Patient: The Amagi delegation. Gender: Male or female. Age: Old or young. Address: Everywhere on Yosor. Occupation: Delinquency.
Main complaint: Bad humor; restlessness; terrible memory; feeling of strain for the past few years, worsened for the past six months.
Physical nature: Descended from the lower branches of Fire. The children of clinkers and embers.
Present illness: Their eyes are red and their throats dry no matter how much water they drink. The area around their waists is always sore. The body is hot, the pulse is sunken, and the qi is congealed. The inside of the patient's nose looks like coal. They have begun to believe that a horse is a deer [1].
Diagnosis: Political neurosis due to immature yin manifestation that has turned into yin toxicity [2]. In short, a mentally stunted child of world culture.
Course of disease: Long-term chronic disease.
Prognosis: Left to their own devices, the patient's self-indulgence will accelerate the complications of the disorder. Their qi will stagnate, their bodies will deteriorate, and their minds will shrink to non-existence. Immediate external ratification is necessary.
Prescription: Patient needs long-term support, courage, assistance, and guidance to mature their personalities and help them to adapt to reality through rehabilitation in prison. Active treatment should ameliorate their superficial symptoms and also help them to explore underlying problems, overcome their own obstacles, and grow healthier. If their symptoms appear too advanced, a good beating with sticks should be administered.
Psychiatrist
Imini
[1] When combined, the characters for horse (uma) and deer (shika) are read baka [foolish or stupid].
[2] This disorder arises from injury by cold pathogen, resulting in the flourishing of yang qi and the diminution of yin qi.
YEAR 1 of FIRE LORD ZUKO Master Jiao Shou, Restorer of Harmony Righteous Restoration
Oh, Great Firelord, Righteous Sovereign and Master of the Realm, Paramount Sage and First Teacher to The People. Our Lord, virtuous in morals as King Sho*, as loving and merciful as Duke Wen*, as mighty in martial matters as Prince Zhang*. Our Lord, with his manifold virtues and civilities, how can his majesty and dignities, his elegance and accomplishments ever be forgotten?
The Inner Realm, blessed with untold riches, the skies clear as if like a mirror to the heart, the trees and flowers rise with such luxuriant colors, the seas and streams calm and affectionate, the people rested and happy in reverence of their liege, the spirits, deities and ancestors of the world above watched in thoughtful love and approval, all the inhabitants of Earth and Heaven watched in awe of our elegant lord. How can the realm not submit to such a wise and virtuous sage?
Our Lord, who was exiled by the usurper when his mind and heart becoming aware of Ozal's polluting influence and the corruption brought on by the war in the outer lands, through hardship and ruin, our Lord, with harsh self cultivation had opened his mind to virtues, by opening his mind to virtues, he became virtuous in all matters, by being virtuous in all matters, he became a Sagely Lord, by becoming a Sagely Lord, All the earth, the mountains, the rivers, the springs, the clouds, the heavens, the great seas-All dwellers of above and below submit and listen to his every commands!
Look at all the bandits and vagrants who seek amongst themselves schemes to cause mischief and chaos in the lands, while posing as "heroes" who seek to restore the cursed progeny of the tyrant, they slander our liege with accusations of being an unfilial son by slaying the "rightful" Lord Ozai.
All Righteous Men should instead be full with joy at this news. Ozai, Usurper of the throne, Ozai, Despoiler of the lands, Ozai, Enslaver of the people had finally met his due! Our Firelord, Our Virtuous Prince, Our Sagely Sovereign Zuko, who while full of hatred towards Ozai, the Great Tyrant, remained filial in his duties as a son, in his endless mercy, merely imprisoning the butcher and chief bandit. But through careful deliberation alongside wise advice made by his righteous advisors, his liege understood that, with his litanies of crimes that the Tyrant made against both the material and immaterial, there could be no mercy. So, with his full might, the Firelord slayed the tyrant once and for all. Truly, our Lord is the Bringer of Justice!
I, Master Jiao Shou, alongside many other righteous and virtuous men in Susong, full of awe and love for our Liege, pledge ourselves to this blood oath:
"That all people, whether men of martial arts, men of letters or even men of the plough shall solemnly swear with both our very hearts and minds, to swore eternal love and loyalty to our Liege, to fully destroy the rebels and demons, and to save the people and land!
Let our blood, whether superior or inferior in station, meld together, to show that we are single minded in our love and reverence to our Lord. And that from now to eternity all sworn men shall bear with himself the tattoo "KILL DEMONS" signifying their hatred for the dark forces"
"Revere the Firelord, Aid the Court!"
All Righteous Men must have total loyalty to his liege, for it is only with his virtues can the lands be saved.
"Cultivate the Body, Open the Mind!"
To imbued oneself with virtues, all must practice self cultivation so their body and mind could be opened.
"Clear the Fields, Love the People!"
By restoring the farms, all could work the plough and seek nourishment for their families and themselves.
"Observe the Rites, Venerate the Ancestors!"
By being filial and respecting the spirits, the world above can finally in peace and the realm can be closer to heavenly tranquility.
"Suppress the Bandits, Exterminate the Demons!"
Only through the way of the Sword can the dark forces be brought to heel and people protected from their machinations.
"Destroy the Foreign, Expel the Barbarians!"
Foreign doctrines and Foreign Barbarians of the outer lands had rooted themselves here and it's the duty of righteous men to uproot them whether by words or by swords.
Master Jiao Shou, Servant of the Firelord, Restorer of Harmony
*With Confucianism, I need a past to look up upon, so I need to take some creative liberties, Just think of these names as virtuous figures in the Warring States Period
As Raku enters the cave, he can't help but notice just how sloppy it all was.
The edges were rough and fragmented, the flooring too smooth in some areas and too rough in others. The entire thing was a mockery of a proper cave. An artificial hollow that would give way in as little as a year as the earth churned and shifted in it's own course. It wouldn't collapse on his head, but Raku almost wished it would. At least then he wouldn't have to suffer the embarrassment of anyone else seeing this travesty.
Still, as a place for him to recollect his thoughts… It couldn't be beat.
Raku takes up a position in the center (if it can even be called that, the entire cave was at once too long and too wide in too many areas to have proper center) of the cave and begins to practice. Going through the regimented motions his old tutor had drilled into him so long ago. The fundamentals.
Wide stance. Breathe. Step step. Breathe. Up and push.
Wide stance. Breathe. Step step. Breathe. Up and push.
Wide stance. Breathe. Step step. Breathe. Up and push.
Wide stance. Breathe. Step step. Breathe. Up and push.
Over and over and over.
It's said that if you repeat a word too many times, it will lose it's meaning, dissolve into a soup of syllables. But for Raku, his thoughts couldn't help but ephasize the word the more it pounded into him. Relentlessly. Like a machine.
When Raku had at first received the news, he had barely reacted to it. It was mixed with reports and updates about the rest of the Eastern Islands. It was significant, sure, the outcome of that Agni Kai would determine the trajectort of the Islands for possibly the rest of the war. But it hadn't meant anything to him. Raku had no personal stakes in that conflict, just political ones.
So then why had he snapped at the person who'd come to bring him more paperwork? Why was it harder to get up in the morning? Why had he barely eaten anything in the past two days?
Rangshao didn't need a distracted Rajya. Not now. Not when things were at a tipping point.
Hence the cave. Hence the judgement of said cave. Hence the fundamentals.
Raku looks at the piles of small rocks he'd built up and stacked on the other side of the room. It was all neatly aligned in a pyramid formation. A strong, triangular structure. Built to last.
He walked over to the stack and kicked a single rock out of the base, sending the entire pyramid toppling over. Sloppy.
Ren Xiuyung had been his role model, Raku realized as he crouched down, sifting through the rocks. She had been a colonist. Someone who had grown up being a result of synthesis. And she had worked so hard. Climbing ranks and striving in the military. She had led the Snarling Wolfbats, an all-colonial unit! They were roughly the same age, even. Had things taken a turn, had Raku been more militant himself, had been born a firebender…. Maybe it had just been wishful thinking, back in the day, to dream that he could have been where she was. But it was always something to look forward to.
When the "Phoenix King" proclaimed his intent to burn the colonies, when the Comet came and went, went the storms arose, Raku had his last vestiges of faith in the empire chipped away. But even then, there was "The Colonies and the Political Reality of a Post-War World". A thesis. Raku hadn't really bothered with theses much. But this, he had to read, it was from Officer Xiuying, after all.
It hadn't been the sole thing to convince him Zuko was wrong. But it had certainly helped.
And then… Ren Xiuying died without honor.
The rocks were of course, similarly faulty. Loosely bound clumps of rock that shattered with the lightest bit of pressure. Several hadn't even survived the tumble, they had just smashed apart with little effort. Sloppy.
Raku stood up, and wondered why he cared. The death of such a woman was a tragedy, sure. But this? This was more then sadness, this was grief. Where was that coming from? Why was this interfering with him so much?
Raku leans back and begins to take up his drills again.
Wide stance. Breathe. Step step. Breathe. Up and push.
Wide stance. Breathe. Step step. Breathe. Up and push.
Wide stance. Breathe. Step step. Breathe. Up and push.
Wide stance. Breathe. Step step. Breathe. Up and push.
She died without honor. But what point was there in having honor to begin with? This was a war where one side ate corpses and the other burned down anyone who didn't swear fealty. What fucking honor was there to be had? Twice now, Raku had denied or altered plans Pico had proposed to him. And when pressed, when REALLY pressed as to why, Raku had to admit that his main motivator wasn't the 'preservation of Fire Nation life', or any real military concerns.... It was because they weren't conventionally 'honorable'.
Wide stance. Breathe. Step. Step. Breathe. Up and push.
He hadn't cared about honor before Ren had died. Raku had only one goal. In all of this, one sole goal. To reform the factories. To turn them from machines that ate human life and produced goods to ones that could serve as a net good for everyone. And to do that, Raku had planned on corrupting and tugging the strings of state from the background, before being forced to accelerate his plans. Was that honorable? Was that 'noble'? No, it fucking wasn't. So why the change?
Wide. Stance. Breathe. Step. Step. Breathe. Up and... Push.
Why the sudden fretting over what others might think? Why the outrage? Why was he so ANGRY?
Wide stance breathe step step breathe up and PUSH!
Raku stumbles as the sudden BOOM echoes from across the cave, snapping out of his stupor as he realizes he's inadvertantly sent larger and larger stones slamming against the cave wall instead of neatly stacking them. His breath comes in and out in larger gulps of air, as Raku reaches up and drags his hands down his face. He walks over to the stones and starts to inspect them. Much to his chagrin, while stronger, these stones were jagged, more loosely ripped from the earth in a clumsy, amateurish fashion.
Sloppy.
Raku collapses by his shitty work and starts to lean back against the cave wall, a chuckle without any real mirth to it ripping it's way out from his throat. It was funny, really it was. Raku was supposed to be the rational one. The man whose contemporaries were a woman calling herself a corpse and a child ready and willing to tear it all down in the name of revolution. He was the boring, plain, practical one. The one who sat behind a desk and did the REAL work to keep things running. The one who shunned pretension, who embraced reality. What a joke...
He was no more childish than the others. The choice to be the 'adult' in the room was just as much an immature spectacle as Corpse's... Corpseiness or Pico's earnestness. It was worse, honestly! Because at least they were being authentic, then. They weren't holding anything back for fear of reprisal, they were being themselves, simply and honestly. Raku was just a worker drone who got it in his head that he was anything more than a lowborn mudman.
Raku keeps laughing at the comedy of it all, because THAT'S what it really was, wasn't it? That's what the crux of it all was. Ren Xiuying had lived her life in total adherence to how things should be, had been the model minority the Fire Nation wanted. And the instant she dared to try and assert herself as something different, the moment she saw through all the bullshit, it swept away all the goodwill she'd earned in the eyes of others. Where she had been born had dogged her no matter what, and the instant she slipped up, it was all... Expected. Of COURSE the filthy dirtborn tried to cheat in an Agni Kai, nevermind she was in a fight for her life. It was DISHONORABLE for her to not be roasted alive by an insane old man with no complaint.
Because, it doesn't matter, you see, if one side eats people or commits massacres, or performs brutal repressions. They're Fire Nation, they belong here. The colonists? Fuck them. They're all exterior people, with soil for brains and sludge for qi. If they're a good little colonist, they get to be the exception that proves the rule. If they're a bad little mud mongrel, then that's just proving the rule. Either way, the rule stands, inviolate.
Raku couldn't laugh anymore, because he was just so drained of energy. He's left stuck slumped against a wall. It was all so tiring... He'd gotten rid of all the racist shitheels in the government, but they still lived in his head. Right alongside the reproachment for trying to use his Earthbending in the factories, the dirty looks he'd gotten at the docks when he first arrived, lying to his family in the letters back home.
Oh, Agni, his family... They had been so proud, was the worst of it. They had celebrated when Raku had told them was he was moving to the motherland. They gave him gifts. They threw a party. And now he didn't even know what was happening to them, past the storm...
Tears begins to flow as Raku curls up against the shitty, malformed wall, letting out the pent-up stress and exhaustion of several weeks worth in a few heady minutes of wailing.
It was just.... A lot.
But he couldn't sit crying in a cave forever. So. The Rajya of Industry takes in a few quick, shuddering breaths, before getting back up.
And then, he begins to earthbend again, not following a strict drill, but just... Bending for the sake of it. Reaching out to the earth above with his arms and letting his feet push downard into the ground. With harsh angular arm motions, he makes cubical stalactites, branching off downwards from one another in straight lines like rock salt. Through a series of forceful stomps, he makes thick pillars that pound upwards to smash against the ceiling. And by bracing himself against the ground, Raku shuts his eyes, reaches down and SHOVES outward with his arms, toppling it all into rubble. He'd always been good at construction, after all.
Raku is left panting again from the exertion, but this... Was a good aching. It kept grounded. Reminded Raku of what really mattered. If he let everything stay bottled up, he wasn't worth anything to anyone. Including himself.
What was more than his honor was his obligation. Raku had sworn to change the factories of the Fire Nation. That wasn't going to happen if he just stuck with Rangshao. He finally had the power to do something, so it was time to do it. There would need to be.... Expansion. But... Tempered. Like the fierce metals that make up the factory, Raku's stony determination needed to be forged into something more elegant. He wouldn't lose himself to the blood drunkness that everyone else seems to be wrapped up in. But neither will Raku let his reforms end with Rangshao. Speaking of which, it was time for him to return there, so Raku begins to make his way out of the cave.
It was time to stop fretting about 'honor'. It was never Raku's to claim.
It was time to stop trying to appeal to racists. He'd always be a mudblood in their eyes. But they're just people. Shitty, shitty people. Their fires burning brightly, but temporarily.
It was time to stop holding back. Raku will build something that will last longer than those hateful flames ever could. The earth that it'll be built with standing resolute.
Raku stops as he exits the cave. Looking back, he stares back into the darkness that helped him grow. Buuuuut it wouldn't be a darkness he could rely on. If he was going to properly lead these people, he couldn't just slink off to a cave to cry into stone. He'd need to do so in a pillow, in a room he can easily be reached by the people who needed him. Like a real man.
It was time... To stop being sloppy.
Raku braces himself as he starts to crouch down low. This was going to take some doing. He shuts his eyes and does his best to block out any disturbance, relying solely on concentrating on the earth that was... Everywhere. All around him. He begins to shift and twist his arms, moving his legs around in quick slides. Making minute changes to the structure of the cave that compounds with each shift. A series of dominos allowing for something as small as pebble to topple a mountain.
Or in this case, collapse a cave. A shudder runs through the area as the interior finally comes tumbling down, sending a rush of air and dirt out the entrance and impacting against Raku. The force of which knocks him off his feet and on his ass. The sudden fall finally earning the first geunine laugh out of Raku for... Oh wow, weeks, honestly. Man.... He needs to lighten up.
On Dragon Island, a plot was festering. Meng Taori's infantry tightened the noose while Sun Hei fanned the flames. With a thorough dedication to his own aggrandisement, the cult leader abandoned plans of the ceremonial trial and judgement of Ozai for something with greater strategic implications. He corraled his followers, using and abusing them with words and deployments, so that they would follow his every order.
With these tactics, he hoped to switch sides and carry out a Lei column. But he was not in summa control of the forces aligned to him. Many soldiers and officers loyal to Azula had retreated to his temple-fortresses and were in a wary alliance with him. These members required greater tact. He flooded them with love and appreciation, and promised them many things, asking but that they hesitate to strike. That they wait and see what he had planned.
In these ways he revealed his weakness. Not even a firebender, he surrendered the power of fear for that of 'love'. He took unworthy strategies out of an Earth Kingdom playbook. Worst of all, he asked them to betray their country. It could not be borne. With no contact to Azula herself or another high ranking leader, the local officers had to act. They did. In two days a conspiracy was started and carried out, and Sun Hei now refused to leave his temple. He was communing with the spirits, he said, and would only send orders in haiku. The first was simple.
sleep beckons to me
winter whispers sour and sick
leaves fall onto foes
Its code was clear: attack. So the militia did, bloodying themselves on a suspecting Taori's troops. By a stroke of luck, the Commodore had brought up his trebuchets in preparation for a siege, and they were caught off guard. Losses were painful on both sides, and soon the battle was called off, but the result was clear: no truce would be called on Dragon Island.
