Chigai: Ano Toki - 1 of 2

Chigai
Interlude: Ano Toki

[Disclaimer: Nickelodeon (and all others) own “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”  I own whatever I write/create.  Don’t steal and don’t sue.]

Turtle-ducks were adorable, to make an understatement.  On a sunny day, they would quack and swim lazily on the surface of the pond, looking up expectantly every so often for pieces of bread.  On rainy days, they hid under the veranda, huddled against each other though the water did not affect them.  Jaya adored the littlest ones, taking careful aim in the mornings to toss most of the bread she took to the pond to them.  Seeing the families grow and leave and return in cycles reminded her of Kailas, and of Bao.

One morning, bright and clear and with the last warmth of the summer still coming through the shade of the leaves, she sat with a small, warm loaf beside her.  Smiling, she thought of the pond and how it had not been home to anything but the occasional patches of leaves before Kailas had been born.  Afterward, though, she and Bao had taken a small, quiet, constantly smiling three-year-old girl into the market with them.  A family of turtle-ducks had made their way across the broad road before them, quacking and nodding their heads almost in gratitude when vendors and children and women had tossed pieces of bread and other food to them.

Kailas, sitting comfortably on her mother’s hip, had noticed the smile on Jaya’s face and asked why it was there.  The simple answer of how she found the turtle-ducks cute—though not as much as Kailas—was given, and Kailas returned to her typical quiet, watching the shelled, feathered creatures as they vanished down an alleyway.  Jaya gave it little thought after that.  It hadn’t seemed important.  Kailas asked questions more often than she said full sentences at that age, and it was only one in the series of the day.

The next day, though, when she had been reading under the tree beside the pond, she looked up to see Bao and Kailas walking across the grass with their arms full.  Bao carried a pair of turtle-ducks, a mother and father, and Kailas a nest full of eggs.  She stared at the nest, walking slowly, and stopped when Bao set the turtle-ducks into the water.  It had all been Kailas’s idea, Bao explained to a wide-eyed Jaya.  They had returned to the market early to find the creatures, being sold for pets, and had managed to bring the freshly laid eggs into the bargain.

Jaya laughed, now, at how Kailas had smiled and giggled at the praise and hugs she had received for her efforts.  She kept that image in the forefront of her mind, using it to call up the moments she could remember of Kailas smiling after Bao had been killed.  It was easier when she thought of when Hova accompanied Kailas.  Jaya settled back against the tree, watching the turtle-ducks.  Kailas had been home more often after she’d met Hova.  It was one of the reasons why Jaya liked the younger woman.  She closed her eyes, feeling the start of the cooler autumn breezes.  She hoped they would visit again before the winter solstice.

“Excuse me, milady?”

She opened her eyes to find one of the servants of the house standing nearby.  Sana, a young girl only years before, was growing smoothly into a woman.  There was no gawkiness in her gait, nor awkwardness in how she held herself in a bow at the waist.  There was a man beside her, wearing the dirty gold and brown-red colors of a messenger.  Sana straightened, hands folded inside the long sleeves of her simple dark red dress.

“This man says he has a message to deliver to the lady of Arav,” Sana said.  She smiled, glancing briefly over her shoulder.  “I thought it would be more appropriate to bring him to you this time.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Jaya said.  She rose to her feet, walking to the man.  “And thank you.  Where did this message come from?”

“I don’t know precisely, ma’am,” the man said, bowing at the waist.  “It’s just one of the ones I have to deliver today.”  He held out two items: a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, and a scroll placed atop it.  He nodded toward the satchel over his shoulder.  “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I do have a lot of things.”

“It’s all right,” Jaya said.  She took the scroll first, leaving Sana to take the package.  “You can go.”

The man bowed at the waist briefly before turning and jogging away.  Sana laughed after him, holding the package to her chest.  She looked back in time to see the wax seal on the paper before Jaya cracked it with a brush of her fingers.  “Oh—isn’t that the seal that Lady Kailas uses?”

“She does,” Jaya said.  She sighed as she unrolled the scroll.  “I wish she’d make one of her own instead of using the military seal.”

“I wonder what she would have sent,” Sana said, holding up the package.  “Maybe some sort of fabric from a city she trades with?”  She tilted the package, looking for the knot in the twine.  “She’s done that before, hasn’t she?  Asking you to make something for miss Hova?”  Quietly, she laughed.  “I envy her sometimes, miss Hova.  She makes Lady Kailas very happy—you can tell even if she doesn’t smile as much as she ought to!  I wish I could have made her smile like that!”

She was answered by the tearing of paper.  Sana looked up to see that Jaya’s knuckles had gone white, a few fingers tearing through the scroll.  Her eyes were narrow, her lips pressed tightly together, and her shoulders stiff.  So quickly that Sana had no time to react, she swapped their items, shoving the scroll into Sana’s hands and yanking the package away from her.  She ripped at the brown paper and twine, cheeks turning pasty.  Sana mouthed a question, eyes widening, but came to look down at the slightly torn scroll and the words written there.

