"Hurrrrn..."
Bisho was such a good boy. The two of them had been together for so long, they were practically brothers. It had gotten to the point Fusa could believe they knew what the other was feeling, experienced it themselves. Here the tiger-seal was, commiserating with him, showing support, a comrade in arms. The supposed pirate captain sure could appreciate that kind of support right now. Someone who stood by his side.
Meriwa...
The woman who used to be his captain, he hadn't held any kind of illusions of what their relationship was. He knew exactly what it was. Ever since he took up with her, she had been his mentor. Taught him the ins and outs of sailing. Made sure he could do every job on the ship so he could cuss out the ones doing it wrong. Taught him how to fight. A lot of his skills with a polearm were thanks to her. Even a little of his waterbending, even if she didn't know that. He had worked, and earned his place as her second in command. She had been his mentor and more, messed up as it might have been. The sexual aspect of their relationship... It wasn't... It didn't delve into romance. She wasn't interested in that. She wanted a young man to warm her bed, taught him how to please her. Another aspect of their mentor relationship. There had been a time when he wished, but he had grown up since then.
But, even if it wasn't the betrayal of a lover in earnest, it was still a betrayal he could never have imagined. The moment of his greatest triumph, the sign of his readiness to command a ship of his own. She was the one who pushed for it. Was this always what she intended? To steal the greatest prize any of them had ever taken, betray the crew who followed her for so long?
It put their last moments together in perspective...
There he sat, on the beach, looking out to sea. Bisho rubbing against him as Fusa petted the chunky little guy's head. "You'd never bail on me like that, would you buddy?"
"Hurn!" The chubby tiger-seal answered with a tackling hop that knocked Fusa to the ground and pinned him under the weight. "Hurn!"
"Heheh! Nah, where else would you get waterspout rides from, huh?" the Avatar asked, a little of his dismay washed away by the excessive affection only an animal could show.
"Fusa."
Looking to the right, then up, he saw Kurtok walking towards him looking grim. Patting his tiger-seal companion on the neck Bisho half-climbed and half-rolled off of him. Looking at Fusa, then at Kurtok, Bisho wandered toward the water, choosing to take a soak while the humans talked human things.
Brushing himself down, Fusa got to his feet. "Okay. How did it happen, who did we lose, what did we lose. Go."
The waterbending pirate sighed. "How it happened, Meriwa ordered us to start taking down the sails and rigging, said she wanted to have the ship in perfect shape. A lot of the guys making excuses say they thought she wanted to get a little more work out of 'em before we join your crew." That had been an arrangement as part of this. Well, as part of what Fusa thought this was. A lot of the crew had been felt out on whether they wanted to join up with him. Some had, but not all of the faces he had seen left behind on the beach. "Once it was all down, she let them take a break and join the party."
"And that's when she swooped in to steal all our canvas."
"That's what we're guessing. No one was looking because... Well, everybody was drunk and celebrating. But with a little preparation and forethought, it's pretty easy for a master waterbender to move a lot of heavy material from one ship to another." Forethought that she obviously had. She had this plot set up in advance. "With Taira in the engine room of the Fire Nation ship, she could get gone at any time she wanted." And Kurtok unnecessarily reminded him why he knew she had it set up in advance. "As for who we lost, Taira, obviously. Chu-Han, Tuluwaq, Tuntok, Kilaun, Ryuza, Sachio... Pretty much everyone over thirty except Han Shu."
"Everyone who might've been thinking a nice retirement package would sound pretty good right about now."
"And everyone who joined up with Meriwa from the start," Kurtok agreed. "As for what we lost..."
"She took the canvas, not the rigging." He'd gotten that implication from how Kurtok explained it. "So I'm guessing the deck is covered with bundled rope right now." He hoped so. The chance that she had left them completely bereft on that point would turn them from temporarily stranded to mostly stranded.
"Yeah. She left the rigging." But before Fusa could breath a sigh of relief, Kurtok continued. "And about enough supplies of food and potable water to last a day with the people we have."
