing that too. Those other things did matter, and he couldn't just eliminate awareness of them from his mind at any time. He just wasn't built that way.
Maybe he should have told Azula that his problem wasn't the actual bending, but rather the required mental and emotional state to make it happen. But for once, irrational fear won out over common sense. If he told her that, she might just write him off as having the potential to do it. After all, it wasn't like she could alter how his mind worked. So he didn't say anything. He'd figure it out by himself, let her think he was just having a little trouble with the spiritual energy bit, but that he would definitely get it and then return to her for guidance on the actual lightning bending. He didn't want to disappoint her.
Needless to say, Xisheng hadn't been in the mood to casually spend time with anyone on the second night either.
The third day was when Xisheng's frustration reached new heights. Having spent all morning to focus on this mountain of an obstacle, Xisheng had also skipped lunch to continue his seemingly fruitless efforts at generating lightning. It was currently that one hour that existed between afternoon and dusk, and the soldier was no closer to his goal than he had been the day before. At this point, he was beyond mere frustration. He was furious, entirely at himself for being so useless. The strongest technique in all of firebending, which he had only been taught the secret to thanks to the incredibly valuable trust of the Crown Princess, and and he couldn't fucking do it. It was maddening.
Desperate to make any sort of headway, Xisheng was essentially just trying to brute force it now. Something he was pretty certain he wasn't supposed to do. Maybe if he allowed his anger and agitation to hone his focus for just a moment, he could do it. Azula had talked like the whole process lasted just a moment. Surely, one moment of complete and total mental focus, even combined with a tumultuous emotional state, would be fine, right? If he could just generate the lightning to begin with, it was just a matter of guiding it physically. He just had to get to that part.
So he threw the controlled option to the wind. Xisheng channeled the components of his chi as best he could: in his uncontrolled anger, the physical energy was easily manipulated, yanked away from the spiritual probably a bit too hard. The spiritual energy failed to completely separate itself from the physical, still following it as it was pulled away, but Xisheng was certain that he had managed to separate some of it. Who cared if it was a clean separation? Supposedly, all you needed was for yin and yang to violently recombine. Did it really matter how much or how little, or if there was more physical energy and less spiritual energy reuniting?
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Xisheng knew that it did. That was why, just before those energies messily slammed together due to their incomplete separation, a thought intruded on his focus.
I really hope this doesn't kill me.
The yin and the yang slammed together, completely without balance due to the inherently unbalanced way they had been separated in the first place. There was indeed an explosion of power in Xisheng's abdomen, far beyond anything that he had experienced in firebending. It was also completely and totally without any semblance of control. In must have only been a split second, but Xisheng could feel it spreading out in all directions from the center, racing towards every inch of his body. Problem was, it wasn't doing it equally: perhaps because of the unbalanced nature of the reunion, the energy was spreading haphazardly, with more of it expanding one way than the other, some of it barely moving at all, and the rest doing whatever the fuck it felt like. There was nothing remotely predictable or structured about it.
Fearful, Xisheng instinctively tried to force force the energy towards his right arm, but that was immensely hard to do considering how wildly it was spreading. He couldn't tell how much he needed to push back and where, or where he needed to let it pass so it would really go where he wanted it to. It was impossible to really tell any of that thanks to the unpredictability of it all. This was probably why you were supposed to separate and combine the energies in perfect equilibrium: a balanced reunion of the two energies meant a balanced and predictable spread of energy from the point of impact, which would be much easier to guide.
By some miracle, Xisheng briefly got the explosion of chi under control, clumsily directing it mostly towards his arm, though not without a great deal of pain as it struggled to move fluidly. Maybe it was the fear and racing thoughts, or maybe it was because he just had no experience trying to control power of this magnitude, but Xisheng only partially succeeded in guiding the energy away. He managed to guide it to his shoulder, but lost his already tenuous hold at that time. A searing pain shot through both his left arm and his left leg a split second after losing that control, to say nothing about the way his abdomen cramped with more force than he thought possible for human muscles. There was no crack of lightning, no brilliant blast, just the sound of Xisheng crumpling to the ground unceremoniously as he folded in on himself like someone who had been knocked unconscious.