To the honorable Lady Jaya of the house of Arav:

The ranks of our Fire Lord Azula’s Phoenix Battalion regret to inform you of the death of your daughter, Captain Kailas of the house of Arav.  It will be known in the history of our country that your daughter was a bold strategist and a brave warrior, and that her enemies only saw fit to attack her in the night when she was unable to defend herself.  Let it soothe you to know that the cowardly enemies of our country were discovered and struck down swiftly.  Unfortunately, as your daughter lost her life to a fire that also claimed her home and her assistant, one woman named Hova, we cannot offer the traditional funeral of our country.  However, as is tradition, she has been promoted posthumously two ranks to the rank of colonel.  We also offer you the coat that officers of your daughter’s rank would be cremated in to show our honoring her passing.  The ranks of our nation are made less by Kailas’s death.

Sana could barely see through the tears in her eyes when she looked up.  Jaya stood holding white cloth to her face, shoulders trembling.  The cloth made the long official coat of an officer, sleeveless and hanging open to display whatever clothing a family decided to display the body in before its ceremonial burning.  On the broad back, Sana could see the gold stitching that made the embroidery of a full phoenix, wings spread upward across the shoulders and beak open in a cry—of rebirth and death all at once.  She tried to speak and choked, putting a hand over her mouth to keep from sobbing.

“What nonsense is this?  Stop that weeping—you’re not a child.”

A manicured hand snatched the scroll from her hands.  Neha stood there between her and Jaya, looking at Jaya with a brow raised.  A brief glance at the scroll made her scoff, both brows rising as she looked again at the white coat in Jaya’s hands.

“So she was killed,” she said.  She rolled the scroll up neatly.  “You can’t have expected much more from the daughter of that man.  He was a pathetic firebender, a worse soldier, and the most terrible husband.  I still don’t see why you married him.  Introducing such inglorious and disgusting peasant blood into our house.  At least now you have no ties to that line.”

“Lady Neha!” Sana said, gasping.  “Master Bao was a good man!  Even if I never met him—my father told me stories about him!  And how can you insult Lady Kailas’s memory when she’s just been killed?”

“Oh, hold your tongue,” Neha said.  “You’re no better.  The only reason I’ve let you stay here is because you amuse my daughter.  If that man hadn’t been friends with your family, you’d never have been brought to our house.”  She let out a breath through her nose, looking up at the clear blue sky.  “I’ll have to make arrangements for a new marriage.  A proper one this time.  The matchmaker won’t be too busy at this time of the year.  At least you won’t have that mutt of a child to weigh down your prospects.”

There was a blazing flash of white in her eyes before she began to taste blood.  She saw Jaya standing before her, one hand clenched at her side in the fabric of the coat and the other still outstretched from the slap that had knocked loose one of her mother’s teeth.  There were no tears on her face or in her eyes, and her cheeks were vivid pink.

“Get out,” Jaya whispered.

“How—how dare—”

“Don’t start,” Jaya said, voice harder and sharper than Sana had ever heard it.  “Don’t speak to me of ‘daring,’ Mother.  You have dared to demand all the power in this house.  Power that was rightfully mine ever since I came of age.  Power that should have been Kailas’s after Bao died and I was grieving.  And I shouldn’t have let you take control of our lives like you did, but you took all advantage of my pain and let me wallow in it.  You let them take Kailas into the palace and that life of service.”

“You act as if she lost some part of her life!” Neha said.  “In service to our country she—”

“Died,” Jaya said, spitting the word out.  “She died, like Bao.  And you dare call her a ‘mutt’ when she did nothing but what you approved?  There is nothing that appeases you.  I knew that when I wanted to marry Bao—didn’t you ever wonder why I asked you to ‘look over’ the family house in the country?  I don’t care about your health or your age.  I wanted you out of my house.  And I want you out of my house, now.”

“You can’t just send me away!”

“I can, and I am,” Jaya said.  “You are to leave this house by noon and return to the family house in the country.  And you are to have no power in any decisions our family makes from here forth.  I will send a letter to my aunt and brother.  They will be the only ones who have sway in where the main house goes.  You will go back, and you will die with no more say in this house.”  When Neha opened her mouth, Jaya shook her head.  “I just said you have no more say.  Do not make me summon soldiers to escort you.  Get out.”

Neha’s mouth closed.  Cords stood out on her neck, and her cheeks flushed crimson.  She threw the scroll to the ground and stormed away in silence, arms swinging and fists appearing from within her sleeves.  Sana watched her go, blinking only when Jaya bent down to pick up the scroll.  She tried to swallow and failed, the tears forced away from her eyes by surprise returning with what felt like a blow to the throat.

“Lady Jaya,” she said, voice breaking.  “I’m—please, you have to understand how sorry I am.”  She managed to swallow, but felt her stomach roil at the sensation and sobbed.  She put one arm over her eyes, the hand of the other arm at her chest to push against the growing hollow there.  “I can’t—how could she be killed?  I can’t believe she’s dead.”

“She’s not.”

Sana looked up.

Jaya stood staring up at the sky, knuckles white in the coat and around the scroll.  Her face was drawn, pale again with her lips pressed together.  “Kailas was a better firebender than—she would not have been killed in any fire.  She wouldn’t have let Hova die.”  She took a deep breath, closing her eyes.  “They are not dead.”

“But…why would this be sent?”

“I don’t know,” Jaya said.  She took another deep breath—a hard sniff.  “I don’t know, and I don’t care.  The army is lying.  Azula is a liar—I learned that from every story Kailas told me of her.  I will not accept that my daughter is dead.  It is not true.”  She sniffed again.  Her shoulders started to shake.  “I can’t believe it is.”