Shuhon was hardly simpler. Ren Xiujing, before her death, had been in communications with every force on the island. Reluctant to ally with any of them, she had received a remarkably civil offer from Bujing on the possibility of surrender, and had replied to it with the demand of an Agni Kai. Before leaving, she had instructed her second in command to consider pursuing a deal based on that note if she lost the single combat, and a set of cold words regarding the Iron Orchids and Ashen Scarves both.
She had lost the single combat, and Acting Colonel Bo "Gnawer" sent inquiries General Bujing's way. Though unconscious from fever half the time, he responded openly. If they surrendered and proved themselves by handing over as many Iron Orchids as possible, not only would they remain free, but they would be permitted to maintain their rank. These terms, discussed in a closed room meeting, found grave opposition from some officers who viewed it as a betrayal of their commanders' will, and argued that they only had to hold for six months before relief might arrive.
These men were not the ones sent to arrest Hiroshi Zan. Those were they who had displayed loyalty or cowardice, who could be counted upon. They moved on the factories with their soldiers, while Bo went to personally open the gates and observe the entrance of Bujing's forces from above. By then, everyone was in their right place- including the officers who had spoken out.
One among them had slipped surveillance and managed to get to the orchids, informing them of the plan. Zan was well hidden, but managed to react in time. His new artillery's test run proved accurate at long range, sending the Gnawer flying off the gates. Despite this, it could not be hidden that chances were low, with traitors inside the walls and the enemy outside it. Still, Zan now had trustworthy allies and an uncorrupted field command, and could hope to count on the city's loyalties.
Southwestwards, Commander Zakura had made up her mind. Colonel Zakura was going to fight for the Fire Lord. General Zakura ordered her armies to march against themselves, filling the prisons with officers loyal to Zuko. The choice had not taken overlong, for Azula's offers had come quickly, accompanied by threatening gestures from an unopposable fleet.
General of the Expedition to Subdue the South, she had made her choice from ambition and glory. With more knowledge of the colonels of the Fire Nation, Azula had gambled and won. The surreptitious suggestion of possible spots open for a young lady of Zakura's daughters' age in her court further worked wonders. Salacious rumours of other reasons behind this choice, such as a childhood rivalry between Ty Wan and her daughter at the Royal Fire Nation School for Girls, or her loyalties being bought by the promise of a vacation with the war hero Cyo Krane, are to be ignored.
The neutrals were falling in line, but many still remained.
火 Mandate on Progressive Expropriation火 As Pursuant to theAmagi Declaration and Sanctified by Fire Lord Azula and the Governor's Office
Mandate No.3:
Recalling the illegitimate basis of wealth accumulated by exotified Zukoists,
Judging said riches to be of paramount value to the Fire Nation,
Concluding that these resources must be redistributed to legitimate authorities as soon as possible,
With the full faith and consent of Fire Lord Azula, this mandate decrees Fire Nation policy on recollection of assets held by moltenblooded and otherwise traitorous individuals:
The properties reclaimed by our Fire Lord from Zukoist traitors are hereby nationalized in Azula's name. Fire fuels fervor for renewal.
The nationalization order is both retroactive and future-binding: no campaign is exempt from the policy and previous arrangements are secondary to this decree. Our blaze chars away death.
The labor present on nationalized land is to be managed by Amagi law unless martial incidents prevent implementation. Foresight burns blades.
The former managers present, including self-proclaimed "neutrals", are to be judged by Amagi standards and relevant decrees, regardless of previous orders. By Sozin, we will sear the past.
Officers of the Fire Nation are authorized to see these policies through as the situation demands. 力Tremble and obey, for you are warned!力
Artist interpretation of Light Company operations, not necessarily reflective of actual operations -
Within the Fire Army there has always existed the question of standardization between the regiments, divisions, and companies of the fighting men and women. Decades of years of evolution combined with centuries of warrior tradition created regimental cultures and unit history that are as varied as the men and women who serve in them. The Susong Divisions now including the 95th Regiment continue this tradition as they raise the Red Royal Banners of Prince Zuko, holding them high next to the traditional regimental colours of the rest of the Susong army.
The standard unit of operation within the modern Fire Army is the Division. Yet has been a long-standing fact that it has not entirely been standardized which rank commands what unit size. Captains, Majors, and Colonels have all at various points been asked to command units smaller or larger than what orthodoxy might suggest is equivalent to their rank. While full operational overhaul can only be overtaken by the High Generals and the Fire Lord, the exigencies of war give individual Theater Commanders the main latitude for reorganization in preparations for field action.
As a Major, it would not normally be expected that Mr. Surudoi would be in command of a theater of operations or an army with this many divisions. However, there is still some work that can be done as one's responsibilities increase. Moved quickly from regimental to army command, there is still time for at least one matter.
Previously The Light Company was the term used for the informal groupings of archers, firebenders, and other skirmishers deployed ahead of the main army. These were, as the name implies, organized at the company level and usually led by captains. While not as celebrated as special operations units that also undertook these roles on a smaller scale, the large-scale nature of the Great War meant that light company operations became of great importance across the vast reaches of the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes.
Each regiment within the Susong Armies will now maintain permanent light company formations so that each deployment can quickly prepare their offensive operations and increase professionalism in the role. The experiences of Major Surudoi in the frontlines plays heavily into the dedication to this reform and the value of the light infantry role. Closer cooperation and organization between the light companies and the line infantry is considered a vital piece in making sure that the previously ad-hoc nature of army formations doesn't continue to hinder combat and campaign effectiveness.
Published and collected mainly from the Susong 95th but also with some adapted music before the civil war. These songs represent a small part of the cultural experience of the front ranks during both the Great War and the Civil War.
When The Lord Can Reign in Peace Again
Author, Jia Ren in the 1st Year of the Zuko Era
First heard among the Susong Divisions, When the Lord Can Reign in Peace Again is considered an original work to the Civil War. Some consider Major Surudoi a co-author or at least a patron of the song, as it was he who hired Ren to compose some ballads for the troops to rally around during the conflict. The language of the song and tempo make it more suitable as a campfire song than as a marching beat, and almost never used as one of the parade rolls. Nevertheless its desire for peace finds a resonance with some of the men and women tired of war, but willing to fight to preserve the country and the stability of the monarchy.
What Sages can pronosticate
Or speak of our nation's present state
I think myself to be as wise as they that look most in the skies
My skills goes beyond the depth of a pond
Burns brighter than the hottest flame
By this I can tell that all things will be well
When Zuko can reign in peace again
By this I can tell that all things will be well
When our Lord can rule in peace again.
There is no spirit then say I
Can search more deep than this than I
or give you a reason from the stars
What causes peace or civil wars
The Maiden of Moon may wear out her shoon
In running cross the polar plains
But all to no end for the times they will mend
When the Lord reigns over peace again
Though for a time you may see somehalls
With azure hanign o'er the walls
Instead of red and crimson brave as formerly it used to have
and in every room
the incense in bloom
the calming of winds and waves
For which you shall see
When the times they decree
That Zuko looks over peace again
Till then upon old Agni's Hill
My hope shall cast their anchors still
Until I see some peaceful days
Bring forth the end of soldier ways
Still will I fight, through day and the night
As soldiers bound for duty's train
For I'll never rejoice till I hear that voice
When the Lord calls us to peace again
Over the Hills and Far Away
Original Composer Unknown, First versions recorded and documented circa the 14th Year of the Azulon Era.
Over the Hills and Far Away became on of the most popular marching songs of the Fire Army as it led operations across every continent in the course of the Great War. Kept in time by the beat of war drums, and the shouts of the sergeants, the spirit of an adventuring army was recorded and adapted across many generations. Much has been done to try and discern the original histories of this song, with some of the best scholarship determining that it is actually an adaption of a different folk song unrelated to military recruitment. The Azulon and Ozai versions of these songs should then not be considered the original lyrics that accompanied the melody. Recorded here is the Zukoite version of the lyrics, spread through and by the rankers and lower-level officers in the Red Army.
The song's tempo and time signature made it useful and popular as a marching song in barracks and on a few battlefields. Keeping time with the beat of the drums and the marching of the soldiers is something that accompanies this piece well, though the instruments that play this song are as varied as the men and women who sing it. Variants of the song often extolled different virtues in the leaders and generals that were quoted in the song, and aspirational conquests were never entirely excised from the tone and intent of the lyrics. Neverheless the dynamic and expeditionary role of the Fire Army, along with its hard tested fighting spirit, is partly encapsulated in this music.
And now the drums beat up again
We're all true soldiers one two ten
We to go serve the Lord today
Over the Hills and Far Away
Over the hills and o'er the main
From pole to pole and Ba Sing Se
Zuko commands and we obey
Over the Hills and Far Away
All true souls who have a mind
To serve our Lord who is good and Kind
come list and venture into pay
Over the Hills and Far Away
Over the hills and o'er the plains
From pole to pole and Ba Sing Se
Zuko commands and we obey
Over the Hills and Far Away
Fourty Coppers on the drum
For those who volunteer to come
To List and fight the blues today
over the hills and far away
No more from sound of drums retreat
While Shinu and ole Kaz' do beat
The azure bastards back that way
Over the Hills and far away
Over the Hills and o'er the plains
From pole to pole and Ba Sing Se
Our Lord Commands and we obey
Over the Hills and far away
When Duty Calls me I must go
To face the nations many foes
Until they're beaten I must stay
Over the Hills and Far away
Over the hills and o'er the main
From pole to pole and Ba Sing Se
Zuko Commands and we obey
Over the hills and far away.
Over the hills and o'er the main
From pole to pole and Ba Sing Se
The Lord Commands and we obey
Over the hills and far away.
Fire Recruiting Sergeants
Original Composer: Anonymous Susong Songwriter, First Recorded 2nd Year of Ozai Era
Fire Recruiting Sergeants has the distinction of having a known creation process. It is also a process that was kept distinctly anonymous from the soldiers that would take its music across battlefields throughout the Earth Kingdom. Fire recruiting sergeants is specifically a regional recruitment song for the city and hinterlands of Susong. Put to notes and melody early in the Ozai Era, Fire Recruiting Sergeants fits the bill the most as a tavern song to help attract new recruits. Lyrically there have been some adjustments and smoothing of translations in order to accommodate the peculiarities of singer accents in the work.
To that end, this song was not as popular as many others within large sections of the army with no ties to Susong or the recruiting tactics of their local sergeants. Most Susong native soldiers and volunteers however can at least sing you the chorus, and its a bad Susong sergeant that cannot recite at least 2 verses of the piece after he's two or three cups in. Fire Recruiting Sergeants remains a mainstay of Susong regimental culture for these reasons, and even as deregionalization has occurred in certain sectors it still is a recognizable part of martial culture.
It's over the mountain and over the main
It's through to Omashu and Ba Sing Se
It's credit to your honor, and a trip across the sea
Enlist to the army and come a'war with me
Was fire recruiting sergeants, that came Susong Watch
Through market and fairs some recruits for to catch
but all that enlisted was forty in all
Enlist to the army and come to war
For It's over the mountains and over the main
It's through to Omashu and Ba Sing Se
It's credit to your honor, and a trip across the sea
Enlist to the army and come a'war with me
Oh hotman you cannot know the danger that you're in
If the harvest is to flag while the sun is blistering
The greedy rent farmer he will not pay your fees
Enlist to the army and come a'war with me
For It's over the mountains and over the main
It's through to Omashu and Ba Sing Se
It's credit to your honor, and a trip across the sea
Enlist to the army and come a'war with me
It's out of the barn and out of the mire
That rent farmer thinks you'll never tire
Take a noble job, of warrior degree
Enlist to the army and come a'war with me
For It's over the mountains and over the main
It's through to Omashu and Ba Sing Se
It's credit to your honor, and a trip across the sea
Enlist to the army and come a'war with me
It's credit to your honor, and a trip across the sea
Enlist to the army and come a'war with me
OOC: Later i'll drop my bad recordings of me trying to sing all of these
Rouruo is a peaceful city. Rouruo is a quiet city. Rouruo is a watchful city.
There are a thousand eyes in Rouruo, pointed where they shouldn't be. A merchant, glancing in your direction amidst a haggling match. A grandmother, following your approach from down the street to up. Children, waving kites and toys, pausing as they spot you, and then running into the dark of backalleys. Perhaps it's paranoia. Perhaps it's superstition. Perhaps it is simply careful observance. But it feels as though the city itself observes your every move. Not its garrison - a denuded force of Zukoite soldiers and Azulite remnants reconscripted. But another force. Different. Stranger. More dangerous.
Approaching the city from any meridian yields flashes in the corner of your vision. A cloak, disappearing into the bush of the volcanic hills that line this city's edge. Those sneaking into Rouruo might be less watched, who avoid the roads - but just barely. Still, there are nearby footfalls, a presence dodged by a hair. At the gates of the city, an attendant in a blank white theater mask waits. She is young. She holds a banner in her hands, a standard waving in the salt-sea wind. It is the banner of autumn. White. The mourning color.
Many in this city wear white, come to think of it. And most speak in hushed whispers. They are happy, they are giggling, they are smirking. And yet they all speak softly. What are they afraid of? Perhaps you might think they would be afraid of something inside the city, something forcing them to lower their voices.
Or maybe, they're afraid of the smoke, just beyond the horizon.
In the center of the city, there is a theater. Masked attendants guide invited visitors here. It has few windows and many screens from the outside - a maze of paper screens and artistic fabrics. It is private, dimly lit, known for its deep, inverted seating, looming down over the stage. Barriers, down the middle, split blue chairs from red, so that each side can only hear, not see the other, save for silhouettes through the screens.
In the center, a masked figure in white sits, prim and properly. She - and she seems to be a she, from the cut of her elegant robe, white and gold - has a tea-seat in front of her. Letters have been spinning back and forth - now come the audience.
On her back, two crossed dao broadswords. A striking contrast. She sips from the tea, mask tipped up slightly. Her mask is the mask of a grieving figure - Autumn in the tragic version of the tale, the death of summer. The wood and brilliant yellow-red-orange leaf patterning of her mask is stained by red lacquer streaking from two eye sockets - a line of bloody tears. There are more attendants, in the wings. There always seem to be more, in Rouruo. They stand at attention. Some are visibly armed. Others are not. This is not a consolation, in the dim dark of the theater.
BLUE AND WHITE
Three women- or two women and one girl- slip into the blue seats from the windows. Their escape paths are clear to them.
Zuko is still perhaps an hour out.
"Your mom usually this theatrical?" One of the women, Ikanu, asks in a hushed tone while gesturing down at the stage. "Because this is a lot. Nice performance piece though. Great ambiance."
Niho, silently as always, looks carefully across the the woman and the attendants in the theatre. Those not visibly armed must be assumed to be benders or as dangerous as benders.
Her attention drifts for a moment to her companion that just spoke. "Theatrical. It could mean either confidence or arrogance."
"Could also be a facade. They want us to see confidence. To think they have a reason to be confident." Ikanu's easy smile seems almost fragile when she says this.
Azula was not impressed, remaining silent as her bodyguards murmured beside her. Whoever this Lady Autumn was, whatever she claimed to be, Azula refused to let anyone influence her opinion. Especially by someone who dared summon her with riddles and empty promises. If this was a trap, then she would see to it that everyone opposing her today would die. Any weakness in her will was something that would be used against her.
he central figure of the theater play lifted her eyes up to the newcomers. Attendants backed away from the windows, their expressions unreadable behind their masks. And then, in the dim light, two sets of eyes met. They were the same amber color.
Lady Autumn reached up to pull off her mask. She let out something - a sigh? a shudder? a sob?, as the silk strap became undone, loosed itself from the face it hid. Gently, she put it on the ground.
Ursa met her daughter's countenance with the slightest tremble of her lower lip. She was almost exactly as she had been, six years. Somewhat more weathered, perhaps. Gaunter, paler. But much that had been sharp about her melted at the sight of her daughter.
Her daughter. Her Azula.
Or was she, still, anymore? Six years. She was so much older. Spirits, she was so much older. She had missed an entire portion of her daughter's life. So much time -
She focused herself before her eyes watered over, returned to the tea. There were three cups. This was not prepared in Iroh's fashion - it was something more traditional. More to Ursa's own tastes. Ursa poured one for herself and Azula, and warmed each with her hands. Ursa firebending had been rare, before her disappearance. But this was a special occasion.
"I made tea," Ursa said softly, and that was her voice. Not some spirit's distortion. "I'd like you to join me. If it is your will, to. There was too much to explain, that was unsafe in writing."
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no..." Azula's eyes widened in shock. She had expected the revelation. Prepared for it. But she hadn't seen the trap until it was sprung.
Coming here had been a mistake.