For a few moments, Xisheng was unable to do anything other than contort in pain, gritting his teeth as the sensation of burning limbs took over his left side. That said, it was nothing compared to the agony in his lower torso right now. He was cramping so uncontrollably that it was actually impossible to straighten himself, and he imagined the pain must have been similar to how it felt to be skewered on a blade.
Even several moments later, when the cramps subsided somewhat, the downed soldier was only able to cough and gasp as his torso was allowed to relax somewhat. Once he caught his breath though, it wasn't used for anything worthwhile.
"Fuck! Shit! Son of a bitch! D-damnit..."
Slamming the one fist that wasn't shaking uncontrollably into the ground, Xisheng cursed at the darkening sky above him. This was just too cruel. What ungodly twist of fate had decided that this would happen? He would rather have just never been given the opportunity to bend lightning at all, rather than receive said opportunity only to be unable to make anything of it.
The soldier took a few deep breaths to try and calm his frustration as he crossed his one alright arm over his eyes, but it didn't really help. That was probably why he didn't notice the sound of anyone else in the clearing around him.
"Gohan? H-hey, are you alright?"
Removing the arm that obstructed his vision, Xisheng was surprised to find Mai peering over him, a genuinely obvious expression of concern on her face. Oddly enough, the first thought that occurred to him was not an answer to her question at all.
"Mai... what are you doing out here?"
"Got bored, decided to take a walk. Stumbling across you wasn't hard after you started yelling."
Ordinarily, that sentiment might have been a little amusing, but for obvious reasons, Xisheng couldn't find any humor in it right now. Either way, Mai redirected the conversation back to her initial question. "Gohan, are you hurt? Your arm, and your leg... and, um... your face..."
She seemed a little sheepish at that last part, which was a little confusing. Xisheng touched his hand to his face, noticing that it was a bit wet. There had obviously been a few tears shed. Ironically, Xisheng was pretty certain they were tears of frustration, and not pain. The excruciating pain he had suffered was of that odd variety: so intense that you rarely shed tears over it. Perhaps Mai was sheepish to point this out because many men were embarrassed to be caught crying. Well, whatever. Xisheng wasn't so insecure about his image that he thought it ruined by such a thing.
"I'm... fine. Just training."
Mai glanced down at Xisheng's left leg, which was still constantly twitching, though not as badly as his arm was shaking. The look on her face was clearly unconvinced. "Uh-huh... you don't really think I'm going to believe that, right?"
"I meant I'm fine as in I'm not dying, not in regards to not feeling pain, or that I'm not bothered by anything."
This clarification obviously didn't make Mai feel any better about the situation. She knew what he was up to out here, since Azula had been quite eager to state, and quite proudly, that he was learning to bend lightning when Ty Lee had asked where Gohan was. Azula had mentioned that it would be difficult, but Mai hadn't expected something like this.
"I think you need to take a break, Gohan. For the rest of today for sure. Maybe tomorrow, we should practice some knife-throwing instead? It's been awhile since-"
Mai didn't get to finish her suggestion, since Xisheng snapped at her for what may have been the first time since they met. "Dammit, Mai, I'm trying to master the most valuable technique in all of firebending! I don't want to learn how to throw a fucking knife!"
Considering that it had never happened before, Mai was totally unprepared for this angry response, even recoiling out of her leaning position. Hearing something that hurtful from Gohan was the last thing she had expected, honestly. And man, it seriously stung. It always hurt more to hear something like that from someone you didn't expect it from.
Xisheng covered his eyes with his hand and took a deep breath, which caught a bit as he did so. "I'm sorry... you didn't deserve that."
Breathing a sigh of her own, Mai crouched down to get a closer look at her friend. "I sure didn't, jackass. You want to tell me what that was all about?"
Xisheng uncovered his eyes so he could glance at Mai again. "You aren't angry? I just said something pretty horrible to you."
"Well, I'm not going to pretend it didn't hurt. But I know you, so I know better than to take it too seriously. Plus it took you all of two seconds to sincerely apologize, so I can't be too mad. It's not like I can say that I've never lashed out at someone either. But I think this is the first time you've ever done it, so you know I can't help but ask."