Palming his own face, Fusa's hand slid down until he was holding his chin, frustration turning to contemplation. "She took the food and water."
"Yep."
Slowly, the Avatar nodded his head. "Okay." It slowed them down a lot. Even if they put together some makeshift sails, they couldn't go anywhere without food. "We're never going to be able to chase her down, so we need to focus on survival and getting back on our feet. Food and water. We can fish, hunt and forage just fine. This used to be home to a ton of people and it's been left untouched for decades. We can find food. Water, we can find a source of fresh water and even if we somehow can't," which was an absurd idea for how much of this island was mountain, "between the two of us we can purify enough sea water to keep the crew on their feet." For an even halfway capable waterbender, there was no such thing as being without drinking water on the ocean. Food was the bigger problem but still only a temporary one.
Kurtok nodded along. "You're staying pretty calm for learning she stranded us and left us to die."
He was staying calm because he was in charge. That was the plan before and that plan hadn't changed just because Meriwa screwed them. And on top of that, "I'm mad as a bull-shark, but she didn't leave us to die. She knew we could survive this much." When he found her again though, Fusa doubted he would be as kind.
"How about sails?" It seemed unlikely they could find anything like that any time soon. "The Bluebird isn't built for rowing." Kurtok paused, for the second time since asking the question. "You know... You could probably push us—"
"No."
"All we have to do is get somewhere with people! The Southern Water Tribe isn't that far—"
"It's days away, even if I go all out from sunrise to sunset, which I can't. I'm a firebender, everyone knows I'm a firebender, why would I show more than that?"
"Because they're your crew now!" Kurtok answered with a little heat. "Our crew! Everyone is pissed, lost, and trying to figure out what we're supposed to do now! The Avatar is someone people can believe in! Always has been! That's what we need right now!"
"The Avatar—!" He shouldn't raise his voice. Not just to keep the secret quiet, but because loud arguments were bad for morale in tough situations. "The Avatar is someone people believe will save the world for some higher purpose, not someone who gets us out of this mess. You know what gets us out of this mess?"
Fusa walking past him, all Kurtok could do was follow as he returned to the shoreline camp within sight of the Bluebird. "Everyone here?" Fusa asked loudly. several heads turned his way. Counting heads, recognising faces, he saw it was exactly as Kurtok said. All of their crew under thirty, except Han Shu who was several years beyond that. "Good. Here's what we're doing. Kurtok, you and our best fishermen are going back to the Bluebird. Use waterbending to help them fish, while you gather seawater to purify. Han Shu, you're leading a group of five into the lower trails of the mountain, you're hunting, you're foraging, you're looking for a clean water source so we can relieve the strain on Kurtok. Everyone else, you're taking the first steps getting the Bluebird ready to sail again. Those ropes are going back up, ready to tie the sails again."
"We don't have any damn sails!" one of the others, Chu argued. "What's the point?! Why the hell should we listen to you if you're just gonna waste our time?!"
"Waste your time?" Fusa asked as he stepped forward, just one step. "This is me giving you the orders that will get us off this uninhabited rock and back on the water."
"We wouldn't be in this mess if you were here when Meriwa fucked off instead of wasting time with that soldier girl!"
Hands and feet still bound, Jumei didn't look thrilled that attention was being brought to her in this argument.
"I wasn't here. You were," Fusa reminded him, reminded all of them before they could get it in their heads that this was his fault. "Sitting on this beach, watching that ship belch smoke as it got moving. Playing the blame game, pointing fingers, isn't getting us off this island. So untwist your balls, get your head on straight, follow your orders, and I'll make sure we get out of this. Got it?"
"... Tch!" The young man expressed his dissatisfaction by spitting on the ground, but backed down. Chu was a mouthy one. On the younger side of their crew, still struggling to grow worthwhile facial hair, not because it was still growing in, it was as good as it was ever going to be, but because he was still holding an image of being manly that he held a vain hope he'd meet. That said everything about him, really. Wanted to be the big man even if, and maybe because, he wasn't.