"Unsafe? Is that what you'd call it?" She forced out, voice sudden hoarse. She willed herself to do anything but stand stupefied. To look weak in front of enemies like some frightened child. Her fingers tightened on the armrests of her seat, nails scratching into the painted wooded surface.
"You-" She started, unable to begin to unpick the tangled knot of her own desires.
A mix of emotions washed over Ursa's face at Azula's reaction. Happiness, first, to be face to face after six desperate years, then confusion, then a terrible kind of guilt which manifested herself in almost averting her eyes, at almost flinching before the intensity of her daughter's gaze. She held it only with the help of a hard-set jaw, that held the position where she seemed almost about to break.
The worst part of it was how she immediately grasped how little she understood, behind that reaction. There was a kind of terror that left her only more lost.
What had she done to terrify her daughter? She had - she had tried, her best to connect with Azula, when she was a child. She was not always (usually?) successful. She had accepted, at the time, that as Azula got older they would become closer, as she learned the requirements of a princess. They had bonded, at least, over little things, like the combing of hair - but even that had declined, before Ursa's disappearance.
Ursa tried to conceive if this was the work of Ozai, if her husband had poisoned Azula against her badly. But it was impossible to tell, here. Had she made some incalcuble mistake? And too many other emotions were rushing forth, making themselves known, for her to focus. It took every ounce of will in her body not to simply rush forward and embrace Azula as tight as she could. The political was interfering with the personal - she was being cut into little ribbons by this civil war and Zuko was even yet here.
She tightened the grip on her cup.
"I have upset you," Ursa started, trying to work out the words to say. She did not speak in the tone she did when Azula was a child - this was something less stern, less restrained. "I did not intend to. It is a civil war; for my safety against interlopers, I used these poetic codes I was taught, in the Fire Academy for Girls. It was my intent to ensure that only the people who knew what they meant understood them. I wanted to avoid any assumption of an imposter, or a trap. You responded to my letter. You came. I thought then you were - you were anticipating me. Why else would you have come?
"The hidden message was meant to suggest a meeting at Rouruo, a parley between brother and sister. I chose Lady Autumn, a character from the one play you and your brother both enjoyed as children. I wanted to tell you I loved you both, that I wanted to meet you both. I did not wish to just enter Caldera in the midst of a civil war, so you might assume I had chosen Zuko over you, or appear in Kaya and have Zuko assume the same! I did not want the first awareness my children had of me alive to be my declaration for one of them! " She says those words with a particular boiling vehemence. "I wanted to know why you had shot him with lightning, why he had thrown you into a dungeon, why now the two of you are fighting each other to the death! And - if anything could be done to make it right."
Ursa smoothed the hem of her dress, rubbed her eyebrows, released a sigh, calmed herself. "Excuse me. Confinement has strained my poise. I was not gone for so long by choice."
"If you didn't understand my message, then you need to listen to me now, Azula. Your brother has been invited. I will not allow him to act against you or your allies, but I do not wish for you to sit here as if I would ambush you. If you want to disappear, no one here will say a word, and we will communicate to find a better place to meet. And if you want to stay, then know he is coming, and I intended to speak to you both. Together. And then, when we were alone - I can - we could -" the words choked in the throat. She was paler, then. Behind the flurry of explanations, there was a curious, and barely disguised desperation.
"I haven't held you close in so many years."
How dare she!, thought Azula.
How dare she waltz in and play the victim. As though she was the one who was abandoned. As though she was the mediator instead of grasping for the strings of a puppet she'd discarded. How dare she set her hook into old wounds and drag her halfway across the country then pretend it was Azula's choice all along.
Her eyes were burning. Why had she come here? At best it was a trap. At worst, this...
"Now you want to know me? You never tried Mother," Azula snarled, forcing as much anger, as much hate, as much pain into that word as possible. It hurt. It was more painful then even losing to that waterbending peasant, but the hurt she saw on Ursa's face was satisfying. But not enough to fill the hollow ache inside her chest.
"Save your lies for Zuko. He'll be happy to be coddled again and you can both talk about the family monster. I let the ghost of you into my head once already and it cost me everything! I refuse to let you ruin me again!"
The cup breaks in Ursa's hands, shattering to pieces. Blood drips from new cuts in her hand. Hot tea spills, stains her sleeve, runs on the stage. Some attendants gasp. Others stay silent, impassive behind masks, tensing at their weapons.
Ursa's own face takes on an unnerving calm as she cleans up the mess of her hand with a silk cloth, cleans off the blood. It is not the appropriate expression, here. The pain sublimates. This is something new - something learned in an environment Azula might be familiar with. It's where her brother kept her, for six months after her defeat. Behind a mask maintained for doctors and nurses, a barely restrained agony, a rage, in the twitch of a muscle or the grip of a hand on the hem of the robe.
"What I know," Ursa begins, with a low, determined evenness, "is the manner which you slept, the mochi you preferred, the time when you conquered your fear of thunder, the way you closed your eyes in concentration when your hair was combed, the way in which you moved while firebending, the perfecting instinct put into each and every move. The way you teased your friends and the way you dived into your studies. The way you loved the spa and the pampering it came with. I know you saved your brother and yourself on the night I dealt with the threat to our family from your grandfather, the Firelord Azulon, where your father could not. I know you loved your father, even when he failed you. I know that the answer to your riddle was something he gave you, because you always liked his gifts, better than mine."
Ursa carries on, after a pause. "I know you believe you are redeeming the honour of our nation and preserving the legacy of Sozin. I know that in the end this war will destroy the country, and our house, if you do not end it. And I know that I love you. I loved you when I fed your grandfather the poison that ended his life and gave up everything, went into a forced exile, to protect you. I love you now, no matter what bile you spit. And I will love you at the end of the world, when the light of Agni is snuffed and nothing is left of us but ash and bone."
Then, finally, "Believe what you will. Insist every word I've said is a lie. But I am here, in flesh and blood, not a ghost, not a whisper. And I will not stop loving you, because you insist."
An attendant appears, at the entrance to the theater, panting. "My lady! The Firelord Zuko approaches!"
Ursa swivels to the door, and then back to Azula. She keeps eyes on her daughter, collecting the shards of her teacup politely as she does.
BLUE AND RED
Whatever pageantry or surprise Ursa was attempting here has long since dissolved. She is bleeding from a hand, there are tea stains on her dress, and shards of the cup are scattered on the floor in front of her.
When the door swings open, and Zuko enters, their eyes meet for the first time in six years. She mouthes his name, under her breath, her attention drifting slightly up - to his scar, and then back.
The first expression Zuko sees on his mother's face in six years is a terrible, grieving pain, restrained by naught much more than the barest effort at composure. Azula will find it is the same expression her mother held not a few moments ago during their conversation, renewed.
It was painful for Zuko to break from his mother's eyes, to know that he could only spare a second to acknowledge her after years apart, and that pain crystalizes into worry, feeds a hot fury that he tames with careful breathing. His attention turns towards his sister, judging her naturally to be as murderous as ever, and her flunkies. He knows how dangerous they can be. "Azula," Zuko says, striding forward boldly, in spite of the fact he knew Azula would have noticed him pause. "Let her go."
In the wings, Niho keeps her eyes forward, and head down, even with her coloured contacts there was a chance of being seen for what she was.
Niho's disgraceful heritage was not widely known, and there was a chance she could surprise the usurper if things turned violent. But she would wait for now, like still water waiting to rush forth, for a signal from Azula.
A girlish giggle slipped out of Azula's lips as something flashed in her eyes. Anger? Shame? Who knew and who would dare to assume. After all, Azula always lied.
"Last to arrive and first to jump to the wrong conclusion, as usual Zuko." she announced, voice strained, tearing her gaze from where she sat waiting to glance towards her brother, her expression a volatile mixture of barely restrained emotions, her yellow-gold eyes close to tears.
"Ignoring the laughable idea that I have to obey you, I've done nothing. Any harm on her part is entirely self inflicted. Not that it matters now. Mother, your favourite has arrived."
Ursa furrowed her brow in some confusion to Zuko's proclamation of protection, then understood in Azula's response. A profound weariness washed away the rage - an exhaustion at how badly this had gone. Still, at least they had not outright set each other on fire yet. That was a positive, and she was gaining a new appreciation for counting the little blessings in this miserable world.
Ursa closed her eyes in concentration, smoothed out her features, opened them again. She had been doing a great deal of that, today. But there was a diplomatic function to this meeting, and she could at least channel the grace that had been her former default in the years in the palace.There was almost a nostalgia for their backbiting, too, if it had not been tinged with the awareness it had grown into a fire that was consuming the country.
"I...please, don't misunderstand your sister, Zuko - as much as, I know that this war makes that difficult. Although she had upset me," Ursa said, with a weary sigh, "I had invited her, as I did you. This was self-inflicted. Perhaps, deserved. I had wanted to bring you both here in the hopes of seeing you again, both, as much as could be possible amid a civil war. Of holding a parley between my chidlren. If not to stop this war, then to stop it from destroying this country utterly. The things I have heard from refugees and veterans has been unconsciable. Mass atrocity. Rumors of cannibalism. Warlords, emptying villages to serve as forced labour, recruiting boys and girls from schools for their armies."
Ursa continued, speaking to them more as leaders than as children, now. "and I don't know how you expect this to end. Zuko, in victory, you could surely obtain some deal from the avatar to maintain the colonies, a peace with honor after a hundred years of war, a preservation of Sozin's legacy - we certainly will have no energy left for further fighting after this debacle. But you, Azula - you killed him once, and it was not enough. How will you triumph, at the head of a devastated country against a realized avatar when the spirits end this storm? And will not your supporters, such as they are, demand your brother be executed in defeat to prevent the avatar from returning him to the throne? Do you truly wish his death? And you, Zuko, surely do not wish that either, but the same calls will echo from your halls. They may be whispering, already, that you were too kind to your sister by placing her in an asylum." Her tone turned sharp, there. "They have not spent enough time in our mental hospitals."
Ursa had an attendant retrieve bandages, which she wrapped around the injury done to her right hand by her own anger, addressing them both. "You are of the lineage of both Sozin and Roku. Your grandfather, before his madness, understood the power of the Avatar when he bound our bloodlines together. When Sozin defied Roku, he nearly paid the ultimate price. It was only the chance death of Roku upon his home island fighting an eruption at the Firelord's side that freed this nation's hand. We shall not have such a chance again. Even if we sought it."
"And what were you expecting to happen from this family reunion? For me to be overcome with remorse? To march meekly back into my cell? Be your dress up doll whilst I have my bending so mercifully taken away? So I don't hurt myself of course Maybe I'll open up a tea shop like all the other failures who let their rightful thrones be stolen from them? Assuming I don't end up like Father." The derision in Azula's answer was blatant.
"Next time I see the Avatar, I'll just have to make it stick. And if I fail, at least I'll die with honor befitting a Fire Lord rather than living like.." She paused, gesturing to Zuko, lips curling "rather than living in shame as the mouthpiece of our enemies."
Ursa clasps her hands together and thinks, resting her nose on the top of her hands, before putting them back down, drawing a broadsword from her back and spinning the blade back and forth in her hands. To Zuko's comment on years lost, she laughs, bitterly.
"I've missed years," she repeats it, "six. Four, spent in an asylum here for the delusion of being the Princess Ursa, after I attempted to come back and save you, at least let you know I still lived, and was betrayed. To prove my identity would have been a death sentence. Words and reason did not help me then. My memory of you helped me through days in a straitjacket after escape attempts, after other attempts. I thought often of what Ozai was doing - sometimes I heard. It was on those days I often wished it might be better to perish."
A cringing smile appears on her face. "You were my two guiding stars, through that. I thought, somehow, that you would be unchanged, despite the civil war, despite your father, despite what had transpired between you. Despite you getting older. That I still knew you. But I don't, in that way. You're right, in that, Azula. And I thought, perhaps a motherly delusion, that memories of better days could sway you, and sway Zuko. That we could determine a path that does not lead through some evil asylum, some humiliation, that preserves the country. But I have been far from your thoughts, both of you. I may as well have been already dead."
She stands, then, and holds the mask in one hand, one broadsword in the other. "I will not allow you to use this nation as fuel for your funeral pyre, Azula. I love you too much to allow that. But I cannot convince you, today, with more words that only insult and hurt you. And you are a warleader, as well as my daughter. You may withdraw, and no one will harass you, as per the laws of any parley. The next time you meet me, you will see me as an enemy, if you don't already. That is your will, writ in fire."
"I will never see you the same way, and I will never stop trying to make it right. There is no other way I can be."
EXIT AZULA
So yet again you side with Zuko. Everything for Zuko. You claim to be our mother, but you have only loved one of your children."Azula exhaled, the shudder of a sigh travelling through her body as if she had finally set aside a weight.
"I haven't needed your lies for years now and I refuse to go back to being the little girl who wanted both of her parents. I don't need you."
A smile began to tug at the corners of her lips, eyes brightening as if coming to a sudden dawning realisation.
"I don't need any of you to be who I am. And I will change for no-one."
Zuko moved forward again, onto the stage, advancing at a rapid clip to interpose himself between Azula and mom, and he took up a stance. "She's letting you leave in peace."
And you can stop me?" Azula scoffed, slowly, deliberately, rising from her chair.
"Always so quick to jump at her call. Like that makes you somehow better than me. The only differences between us dear brother is I had to earn the affection I got from this family and that the family who love you are still alive. That doesn't make you worthy. It makes you a spoiled brat who is surprised when he suddenly has to face consequences for his actions. And I'm tired of waiting for you to finally see sense."
A long moment stretched on, the tension in the air palpable.
"We're done here." said Azula. "I came to see if I had any family left. Now I know I'm an orphan."
Ursa didn't move much behind Zuko as Azula smiled, as she declared herself shorn of all family ties, as she proclaimed herself, with a kind of languid pride, an orphan. The immolating fire her daughter had set inside her mother had done its work already - there was not much left to burn, by this point. A grim countenance had set on Ursa's face. They had not even gotten to the sorest topic of all. She had quickly judged it far too difficult, and then everything else had fallen apart.
If she had been free earlier - if she had approached this differently, if she been freed before the beginning of the civil war - if, if, if. As before, her choices and her trusts had doomed her. This time, it was a trust in herself, an arrogance she could navigate this with nothing more than a bundle of her memories and a will to see it right. She was not sure if this would ever be made right again. Sometimes there was nothing to say. She could have screamed, she could have spouted another useless ream of promises Azula didn't believe. She could have begged her back. It would not have worked. She had learned that well enough, now.
She was watching her daughter disappear into an abyss she already recognized - from her husband. Maybe she had disappeared into it years ago, and Ursa had just not been there to see it - and this was simply its culmination.But she would not let this moment end in silence. If it was the last time she spoke to her daughter that was not from an executioner's block.
"I will not give up, even if you say you have. I will find a path forward that does not end us. Disown me, hate me, - but I will. I don't know to do anything else." Then, reclining her head, "...goodbye, Azula."
It would be unfair to the Fire Nation to characterise the whole history of their relationship with their Earth Nation minority as a "great spectacle of arbitrary justice and false civility" as many Earth Nation descended had taken to claiming in the aftermath of the Revolution. None could argue that in the colonies the Fire Nation had poured huge sums of wealth and treasure into creating and beautifying cities both new and old. The advancements of the Fire Nationhad trickled down and Sozin's claim of wishing to share the wonders of the Fire Nation had held true from a certain perspective. Yet the claims of Fire Nation polemics would not tell the whole sto9ry, these new settlements initially founded as Fire Nation enclaves were often built to differentiate the Fire Nation colonial elite from the Earth Nation subjects who laboured and toiled for distant masters. In time this changed. As industrialisation continued with increasing speed and the Fire Nation grew more secure in their role (and even just simple political expedients to quicker pacify regions so the Hundred Years War could continue), Sozin's Promise began to become an actual reality.
The ban on the mixing of Earth and Fire Nation folk was lifted. The hunger for more labour also facilitated the import of "lucky" Earth Nation families deemed civilised enough to be sent to the home islands (specifically Rangshao and Shuhon) to fill labour shortages, often being "granted the honour" of the more dangerous and back-breaking work where in time they would further civilise and gain all the benefits of the Fire Nation.
As is known Pico's own family was able to fully assimilate into Fire Nation upper echelons, intermarrying with the Fire Nation noble families and gaining measures of prestige as they gleefully abandoned theory "barbaric" Earth Nation origins to join the ranks of the civilised and powerful as the embodied ideals of pure Sozinite Benevolent Imperialism.
The Idealism of Sozin's dream - or to what extent a fundamentally genocidal dream could be idealistic - was not to last. Azulon heralded a shift away from the assimilationist aspirations of Sozin. Cultural inferiority became Racial and in time the evolution of Fire Nation cultural Imperialism would evolve into a tiered division where the semi-civilised Earth/Mixed Nation folk of the main isles would live in an ambiguous region not too dissimilar to the supposed "semi-barbarised" Fire Nation colonists that over time had engaged in cultural intermixing with the Earth Nation colonists.