“Milady…what do we do?”

Jaya shook her head.  Her head fell forward, and she stumbled back to lean against the tree.  She pressed the coat to her face again, muffling a sob in the heavy fabric.  For a time, she stood there, weeping into the coat, shoulders wracked with each shuddering breath.  Soon, though, she lifted her head and looked at the scroll still clutched in her hand.  Her eyes narrowed, and she tightened her grip so much that her hand began to tremble.

“This is because of the military,” she whispered.  “Because of the royals.  If she’s truly…gone, or if they’re trying to make her disappear—it’s because of them.  I can’t take that anymore.  They’ve taken all of the family I love because it was convenient.  I can’t let them.”

“Milady?”

The scroll caught fire.  Jaya let it fall from her hand, watching it burn.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.  But I know there’s something I can.”


-------

Tai-Yang was the not the first person to learn of the fire.  He was not the last person to see the fire.  It was a difficult sight to avoid.  It burned too hot, too fast to try to bring water and put it out.  The house and whatever—whomever—was inside was gone before the sun fully rose.  Almost the entire city gathered near the smoldering timbers.  That is, they gathered well after the Fire Lord left the city.  None but Tai-Yang could stand to be near the woman for long.

“You were wrong, Lieutenant,” she had said.  “There were signs of a struggle at the house you directed me to—old signs.  Dried blood splatters.  By the time I remembered that the name you mentioned—Toph—was one I’d heard before, it was too late.  Our Captain is dead.  Along with her assistant.”

The sun had risen and the embers cooled to ash before Tai-Yang even thought of moving.  He stood with his mouth just open, breathing between his lips because his nose was stuffed.  Tears coated his face, and sweat the back of his neck.  The men and women and children that came to where their governor’s house once stood did little speaking amongst themselves.  There were questions, whispered between the adults and cried by a few children.  Tai-Yang, though, could answer nothing.

Even when his wife and children arrived shortly after the dawn, he said nothing.  His eldest son, Rikuto, stood silently staring at the ashes in a neatly put on pair of brown trousers, dark green shirt, and sandals.  The middle boy, Naoki, shouted and raged, slamming his sandaled feet against charred timbers and receiving only black ash wafting up onto his knee-length black trousers and blue shirt.  Mitsuko only cried, hugging Tai-Yang around the waist and hiding her face against his stomach, unable to look at the burnt ground or the single ember that still glowed a red that matched her dress.

“Tai-Yang?”

He looked up, blinking and sending more tears down his face.  His wife, Mariko, put a hand on his shoulder.  There were lines beneath her eyes, her small body, covered in a green dress and flecks of ash that floated up at the slightest breeze, made that much more so by how the tears in his eyes blurred his sight.

She took a deep breath, her face hard and the gray streaks in her brown hair showing in the early light.  “We should go home.  There’s nothing we can do.”

“But—”

“Please.  I can’t stand seeing this.”

Seeing tears in Mariko’s eyes was enough for Tai-Yang.  He scrubbed at his face, feeling soot come away with tears, and sniffed one more time.  Gently, he picked up Mitsuko and went to Naoki, putting a hand on his shoulder.  “Come on, son.  That’s enough.”

“But, Dad!” Naoki said.  He shook his head furiously, gesturing at the burnt wood.  “This—it’s not right!”

“No, son,” Tai-Yang said.  The boy was growing tall with the years, his head already near Tai-Yang’s chin despite his fourteen years.  It was easy to keep a hand on his shoulder and hold up Mitsuko with the other arm.  “It’s not.”

“But we don’t know that they’re—they’re gone!  We should look for them!”

“No, son,” Tai-Yang said again.  “The Fire Lord said she’s dead.”

“But, Dad!”

“Naoki,” Tai-Yang said.  “We have to listen to her.  She’s the Fire Lord.  If she says Kailas and Hova are dead, then that’s what they’re going to be.  It’ll be reported and recorded, and they’re going to be dead.”

The mask cracked, and tears started to well over in Naoki’s eyes.  “But I don’t want them to be dead.”

Tai-Yang moved his hand to Naoki’s head, rubbing the short brown hair.  “Neither do I.”

Rikuto strode away from Mariko’s side, moving to put an arm around Naoki’s shoulders.  At eighteen, he was as tall as Tai-Yang, though much slenderer than his father.  His hair, the same shade of brown as the entire family’s, was longer, tied back neatly at his neck.  “Come on, little brother.  We can’t stay here all day.”

“Then what do we do?”

Rikuto looked to Tai-Yang.  “Father?  What do we do now?”

Tai-Yang adjusted Mitsuko in his arms, lifting her higher to put both arms beneath her.  “We go home.  We get some rest.  And then we tell the city what happened to our governor.”

Naoki shook his head, biting his lip hard with his eyes closed.  He followed Rikuto’s guidance when his brother turned him away from the ashes and char, shuffling his feet as he walked.  Mariko followed her sons, Tai-Yang and Mitsuko walking close behind.  At the sight of Tai-Yang departing, the rest of the people gathered began to leave, still whispering and murmuring.  A few children cried in protest, demanding answers in shrill voices tinged by the thickness of tears.  Tai-Yang narrowed his eyes, trying to block out the questions.