Xisheng sighed. "Not like there's much to say about it. It's exactly what I said: I've got the chance to learn one of the most closely guarded techniques in all of firebending. Something a mere handful of people around the entire world know how to do. It's the literal definition of chance of a lifetime, and I... can't do it. I can't make anything of it. I can't believe I could have gotten so astronomically lucky only to have it end up like this."
Mai shifted around so she was sitting next to Xisheng instead of peering over him. Seeing as how he was laying flat on the ground, she took it upon herself to assume a similar position, so they were both looking at the sky. "You can't do it, or it's just something you aren't able to do now? Because if it's the latter, I don't think you need to rush this super special technique so much. It's not going anywhere."
"If only it were the latter... part of pulling this technique off without ending up like this involves something that's just... not how I work. And I tried, but I don't think I can do anything to change that. I mean, how do you just stop being you, even for a moment? The fact that I'm the only thing holding me back makes it even more frustrating."
The girl next to him kept her eyes on the sky, perhaps making a game out of picking out the stars that were slowly becoming visible. "You know what I hate the most in this world, Gohan?"
"Uh, orange?"
Though they were having a serious moment, Mai couldn't help but scoff. "No, you idiot. It's when people casually ask or tell me to change how I am, like it's not a big deal to do that. 'Mai, just smile more. Mai, just care about this thing for once. Mai, stop thinking the thoughts you think, or acting the way you are, or saying the things you do'. When people don't understand that doing any of that means not being myself, and that you can't just expect people to stop being themselves because you suddenly want them to. I hate that more than anything."
Xisheng stared at the sky as well, contemplating what Mai had said. "I get what you're going for, but isn't this a little different?"
"How so? If there's really something about this technique that's just incompatible with who you are, you can't do it. People can change as they grow, but if it was something like that, I don't think you would be this distraught. The way you've described it, the barrier to accomplishing this goal of yours is a fundamental part of who you are: something that's never going to change no matter how much you want it to. And if that's true, then every moment you spend trying to make this work is a moment you could dedicate to something else worthwhile. Besides, I can't think of any fundamental aspect of who you are that I dislike, so if something had to change for you to bend lightning, I don't think I'd be very happy with it."
While he knew that she was trying to alleviate his stress on the whole matter, Xisheng wasn't sure if he fully agreed with what Mai was saying. "Still, to just give up on learning something this rare and exclusive? Doesn't that seem premature?"
Mai shrugged, moving a bit of grass with her shoulders. "Depends on if you believe it's actually achievable or not. Giving up is when something could be done, but you just don't want to do whatever it takes to make it happen. Stopping yourself from continuing with an impossible task is just having a brain. Look, I can even use an army analogy for you: if I told you to defeat an army of ten thousand with five guys, is choosing not to do that giving up or just common sense? Or, what if I demanded that you take off into the air and fly like a bird right now? You can try to do that, but it won't work. If you stop trying, is it because you're giving up or because you know there is no point in attempting the impossible? If you ask me, there's a big difference between the two."
Xisheng couldn't really deny any of that. It was kind of weird to be on the receiving end of wisdom from Mai. Not that he thought she lacked wisdom, but she usually wasn't the one giving such lengthy and detailed advice. She had a knack for it though. In fact, it seemed she wasn't even done.
"And let's say that learning to bend lightning isn't really impossible for you, but just insanely difficult. So difficult that it'll take months or years and some unholy, unfathomable amount of effort to make it happen. Is achieving it worth all of the other things you could do with that time and effort? Maybe you could learn whole different skills with that time and fully master them. You could get really good at some other part of firebending, like that thing you did with Azula on the boat. Or you could make an entirely new technique, one that will be more useful to you or, hell, even be better than lightning bending in some ways. I get that bending lightning is super rare or something, but the difficulty of acquiring something doesn't make it any more valuable."
"I think most of the world would disagree with you on the correlation between rarity and value, Mai."