The preparations prior to the establishment of the Phoenix Empire itself were a paradigm change. While the supposed rumours of "Sozinesque Genocide" attributed to Ozai are likely hyperbole (the eradication of the Air Nomads itself being a more nuanced topic beyond simplistic Agressor-Victim dynamics best discussed elsewhere) a renewed period of migration from the colonies to the mainland further altered the dynamic in the mixed regions of the Fire Nations which would in turn create the necessary preconditions for True Revolutionary Thought.
The Birth of the Revolution will be covered in later chapters but an important thing to keep in mind with this preface is the innate histority of the anarchist movement, Indeed it can be said that for all the complex and perhaps surprisingly racialised, materialist and antagonistic influences that would lead to the later Egalitarian and Spiritual Anarchism of the Yeshe Tome, the early foundations of the Ranshao Communes would come from forms of administrations and ideas of economic redistribution that existed for centuries.
Indeed the works of Raku Kasai and Pico Toloph benefited from an almost pathological desire to be removed from the decision making of the Revolution. Which perfectly allowed for the Liberation of the People under the Enlightening Flame of the Lamp of the Revolution.
-- Extract from Untitled Historical Work that clearly was ghostwritten but has Pico's name on it. Part of the same series of Ideological works that include the Anarchist Cookbook. Was destroyed once Pico got round to reading it and found Air Nomad Genocide Denial in it. Still circulates because people think Pico was being a tad extra about it. Yes this is a long citation (?) shut up.
"Yes, just like that, you are doing great."A young voice of 14 years could be heard throughout the new commune, oftentimes repeating variations of the same phrase with the same affirmations. "Do not thank me, you liberated yourselves together."
Pico hated it. Pico hated every bit of it. This was the 18th commune the Revolutionary had visited and his family, Pico's True Family forged in the fires of Revolution, grew diminished with every one visited. This wasn't what Pico hated, however, far from it in fact, Pico loved this, giving the peasants what they were due. Taking the land held by far off nobles that had mostly long since fled for Laotie, reorganising them into commons. Distributing housing and loathing and food to those who need it and giving the people the tools they need to govern themselves. The reorganisation of the liberated territories was simple in truth. The reorganisation was quick. All this land and all their homes were already their own. While the economic redistribution of resources was easy the political organisation was a tad smidge more difficult.
These were people indoctrinated against leading themselves. They knew it all. They knew how to manage their settlements, how to farm, what their needs were far more intimately than Pico did. Yet it was Pico with the fancy title, the Revolutionary, The Rajya of Liberation, that made everyone come ask him for permission to do what they have always done. To do what they knew they needed to do. Pico was terrified that he would enjoy this,that he would become the power hungry noble that he despised. But it had to be done and the Revolutionary would not allow himself to spiral.
Pico cocked his head and smiled, breaking himself out of his thoughts. "You're doing great. I'll leave a representative both from the Yeshe Tome Higher Administerial Bodies and from my own Revolutionary band. Keep doing what you're doing." The young girl - a granddaughter of one of the elders- smiled and moved on. Pico then went to the town council Hall which was being renovated into a Public Forum.
While each commune was to govern themselves via popular assemblies and other forms of equitable self-governance, the communes could not truly exist in isolation. Pico Toloph preferred to encourage the creation of bilateral agreements between communes and in fact that was the purpose of his own revolutionaries. The Yeshe Tome was to have a two tiered structure, the Higher Administration that would come to the "quick" decisions elected in a pseudo-parliamentarian manner (as Raku was managing) while the local communes themselves would come to make agreements and cooperate among themselves.
Pico himself had encouraged (but not forced) the establishment of Ikki, groups of communes that would together raise regiments of troops and cooperate economically through bilateral agreements. Pico didn't pay attention in class much but his parents had enforced upon him tutors and as a noble he was groomed for a position in the officer class prior to his teenage rebellion.
Pico hated being mature. He would much rather loot a candy store and throw a bomb at a garrison of military police, but Pico was good at it when he needed to be. And for now at least Pico would play his role as Rajya of Liberation, at least for this month to establish the system and train the necessary recruits to reorganise and spread the banner of revolution throughout the country.
The city of Rangshao itself functioned much like an Ikki itself, blocks of neighbourhoods functioning their own communes, the factories being directed and owned collectively by the workers with housing and other public resources being distributed as needed, Local needs managed at the local level.
The commune system wasn't complete however, while Pico emphasised the need for the construction of spirit houses, he could not spare the time nor really had the knowledge to tend to the spirits of the region but instead choice to outsource the spiritual wellbeing of the community to the community, writing in the anarchist cookbook a list of offerings he had heard spirits liked. It wasn't much but the Anarchists did not rely on Agni or Dragons or strange beings such as a Bosco (?), they had only their land and their neighbours, human or spiritual.
"Welcome to the long range strategic strike squadron, where we strike long ranges strategically in squadrons," said General Sikai. His expression was stoney and fixed, giving the impression of a lizard sunning itself. "This'll be your home for the next week or so, give or take. I hope you enjoy the experience."
Qatun Tsagaan grumbled something incomprehensible in response, as the two walked up the boarding ramp leading to the massive airship in front of them. To their sides scrambled scores of soldiers carrying crates of weapons and explosives rushing to their new assignments, taking only the time to snap off quick salutes as they passed by. All of them were either Ashwalkers or airmen, dressed in newly forged and repaired armor.
"I must say, the skill of your crew is remarkable," said Qatun as they stepped onto the main flight deck, "but preparing for this jaunt would have been finished faster if you hadn't insisted on those last-minute cranial examinations." She raised a hand to rub her scalp unconsciously. "The Ashwalkers are the handpicked best of the best, and you have our medical records. Our spiritual purity is assured. Surely that of all things could have waited?" she groused.
An expression of discontent flashed across Sikai's face, before it quickly faded back to reptilian blankness. "You shouldn't ask me to forfeit important counter subversive activities." he said, turning to Qatun. "The Air Nomads and their sympathizers, their dupes, their spies, they are everywhere. But enough of that. Please, this way."
The map room the two walked into was dominated by a large projection of the Fire Nation. Officers of all kinds surrounded the map, occasionally moving around allied and enemy units with plotting rods. Arrows marked out in blue all spun along the edge, representing the immense storm that enclosed the home islands.
One unit in particular, representing Sikai's airship squadron in Hida Springs, had a path traced across the map in front of it. "The slingshot plan," he said to nothing in particular. "That body snatching demon might have saddled us with this storm, but by Agni, we've turned it to our own ends. We'll coast all the way to the target, on half the fuel. That means we have all the advantages to retreat or press forward. I simply ask that your Ashwalkers remember that we have an objective to play for."
Qatun barked out a laugh, a short yet keening sound filling the room to the discomfort of many. "You think of me as a barbarian, Sikai? To covet an end is to accept the means to that end." Her eyes glared at the map hungrily, resembling those of a dragon hawk, or as many in Hida Springs whispered, that of a demon. "Make no mistake, the Ashwalkers will deliver our enemies at the feet of our Phoenix Queen; but whether they are intact is another matter. That our disobedient inferiors refuse to accept their fates is no fault of mine."
"Good. That is good." The general worked his hands, staring at the map. "Tell me, Tsaagan. Have you ever thought about what comes after?"
"Hm." She idly began tapping her fingers on the map table, tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap… "Do you want an explanation of what will happen, or what I want to happen? Reality often differs from perception, after all. What do you think?"
"There will be a response, of course," Sikai said quietly. There was all the conviction of history in his voice. "The Earth Kingdom, the Water Tribes, they won't forget what we did. I don't decry it. They would have done it to us, if they ever managed to secure an advantage. But if we lose here, the Fire Nation would be sold out. The nobles would gladly allow all manner of barbarity to be done to us-- the good folk-- to secure their own manors. That is why we cannot lose. That is why we must win."
The demon merely nodded, her face contorting into a sneer. "Yes, the most likely future. Purification of the homeland, reconquest of the colonies… and then the continuation of our civilizing mission." Her head slowly swiveled to the general's visage, her eyes burning with a smoldering fire. "But continuing on our previous course would be suicide. Imagine another hundred years of warfare against a resurgent foe, another hundred years against enemies both internal and external, just to claim what measly scraps of civilization there are left. The Fire Nation wouldn't be able to shoulder it, even with its impurities burnt out."
The general raised an eyebrow, it being the only change in his expression. "So you don't believe in staying the course, of repeating our earlier victories?"
"No," the demon breathed, "I speak not of reconquest, or of civilizational progress. This fallen world would never allow for that. Their cities will be immolated, their people slaughtered and buried in shallow graves. There will be no occupation, no special treatment of civilians, no slow hundred-year conquering of the Earth Kingdom. There will be only annihilation. The Great Burn."
"Hmph. You are indeed young," the general replied, to the squawking indignation of the demon. "A man can suffer any sort of indignity, any sort of oppression, as long as he returns, beastlike, to his den." He pointed at the table again, this time at a projection of lands beyond the home islands. "From the Colonies we launch our campaigns. We'll batter the Earth Kingdom to a pulp, until Ba Sing Se quivers once more. The element of Water are championed by piss poor seal eaters, and not at all a threat. See? We have done it once, we have done it again. Bit by bit we will swallow the world. It's a most simple, straightforward thing. Divide, conquer, and hold."
The general stepped away from the demon, quietly smoldering in her rage, yet eager to hear his wisdom. "But let's not discuss politics anymore. We wouldn't get anywhere." Sikai motioned to the map, at their target in the north that Qatun watched eagerly with hungry eyes.
火 Missive on "Revolutionaries" and Our Revolution火 As Written by the Governor's Office and read by the Reddogādo When Zukoist reactionaries talk of Azula's reforms, it is often in the same breath as anarchists, sages, and worse yet, abolitionists. From their studies, nobles meld these ideologies into a chimera for propaganda. Though inaccurate in the context of the Fire Nation, historiographers can map these beliefs onto the Earth Kingdom's political landscape. In the land of Kuei, there are two groups:
The peasants. Largely unwashed and uneducated, these fools exemplify exuberant passions and ignorance of governance. Never tell a peasant they must contribute to the state, or they will revolt and aid a rival noble.
The nobles. Conversely, these lords personify indolence and stoic determination to maintain sloth. When their peasants grow restless, it provides the rulers with convenient armies to play war instead of developing their lands.
These roles inherently occur from earthbender blood, so to the exotified, it is only natural that all but Zukoites belong to the first category.
But the Fire Nation is not mired in Ba Sing Se's stagnation. For every city, there are classes untold, and it is vital to distinguish destructive parasites from purifying innovators:
Take the sage movement - those that have not acknowledged the Fire Lord. Kuei has no equivalent to our spiritwalkers, for their talent is immeasurable, but perhaps that is to the Bear King's credit. The sages thrive on arrogance from their otherworldly connections and other ephemeral assets. There is no denying the presence of spirits, but they are simply beasts of burden in different forms. Sages who believe their mystic entities know what's right for the Fire Nation are delusional at best. The only sovereign the world will recognize, spirit or not, is our Fire Lord. That is an unalterable fact.
Though anarchists appear similar to the prototypical peasant revolt abroad, especially considering their moltenblooded nature, that is not necessarily true. The presence of earthbender insurrectionists educated in radical politics is only possible in the underbellies of our society. Thus, anarchism, especially among the foolish, is less an ad-hoc army of shirkers and more a gang. The Earth Kingdom is incapable of widespread criminal elements, for their sense of order is malformed. When a society has no civility, one cannot break the law, for there is no code to abuse. Therefore, criminality becomes common banditry - the result of criminal states.
Abolitionists are perhaps the defining example of traitorous nobles. In the days before the first Fire Lord and for some decades beyond, these lords clung to the discarded concepts of clans. This concept was entirely archaic then and now. These tribes rejected a unified Fire Nation, Fire Lord, or any trapping of modernity. Some fools have equated these clannics with "republicans" - an exotic form of anarchism based on centralized voting. That is not the case. A "republic" would imply progress, or at least foolish attempts falling to failure. Clans symbolize the same failures as exotification. Zoryu killed the concept once, and Azula will slay it again.
As does exotification, the triumph of any of these ideologies would result in our Nation's collapse. The sages would sacrifice our men before the altar of many-tentacled spirits. The anarchists would see all laws dissipate. The clans would bring all those dooms at once. 力Tremble at this future, for it may come.力
Continuing his path of helping others and conducting rituals in accordance with the spirits, Akemi Cho had become a popular figure incredibly fast among the civilian populace of Kuza. Bread and water were given out to a peasantry already pressed by the shortages caused by the immense civil war, ritual fire dances continued to be held, and Akemi's work to contact the spirits continued in earnest, this time with the help of hundreds of his followers. His partnership with Colonel Zai held fast, with the two unlikely allies working together to keep the peace, far away from the ravages of conflict.
Akemi hadn't limited himself to mere charity work, however. In fact, he and Zai were gathering a cult following in their midst. Zai had begun a recruitment drive among the island's population, calling up masses of demobilized soldiers and energetic volunteers into the island's military, while Akemi, seeking to preserve his interpretation of spiritual law, begun organizing his followers into a spiritual police force comprised of firebending religious fanatics and volunteers. But the most shocking of Akemi's moves was to grant legitimacy to Zai in perhaps the most overt way imaginable; in a grand ceremony in He Ye City, Akemi crowned Zai with the title of Grand Protector of Kuza Island, a thoroughly untraditional descriptor linked to Zai's stance of neutrality.
The Grand Protector himself hadn't sat on his laurels. Over the course of many months, Zai had embarked on a grand tour of Kuza Island, meeting with local leaders and the townspeople. Although Akemi's support had granted him much legitimacy, Zai's personal campaign to secure power saw wonderful results, as he personally bribed and charmed many mayors and governors into supporting him. Those that didn't were quietly arrested by the honor guard he brought with him, and were never seen again.
Slowly but surely, Zai had become a household name among the island's populace, and while it hadn't yet exploded into the type of devoted appeal that Akemi carried with him, Zai was often considered as a friend by many, someone that people could actually talk to. This was most obvious among the soldiery and officers, which he had heavily courted and lowered himself to, creating a loyal care.
While all this went on, Akemi took retreats to the mountains with a handful of his loyal followers, and once again beseeched the spirits of Kuza for their blessings. He offered them the "apt sacrifice" they had demanded of him before, and pleaded that he would give anything, even his own life, as tribute. Perhaps because he had done this selfless offer, the reply of the spirits from the other side was stunningly clear compared to the other conversations Akemi had had before; the people of Kuza had to sacrifice their useless material riches to the volcano at Kuza's center. Akemi and his followers immediately obeyed this request with great vigor, throwing all the gold and silver in his temple into the volcano, and commanded his faithful followers to do the same.
Although many did indeed follow through, many others refused to surrender their wealth. Many of the latter were Zai's loyalists, who often were being asked to throw newly-gotten wealth into the fires of Kuza's volcano, or who had risen to their position precisely because of greed. Unfortunately, the spiritual police that Akemi had assembled proved to be perhaps too radical, and multiple incidences of people being forced to give up their gold at spearpoint began popping up all across Kuza. Eventually things came to a head, and the local army garrison was called out to bring an end to what they saw as armed robbery. The monks and the soldiers confronted each other in the streets of He Ye City, but any armed confrontation was thankfully stymied by the appearance of Akemi Cho himself, who ordered his faithful to go back to their families.
Despite this, the situation is tense. The followers of Akemi and Zai now distrust each other, and no one knows what could happen next.
Raku Kasai's "Yeshe Tome" anarchist administration was, ironically, proving to not be as anarchist as imagined by many. The government and its leading Rajyas were moderate in nature despite its revolutionary stance, and responded to many moderate demands made by Rangshao's inhabitants. Due to this, along with other reforms such as land redistribution to peasants and the reorganization of villages into anarchist communes, the provisional government put in place was somewhat popular with the citizenry, but lacked buy-in from firebenders and former members of the upper class. These complaints were, of course, ignored.
Still, some genuine progress was made. Raku had, after finishing most of his general reforms, finally gotten around to doing something he had always wanted to do; fixing Rangshao's horrible working conditions. The old managers of Rangshao's factories were all fired and replaced with workers councils, who began putting in place actual safety standards, such as safety rails and up-to-date equipment. Pico Toloph, who was in the midst of preparing to leave for Shuhon, toured the countryside and sent out agents to stir up revolutionary agitation and organization.
All of this paled however in the face of Ashen Corpse's military mobilization. The Corpse, drawing on her military training and experiences with the Ashwalkers, had rapidly organized Rangshao's irregular militias into a series of trained regiments. Often trained and tested by the Corpse herself, these regiments were well-armed and well-trained, even comparable to the average Fire Nation infantry division.
All of this was just in time, too. A long battle was ahead of them.
MIDDAY
The prime concern in Rangshao was the potential strangling of the revolution by outside forces; the solution to this problem was the revolution's expansion. However, a thorn remained in Raku's side in the form of the Azulite-held city of Laotie. In order to assure Rangshao's immediate safety, Raku sent out peace feelers to the pro-Azula Colonel Zakura, who ruled over Laotie. Zakura was receptive, as she wished to orient her forces to the south, and a deal was quickly struck between the two. There would be no war with Zakura, and in exchange Laotie would permit traffic from Rangshao to their city under strict supervision.