He barely registered anything.  Not the walk home to the house near the coast, nor putting his hurt and red-eyed children to bed.  Rikuto stayed awake, sitting cross-legged on his sleeping mat and staring into the dark corners of the room.  For a moment, Tai-Yang lingered, standing in the doorway and watching his son stare and breathe.  He turned, though, and walked away.  The next thing he understood was that he was sitting on the veranda, watching the sun rise higher and higher, with a cup of rice wine in his hand and a bottle beside him.

Mariko was sitting next to him.  “I never thought the rebels would actually…win.”  She rubbed at her forehead.  “The attacks were starting to stop, weren’t they?  When did they start sending spies like those children into cities?”

Tai-Yang tipped the shallow cup and swallowed the last drops of the wine.  He poured more into the cup, but did not drink.  “They weren’t spies.”

“You don’t think they were the ones that killed Kailas and Hova?”

“No.  They weren’t.”

“How can you tell?”

Tai-Yang looked at the shine of the sun in the clear wine, narrowing his eyes against the pain in them.  “If Kailas trusted them, they weren’t spies.  She lived too long to trust people without a reason.”

“But—they’re gone,” Mariko said.  “They ran.”

“They had Kailas’s trust,” Tai-Yang said.  “They have mine, no matter what happened.”  He drained the cup, but swallowing was hard.  “I just…I just wish I hadn’t said anything.”

Mariko put a hand on his shoulder.  “What do you mean?”

“She—the Fire Lord said she knew Toph,” Tai-Yang said.  “I said her name.  I…last night I heard thunder.  But there weren’t any clouds.  There weren’t.”  He lowered the cup, letting his hand rest on his thigh, and put his free hand on his forehead.  “Something happened.  Something happened and it was my fault.  I knew what’s going on—I knew how much danger Kailas always put herself in, and I swore to keep my stupid mouth shut!”  He grit his teeth, moving his hand lower to cover his eyes.

“But you couldn’t have known,” Mariko said.

“I should have known!” Tai-Yang hissed.  “Kailas was the smartest person I’ve ever known—she would have known not to say someone’s real name to the Fire Lord!”

“You’re not Kailas, though.”

“But I was the one she trusted!  I shouldn’t have—I should have—I’m just a stupid peasant.  If I wasn’t an earthbender, I never would have been drafted into the militia in the first place.  I would have been—I would have been happy as a farmer.”  From behind his hand, his face had grown pale.  “This is my fault.  They wouldn’t have gotten killed if I wasn’t such an idiot.”

“You are not,” Mariko said.  She took Tai-Yang’s hand from his face, holding his large callused fingers in her small hands.  “You were elected as our governor years before Kailas even came here.  You were elected at the same age she was when she was posted here.  Even if we would have had just as good a life as farmers or merchants…this isn’t your fault.”

“Then whose is it?  Two women are dead for some reason!  I need to know why!”

Mariko let out a slow, patient breath.  She stroked her husband’s hand, and took the cup from him.  “You are no fool.  Kailas trusted you for a reason.”  She squeezed his hand.  “Whatever it was that she trusted you with…or about…maybe there’s something you can keep doing for her.”

Tai-Yang sighed slowly.  He looked up at the sky, and the clouds that were beginning to gather and move swiftly in from the sea.  “I can’t believe they’re dead.”

Mariko looked at the sea and moved closer to Tai-Yang.  “I can’t either.  Those girls were always so nice.”  She sniffed, laying her head on Tai-Yang’s shoulder.  “Did you see the bracelet that Hova started wearing?  It looked like Kailas had proposed to her.  After all those years together…I would have liked to see them get married.”

“I would have, too,” Tai-Yang said.  He blinked, bringing his eyes back to the ground.  Slowly, he stood up, keeping Mariko upright when she threatened to lean too far.  He stepped up onto the veranda, walking into the house but for a moment.  When he returned, he was fiddling with a lengthy piece of black cloth, trying to tie it around his right arm.

Mariko stood up and tied it for him.  She smoothed the cloth when it was tied, staring at it.  “Where are you going?”

“I want to look at their houses before I make an official announcement,” Tai-Yang said.

“Their houses?”

“Kailas and Hova’s,” Tai-Yang said, “and that group’s.  The Fire Lord said that there were signs of a struggle…and I want to see if there’s anything left.”

Mariko did not ask.  She wrapped her arms around Tai-Yang lightly, but only let go when he hugged her in return.  She watched him go, sitting down and letting her eyes drift away when he disappeared in the distance.

He went first to the house Kailas had bought for the small group.  Everything was abandoned.  There were no sleeping mats or blankets, even in the closets meant to store such things.  No clothes could be found, or much food.  There was a half-eaten orange left on the table, its rind cradling the shriveling and rotting flesh.  A book had slipped from the table, sitting comfortably on a cushion.  There was nothing else in the house, save the remains of abandoned food.

The courtyard was where his chest started to grow tight.  There was a pattern to be found in the footprints, broken stones, and dried blood.  Almost in the exact center of the courtyard were footprints made not in the dirt by the weight of a body but shaded in by scorch.  Tai-Yang knelt down, laying his hands beside the burnt dirt.  He had seen scarring in the earth before.  A soldier knew the patterns after any battle with firebenders.  These were different.