That could be the problem with a young man leading young men. There would always be those who wondered why not them.
Thankfully, in such times, it was good to have someone in his corner who was most assuredly not a young man. "And what will you be doing, Captain?" Han Shu asked.
And just like that, it was said without Fusa having to say it. No matter what Meriwa did, no matter how the situation had gotten away from them, nothing had changed. Fusa was still in charge, just as he would have been otherwise.
"There's only one place on this island that might have what we need ready and waiting, so I'm going there." The captain answered the question more clearly with a finger pointing to the north-east, and upwards.
"Are you crazy?" Of all people, it was the captured Fire Nation officer who asked. "The Air Temple?! Do you have any idea how hard it is to reach on foot?"
"For most people, sure. Fire Nation did it a hundred years ago and then went into battle immediately afterward."
"You're just gonna bail on us again?" Chu asked. Of course he did.
Fusa could have taken another step toward what was becoming the obvious problem member of his crew. He didn't. The point had been made of who was in charge and what was happening. "I'm going to see if I can find anything we can fashion into temporary sails. Airbenders probably had stockpiles of all kinds of things like that. If it's a bust, or I can't make it there, we move on to Plan B."
"Which is?" Kurtok asked, clearly having an expectation.
"We build a boat that can take a small group to the Southern Water Tribe." Their landing boat wouldn't manage a fraction of that journey and even less in any level of bad weather. He knew how to put together something larger and sturdier. It would still be a risk, but a relatively safe bet. Especially if, "Kurtok and I can keep it moving well enough that we get there and back in a few days. We get the supplies to get the Bluebird sailing again, and come back."
"Why would we trust you not to abandon us like Meriwa!"
It was starting to get on his last nerve, but he still had to maintain his composure. The rest of the crew were watching the byplay. A captain was only captain with the consent of his crew. He had to be someone they could trust, someone they could believe in, especially now. "Because my first choice is still to climb a damn mountain for you in hopes of doing the same thing. Any more questions, Chu?" Fusa asked, in a tone that said there damn well better not be any more questions. The response was folding his arms. Defensive, but submitting all the same. "Han Shu, Kurtok, you two are in charge until I get back."
Han Shu nodded, already picking out people to follow him into the lower mountain trails nearby. Meanwhile Kurtok followed Fusa away from the others. "You don't have to make this that complicated. We could get moving right now and you know it."
"And give everyone on the crew a reason to stab me in the back for a big payday."
"They wouldn't do that. You can—"
"Do not," the new captain spat as he turned around. "Do not say that next word. You do not want to talk to me about trust right now."
-(-)-
Fusa was aware of the feats of Avatars past. Avatar Uki, the most recent known Avatar, who fought bloody battles tearing the Fire Nation to pieces on the water. It took an armada and an ambush to finally defeat her, as in it took most of that armada sinking just to end her life and that was considered a great victory. Avatar Kyoshi, reshaping the land with her incomparable earthbending. Throughout history, the Avatar had always been a force of nature unto themselves, whether they chose to exert that force or not.
Fusa knew that about himself also. He was not trained in all elements. In truth, he was only self-taught in two of them. Even then, one he could comfortably say he mastered, the other he was still capable of impressive feats. He knew, only keeping his waterbending secret was inhibiting his progress with it. If he truly dedicated himself to learning and experimenting with it, he could put many experienced waterbenders to shame. Airbending and earthbending? Rudimentary at best. Gusts and flicking pebbles.
Still, with his skills, he believed he would be able to make the journey without too much trouble.
"Hergh!"
Jets of flame shot from his hands and feet that sent him soaring skyward. A rock face crumbled under the force of the jets. At the apex of his jump, he met another rock face and once again propelled himself away and upward with his flames, up to some usable handholds that allowed him to scramble up and onto a relatively safe outcrop. Looking out over the edge, he could see just how far he had climbed over the course of a day and night. With no way to gauge just how much further he had to go. This cliff could be the end of the journey, or it could be hiding yet another mountain to climb.