With the threat from the south solved, at least for now, the Corpse began a campaign of military expansion in Rangshao's immediate and far countryside in the north, towards the Burning Point. Regiments were sent out of Rangshao into the countryside, reaching villages and liberating them in the name of the Revolution. Attached to them were spiritual and political representatives, who helped ease many worries and sped along the transition from village to commune. Many offerings were also made to the spirits, hoping to appease them and grant their armies safe passage through their lands. All of this was in preparation for what the Corpse saw as an inevitable confrontation with the Boar General Ufuguzu, who's brutal reign had murdered hundreds.
The reports sent back from the north were strange, however. There was no trace to be found of any advanced scouting units from Ufuguzu. Unbeknownst to the leadership of Rangshao, Ufuguzu was busy conducting another campaign elsewhere in the north, meaning that he hadn't spared any resources towards attacking Rangshao. Instead, a message was sent to the leaders of Azula's empire, and a new enemy force had been dispatched across the seas to conquer Rangshao. That force was led by the noble Governor Iwa Kuro, the man who had crushed all resistance in the Eastern Islands, and with him was his personal guard, who he had secretly trained to fight the Spirits themselves during the initial chaos of civil war.
Their goal was to capture Rangshao, or burn it to the ground.
SUNSET
A mere month after Raku's revolution, Iwa Kuro and his troops landed in the south of Rangshao by ship, and set out to lay siege to the city. It was then that Kuro encountered the first of his problems. Initially intending to coordinate with Colonel Zakura, he found his efforts frustrated by the fact that much of Zakura's forces were in the south thanks to the truce that she had formed with Raku. Thanks to this, the initial siege of Rangshao struggled immensely, stymied by poor logistics and uneven planning, during which Kuro bribed Zakura and her subordinates with promises of war material and support from the Eastern Islands.
All of this allowed the Corpse to rush back to Rangshao from the north with full force, while Pico Toloph set off on his journey to Shuhon Island. Kuro's task was now much harder than initially anticipated, even with Zakura's full support behind him. Despite this, Kuro and his commanders launched their initial assault against the gates of Rangshao, performing well if painfully due to Rangshao's defenders possessing siege units of their own and knowing the urban layout much more intuitively.
Iwa Kuro himself led many assaults as the besieging force penetrated deeper and deeper into Rangshao. Despite his age and short stature, his pride was on the line, and he and his personal guard conducted many actions against the anarchist enemy. Many jokes about his short stature and his infamous nickname of "The Little Prince" rapidly faded when besieged infantry units were personally relieved by Kuro himself. All of this however served to bring him to the Corpse's attention, who rapidly assembled a strike team to find and assassinate him. There would be no Agni Kai or duel of honor if the Corpse had her way, only vengeance.
The Corpse's ambush happened in the midst of urban fighting, as Kuro and his guard were cornered in a building that had been repurposed to serve as a temporary headquarters by the anarchists. Kuro stepped forward and attempted to fight the Corpse one-on-one, only to barely dodge a flaming arrow launched by her. The resulting running battle saw Kuro escape only by the skin of his teeth, as his personal guard, having noticed something strange about the Corpse in the realm of spiritual matters, managed to fend her off long enough to reach friendly lines. Were it not for their prior training paid for by the paranoid governor, he would lay dead.
With the failure of the Corpse's assassination attempt came the inevitable fall of Rangshao proper. Although the anarchists had done all they could to stem the bleeding and delay Kuro's armies, nothing could be done to actually stop him. He both outnumbered and outfired them, still had sympathisers in the city itself, and had an excellent base nearby from which to resupply and in which to rest. All they changed was the lives lost and the lives saved. As Kuro himself marched into Rangshao's city hall, Raku and the Corpse fled Rangshao into the countryside with their few remaining troops, swearing revenge.
Shuhon was ablaze, and with it came the immolation of Fire Fountain City.
The death of Ren Xiujing, and later on Acting Colonel Bo "Gnawer'' at the hands of Hiroshi Zan's artillery, had turned what was hoped to be a quick seizure of Fire Fountain City by Bujing's forces into a bloodbath. Instead of being greeted with a warm welcome and thousands of imprisoned Orchids by Azula loyalist troops, the troops sent to occupy Fire Fountain found it instead held by a combination of Xiujing loyalists sympathetic to Zan and Iron Orchid militias, with only a few pockets held by pro-Bujing units. Confronted with this fact, Bujing (still bedridden and healing from multiple stab wounds) promptly ordered a full assault on Fire Fountain City.
The initial attack managed to penetrate the outer walls and relieve several pro-Bujing pockets inside, but the actual fighting slowly degenerated into what could only be described as a slaughterhouse. Bujing was still bedridden, and his less experienced subordinates managing the war had to contend with a desperate yet tenacious defense from Zan, who had mobilized practically the entire willing population to construct vast earthworks, pitfalls, and all manner of devious traps for the invading force. POWs taken by Zan's forces were interrogated, then promptly executed.
Pro-Bujing forces vented their anger and frustration on the city's inhabitants, especially its colonial earthbending population, who's treatment was genocidal in proportions. It is estimated that much of the earthbender population within Fire Fountain City were either killed or forcibly deported by Bujing's army.
The battle itself dragged onwards for weeks, with entire city blocks burnt to the ground. Zan even utilized his long-range artillery within the city borders, obliterating entire platoons along with streets and homes. But slowly, block by block, the forces of Bujing advanced under Azula's banner, and outnumbered and outfought, the city's heroic defenders fell, all to protect the terrified civilians waiting, hoping, praying for a miracle.
One large group of civilians was located in a local factory that Zan was in. It also just so happened that when Zan was visiting them to help distribute food and water, the factory was assaulted by Bujing's troops.
Zan and his bodyguards quickly sprung into action, desperately trying to protect the civilians, trying to kill as many troops as possible, trying to do something to stop the killing; but one can only do so much. One by one, Zan's troops fell, giving their lives to allow the civilians to evacuate. Then only Zan was left, surrounded by a hundred soldiers. After killing him, the troops would inevitably pursue the refugees.
This could not be allowed to happen. It would not be allowed to happen. It must not be allowed to happen. And with these words echoing through his head, Zan let out a roar, threw his hands out towards the metal supporting columns of the factory, and pulled.
The second person to ever bend metal in the world died collapsing an entire factory on top of him and hundreds of troops. Fire Fountain City would fall soon afterwards.
The limestone shells on the coasts of Shuhon were disappearing. No one knew why, but if one looked hard enough, they would see pro-Bujing infantry patrols collecting them in large wheelbarrows.
The immense insurgency led by Shangba in the north of Shuhon saw brutal combat against Bujing's armies. With Shangba having dispersed her forces into the countryside and civilian population, there was no grand army for Bujing to conduct a decisive battle against. Instead there was unending terrorism, as bombs blew up barracks, infantry patrols were annihilated, and low-ranking officers were constantly assassinated by the Ashen Scarves. Bujing was furious, and despite being bed-ridden he still possessed the authority and mental faculties to order a campaign of brutal reprisal. Villages were torched, their civilian populations rendered homeless, and captured prisoners publicly hung as a warning to any would-be insurgents.
The full record of battle is impossible to describe in detail thanks to its immensity, but the war between Shangba and Bujing saw several crucial moments. First was the surprising arrival of fourteen-year old Pico Toloph, who had used blockade runners to arrive on Shuhon. He quickly began preparing to engage in several of his old tricks, but both him and Shangba were left momentarily stunned by the appearance of… Shangba. Bujing's subordinates had ordered one of their soldiers to pose as Shangba in order to stir confusion among enemy forces by claiming that she had surrendered and was now traveling the island to "atone". However the ruse was quickly uncovered, and the imposter was assassinated by the Ashen Scarves within two weeks.
Pico in turn responded by spreading rumors of his own, spreading tales of Bujing's assassination, or an impending anarchist invasion, or even sightings of Zuko's dragon. However, the attempt backfired, as the populace, brutalized and terrified of Bujing's "reprisal operations", wanted to have nothing to do with a counterattack by the Ashen Scarves. Despite numerous attempts by Shangba to spread anarchist propaganda and to speak of "hope against fear", it was impossible to speak of victory to a civilian who just had his home burnt down. The fall of Fire Fountain City was the death knell to any hope left remaining, and while there was still a great deal of sympathy towards the anarchist cause (after all, the alternative had proven themselves so horrid that no one would care for them), the fear of reprisal for sheltering insurgents saw many anarchist guerillas hiding in villages being shown the door.
It was clear another, more drastic measure was needed. Pico agreed with this sentiment, and disappeared one night to conduct his first ever murder. Silently slipping through the countryside until he had reached Bujing's temporary headquarters where the bedridden general was located, he slowly snuck past the guards, cut through the wall of Bujing's tent, and raised a dagger over his head. Then the candles all around Bujing's bed suddenly flared to life, and Pico was struck with fear over the realization that Bujing, despite being injured and bedridden, was awake.
Needless to say, Bujing did not die that night. Neither did Pico, although he had full facial and body burns from a direct fire blast from Bujing to show for it. He escaped into the night, screaming in horror and pain, as Bujing laughed in his bed, surrounded by his stunned bodyguards.
With the civilian population still sympathetic yet terrified of Bujing and with the very forests being set ablaze, Shangba realized that if their brutal war against Bujing was to continue, the civilian population within Ashen Scarves-held territory had to be sent away, lest they be put in unnecessary danger. Shangba quickly began establishing ratlines all across the northern half of Shuhon, hoping to evacuate as many colonial-born earthbenders and civilians as possible. All of this work had to be done under the cover of darkness, as Bujing had begun using his hot air balloons to bombard insurgent positions with not just blasting jelly, but the horrific liquid fire of Quicklime, manufactured from the crushed limestone shells Bujing had collected.
But by the time Bujing's armies had finally begun reconquering insurgent-held territory, they found the villages within deserted. The evacuation was an unmitigated success, perhaps the one true victory the Ashen Scarves could enjoy. Thanks to the Azulite fleet being distracted with newly received orders, the blockade around Shuhon had weakened, and hundreds of refugee non-combatants had successfully made their way to the city of Rangshao (before its fall), Kuza island, or Zuko loyalist territory.
Fire Fountain City had fallen under the Phoenix Banner at the cost of thousands dead, yet many civilians had been saved from Bujing's wrath. Shangba and Pico fought on in the north, yet Bujing still lived. A pyrrhic victory indeed.
The Fire Lord knelt at the shrine. Two sticks of incense still burned, their tips lazily dribbling smoke before the portrait of her predecessor.
The shrine was makeshift at best, originally somewhere for the citizens of the city to mourn the honored war dead. A squat stone building near the markets, crimson red and azure banners lining the walls, clashing against the dull orange of the clay bricks. The picture had been taken from one of the classrooms of the local school. It was a cheap mass produced thing. But it sufficed for its purpose.
Azula was the picture of the filial mourning daughter. Inside, she felt nothing. She hadn't even seen her father since the day of the Comet. When everything had gone wrong.
That the broken wretched thing in the palace dungeons had finally been put out of its misery was nothing less than a mercy. That Zuko had let it live so far was to spit on their father's memory. The father that had been there almost all of her life. Had taught her right and wrong. Had stood proud as she mastered yet another level of Firebending or exceeded the next challenge set in her path. The father that in the end had abandoned her as well.
As the silent footstep nudged the carpet beneath its tread, Azula made sure to remain still, pulse slowly and measured, even as she prepared herself for what would come next.
"What are you even doing?" she asked.
The masked man spluttered indignantly. "I'm assassinating you!"
Azula slowly turned, giving the assailant a measuring look and raised one delicate eyebrow. "With that stance?".
The man glancing down at his feet was all the opportunity she needed.
It took time to scrub away the smell of burnt flesh from a stone building. So the Fire Lord meandered ever outwards, her travels taking her to the hills dotting the outskirts of the provincial city.
It was a chance to be alone. Without guards, without the war. A chance to reflect and consider the future. To even realize she might have one. So much had changed in the past year that the world seemed unrecognizable when once the future seemed carved into stone.
Some might have called the landscape picturesque or serene. All it did was remind her that she couldn't return home.
Where the chains were.
Mother would have her serve Zuko. Ignore that it was he who abandoned his people to side with the enemy. He who constantly brought shame, who was the family embarrassment. Zuko needed more coddling, more attention, more love even when he was supposed to demonstrate he was powerful enough to rule a nation. Zuko was welcome to her. With Azula, she would just be poison.
And what would Zuko have her do? Return meekly to a cell. Have her bending ripped away and her memory buried like a shameful secret? Death was the more preferable and ultimately more likely option.
Even if Zuko somehow struggled to take that final step and end her, she doubted he had the will to stop one of the parasites taking up his banner from sneaking into her cell and slitting her throat. He couldn't save father after all. He was too weak. Not in bending or potential, but in vision.
He wanted to return to a past that never existed. To throw away everything they'd sacrificed for, because of what? Listening to some old men suddenly feeling guilty after decades of throwing lives into the war? Some failing of the mind and soul that balked mere heartbeats away from completing victory? That had thrown away everything she'd achieved, not out of spite, but out of sheer stupidity?
She'd brought him home, pushed him and Mai together, given him everything he could have ever wanted if he'd just stayed loyal. And instead they'd all betrayed her.
The powerful dominated the weak. Power made all their actions justified. And that because they were powerful, Father was powerful, they could not fail.
Father failed. Father was wrong. What else could he have been wrong about?
Father had said he was different from Mother. But the moment he thought he hadn't needed her, he'd left. Abandoning her to her nightmares, throwing an empty title and a position he'd never truly prepared her for.
The clouds rumbled, the storm closing in. It was growing dark, rain beginning to fall. Her cheeks were damp, but she would stay in the rain for now, looking up at the sky, challenging the elements to do their worst with a defiant glare.
She had power, but what was it all for? To serve was to be controlled. To be what others wanted would have them use you until they no longer needed you.
She would be none of those things. She would be Azula.
"Kill the enemy... Dress it up however you want, that's what war is about. If there's glory in there somewhere, I must have missed it."
Statement attributed to Earth Sage Jianzhu, Post Avatar Kuruk - Pre Avatar Kyoshi
The Boar's Nest
As cities burned and the clamor of war shook the Fire Islands Burning Point was churning like an upturned nest of ant-ticks because the Wild Boar Ufuguzu had a vision of what needed to happen and by the Blood of Sozin all under his thumb would work to make it reality.
In factory's brutalized workers flinching under the gaze of guards halted tank production and instead set about forging a great chain to bar passage through the Gates of Azulon. Protesting at the pace set equaled a beating if you were lucky or maiming if you were not. The chain would span the gates' full length, a marvel of engineering but the Fire Nation had produced many marvels, its citizens could produce this as well. Or else.
But the Wild Boar had his orders and the vision of how they were to be made real. A single barrier would not be enough. So ships were requisitioned, every boat up from the smallest dingy upwards was taken and carefully sunk until a bridge of wrecks blocked the gates of Azulon. But even this and the chain were not enough in the eyes of the Wild Boar, spears, blades and packages of blasting jelly were mixed into the bridge of wrecks and threaded into the Great Chain.
Disturbingly some of Ufuguzu's soldiers adopted the gruesome practice of dumping the bodies of those slain in the gladiator arena or the factories onto the bridge, adding a layer of bone and soon to be rotting meat to an already chaotic defensive fortification.
As workers died to bring the grand strategy to reality Ufuguzu treated himself to the benefits of authority and had a massive personal weapon forged, a blade in the style of an Earth Kingdom Guandao, the thing was too big to be truly called a sword. Massive, thick, heavy, and far too rough. Indeed, it was akin to a heap of raw iron. Ufuguzu took the thing and practiced with it regularly, testing its edge on unlucky souls who sought to challenge him.
The Wild Boar felt he knew what this war would need, what could be trained into his soldiers so they would crush all foes and win favor in histories eyes, as such as the factories smoked and churned and a swollen mass of sunken ships, blades and bodies took shape in the water the Boar trained his soldiers in the new paradigm. They would be a true blend of arms and armor, mobile and unstoppable.
When he was satisfied with lessons learned Ufuguzu took his troops and moved south. To Laotie, to link up with Zakura.
The Old Man Of The Islands
General Juzo had his orders from the Fire Lord, he had his duty and he had his troops. So without unnecessary fanfare he gathered his strength a little south of Rouruo, rallying forces from Caldera and Da Zhen both before marching towards Burning Point. The traitors that had set about tearing apart the Fire Nation would be broken because the alternative was unthinkable, if he had to stomach working with those who would have been executed before the crisis and Zuko's whims then they would be. Success had to be seized.
The General worked well to solidify his position of authority over the troops, it had been some time since he took the field himself but the old tricks of command came to him readily enough. Indeed in the first stages of the push Juzo Ze was met with solid success, he found little in the way of coherent opposition, rallying towns and fields to the cause of Zuko and returning centralized rule from the capital in full to a countryside that had been gripped with confusion.