One could read the direction the fire came from, and how the body had stood.  The fire would burn the shadow of the standing feet, but the blackest scorch would lie at the front, where the brunt of the flames had been taken.  Whether or not a person faced their death with their eyes or their back did not matter.  The front of the attack left deep burns in the earth, but where the body had been away from the flames, the earth would be left almost untouched save for a very faint darkening.

What Tai-Yang found was a clear, dark scarring of the stones and dirt all around where the feet had been.  Dried blood was spread thick where the right foot had been planted—but that made less sense than the pure jagged circles of black.  There were no other bloody footprints anywhere near the black, and no blood save for a massive splatter a body length away from the scorching—a very long body length.

Tai-Yang rose to his feet.  From a distance, with one eye closed, he could guess the length between feet and splatter.  It registered at where an almost abnormally tall person’s head would be had they fallen face first from where the footprints were.  Almost abnormal, he came to think, because he recognized the height.  It would be no strange thing for some men to reach that height, but he knew only one woman that tall.

“Kailas?” he whispered.  He looked about.  There was a great rectangular chunk of stone ripped up from the courtyard, but he could make no immediate connection.  He stood staring, looking back and forth between the sea and the courtyard because the hole in the ground was closest to the cliff side.  Slowly, he strode to just before the hole and turned to face the blood and the burns.  The direction would be correct if it weren’t for the impossibly perfect scarring.  He scowled, putting his hand to his forehead.  No burns came naturally like that from a firebender.  There was only one thing he had seen that created such perfect scarring in the earth: lightning.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said.  He walked back to the burns, looking at them from a standing position.  “I heard thunder—but there weren’t any clouds.”  He looked at the sky, and again at the blood in the footprint.  “Could she have been struck by a freak bolt?”  He shook his head furiously.  “But there would have been clouds!  There have to be clouds at least for lightning to happen!”

He knelt down again, touching the hardened bloody dirt.  “Dammit, Kailas!  This doesn’t work!  Why isn’t it fitting right?”  He looked again at the sea, and then to the stone hole, and finally to the dirt under his hand.  He lifted his hand, pointing at each as he spoke.  “Someone was struck by…something…here and fell.  Something was lifted by earthbending there—and was probably thrown into the sea.  But what?  What the hell happened?”

Scowling, Tai-Yang tucked his legs beneath him.  He crossed his arms over his chest, staring at the bloody footprint.  “The Fire Lord said there was a fight here.  That’s true.”  He lifted his head and looked about.  “There are no other burns.  No scorches on the house.”  His brows dropped low.  “If it was a fight…if it was a fight between firebenders, or even just Kailas against earthbenders…there should be more burns.”  His eyes landed on the hole in the ground.  “But it was one-sided.”

His heart leapt in his chest, and he leapt to his feet.  He ran to the cliff side, staring at the small waves that crashed against the sheer stone.  Tai-Yang stared at the water because he remembered things that the fire of the early morning and the pain in his chest had driven out of his mind.  There had been wet patches on Azula’s clothes.  She had been gripping a piece of cloth—a shirt, long-sleeved and crimson.  His stomach roiled, and he spun away from the cliff.  He started to run, staying at the edges of the city and aiming for the charred remains of the house.

There were no clouds.  That meant that there had been no source for lightning—but no source for rain, either.  There could not have been wet patches on Azula’s clothes, especially gathered as they were at her joints and at the tops of her boots.  Not unless she had gotten wet from some other source—like being knocked into the sea.

The shirt Azula had been holding was one Tai-Yang recognized.  Kailas had wore it just the day before last.  He even saw the gold stitching of the phoenix emblem through Azula’s white-knuckled fingers.  There was no way Azula could have gotten the shirt unless she had gone into the house.  If she had gone into the house, then she would have gone before the house caught fire.  If she had gone in before the fire, she would have seen Kailas or Hova.  She would have known if Kailas was hurt, or if either woman were really asleep when the fire started.  And if she was there at any point to have seen the fire start, as she claimed, she would have had the ability, renowned firebending prodigy as she was, to at least halt the fire’s progress long enough to allow Kailas and Hova to escape.

He skid to a halt in the ashes.  Panting, Tai-Yang stared at the black wood and earth.  He knew Azula was a liar.  He knew Azula was one of the most skilled liars on the planet.  What he did not know was why she would have lied about Kailas being murdered.  Leaping into the burnt timbers, he looked about, counting his steps and remembering where the hallways and rooms had been.  He jumped over a few fallen timbers, and heaved another away.  Dropping down to his knees, he scooped away ash and soot until he could feel earth and soil beneath his hands.  He dug his fingers in deep and pulled, commanding the earth to lift away.

A sealed scroll lay neatly atop one of three crates buried deep in the earth, next to a smaller box with the sigil of the Fire Nation carved in its cover.  He remembered the crates and the box because he had been the one to help bury them.  Kailas had asked him years and years ago to create the small, sturdy cavern beneath the house.  She had been hiding the carved box under the floorboards for a few months, but asked him soon after their first lengthy planning session with Colonel Long Fa.  He did not ask much, only helping to create the cavern and open it three times to bury the crates each time.

He grabbed the scroll.  The wax seal was not the flame sigil, but the mark of the coiled, circular dragon Kailas had made years ago.  She used it only in private matters relating to the Dragons, and he scratched the wax completely off to destroy the mark as he always did.  Breath catching behind his tongue, he unrolled the scroll.