"Maybe the Lieutenant was right," he muttered to himself.
Why did he do this? Why did he want to do this? The reasons he gave the crew weren't false. Airbenders? Canvas. Sturdy paper. Training tools for learning airbending. It only made sense to him. Maybe he would get there and the Fire Nation burned it all just because they could. Something though. Something was telling him to come here. He wanted it to be his own desires calling to him but he strongly suspected otherwise. Fusa couldn't be more frustrated by that. A captain set the course, no one else. No one else set his path but him.
And yet here he was.
"Tch..." He had meant to take a rest, but his frustration egged him on and furnished him with a second wind. He continued climbing, the current peak close enough that he could launch himself up in one bound, but that technique was draining in a way simple climbing wasn't. It could propel him significant distances very quickly, but it was usually better to take a simpler option. And so, bit by bit, he rose higher, grabbed the edge of the cliff and hoisted himself up—
Satisfaction. Implausible, inexplicable satisfaction. Like a part of him was suddenly at peace again. Naturally, that only made the rest of him more annoyed. He hadn't quite reached the Air Temple, but it was in sight.
The ruins of it at least.
He could see the path, and with his goal so close, he wasn't about to stop here. His crew were still waiting at the shore and he felt uncomfortable being so far from the sea, himself. Better to get there, get what he came for if it was there, and leave again.
The chill in the air was all the keener as he approached the abandoned temple. It wasn't just the altitude. For all the temple was said to be unreachable, it wasn't that high up. The difficulty of the climb was the true hazard. Yet, even if the season should have left the air only feeling crisp, there was a tangible emptiness. Perhaps this was the other side of being the Avatar kicking in. This was one of the sites where a great evil was committed. It had stained this place with malignant, negative energy that even someone completely unheeding could feel pressing against his skin. After climbing the mountain with agility and skill, it was only now as the path grew safer that he stumbled when confronted with these feelings.
The temple itself... It wasn't a complete ruin, but much of it was at best dilapidated. What had to have been a tall tower at the centre of the temple had been snapped like a twig, the top half crushing some of what lay below.
Bones. Many, many bones. Many of them bare. The clothing rotted away under exposure to the elements. But others, others still wore something. Plates of red, and steel, and black. Fire Nation soldiers.
One hundred years of war. One hundred years of all but the Fire Nation declaring full-throatedly how evil they were. What a malignancy they were on the world, consuming and destroying everything they found.
To a pirate... Well, pirates were also considered an evil. And from a pirate's perspective, war was war. Whoever was on the other side was wrong and abhorrent. But this... They left the dead Air Nomads to rot in the sun. Callous, but not especially surprising. But the thing that struck Fusa was their own soldiers. Even by the Fire Nation rhetoric, these soldiers had fought valiantly to secure the future of their people or something like that, whatever the propaganda would say. And yet those same soldiers were left discarded just as casually as their enemies. An undertaking so monumentous that it changed the fate of the world. The Air Nomads gone forever. These soldiers made that same climb that Fusa had, in full armour, and on reaching the summit must have immediately gone into battle, did their duty, succeeded in their impossible mission.
Let the rot take them and let the sun bleach their bones.
Returning them to the Fire Nation? Might have been a logistical challenge. Fusa did have to consider how to get anything down with him as he climbed up. But no burial? No burning? Not even an attempt at a respectful send-off? Disgusting in a way that Fusa had never considered. Inexcusable. They had won. They had all the time in the world to respect their own dead.
He took one of the Fire Nation helmets. Stared into the eye-holes of the mask.
The chill faded.
And replacing it was scorching heat.
"We felt this."
The words weren't his, yet he felt them within himself. He looked away from the helmet and... The heat vanished.