The Old Man was aided in his efforts by the naval might of Meng Taori who followed him through the coasts and contributed to the reclaiming efforts. While there was no outright hostility between the factions, communications were curt at best and the action was not as coordinated as it could have been, in large part due to different planning.
Still progress was being made. General Juzo Ze had decided that while this war must be fought he would fight it smartly, orders were given that the troops were to refuse direct engagement to any foes with numerical superiority and employ hit and run tactics in the face of a dedicated Azulite advance.
Upon learning of the numbers of troops under Ufuguzu, which was within the threshold of his own, the Old Man set about the task of bringing down the Wild Boar.
The Future is Wild
The opening moves of the clash for Burning Point saw General Juzo Ze take for him unexpectedly heavy losses due to his enemy's superior mechanized forces. Blood and bodies became a staple of the Old Man's world as the contest unfolded.
Wherever he tried to move and what tactics he sought to unleash to even the odds were frustrated by the enemies mobility and the plain endurance of the tanks he faced. He fought and fought well, employing a lifetime of military experience to make efforts of evading his enemy, inflicting defeat in detail, hitting and fading play out and he did inflict damage but just not the order he was hoping for while his own losses steadily mounted.
Now locked into either a direct battle or retreat the General (seeing the way the wind was blowing) managed to choose a section of flat terrain for the conflict seeking to deprive the enemy tanks of their greatest utility. The Old Man was not without plans even in this unexpected collison, he intended to use infantry forces supplied by Meng as a surprise reinforcement. In the opposing camp the Wild Boar boasted to his troops that after he split Juzo Ze in twain with his mighty sword the pieces would be added to the bridge of wrecks, a fitting end for the senile old traitor.
The battle started with all the sounds and chaos of any battle outside of a Pai Sho board, screams and curses, vows of revenge and cries of those seeking glory. General Juzo Ze had planned well under the circumstances but Ufuguzu had considerably more fire power, this might be a truly hard won battle if victory could even be grasped.
As the battle began an unforeseen event took both sides by surprise. With a roar like a dragon drunk on Blasting Jelly Ufuguzu was consumed by an enormous explosion that originated from the rear of his forces and which saw men torn to pieces by shrapnel. Combustion Man had made his presence known and with this unexpected surprise decapitation strike he had thrown the Azulite forces into disarray.
General Juzo Ze had not gotten his rank for being stupid or soft, he saw the opening Fire Lord Zuko's silent fanatic had created and struck with the full force at his disposal. Thrown off by the death of their brutal commander and caught between barrages of targeted explosions from the rear and a well organized and determined enemy at the front the Wild Boar's forces fought and fought fiercely but could not claim victory, eventually breaking and running.
When the killing was done General Juzo Ze had to admit that Combustion Man's intervention had altered the course of the battle, the Old Man looking at it pragmatically felt he could have won but it would have been a close thing without explosions breaking the enemies back as they had.
Ufuguzu's body was not recovered, the sheer force of the explosion had apparently left not enough to be gathered or identified but the warped and burned fragments of the Wild Boar's monstrous blade were dug out of several corpses so the Azulite foes death could be safely declared.
The Azulite forces withdrew from this major and costly defeat with the General and his new explosive special weapon in hot pursuit. Burning Point was liberated in a joint effort by Meng's Naval forces and the General's own troops. The Burning Point locals battered and bruised after the Wild Boar's chaotic rule staggered from the factories and fighting pits, to incredulous disbelief from the Fire Nation soldiery, this kind of destruction was meant to be unleashed on the Earth Kingdom savages and the backwards Water Tribes not the proud sons and daughters of flame.
Meng Taori, Combustion Man and Juzo Ze considered their position and the challenges to come.
The population of Burning Point were a brutalized mess that had been exposed to and tasted for themselves a unchecked rule of strength without care, the Gates of Azulon were nigh totally blocked by the threefold defenses raised in their face and the remnants of Azulite forces, whipped into retreat, were converging around Laotie.
The "Little" War
Thus far, most of the fighting of the civil war has been raging in the east, or the center of the islands. The western coast is a quiet theater, mostly notable for the number of young or recently promoted officers in command there and the lack of large-scale fighting so far. Colonel Azuh Zuru intends to change at least one of these things, and the ambitious upstart has the tools at his disposal to do so. Having secured the city for Fire Lord Azula, "the Young General" now casts his eye southwards, to the Zuko aligned "traitors" in Susong, a grand campaign in mind. He starts by leaving a small garrison in Feixi, entrusted to begin recruitment efforts on behalf of Fire Lord Azula, cavalry patrolling the countryside while infantrymen begin running raw recruits through exercises in the city itself.
Meanwhile, the crushing majority of his force begins a methodical advance towards the city of Susong by land and sea, air balloons and cavalry on the lookout for any opposition. On the waters, they find none, soon beginning a blockade of the city. On the land, however, a patrol of Zuru's riders soon find themselves face to face with a patrol of Major Surudoi's light companies, both sides staring at one another in shock before orders, arrows and flames start flying. Surudoi, as planned, begins an organized retreat southwards into prepared fortifications, the newly formed light companies acting as a prickly screen for Zuru's pursuit, his position reinforced with large numbers of militia. Seeing the size of the force arrayed against him, he prepares himself for a fierce battle. Though he outnumbers his enemy, he is no fool-he is outnumbered two to one in artillery, and his armor is outnumbered three to one. Defense and delay is his best hope against Zuru's superior firepower.
Susong itself has not been idle. Jiao Shou, determined to turn his city into a fortress for Fire Lord Zuko, has thrown his all into preparing for the trials to come. Susong itself is divided, though not bitterly-modernists and traditionalists grumble and bicker, each convinced of the need for their policies to secure victory, or at least survival. Shou's humble, self-effacing nature serves him well in this environment, his refusal to ever do more than advise and counsel soothing many egos and unruffling many feathers even as he and his followers essentially take leadership within the city, allowing the wheels of a government increasingly shaped to his tastes to spin away. It helps that the two things Shou is most insistent upon are goals all can agree with, raising a militia and fortifying the city. As bemused recruits are run through ancient manuals and handed old weapons, a series of fortifications springs up across the northern "border", starting at the mountain passes facing Kaya and sprawling all the way to the coast. Though not quite as extensive as is planned, it is a formidable defense, one that Surudoi's men make excellent use of as Zuru bears down upon him, the Feixi army torching fields and farms to deny their enemy supplies.
Surudoi himself has, ironically, taken quite well to a command role, inspiring loyalty among the ranks to himself and to his chosen monarch, as well as a firm sense of discipline. The Major has little taste for the dramatic aggression and recklessness so common within the Fire Nation's ranks, determinedly instilling a cautious, pragmatic approach to battle, encouraging massing as many men as possible against as few enemies as can be managed and simply whittling them down at range. This serves them well in the ongoing struggle, resulting in a dogged defense that sets them apart from the more spontaneous and aggressive militia they fight alongside, carefully managed by Surudoi himself, messengers on a constant circuit from the front lines to his command post as he draws order from the chaos of battle.
Zuru's own soldiers are well drilled, their commander even training them with special exercises of his own invention on the march, and their engineers put in exquisite work throwing up heavy artillery and meticulously blasting apart every obstacle before them, but the simple calculus of war is that even a raw recruit stuck behind a dirt wall can fell the finest soldier, and Susong does not lack for recruits or dirt walls. Still, the army of Azula presses forward in spite of their losses, forcing their enemy back through sheer firepower and especially the might of their tanks, Zuru personally leading charge after charge with his own coterie of hand picked firebenders, his uniform growing spattered with mud and coated in dust from the number of ditches and walls he's dived into or mantled.
Seeing the outer defenses are soon to be lost, Surudoi orders a withdrawal into the city proper, his regulars moving in stages, rearguard detachments carefully covering one another's flight and preventing any general rout, Zuru's pursuit stymied as archers and firebenders launch withering volleys into his vanguard whenever they attempt to leave their captured earthworks. The Susong army's lack of a panic is mirrored in the city itself, where Shou has managed to rally the city into preparing for a long siege, buoyed by substantial food reserves and pre-prepared evacuation routes for those who cannot fight, but this resolve has yet to be tempted. Outside of the city, the sheer extent of the defender's preparations finally reveals itself, as every single earthwork captured only reveals either another ditch and rampart behind it, or an open killing ground. Only Zuru's tanks can push on in such circumstances, shrugging off long ranged fire and allowing friendly infantry to follow in their wake, though even they need to stay wary of enemy tanks or the occasional exceptionally bold (and lucky) soldier with blasting jelly.
The final nail in the coffin for Zuru's hope of a push into Susong proper comes with news of reinforcements, spotted by his air balloons-a fresh armored division with substantial infantry support, coming in from the south. These soldiers were sent from Da Zhen a while ago, by order of Major Kaizawa, intended to secure the route between the two Zuko aligned cities, secure the countryside for the Fire Lord's cause, and reinforce Susong. They have done good work in this regard, solidifying the previously porous "borders" of their territory and sending no small amount of fresh recruits to either city. And with their arrival, they complete all of their objectives, as Zuru is forced to pull his best troops and armor from the attack on the city to meet them with an impromptu counterattack.
A budding prodigy at adapting and reacting, the resulting battle is vicious and short, the Feixi army's now quite ragged tanks going toe to toe with the armor of Da Zhen, and earning another bloody triumph.
Yet the Da Zhen army is not destroyed, Kaizawa's men retreating in good order to positions west of their city and digging in to stave off any follow up. Zuru's own troops, spent, allow them to do so, the Colonel forced to call off his attack on the city itself and settle in for a siege. The forces of Fire Lord Azula have taken the field and carried the day, but total victory remains elusive, the forces of their opponents still intact, and the city of Susong itself out of reach.
Scrolls surrounded her on the floor of the catacombs. Each scuffle of her feet, each dropped roll, sends an echo into the bony depths. It is a place of dread memory, great and terrible. The resting place of half a thousand years of victory, tragedy, defeat, a legacy of Firelords to the bloody and the first uniters. A realm of the dead, their successes and mistakes irrelevant before the engulfing, boiling fire of time, crawling closer, cooking every lord from the inside to the out. In the end, all they leave are bones.
Ursa felt at home.
She was looking for something specific, but could not find it. She started at the beginning, worked her way forward - ancient and archaic pieces, some written on wood or inserted into bamboo, in imitation of Earth Kingdom fashion. In time, they gave way to more elaborate works, myths and tales and illustrations sometimes brilliant, sometimes gaudy. And then, at last, the printed pieces, replacing the artistry of manuscripts for something more official, more elaborate - where calligraphy disappears, an advanced prose takes its place.
Three days she had been here, and not found what she wanted. That was fitting. Four years in an asylum did not give her what she wanted - six years in exile, neither, seventeen years of motherhood, almost fourty years of life - time and her were foes. She should have expected no reward for wasting it. She turned to a new scroll with a sigh of frustration, brows furrowed, put it in her lap as she leaned against the wall -
"What's wrong, Mom? Haven't been able to find the Ancient Sage's Guide to not being a Terrible Mother?"
Ursa started at the voice, but relaxed as she sees her daughter's child form. It is only Azula's apparition, standing haughty in the corridor. She was wondering when she would come back. Ursa returned to the scroll.
Azula walked closer, but her footfalls left no echo. "Oh, ignoring me, now. Annoyed I'm still around even after you discarded me?"
That got a rise. But then, Azula always know just how to. Ursa glared at her. "I did not discard you. I was trying to save you."
Little Azula giggled at that, the way she did when Ursa tickled her on Ember Island, when she was four. That hurt more. "By having me submit to Zuko, again. The favourite. Put away, where I can't bother the two of you. How is he doing, by the way? Getting on well, even after you let dad set him on fire?"
Ursa flinched and folded the scroll up, pulled her hands closer to her chest, breathed. The last time she had seen Zuko's apparition was in the garden, with the turtleducks. He had been burning. She had rushed forward to save him, but he had melted in her arms, face-first. Even after he was ash, he asked her again, and again, and again, why she had not been there. Why she had not helped him. Why she had left him alone, with Ozai.
Ursa had not visited the garden again, after that.
Azula continued pacing, then walked in front of her, scrutinized Ursa. The mother cannot meet the daughter in the eyes. "I wonder how long until he finds out how cuckoo you really are. Maybe he'll put you in the same place he put me, when he does. You toured the palace, saw those restraints, down there." Azula scoffed at the idea, turns away. "Then again, you were never really much of a firebender, were you, mom? He wouldn't need all that for you."
"Please - I tried everything," Ursa plead, desperately, reaching forward into nothing, "I tried everything to get out. It was an impossible situation. If only you knew, if I could have shown you, if I could have told you how much we shared -"
"I'm sure I'd be relieved to hear that, mom," Azula said in a mock, singsong voice, backing up from her touch. "That you weren't just neglectful, but actively incompetent. That would really get me rushing back into your pathetic arms."
Ursa fell back, let her hands fall, pulled her knees closer to the face. After some time, and composure regained, she finally retorted, "you're hurting the entire country and yourself, Azula. The things I've seen - the things I've heard - one of your commanders ate a man whose crime was demanding peace after a century of war. Another razed Fire Fountain City to the ground. Am I meant to just sit back and stay neutral while the country kills itself? While you kill yourself? While your brother runs short of reasons, in his capacity as Firelord, not to execute you?"
"Wouldn't that make it easier for you? You can say you tried everything, but she just was too much of a monster. No one will mind because no one cares about me. What a shame. It seems you even value the lives of peasants over me. Value his traitorous vision over the legacy of this nation. Over Sozin's dream. And, after all, you already have -"
Ursa cut her off at that, eyes widening, unable to stand another word. "Don't bring them into this. Don't."
Azula obliged, went back to scuffing at the dust on the floor, pouting. That is one red line she could not cross. "I needed you, and you weren't there, Mom. You never are. You never will be. The first time in six years I see you, and we can't even talk without Zuko being there. You can't just tell me you want to see me, you have to make a game of riddles, and then fail to answer my one question. You couldn't even tell me you were sorry Dad died. Then again, I guess I can't expect a spoiled only child to understand siblings. Just easier to pick one."
"I'm not picking either of you," Ursa insisted, "But I can't reach you, until this war is over. There's too much in the way. Too many others, being hurt. And you, immolating yourself. After -"
"After, after, after," Azula repeated, sarcastically, "after you've broken my armies, executed all my allies, shattered my hopes and dreams, and brought me humiliated and bound before my brother, then the healing process can begin. Wow, Mom. You really are good at this!"
Ursa had nothing left to say. She has had this conversation before, and not just in Rouruo. In a way, she's relieved. She held on the vision of her daughter for far too long - until at last the apparition shrugged, disappears. Still, she stared at the wall where Azula had stood. Her jaw trembled. How much longer will she even be able to maintain these visions, until they are taken away from her?
How much more will she lose of herself and her children?
A familiar clicking noise from further in the catacombs, followed by soft footfalls, snapped Ursa back to attention. She tried to put up a modicum of a front, that she wasn't just talking at nothing. Goes back to her scrolls, reviewed each with the kind of faux-concentration she had learned as a cue for 'reading intently' in theater classes. Kaede was having none of it. The shine of her glasses reflected off the dim torchlight of the catacombs, and she did not look pleased.
"Azula, or Zuko," her closest friend from the asylum, asked.
As Kaede did, she clicked the butterfly knife under her sleeve, back and forth, opening, closing. Her favorite tic. She really was a petite, demure, woman, hair in a tight bun - you never would have thought her capable of stabbing her soldier father as many times, or as in many places, as she did.
Ursa smoothed out the hem of her robe, pulled at a lock of her hair. "Azula."
Kaede nodded to that, leaned down on a knee in front of Ursa. "You're bleeding, again."
"Oh." She was- at some point, she had driven the point of a stylus into the tip of her palm, drawn blood. Ursa had not even noticed, even as the stream had started dripping from her hand and onto the stone tiles.
Kaede did not say much. She retrieved bandages from under her sleeve, intending to tie it up - but Ursa waved her off, and focuses her attention on her hand. With a spark and deep concentration, she lit the palm on fire - searing the wound. Only the lightest burn-scar remained, which Kaede dutifully binds. Ursa's sleeve slipped, revealing other scars, running down the length of her arm. Control, without power, had been the seething indictment of the headmistress at the academy. All her firebending had been good for was parlor tricks and sub-standard katas. At least it had this, little, use. She had not been able to muster the focus which had tricked the asylum guards, when she had been able to burn without burning.
"Another rainy day," Kaede commented, softly. It drew a smile from Ursa, to have Kaede use that specific term. "You should come to us, when you get like this."
"I don't always know when it will start," Ursa admitted. "I had thought after we were free - after it was done -"
"It would just go away?"
Ursa nodded, sagging.
Kaede pursed her lips and finished the bandage, pulling Ursa's sleeve back over the scars and offering her a hand up. Ursa took it.