To Lieutenant Tai-Yang:

Something has happened to me if you’re reading this message.  I apologize for the subterfuge, but I couldn’t stand to make you worry.  The group of people you introduced to Hova and me were not a group of drifters as it may have seemed.  The boy, Aang, is the Avatar—the last Airbender.  It’s too complicated to explain in this letter, but I am undertaking the task of training him in firebending.  Due to the danger involved in this, I have ordered the group to keep their essentials together to run at first notice.  They are most likely far from Taonan by now.  I am most likely dead.  I only hope that the Avatar and Hova have escaped with their lives.

Azula has grown increasingly paranoid.  If anyone has discovered us, it will be her.  She has greater skills in firebending than I know how to defend against, and if I am dead, it will be because of her.

Do not defy her openly.  I won’t have you die because I failed.  All I ask is that you do not give up.  We have done so much.  Follow the plans we’ve made, and wait for the right moment.  The Avatar is no coward.  He will help the world more than I ever could.  You must live, my friend.  You cannot abandon your family.

If I am still alive, I will come back to our city.  I promise.  Please, take up the governor’s seat until I do.  If I do.

-Kailas, of the house of Arav

Tai-Yang fell back against the nearest fallen timber.  He let the scroll fall to rest in his lap, and put a hand to his face.  He could feel a smile curling his lips, and tears on his cheeks.  The Avatar.  It was a dream to imagine that the surly-faced boy he met months ago was the boy meant to save the world.  It made a sudden deal of sense that Kailas had so readily agreed to train him, and provided so heartily for the entire group.  He laughed aloud at the thought, but in giddy joy.

The laughter dissolved into coughs as he buried his face in his hands.  He could not bear the words Kailas had used—the idea that she knew death was so near in her path.  For minutes on end he sat and wept, and prayed that his captain was more wrong than she had ever been before.

-------

There was no sense waiting to harvest the last bits of the season’s crops when a rainstorm came along.  Daichi knew it, decades of farmer’s knowledge turning over constantly in his mind.  Nevertheless, as the years passed and the early autumn rains came in, his right leg demanded more and more rest.  The old break in his upper leg sung tunes of pure pain at the first storms.  It made a nasty time of things when he didn’t get the harvest completed before the storms came.

He had risen with the sunrise, as always, and with the first crack of thunder and spatter of drops on the roof.  Limping to the main room of the house and sitting heavily at his place at the table, he stared at the nearest window and the rain beyond.  Naomi joined him soon enough, and followed his gaze out the window.  Dressed for working the fields, both clad in simple brown trousers and dirty gold short-sleeved shirts, they stared for many minutes.

“Damn storms,” Daichi grumbled.  He scratched at his chin through his thick beard, black shot through with gray at the corner of his lips.  Sighing, he smoothed the moustache that curved and connected with the beard, and up to his short shorn graying black hair.  Pain came in a new wave through his leg at the strengthening of the rain, and he groaned, rubbing his thigh and closing his green eyes.

“We really should get the last of the rice and radishes in before long,” Naomi said.  Much smaller than her husband but still carrying the muscles of years in the fields, she sighed.  Her brown hair, long and held back in a braid, was also growing gray.  The lines under her green eyes were made deeper when she glared at the raindrops.  “If we don’t, you’re not going to like getting everything from the mud.”

“You’re right,” Daichi said.  He sighed, nearly growling.  “Damn mud.”

Naomi laughed.  “It’s ‘damn’ everything with you, dear.”

Daichi grunted, rising up to his feet while balancing himself with the table.  He went toward the front door, limping as he walked.  Stepping down into the entryway was a struggle, leg nearly giving out beneath him, but he held onto the doorframe to stay upright.  Pushing his feet into his sandals, he grumbled and muttered under his breath at the thought of the wet numbness that would overtake his toes within the hour.  He slid open the door with a hard pull, and froze at the sight of a cloak-clad boy with his hand up about to knock.

The boy stared up at him, tall and broad as the doorway, and Daichi could see his face pale beneath the shadows of the cloak’s hood.  The boy’s mouth fell open, and he squeaked, “Oh…shoot.”

Daichi blinked at him.

“Dad?”

Daichi looked up.  A slightly taller person, clad in a cloak identical to the boy’s, stepped forward.  They pulled the hood away, and Daichi grinned massively, teeth showing through his beard.  He reached out and lifted Hova off her feet, pulling her into a hug and not caring about how soaked she was.  Hova hugged him back, letting out a long sigh.  When Naomi stepped into view behind Daichi, Hova smiled slightly and waved over her father’s shoulder.

“Hova?” Naomi said.  She smiled, hurrying over and standing on the high ledge of the entryway to reach for Hova’s hand.  Holding her daughter’s fingers, she spoke again.  “What made you decide to surprise us like this, sweetheart?  You usually send a letter if you and Kailas are going to visit!”

Hova’s eyes fell to the floor, and narrowed slightly.  Her father put her down, and Naomi stepped down into the entryway to keep hold of Hova’s hand.  Hova turned, gesturing for the boy to come inside.  He did so, staring up warily at Daichi as he moved.  “Mom, Dad—we really need your help.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Naomi asked.  She stepped closer, noticing the pallor of Hova’s face and the dark marks under her eyes.  “Hova, what on earth is wrong?”