"Most of the world is stupid. The only things that have any value in this world are the things you put value on. I hear gemstones are pretty rare. Lots of Fire Nation nobles pay ridiculous prices to get one. As far as monetary value goes, they're definitely worth something. But I don't care at all if I have one. They're worthless to me, even if they're rare. Meanwhile, my knives aren't really that rare at all. They could be made pretty easily by anyone who knows how to smith, and even if they aren't identical, there are plenty of knives out there that are functionally the same. But they're valuable to me, because I decided they would be. Lightning bending is only as valuable to you as you make it, and if it's actually unachievable for you, then it's functionally worthless. A single minute spent on a goal you can achieve is more valuable than a thousand hours spent on a goal you can't. After all, time is the only valuable resource available to everyone."
Xisheng pondered all of this silently. He certainly couldn't deny some of the truths Mai was stating. Indeed, the value of anything in this world was subject to one's own perception of it, and time was one of the only objectively valuable things anyone possessed. It was also true that even the smallest amount of time well-spent was worth any amount of time spent on the impossible. But was it impossible? As Mai had said, maybe it was achievable, but it would require a massive investment of time and effort. If that were so, was it worth all of the other things he could do with those resources? And who knew? Maybe he would make some sort of breakthrough with the technique with just a few more days of training?
To all of this, he didn't have an answer. At least, not right now. But it gave him plenty to think about, and it had certainly taken the edge off of both his pain and his frustrations. "Y'know, Mai, I think my philosophical side might be rubbing off on you."
Finally glancing over at him, Mai cocked an eyebrow at him. "Don't give yourself too much credit, it's not like I didn't think about this kind of stuff before meeting you."
"Yeah, but did you ever wax so eloquently about all of it to other people? This whole conversation was mostly just me listening to you."
At this, the girl did look a little bashful. It was actually pretty rare for her to dominate a conversation like this. "Yeah, well, don't get used to it. I only have to get like this when other people need help getting their shit together."
"Yes, well, speaking of needing help, I might need a little bit to get back to camp."
The soldier motioned towards his left side, where both limbs were still a bit jittery. Not shaking nearly as badly as before, but it was still noticeable. Mai imagined that said limbs probably felt like jelly. Heaving a sigh, Mai pushed herself to her feet so she could help Xisheng stand.
"Fine, come on. Geez, I didn't expect to have this much work come out of a walk in the woods..."
Even with half of his body feeling much less solid than usual, it didn't take terribly long for Xisheng to get back to camp with Mai's help. It wasn't like he had to lean his total weight on her or anything: he just needed someone else to do the job of his left leg, which he wasn't sure would be able to actually handle walking right now.
That said, entering camp in such a manner didn't go unnoticed by anyone, as it was pretty conspicuous. Most of the crew around camp just offered quizzical looks. The first person to actually approach them was, naturally, Ty Lee. As always, she did nothing to hide the concern on her face.
"Hey, what happened?! Gohan, are you alright?"
Not willing to go into a full explanation of what had happened, Xisheng gave the acrobat a curtailed version, which mostly amounted to assurances that he wasn't seriously injured and that she didn't have to worry too much. As with Mai back in the woods, Ty Lee looked skeptical of these assurances. However, she didn't get much of a chance to press him on it, because the brief commotion didn't go unnoticed by Azula, who appeared out of the camp while the others weren't looking. The expression on her face was a little harder to read. Her brows furrowed, her lips pressed into a thin line, she said nothing at first, simply grabbing Xisheng's left arm and undoubtedly taking note of the slight shaking that was still plaguing it. Only after making that assessment did she speak. Her voice was stony, difficult to interpret on tone alone.
"Take off your left boot."
Absolutely confused about this order, Xisheng nevertheless did as he was told, using the stability Mai was still offering him to remove the designated article of clothing. Once it was off, Azula spoke again. "The sock as well."
Still confused, Xisheng obeyed, unsure of the purpose of all of this. Even after the sock was off, he didn't know why this had been asked of him. He began angling his foot around so he could look at it. The top of his foot looked fine...