"It's never gone, Ursa. What matters is talking about it. Looking to others when it ambushes you. Getting support. Even your son -"
"Zuko cannot know," Ursa hissed. "I should be there for him. Why should I burden him with my problems? What have I suffered in comparison to him? In comparison to her? In comparison to -"
Kaede closed Ursa's hand in hers and squeezes. "Calm, Ursa. Calm," and then, after a serene silence, a return to poise, a repair of her outward mask, "...we were waiting for you, in the courtyard. The kemurikage were to light the candle for Goro, to remember his memory. It might be a distraction, for you, and a way to make a little thing right, if not the big ones. Would you like to join us? A special guest will be there, to watch."
The mention of the guest brought a rare smile to the Dowager's features. The mess of scrolls around Ursa still demanded her attention, but she willed herself forward - and out of this place. There would be time, later, to return, to continue her research. It did not always have to be an enemy. She did not always need to fight it.
There might be some things, she had to accept, she could not control.
...but she would try, anyways. For them. That, she supposed, was her madness.
[Contents of a singular handwritten scroll in the personal belongings of Captain Xu.]
First speech in a series given to Jang Hui Village in the first winter of the storm.
Given by Headwoman Haga of Jang Hui Village.
Recorded for posterity by Captain Xu of the Snake-Heron Guard.
In view of the Painted Lady.
"For the first winter since my time as a girl, our river runs clean!"
"She does not stink like chemicals and rot. She does not birth corrupted and miserable creatures. She does not poison us when we try to drink! It is a miracle I tell you, my friends and cousins. Our home is pure once more. But the work is not done! We still have much to do to preserve our land and our waters, to heal the wounds the Painted Lady has taken in the name of progress. I have lived on the island of Jang Hui, in the village of Jang Hui, for seventy three beautiful and terrible years. In that time I have watched and seen the war grow, technology advance, and infrastructure be built. I have watched as the government made promises of prosperity and growth, as long as we sacrificed our bodies, minds, and homes to it. And I have seen, over and over, how they failed us."
"Seventy three years."
"When I was a girl, our island had no factories. It had no garrisons, no docking warships. It had no iron struts pounded into the mud. It is hard to believe my people, I know. But there was a time before this war. There was a time before this war, and before the steam engine, and before the industrial foundry. Before succeeding regional governors and merchant kings poisoned our rivers and land.Each and every one claimed that progress would cure our ills. That the factories which spat out weapons of war were a tool in the fight to bring civilization to the world. Look around you my people. Is this the civilization we wish to spread?"
"I saw over long years as their poison dripped into our rivers and minds."
"They promised us wealth–jobs in factories and the military. They gave us poverty and hunger–our plants dead, our animals cursed. They promised us culture–the light of Sozin advancing into the darkness of a savage world. They gave us broken lines and empty beds–our traditions spat on and our sons and daughters returning home only in shrouds instead of in glory. They promised us life, my friends and cousins. Life. But what did they give us? They gave us death."
"That is why we must grab life for ourselves, now. Not tomorrow, when the war is over. Not tomorrow, when the rulers and merchants allow it. Not tomorrow, when some new gadget saves us. Now."
"The first step in the life-giving path is a clean home. The Painted Lady has suffered indignity after rotten indignity. She has watched as we disrespected her a thousand ways, a thousand times. We must go back to her now, as repentant children to a loving mother. We must clean and bandage her festering wounds, as the Avatar modeled to us before the storm came. There are rivers and streams across Jang Hui just as dirty as the Jang Hui River once was. It is our duty to the Painted Lady, to our home, to ourselves, to start the work."
"Clean our home my people. Clean it of the rotten broken promises of progress."
The sun was starting to rise in the horizon as the dawn began to start. Fire Nation doctrine called for offensives to start with the sun above them making the night the perfect time to set up the operation. In full Yuyan Archer attire with the proper face paint High General Shinu holds a final meeting with a collection of officers.
" The traitor's operations against Tottori had been predicted by the War Council hence the reinforcements and myself. It was the movement of Azula from Kaya that has caught us by surprise we are forced to change our plans to adapt. Based upon our intelligence they appear to be attempted a pincer maneuver on the city trying to overwhelm the defenders."
" You have all read the reports about what the traitors do to cities they assault, untold amount of death of civilians. General Kazou and I consider this unacceptable. Our objective is clear, we must break this offensive by the Hida Springs forces to then quickly redeploy to the city to assist the defenders efforts. I understand that what I am going to ask you will be difficul, we will loss many men here. Those civilians do not deserve the fate that she-witch plans for them. The solemn vow that we took when we enlisted states that we will serve the Fire Nation to the death."
" We could not save Fire Fountain City. We could not save Rangshao. We will save Tottori. For Goro. For For Shi. For Jee. For Gai. For Sai. For Mongke."
The city used to be a magnificent thing, holding host to one of the prides of the Fire Nation and a man made wonder of the world. The Gates of Azulon had been one of the great projects of Sozins son, mighty chains in which to stop even the greatest of invasion fleets in their tracks. But not even he could predict where their greatest use would come from. Burning Point had been a clean, orderly city before the Great Storm. It had its day of unease during the Black Sun invasion, but the Fire Nation's brave soldiers had seen off the foreign invasion, with it being little more than an odd lightshow for those who called Burning Point home.
The Burning Point of now could barely be called a city. It held more in common with a charnel house, or the slums of Ba Sing Sae. Old buildings, dating back to the age of Yangcheng and Kuruk, lay torn asunder. Stripped for parts, for coin, or for simple fun. Even with the Wild Boar dead the remnants of his forces on the run, people in the streets still flinched and shuffled out of the way of Fire army soldiers. Mass graves were being uncovered by the hour—grisly side effects of Ufuguzu's short reign. The Wild Boars men barely tried to hide them, when they still ruled. Merely shunted them to the side so they could rule more freely.
Commodore Meng Taori had landed to find an escort waiting for him. A thin, bespectacled aide accompanied by a pair of spear wielding soldiers. Courteous and curt, the aide had guided him quickly through the quiet horror show that had once been a graceful Fire Nation city. Though the aide remained stone-faced, quietly answering any question the commodore may have, the soldiers barely hide their disgust as they carefully picked their way through the city to the hotel where High General Juzo had settled his headquarters.
The Blazing Ember was relatively clean, though whatever rustic, clannic era charm it may have once held was thoroughly washed away by the soldiers swarming around it, or the odd bloodstain that soaked the walls or ground. The room Meng had been escorted too was wide, but not particularly entrancing, trending towards simpler, blunter construction than the rest of the hotel he had seen. An era for the old staff of the place, as evidenced by a few desks and tables that still littered it. The sideoffice attached to the room looked more at home housing a middle manager than a High General, but Juzo Ze looked unbothered as he scratched away at some parchment, quill in hand. The aide and the spear-wielding guards bowed to the High General and left, leaving only him, and Meng in the small office, with two skull masked firebenders watching the active room behind them.
After a moment, Juzo put down his quill and clasped his hands, looking up. "Commodore Taori. Punctual, I see."
"High General." The Commodore nodded. "Prompt responses to orders are one of the first skills they teach us in naval training. I doubt the army is much different." His tone is professional, but there is a small discomfort betrayed by it, at the state of the city…and his current company.
"Discipline is what elevates us above the truly savage," Juzo idly replied. "As we have seen otherwise. I must commend you on your actions, Commodore. I do not doubt that the traitors would have been pushed from the city eventually, but it would have spilt unnecessary blood. I had anticipated greater resistance, but it seems Ufuguzu inspired little comradery among his traitorous fellows. Typical, for a bandit."
With this at least, Meng was more comfortable, nodding in acknowledgement of the praise. "To hear the people speak of it, they spent more time pillaging the city and bickering over loot than anything else. It would be more apt to call them vultures than soldiers." His mood soured. "Yet, that such men were among our ranks in the first place…"
"And that," Juzo said quietly, "is the greatest disgrace of all. I consider it a shame that I could not hang Ufuguzu myself, but I'll accept the charred chunks of his corpse. As for what remains of his followers…we cannot possibly hold them all. With the common soldier there is a degree of allowance—they are the backbone of any army, and if an army is to exist in any respectable state then they must obey their superiors. For their superiors, well, my staff has been debating the merits of what to do with them, but I suspect it'll be easier to simply execute the whole lot and move on."
"I will not defend Ufuguzu's officers." Meng began, "By all accounts, they were the most eager of his accomplices. Nor do I think we can afford to turn away his soldiers. But, High General, do you not think that that kind of obedience is precisely why we're where we are now?"
Juzo leaned back in his seat, hands still clasped and resting on the shoddy desk, and looked at Meng. His bearded face was a blank mask.
"Obedience is not why we are in this situation, Commodore. That would be disobedience. Men like the Wild Boar could not tolerate the Fire Lord's peace, they could not bear to hold onto their honor when it would mean an inability to lash out like spoiled, insipid children. They bring shame to their uniforms by following a mad dog to her death."
Juzo unclasped his hands, rolling up the parchment he was writing on and pressing it into a messenger scroll as he spoke. "But we have means of dealing with them. Bloody means, unfortunately, but means nonetheless."
His lips quirked up briefly, barely visible underneath the pointed mass of his carefully groomed beard.
"Like the man who killed the Wild Boar. A magnificent thing, truly."
Unconvinced, Meng nonetheless knew better than to interrupt. The General was likely correct about this particular foe, at least-while there were those among Azula's cause who fought for some kind of principle, every indication seemed to be that the Boar had not been among them. Still. "The Boar lived up to his name, yes. He was a rampaging beast with no thought of anything beyond his own appetites. But thousands of men had to willingly decide to follow him, obey him, and join him, or else he would have had no power to do what he did. That is what I mean."
"Some men cannot stomach defeat, and in doing so they have utterly destroyed our nation's chances of gaining something out of the Hundred Year war." Juzo said coldly. The smile had slipped from his face. "You yourself sailed with Zhao, did you not? Yet here you are while his 'Sword' serves Azula."
So Juzo did understand, on some level. "Yes." Meng's voice was thick with emotion. "We both know how that ended. He spoke openly of what he intended to do, yet none of his officers thought to stop him. Because he was the Admiral. Because good soldiers follow orders. Because Zhao-" and here, he cut himself off. He had gone too far. He had nearly brought up who had placed Zhao in that position in the first place. But the High General would never countenance speaking ill of the Fire Lords. Much less the idea that obedience to them had resulted in this. "I beg your forgiveness. The subject is painful to me, and I took leave of my senses." His tone was clipped and formal, pitch perfect repetition from old etiquette lessons to match the proper angle on the bow of his head to show contrition to a superior.
The High General waved a hand, as if brushing the subject away. "Granted." He said, his posture stiff. "There are other matters I wished to discuss with you, beyond commendations and the like. The traitors have been mucking up the gates with blasting jelly and other filth. Either to destroy it wholesale or in some odd attempt to deny us use. Either way, any attempt to approach a solution will be time consuming. Unless there is some dire news from across the strait I expect your ships will not be harassed overly much by traitors."
Juzo snapped his fingers, and one of the skull masked guards by the door looked in, nodded, and left. "Which brings me to my other point," Juzo said as the shuffling of men could be heard in the hallway. "The people of Burning Point have been spent and brutalized. The War Council has been devising plans in which to rectify the situation with the Fire Lord, but they need some sort of food and direction. It is my hope you may be able to ferry some supplies in from the capital. Or—and your men may consider this beneath them—gather some fish from the inner sea. Something to tide them over while the war office establishes itself properly."
Finally, the sounds revealed themselves. Two men carrying a massive blackened sword shuffled into the busy room. They cursed quietly to themselves as they settled it down carefully on a table that had been specially cleared.
"Ufuguzu's blade." Juzo clarified. "We dug it out of a pile of corpses. I wish to use one of your ships to ferry it back to Caldera. A gift for the Fire Lord."
Meng eyed it with distaste, then nodded, visibly relaxing. "Of course. I can have my ships begin the journey within the hour. With any luck, we'll be returning with supplies before the next light. For the fish…well, a good number of my sailors are likely to view it as leisure, if anything. I can send them out on some of our smaller ships."
"Excellent," the High General said. Already he was reaching for another scroll, quill in hand. "Dismissed, Commodore."
The Crown Princess is advancing at speed toward Tottori. A diversionary force has been deployed from Hida Springs.
He paused, as he wrote the characters, sat, knees bent under him, at the short table in his quarters. The orderly looked expectant. It was not hesitation that clouded him: it was a dim sort of anticipation.
One of the most powerful Firebenders in the nation, a descendant of bloodlines impossibly ancient, raged now toward Tottori.
The sister of his Fire Lord.
Life had a bitter, cold sense of humour.
Intensification of fortification efforts is hereby ordered immediately. Civilian corps have been drafted and assigned to relevant officers across the line.
He was writing again. The order was simple: hold, at all cost. Tottori was a pin guarding the capital, a gate which stood between the enemy and the mainland.
Did Tarok Kazuo fear death?
The enemy is anticipating the advantage of surprise.
We have won a small victory already.
It was strange that he felt some small need to reassure them. Another person was writing the order: he only watched their hand work, glimpsing someone else acting through his own eyes.
The defence of the Fire Lord's realm is the paramount duty of his soldiers.
Shouts and screams ring out across the city as the siege comes to an end. An end decidedly unfavorable to the Yeshe Tome. Raku himself runs through the metal halls of the factory, vital documents held tightly in his arms. Most of them had been destroyed to deny the enemy critical information, but if the evacuation was to be a success, they'd need to retain the documents they had on the countryside. And considering that the factory that Raku's information had been in was right on the cusp of the enemy's advance, it was a risky task, but one that had to be done.
Reaching the end of the hallway, Raku can see the last of his Fists standing ready just beyond the doorframe. Right as the sound of enemy soldiers come crashing through the room behind him. They'd finish clearing out the inital defenses, it seems.
Raku shoves the documents into the arms of one of the Fist members. "Go, go now! I'll be right after you."
With a grim nod, the Fist member leaves, as Raku heads deeper into the factory depths. There was... A choice to be made.
Navigating the backhalls of the industrial center like few others could, Raku descends down the back staircase before the row of boilers in the factory's heart. Beyond the boilers lies a maintence tunnel that terminates near the city's edge. That will take him to safety once... Once what has to be done is done.
In every other factory, repairs and refinement had happened, preventing what he could do right here and now. The dangerous buildup of steam that could lead to an eruption. This one was meant to be the final primitive set of boilers to be upgraded, but they had lost that chance thanks to the siege. Now, he could use it against the besiegers.
And yet... If he did that. So many besides the soldiers would die. The factory wasn't an isolated building, it shared proximity to so many shops, residences. It would strike a massive blow against the enemy. It would also kill plenty of innocents.
Raku grimaces as he hears the advancement of the soldiers above him. Their thudding boots on the grates as they sweep the factory floor. His window was closing.
Raku rushes his way through the necessary modifications, grabbing levers and wheeling valves into place. This was not the time for hesitation. People died, it was simply the way of things during war. There had to be sacrifices, and if it was going to be anyone, might as well be the ones who hadn't fought against these bastards, who had hidden in their homes and passively gone along with it all. They were useless, they were... Expendable.
Expendable like he'd been to the foremen? Expendable like the colonies were?
Raku's hands freeze on that final lever as he questions himself.
He'd been so proud of the fact the Rangshao revolution had been largely bloodless. No grand coup, no hideous purge. Just.... Progress. Fire Nation citzenry forcing out their supposed 'betters' and taking power into their hands. What had happened to that? What had happened to him? Was he really about to just kill so many people to lessen a loss? Had he really been about to spend the lives of others as easily as coin?
He had. He had, and that stung deep. Desperation was a truly chilling thing. Yet not chill enough to keep his hands from feeling the heat rocket up underneath his palms. Raku snatches his hands away, the metal of the lever starting to heat under the strain of the compression he'd induced.
No... No! It was going to happen anyway. There wasn't anything he could do to reverse things now, the steam had to go somewhere. It had to go... Here.
Raku can hear the barking of the 'Little Prince's' dogs of war gaining closer. They were almost upon him now, ready to barge in and investigate the creaking of metal that had been echoing out ever since he'd started.
Raku grabs a wrench off the ground and hacks away at one of the pipes, the desperation that had once made him contemplate such a dark path now driving him towards a different path. With each blow, Raku hammers in a new resolution in his heart.
Let his enemies choose death.
CLANG
Let them choose slaughter and barbarism, it was all they seemed to enjoy.
CLANG
Raku would never stoop to their level.
CLANG
He'd never again consider tossing away innocent lives!
CLANG
Because life was not something to be traded or bartered away!
CLANG
The life a farmer, the life of a noble, the life of a soldier, the life of a worker.
CLANG
It was all the same! It was all worth protecting!
CLANG
Let his enemies choose death!
CLANG
"I choose life!" Raku roars as he finally breaks through the pipes, smashing it apart right as the Azulite forces decend through the staircase. The compressed steam blasts into the room, letting loose a cloud of scalding white fury. Raku feels his hands seared with pain as the edges of the steam merely grazes them, but there's no time to even cry out. He breaks for the maintence tunnel, getting lost from the view of the Azulite forces as the cloud of steam both forces them back and ensures the traveling fireballs that punch through go wide.
