Responses to Reviews:
Zigzagdoublezee: Well, it is a warzone. Yue has a lot of work to do here.
RonaldM40196867: I don't know, the least favourite thing has to be stinging nettles.
As Always, Please Review!
As soon as they reached the coastline of the Earth Kingdom, Rinzen landed Gembul on top of a hill to rest. The group dismounted as the bison rolled onto his side, and gratefully settled down.
Yue stretched her legs, grateful to be back on solid ground. It was already noticeably warmer than even Kyoshi Island had been. From their position, they had a commanding view of the surrounding countryside, a few villages dotted through it, along with a river which flowed from the direction of a distant mountain range into the sea. A cart trundled along a faraway track. Birds sang. The trees rustled in the wind. The sun shone in a cloudless sky.
From up here, all seemed tranquil. There was no indication that the world was at war.
Suki whistled.
"It's beautiful," she said.
"I know, right?" Rinzen spread his arms. "And all there, waiting to be explored."
"Just a shame about all the Fire Nation soldiers," Sokka frowned.
"We have those at home," Suki said breezily. Or did, anyway. I'm tired of fighting Fire Nation soldiers at home. I want to go to strange, faraway lands, and fight Fire Nation soldiers there instead."
She beamed at them.
"Sounds great," Katara did not sound so enthusiastic about that. "Still, I see no soldiers here."
"And I'm glad," Rinzen added. "They are not fun to be around."
Sokka went up to Gembul and began rifling through the bags which were still attached to his saddle. Eventually, he pulled out a smaller bag.
"Seal Jerky, anyone?" He asked, offering it round. "Now seems like a good time for lunchtime."
All of them agreed and took some, except Rinzen.
Yue left them chatting and walked away a couple of steps, looking around for any sign of trouble and trying to eat her seal jerky at the same time. There was no trouble, but the jerky was nice. But she had an uneasy feeling, still. Trouble could be lurking anywhere. She still didn't really know what she could actually do. They weren't going straight to Ba Sing Se, so what were they doing? The last time she had set foot on the soil of tje mainland Earth Kingdom had been her fight with King Bumi of Omashu, and though that had only been a couple of months ago it felt like a lot longer. Since then she had been captured on Kyoshi Island, been rescued, had an avatar vision in the Southern Air Temple, fought in a great naval battle, trained for a few weeks, and returned to Kyoshi Island to liberate it, gaining a new ally in the process. An ally who seemed a little too friendly with Sokka.
She put that thought out of her mind. She did not want to jeopardise her new relationship with Suki over petty jealousy, which might not even amount to anything. She considered herself far too sensible for that. Suki seemed friendly, and had been eager to meet her. And she fidn't really know what her own relationship with Sokka was anyway. They had kissed, once, a long time ago, in extreme circumstances when Yue had believed she would never see him again, and then nothing had happened between them since.
Far better, she knew, chewing thoughtfully, to focus on what actually mattered. Like their next moves.
Omashu was an option, she supposed, it was still free and Bumi was a powerful earthbender who could become her teacher. He had even been a lifelong friend of her predecessor.
But Omashu was safe behind its walls, and under Bumi's protection. Not everywhere in this country would be so fortunate, and it was those places which needed her attention. But just flying around randomly until they found somewhere which needed their help didn't much appeal either.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of her friends yelling in alarm and a strange, low rumbling. She whirled, expecting a fight, but there was nobody else around. It took her a moment to see what was going on.
In the distance, one of the larger peaks in that far off mountain range was very obviously crumbling. The sounds of distant cracking reached them, even this far away.
"What is that?" Sokka asked, uncertain. "A rockslide?"
"I've seen rockslides," Rinzen replied. "This... isn't that."
"Then what is it?"
"It doesn't seem natural."
The thought occured to all of them at the same time.
"Earthbenders."
"But no earthbender can do that, can they?" Sokka asked. "Even Bumi couldn't move that much rock."
The tip of the mountain was by now very noticeably lower than it had veen just a few minutes earlier, and they watched until it slid down out of sight. Now all that stood there was empty air.
"Enough to... collapse a mountain?" Sokka looked shocked. Yue had to agree with him.
"One couldn't," Katara agreed. "But there's probably a lot more than one of them."
"Ah," Rinzen nodded. "I guess we've just found the local Earth Kingdom army then."
"Which means we found the war."
Sokka took a big bite of his seal jerky, still looking at the horizon.
"I think that means we now know what to do," he said. "We go over there, speak to them, find out why they destroyed that mountain and what the situation is. Then we can make our plans."
Yue nodded. Rinzen scowled.
"Gembul hates it when you do this," he said.
"Do what?" Sokka asked, baffled.
"This! Give him a chance to rest and then get him up again after ten minutes!"
"We can wait if you want," Yue offered. But Rinzen just went over and patted his mount on the snout.
"Come on boy," he coaxed. "Up you get!"
Gembul groaned and began to stand up, still obviously tired.
"Just a little further, and then you can rest."
Rinzen reached into his belt, pulled out a handful of something and fed it to Gembul. The bison munched on it gratefully.
"Right then," he gestured to the saddle. "Shall we go? Wouldn't want to keep the earthbender who can break a mountain waiting."
Everyone else nodded, and began scrambling onto the bison's back.