Shaking his head, he threw away the helmet and kept up his search. All the more eager to get what he came for and leave. If he had any thought of finding some secret cache of airbending knowledge, it vanished entirely with this experience.
More and more bodies. More bones. And the worst he saw. Dozens of skeletons surrounded one particular building. One building that had many more... Many smaller...
"We heard this."
Screams. Wails of agony that Fusa couldn't even imagine, all heard over the roar of flames. Shrieks, pleas, prayers, anyone, someone please save them.
And silence again.
What had been a walk became a run. He needed to leave. As fast as possible. He didn't want this. This was exactly the kind of thing he wanted no part of!
The main building. The central building. Just go in and—
One body. Surrounded by dozens of skeletons in Fire Nation armour.
"We... Saw this..."
The image faded. And in its place was a tableau of the dying. And at the far end, an old monk in Air Nomad robes, scorched and stained with blood. His eyes were sad, staring back into Fusa's.
... No. Not Fusa's.
"And then it all went away."
He felt, he experienced it, as the spirit within was cloaked in power, as something beyond the living was made manifest over the Southern Air Temple. Fusa saw what snapped the central tower. He saw soldiers die by the dozen.
He saw as the flames came in such absurd concentration that this immense power was still overwhelmed.
"Were you wondering where we were?" The voice was no longer from within. The Avatar looked to his side to see a young boy in Air Nomad robes, with blue arrow tattoos marking his hands and head. "Everywhere. It was over so fast I barely felt it. Guess I got lucky compared to everybody else. Ashes scattered by the wind. Not exactly how it's supposed to go, but it's better than what anybody else got."
"You're..."
Fusa didn't finish the statement. It was obvious. So obvious the Air Nomad Avatar didn't need to finish or confirm it. "You wanted stuff to catch wind, right?" the airbender boy asked, wearing a smile that felt so misplaced in this situation. "C'mon, I'll show you." Strange as the experience was, Fusa followed his past incarnation as the young boy carved a furrow through the dirt with his mount of a sphere of compressed air. "Here it is! Storehouse for all kinds of things! Best chance you got of finding what you're looking for!"
"You're okay with this?" Fusa asked. "This is basically graverobbing."
"Hey, we're not using it. And Air Nomads are all about letting go of worldly attachments and stuff. So here I am, letting go!"
The newest Avatar didn't know anywhere near enough about Air Nomad culture to know if that was accurate or not. "Why did you show me all that? Did you show me all that?" He shook his head. "What, are you trying to tell me to go fight the Fire Nation now? Didn't go great for Uki."
The boy shrugged. "Everybody died here. That does things to a place, I guess. Especially with everybody still just out in the open not laid to rest. You'd probably see that stuff even if you weren't future me." The boy absently whooshed around the room, carefree, unburdened. "As for what I want you to do... How should I know? I'm twelve. Well, I was twelve. I didn't learn a whole lot about what Avatars should do. They told me a lot about peace, and balance, and tending to the spirit world. I dunno, try to be a good person, I guess? Don't be the type of person who does this?" he asked, gesturing around at...Everything. "Don't be the type of person that's okay with this. I don't think that's an Avatar thing, I think that's a not being a monster thing."
"What being the Avatar means... I guess that's up to you now, right?"
The words trailed off, sounding quieter and further away. Having looked away toward the supplies in the storehouse, Fusa looked to try to find the boy again. But he was gone. Him, and the furrows and marks of his little airball. Like he was never there.
It took him a moment to focus, to remember what he was here for. Searching the crates, he found a lot of fabric sealed in crates, so was not as worn as anything outside. Maybe usable. It was the best option they had. Nodding to himself he separated out the crates of what could be useful, there to sort out more directly later.
For the moment... He began gathering bones. Fire and Air both. Ready to be burned and scattered to the winds.
-(-)-
A/N: This chapter seen very early by my generous supporters on THE GREAT FORBIDDEN P! FEAR THE P! LOVE THE P!