Hova’s mouth opened a moment, but she closed it and shook her head.  She wrapped her arms around her mother and started to weep on her shoulder.  Naomi made a soft crooning sound, running her hands over Hova’s hair and rocking the girl back and forth.  Daichi turned toward the boy, eyes narrowing.

“No!” the boy said.  “No—no, I didn’t do it!”  He winced at Daichi’s continued glare and pulled down his hood.  Pointing at his face, he said, “My—my name is Aang!  I’m Hova’s friend!”

“He didn’t do anything, Dad,” Hova said, voice weak.  She stepped away from Naomi, rubbing her hands against her eyes.  “It’s…it’s Kailas.  She needs help.”

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Naomi asked.

“She’s in your barn,” Aang said.

“You broke into my barn?” Daichi asked, voice dropping into a growl.

Aang went white, and his voice broke when he spoke.  “No.”

“Dad,” Hova said, pleadingly.  “I let them in.  It was the only place big enough to hide Appa and everyone else.  Please—we’ve been flying with the rain for two days.”

Naomi shook her head, blinking.  “Flying?  Did you say you’ve been flying?”

“Yep!” Aang said.  “On a flying bison!”  He quailed at Daichi’s next hard glare.

“Kailas is hurt,” Hova said.  “Badly.  We haven’t been able to treat her or bandage her wounds.  Please—we need to help her.”

Daichi turned and walked away, leaving his sandals behind.  Aang blinked, and turned to Hova.  She sighed and sank down on the entryway’s ledge, putting her face in her hands.  Naomi rubbed her shoulders, but said nothing.  For minutes they stood in silence, Aang looking back and forth between the doorway Daichi left through and the mother and daughter pair.

When Daichi reappeared, Aang jumped, nearly tripping over his own feet.  The man carried a brown, well-worn satchel over his shoulder, and stepped down into his sandals again.  Ignoring the pain that continued to wash over his leg in waves, he went to the doorway.  He paused, looking back at the others.  “Well?”

Hova got to her feet immediately, running to her father and wrapping her arms around his massive stomach and back as best she could.  He patted her on the head before wagging a finger at his wife and Aang.  They left the house, walking quickly through the rain to the enormous barn placed halfway between the house and the fields.  Aang arrived first, running quickly to push at the large doors.  His feet threatened to slip in the mud and he frowned.  He gestured quickly, hands striking in the air first with his palms and then with the backs of his hands.  The ground solidified, and he resumed his shoving.  The doors creaked as they opened slowly, and more loudly when Daichi arrived behind Aang and pushed them open easily.

In the faint light of dawn dimmed by rain, Daichi and Naomi could see an immense shape within the barn, and three people standing around it.  Aang hurried inside, aiming a punch toward a brazier filled with tinder and wood.  Fire sparked off his knuckles and lit the tinder, and he repeated the lighting with other nearby braziers.  Naomi gasped at the creature that was revealed, but Daichi did not blink.  It was easily the size of a small shack, white and gray fur dripping all over the floor.  It lay on its belly, and grunted when the plinths were lit.

“Um, that’s Appa,” Aang said, pointing.  “He’s my flying bison.  He won’t do anything bad in here, promise.”

“Hova?”  A woman, dark of skin and wearing blue clothing made nearly black by rainwater, stood up in the saddle on Appa’s back.  She walked to Appa’s head, swinging down to the ground while holding onto Appa’s horn.  “Tell me you have medicine or bandages.  I can’t keep the wounds from getting infected forever.”

Daichi walked forward, lifting the satchel from his shoulder and holding it out to the woman.  She blinked at the massive man, but took the satchel.  “Um…thank you.”

“Katara, this is my dad, Daichi,” Hova said, “and my mom, Naomi.”  She turned to her parents, and pointed to each person in turn.  “Mom, Dad, this is Katara, Toph, Sokka, and Suki.”

Sokka, sitting on a crate with Suki beside him, waved.  It was the most greeting Daichi and Naomi received.  In the warm, flickering light, they could see the dark bags under most every person’s eyes, save Sokka and Toph’s.  Toph was asleep, back against one of Appa’s bent legs, but fitfully, twitching and muttering.  She jerked awake at Katara’s touch, head turning in every direction for a moment until she reached out a hand and laid her fingers on Katara’s face.  “Did we get help?”

“We did,” Katara said, sighing even as she smiled.  She looked about the barn, straightening up.  “Sokka, can you and Toph push a few crates together?  Appa’s had his saddle on too long, but I need to have Kailas lying down to do this.”

“Can do, little sister,” Sokka said.  He waited for Toph to rise to her feet, and the duo started to push a trio of large crates into a long, straight line.

“I’ll get a couple of mats and blankets for her,” Aang said.  He hopped up onto Appa’s head, walking into the saddle.  “Sokka, can you come get her down?  Appa, lift up your tail so he doesn’t have to jump down.”

Appa let out a grunt, doing as he was ordered.  Aang rummaged in their bags, finding the sleeping mats and blanket, kept dry in their gear by being buried beneath everything else.  When he looked up, the rolls in his arms, he yelped.