At some point he angled the bottom in Ty Lee's direction, which prompted a hissing noise and a grimace. Xisheng knew that combo well enough: it happened every time a soldier showed off a gnarly wound to his comrades. Sometimes it was accompanied by an appreciative whistle, but Ty Lee didn't seem the type for that. A little nervous to look at whatever the brunette had seen at this point. Still, you couldn't tend to an injury if you didn't look at it, so he raised his foot enough to get a view of his own. Naturally, this meant Mai was able to see it as well.
"Oh, damn. You didn't feel that while walking back here?"
On the bottom of Xisheng's foot was a small patch of scorched skin, colored many shades and hues that skin normally wasn't supposed to be, including a lot of red blisters. Well, now he knew where all of that energy during his training debacle had gone.
"Guess not... must have been small time compared to the other pains. Kind of felt like I melted a bone in my leg, after all."
He said this with a bit of cheek, hoping to distract the others from being too worried about it. Although, now that his attention was actually on the wound, he sure felt it a lot more than he had before. The curse of awareness, he supposed.
Unfortunately, Azula didn't seem amused by his attempt at morbid humor. Her expression was still stern, and her voice still oddly devoid of emotion. "Treat that wound immediately, then rest."
The young Princess made sure to lock eyes with Xisheng for the next part. Difficult as they were to read, it was impossible to miss the undercurrent of disappointment. "Don't practice this technique again until I say otherwise."
With that, she turned to leave, not even waiting for Xisheng to acknowledge what had been demanded of him. That was probably for the best anyway. He wasn't sure he could have spoken clearly now that he felt like he'd been slugged in the kidney. Three days, and he'd already betrayed the confidence she'd placed in him. Just three fucking days.
Ty Lee offered to help him with bandaging his wound, but Xisheng gently turned her down, only asking for her and Mai to help him to his tent. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts at this point, and he didn't think either girl would want to see him gritting his teeth and bitching throughout the treatment process. While they both seemed reluctant to accept his request, it seemed that both girls also managed to detect his desire for solitude for the rest of the night, so they ultimately accepted his wishes and pushed no further.
Hours later, Xisheng laid alone in the dark, having already gone through the painful process of tending to his injury. He would have been asleep by now, but his tumultuous thoughts kept him awake. On one hand, he'd given more thought to the conversation he had shared with Mai, and he did consider many of the things she had said to be reasonable and logical. On the other hand, he couldn't get the look if disappointment Azula had given him out of his head. He wanted to wipe that away, to replace it with something better. He didn't want to let her down after she'd placed her faith in him, but at the same time, he didn't know if he was capable of doing what would achieve that.
At some point during his restless vigil, rain started to splatter off of the canvas tent above Xisheng's head. Not long after, there was a flash of light and a peal of thunder to be heard.
Truly, the universe had a cruel sense of humor.
Well, there it is. I know the wait for this chapter was a bit longer than one would expect, but on the other hand, it's quite long. In fact, it's the third longest chapter in this story as of right now, so I hope everyone feels that it was worth the wait.
In other news, we will finally be starting the Ba Sing Se arc next chapter! Huzzah, happy day, etc. etc. I am excited to finally get to that, because we'll finally get to dive back into the tactical and strategic warfare that we haven't really seen since the start of the story. I honestly didn't plan to be away from those elements for this long, but I think there's great value in everything that has happened between the North Pole and now. Imagine what would have been lost if we had skipped Gaoling arc, or even just glossed over the trip from Gaoling to BSS. I could have said 'they drove to an outpost, got on a boat, and sailed there. It took about a month'. But so much characterization would have gone to waste. I think it was worth it. Don't worry, the BSS arc is going to be very long, so there will be plenty of warfare and its accompanying drama to enjoy.
For those who are interested, don't forget that there is also a "P Word Website That Shall Not Be Named" that you can reach via my profile page. I've started offering actual incentives, though at this time, the main thing is sneak peeks at chapters in progress. That means you could have gotten a look at a nice chunk of this chapter to hype you up for its actual release weeks ago! Might make the waits a little more bearable, no? But as always, none of that has any bearing on whether or not this story gets written. It's just a way to offer tangible support if you wish. There's no pressure to do it, and no judgment if you don't. I'm just happy that people enjoy the story enough to stick with it at all.
Cheers!