Ignoring the boy, Daichi limped into the saddle from Appa’s tail, walking to where Kailas lay, unmoving.  Fai and Momo, wet and weary near the woman’s head, barely blinked.  Daichi looked at Kailas for a long while.  She was drier than the rest of the group, but still wet from the rain.  Her eyes were closed, chest barely rising with her breathing.  The only reason Daichi knew she still breathed was because she wheezed with each inhale and exhale.  There were traces of blood around her pooled on the saddle, and the hand that lay limply on her stomach was spreading a patch of red on her shirt.  Frowning, he knelt down and tucked his arms carefully under her knees and her shoulders.

“Dad, please be careful!” Hova said.  “Her ribs are broken!”

Daichi nodded, though only Aang could see.  Very slowly, he lifted Kailas up, bracing her spine with his massive forearms until he rose to his feet.  Even slower than before, he let her spine curve to carry her steadily.  Her head lolled onto his arm, and her breathing hitched only a moment.  Daichi returned to Appa’s tail, and Appa lowered him to the ground.  He went to the crates and waited until Aang returned and spread the sleeping mats and blankets over the wood.

Naomi drew close, staring as Daichi gently lay Kailas on the makeshift cot.  She took the hand that did not rest on Kailas’s stomach, lifting it and looking at the bloody palm and fingers.  “Oh, Hova…what in the world happened to her?”

“She was struck by lightning,” Hova said.  “Lightning the Fire Lord made.”

“What?” Naomi asked.  “How could she do that?”

“We don’t know,” Katara said, moving to stand beside Naomi.  She fiddled with the knot of the satchel, undoing it and laying the opened bag on the free space near Kailas’s side.  “We didn’t know firebenders could make lightning.”  She jumped at the touch of wood behind her legs, turning to find that Daichi had put a stool behind her.  “Oh…thank you.”

Daichi grunted.

“How long has she been like this?” Naomi asked.

“Three days,” Sokka said.  He paused, rubbing at his forehead.  “Is it three?”  He started to count on his fingers.  “She got hit that night…then we were flying for two days and two nights.  This is the start of the third day, right?”

“Yes, Sokka,” Suki said.  “The third day.”

Katara unscrewed the top of a jar, but paused.  She looked at how bloody Kailas’s hands were, and sighed.  “Dammit.  Is—is there water in here anywhere?  I need to wash the wounds first.”  She sighed, rubbing her eyes.  “I need to wash all of them.  Dammit.”

Naomi put her hands on Katara’s shoulders.  “That’s enough now.  You and your friends get a little rest.  I can clean and bind the wounds.”

“But, it’s really serious,” Katara said.  “And…she should get cleaned up anyway.”

“It’s women’s work in here, then,” Naomi said.  She turned to Daichi.  “Dear, you go get started on harvesting.”  Her eyes went to Sokka.  “Are you all right to help him?”

Sokka smiled, though his face was as pale as any other, and flexed his arms.  “I’m good.  I snuck in a couple naps.”

Naomi nodded.  “Good.  And you, Aang.”  She paused, putting a hand to her chin.  “Can you do any cooking?”

“Huh?”  He blinked.  “Uh, yeah.  Not meat, but yeah.”

“Good,” Naomi said again.  “Make the simplest soup you can.  We need to get some food in this girl, and soup is the only thing I can think of to feed someone unconscious like this.  You can use our kitchen.  And while it’s cooking, bring in more blankets for your friends—but knock before you come in.  There’s no need for you to see Kailas indecent.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Aang said, smiling.  He jogged out of the barn, and Daichi and Sokka followed soon after him.

“Mom, you don’t have to do all this,” Hova said.  “Katara is a healer—and Suki and I can help.”

“You all can help,” Naomi said.  “Better to have more hands, even if you’re all exhausted.”  She went to the water pump, moving a jar to the spigot.  The pump started slowly, creaking because it had not been used since the day before, but soon water flowed smooth and clean into the jar.

“But—you have to harvest, don’t you?” Hova asked.  “You just sent Dad to.”

Naomi sighed as she put the jar down beside the crates.  “Hova, sweetheart—close your mouth and sit down for a minute.”

Hova almost fell to her rear to do as she was told, back bumping against a beam.

Chuckling, Naomi smiled.  “There, see?  You’re so tired that you did exactly what you were told.  None of you would be able to do all of this alone.  I’ve lived through war and raids, sweetheart.  I know how to help the wounded.”

“But—”

“No buts,” Naomi said.  “She’s your lover.  You’re too worried right now.  Just sit for a little while and calm down.”  She turned to Suki and Katara.  “You two get her undressed.  We’ll get her cleaned and bandaged up.”  She looked at Toph, who wavered on her feet, and the blind eyes in the woman’s face.  “You go back to sleep, dear.”

Toph waved a lifted thumb, and fell back against Appa.  She was gone in moments, and Katara smiled with a sigh.  “She hates flying too much to sleep, and she was so worried whenever we were on the ground that she couldn’t.”

“The sooner we get this done, the sooner you all can rest,” Naomi said.  “Come on.”  She moved to Kailas’s other side, undoing the ties on her damp shirt.  When the shirt was open, she carefully withdrew Kailas’s arms from the sleeves, tugging the shirt out from beneath her back.  “You said you were flying with the rain?”

“Yeah,” Hova said.  She watched Kailas’s limp body being undressed for only a moment, empty stomach turning too much to continue.  “We left Taonan two days ago, and just got unlucky.”