Raku runs and runs, determined to carry this resolve forward. The Yeshe Tome may be gone from Rangshao... But not for long.
The first movement in the north was from Hida Springs, an army moving northwest, threatening the stronghold of Tottori just as winter began. But Qatun herself was not leading it. She had delegated this task to a colonel while she drilled her Ashwalkers in the city and prepared to receive Kikan and their forces. The taskforce advanced swiftly, greatly helped by the prior preparation they had made in ensuring a speedy deployment. A strong force, by any means an army capable of reducing an Earth Kingdom city to dust, they met irregular scouts commanded by Captain Naoki, who had taken command over Goro's old army.
The engagement was a victory for the ashwalker colonel, who continued forwards expecting the possibility of a field battle even as the scouts disappeared. This they found, but with reinforcements by surprise*. High General Shinu had deigned to leave Caldera to slay the beast who had left her lair. He took with him an infantry division and his elite Yu Yan, shipped through the inner sea so as to arrive fast enough.
These elites, combined with the highly mobile force of cavalry and armor that Tottori disgorged on Kazuo's command, inflicted a stinging defeat on the colonel's forces that forced him to retreat back to Hida Springs. All this was so far within the range of expectations that Azula's War Council had anticipated. Now, the forces would pursue, and attempt to take or siege Hida Springs. They would find themselves defeated by technological mastery and incoming reinforcements, or perhaps even take it.
Neither of this mattered much to them, for the key thrust was at Tottori. Alas, for Han Shinwoo gave the city warning by his insight. Having a cunning mind and retaining knowledge of old warplans he had concocted together with Azula-loyal officers, he suspected that a force from Kaya might be marching against Tottori, and sent out his own scouts southwards. It was these scouts who had discovered an army marching north, and had hastened to inform Kazuo. This changed red planning, resulting in the movement of Shinu and the archers and, more critically, the lack of pursuit.
Instead of continuing to attack and following through to Hida Springs, the sallying force led by Shinu retreated to Tottori, which was fast becoming a fortified city. The War Council of Firelord Azula convened*, and debated, with hawk-messages flying to and fro. The decision was made: they would attack nonetheless. They had enough faith in their forces, enough surprises up their sleeve, that they felt a force half the enemy's size could suffice to take a forewarned city.
At this moment, one of Zuko's own surprises came into play. From the ratlines of Hida Springs came five young girls and a man as thick as oak. Ty Lee, the Kyoshi Warriors, and Combustion Man had infiltrated the coastal town. The ex-assassin located a good spot for visibility, and prepared himself. He counted down the minutes until his allies would have gotten close enough for his distraction to be useful, and put himself to work.
Combustion Man breathed in. He breathed out. A factory's roof blew and caved inside. He breathed in. He breathed out. The factory's walls fell under, exploding the makeshift grenades being prepared inside. Panic engulfed the city. Qatun Tsaagan led the Ashwalkers towards the source of the disturbance, but the agent could be patient. He leapt away from roof to roof, pausing only to send more combustion-power towards the industrial district.
Here, as it turned out, the two teams' objectives aligned. Ty Lee soon found out that her first goal, Aroye, had been evacuated days earlier and was bound towards Yosor. However, Kyojin Kikan was still in the city, and available to be kidnapped if he could be found. This did not prove to be much of a problem, as the engineer was located in the industrial district when it came under attack by 'Sparky', and reacted in his own way.
The tank train screamed its fury in steam and smog as it burst forth against the explosive enemy. At such speed, Combustion Man found he could not flee, and his only chance was to engage in a duel- man against machine, monstrous bending against mad technology. Ty Lee and the Kyoshi Warriors, running after them, were intercepted by Tsaagan herself and her personal squad.
Explosion after explosion ricocheted against the armor of Kikan's weapon, leaving scorch blasts and at times dents but not damaging it. Meanwhile it was finding it hard to pin down a single figure, having been created to destroy masses and break divisions. Fire blasts came from inside, as did arrows, and some found their mark or were deflected harmlessly by steel limbs.
Ty Lee was having not much of a better time, as her group was outnumbered and none of them could bend. Still, the enemy had no ability to counteract her chi-blocking, and this sufficed to even the odds. It became a personal matter, Qatun raging against her while her four squadmates held off the rest. Qatun was a great warrior, forged in fire, fast and adept. She was, however, no Azula, and that was who Ty Lee had trained against in speed and reaction.
Two fingers struck a shoulder, then a knee, then tapped forcefully above the stomach. Tsaagan fell, immobile, and Ty Lee joined her warriors in taking down the rest. There was no time to finish the fight, with more reinforcements incoming and Sparky clearly being in trouble. The team ran to his silent bulk.
There the cultist was having trouble. Such a battle required movement and flexibility, which he lacked to a great degree, though he took his blows unflinchingly and gave no sign of surrender. Finally he found a weak spot: the upper entrance of the tank, locked tight but still looser than the inches of steel its walls had. A well aimed blast popped the lid open and sent it flying, and he moved closer to it. But a team of firebenders jumped out and threw fire his away again, and he was forced back. They pursued, and left the hole open, and Ty Lee jumped in. That was it for the duel, as her team nimbly paralysed the crew and took Kikan into custody once more. They then made their escape to the airship hovering nearby to carry them to safety, running in an undignified but successful manner.
The timing was good, as days afterwards the force retreating to Hida Springs arrived and started rebuilding efforts. They quietly avoided talk of the mutual failure with a seething Tsaagan, and instead put themselves towards the fortification of the city and its preparation for the arrival of reinforcements. After fighting in Sandu finally ended with Yamashita's total victory, her sending a solid force to guard the way put the Hida garrison even more on edge, which was not helped by the beginning of the slingshot strategy with Sikai's arrival.
No disgorgement of reinforcements, no matter how large, could simply solve this situation. But Iwa Kuro's divisions by sea were much appreciated, both the ones sent to besiege the northern gates and the ones to support Hida Springs (which he had expected to be denuded of a proper garrison, but the commanders found full of soldiers). The fleet's second (northern) approach, which took Dhimi without a fight and blockaded Ember Island for a week was also successful in their aims.
Tottori had not simply remained unmoving as a rock upon enemy action, however, instead sending a division of improved irregulars, well armed and armored due to their commanding officer's personal coin. Han Shinwoo and his force were ordered to stand against Azula's army and cause them trouble on the way to the city. No strategy was barred from them: rockslides, ambushes, forest fires, night assaults.
It ended early. Neither Han nor his division were ready for what was coming. They had understood the risks before them, that they were not to engage, that this was just to buy time. A scout saw a hot air balloon and identified it as meaning the army would approach soon, and Han refused to move to the rear. His team hid along the sides of a mountain road, ready to ambush the approaching force. They had ice and rock packed together, and had littered the ground with hidden spikes for the horses. Their position was impossible to find from below or even from the side.
The Fire Lord was above. Azula also led from the front, and had the advantage of a vantage point only she, flyer that she was, could enjoy. Seconds was all it took for Han and his men to find out the true meaning of the word prodigy. For Azula, who had recognised him, it was a mercy compared to what would happen had he been captured. The rest of the division either fell or broke soon after, and the advance continued.
This advance was preceded by a veritable cold war of spymasters. Niho and Naoki were duelling over the infiltration of the city, and one was likely to emerge victorious. Niho made contact with spies Qatun had laid in the city prior, and convinced them to ignore her orders to conduct terrorism for a less risky strategy of preparing for the assault.
They were to find ways in, take up positions along the walls and the most high buildings, and steal weapons to use when the time was right. On the other hand, Naoki centralised all intelligence apparatus' around himself, and set out to use them to root out spies. In this he was successful, to the degree that the rats began to flee the ship. Several of Niho's agents simply ran or left after gaining their exit papers with all the information Azula needed secure inside their heads, and many others were caught and promptly jailed.
Azula successfully reached Tottori, and found it a tough nut to crack. The walls had been reinforced, squads of Yu Yan manned towers, and all reconnaissance suggested the army inside was twice the size as her own. On the first day, a runner questioned the city for its surrender, and was denied by Kazuo and Shinu both. On the second day, the siege weaponry had been set up, and began to crash against the walls. On the third day, the Royal Procession approached the gates.
They took up an inverse arrowhead position and disgorged their own siege weapon. One hand took Yin from the world, the other took Yang, then Azula brought them both crashing down in a bolt of lightning that traversed past the effective range of any trebuchet and broke the gates on themselves. The assault was launched, thousands attacking the gates and walls.
The defenders did not make it easy for them, but Azula had chosen herself to lead the army through, and her bodyguard burst through it to pierce the first line. Elsewhere, men struggled and died and the only smell available was that of burnt flesh. The first piece was in play, and it was clearly not enough. High Generals Kazuo and Shinu debated in their mobile command over what possible plan she had, for with such few numbers defeat was essentially certain. Swiftly the news arrived.
While Naoki had done well in purging outwards indiscipline and disloyalty, and had rooted out all she could, she had missed one thing for its unlikeliness. The sewers and moat, well flooded, were also an access point if you did not need to breathe; or if you were a waterbender. Niho and her Smoke Service slipped through these and gambled on terror and revolt. They gambled badly, preparation having been weak, and their attempts to cause chaos difficult in such a tense situation. Nonetheless, several squadrons and platoons agreed to join Azula and rebel against Kazuo, and the service found fine locations from which to strike.
But none gambled as badly as Niho herself, who went to the base of one of Han Shinwoo's closest associates, a man who interrogated Shinwoo agents had promised was loyal to Azula. And indeed he had been, but Han had tried his best to convince him otherwise personally by speaking to his blood, and he was now Naoki's second project. This was who Niho found when entering his quarters- Naoki, the officer dead in a pool of his own blood.
They stared at each other for a moment, Naoki getting halfway through an explanation that the soldier had been found with antizuko propaganda before Niho threw a bolt of ice at him. The spider dodged and evaded, blood falling from where it had grazed his temple, finding himself out of his league. But he knew his territory, and was able to run for reinforcements, which forced Niho to run in turn lest the operation be totally compromised.
This rebellion disoriented and muddled attempts to resist from the Tottori garrison, but it remained manageable. Then a set of explosions (by way of the Smoke Service) rocked the town hall and the airships arrived. Operation 'Dragon's Jaws' had looked to completely avoid any chance of detection before arrival, and had succeeded through the genius - or insane- plan to 'ride the storm'. Making use of prevailing westwards winds, they accelerated in a slingshot from Hida Springs and around Sandu, only to fall on Tottori from the north.
There were four in total, and accompanied by twice that number of hot air balloons, quite a menace to a city without any air force at all. But what they dropped was not explosives but manpower, covered in armor and weapons, dangling from ropes or jumping on gliders. A spare few even used fire jets to support and control their fall. This was the Ashwalkers and Tsaagan, and the Skulltakers and Sikai, the final ace in the hole. They fell into the middle of the city, and many of them died on gliders as they fell or to enemy fire, but more of them held and fought for their lord's right to rule.
This proved the siren call for total engagement. No reserves could now be spared, as all units took to the front and started to fight for their lives. Though outnumbered, the Blues could count on a superior deployment and on the indomitable leadership of Azula, against whom no one stood for long. Not even the Yu Yan Archers could do well against her, though they felled many of the Procession.
The center fell, its buildings of command and government coming under the control of the Ashmakers, but the generals were elsewhere, their fear of Azula serving them well in preserving their lives. Having failed to first carry out a decapitation strike, Qatun now looked to reconnect with her Firelord, to link up and divide the enemy further. Finding her location was not too difficult, the telltale blue bursts of flame signalling yet another street taken, another company dead. As they moved, the airships shifted to bombardment, using the meager amounts of explosives they had been able to fit in to cause more havoc and destruction. Two among them stayed rooted to the city center, as pressganged civilians loaded them up with anything soldiers thought could cause damage if thrown from a height.
Casualties had by now turned the armies to husks. Quarter was asked for, but hard to give or trust in the context of a city wide battle, so that many prisoners were executed outright upon surrender. Bodies littered the streets, the buildings broken and burnt. The fighting went on nevertheless. Sikai led his handpicked Head-Hunters across the rooftops in a roving raid, engaging and running. Kazuo ordered a division to hold Fifth Street against whatever came, and watched from repurposed temple heights as it died to the last man. Shinu delegated command fully to him and left to lead his archers personally.
The airships and balloons wove around the city, throwing fireballs if nothing else, and relaying messages at speed to the command centers outside. Bombs and other explosives, including a small amount of Aroye's special goods caused slaughter, but much less than they would've if sent for that purpose. They began to throw simple loads of steel and use burning coal as well, counting on the fall's acceleration to kill.
A balloon caught sight of the temple and Kazuo, and sent word to Qatun, who jumped aboard with a lieutenant and a sergeant. They identified him positively, but were seen, and evacuation was likely. There was no time to wait for reinforcements so she thought ruthlessly. The balloon was punctured, its frame twisted to fall on the windows of Kazuo's command room.
It broke them and allowed the three in with a crash of stone and glass, but they had no chance, as it was three against thirty. Qatun had no intentions of giving a fair fight, however: she threw the sergeant in front of her as a shield, ignored his screaming death and used the moment to throw a blast directly at High General Kazuo's chest. Then she took up the lieutenant as a second shield and used them to distract the command while she jumped out the hole into the streets and into the fight again, scrabbling down the wall.
Kazuo would last half an hour more, working and directing until his last breath, which came just a minute after Shinu returned to take charge: his body gave up the fight when no longer needed. More death followed, as the Yu Yan were used to clean out infiltrators with their bows.
The noose was tightening, but the defenders were winning. Even as their control of the city was reduced, they had more soldiers to spend in counterattacks, they could afford to permit their men small rests, and they had the will to die standing. Azula's soldiers were loyal, but they were exhausted, and being reduced. No other group epitomised this as much as the Ashwalkers, but they had been forged in exhaustion. It was their ethos to fight until they were bone tired, and then to march another day and night to fight some more.
Even so, they had lost half their force, though casualties were becoming much less now that they had linked up with Azula. If there was to be a single reason the battle kept going it was her. Terrifying and inspirational, her presence was the purest embodiment of her faction's claim: the divine right, the right of might. Where she went, her soldiers were saved and refreshed, and knew that failure was a more terrifying fate than anything the enemy could give.
But even aflight, she could not be everywhere at once. Night fell, and the battle continued. Firebenders now had the advantage, fighting in their own fire. Tiredness did not yet force the armies to pause, and instead officers on both sides agonised to take one last scrap of street, one more house before the battle ended for the day. Azula took to the skies more often, using the shows of light as proof her presence was needed on the field.
Then the decisive arrow came: a Yu Yan Archer aimed at the blur of blue of fire he saw in the night sky, and pierced Azula in the shoulder. The Fire Lord was wounded, and the shock saw her fall before she regained control and retreated. Healers were sent immediately, and found it was not life-endangering, but a worrying wound nonetheless. It was extracted and live saving fire applied, but she had lost much blood. There was nothing to do but evacuate her, and without her the battle was lost. But they had committed so deeply that retreat was impossible, and worse might permit Tottori to lash out against the Firelord's salvation.
As they decided, loading her onto a docked airship as the safest place possible, Azula returned to consciousness. It was for but a moment, yet in that moment she had a glimpse of something, someone. Perhaps the man who had loosed their arrow at her, perhaps a simple comrade. Either way, in the depths of her failure, deep in shock, weak from blood loss, Azula found within herself a total detachment. She turned her arms, her body screaming at her, and let lightning fly at the figure half a city away. Thus died Shinu.
Now every man and woman they could fit was loaded upon the airships, though a whole subsection was kept for Azula's personal care, and the rest of her army would remain. While Sikai led the airfleet away from the battle and Niho desperately tried and failed to learn healing, her hatred against herself growing to a level even she had not thought possible, Qatun would stay.
Brigadier General Qatun Tsaagan and the Ashwalkers would remain in the city, and lead what soldiers still fought to keep up the good fight. With Azula gone, the tempo changed. Suddenly, they were on the defensive, holding on to neighbourhoods with tooth and nail, their air support lost. Fighting all but paused for hours as both sides took a much needed moment to reacquaint themselves with things such as food, the chain of command, the concept of there being a future.
Then the sun rose and the slaughterhouse opened again. With both generals slain, defensive command fell to the most senior colonel, a man with little capacity of decision. She ordered bite-sized attacks that met ferocious resistance, but that when followed up on thanks to Captain Naoki's pressure succeeded through sheer paucity of opposition. Even desperate men who knew they could expect little mercy and were kept in line by the threat of execution could not overcome concentration of force, especially not with their advantages stripped away. Piece by piece the districts were retaken, but the battle dragged on.
Though the most glorious and most akin to hell day had been the third, in which most of the soldiers fighting had become casualties of war, the following days were barely better. The city ached with the screams of the wounded, of whom many would die, the streets were barricaded with corpses, and fighting continued. In a no-name skirmish Qatun was killed by a firebender who promptly died of her parting blow, but her armor was taken by a second and the battle continued.
Building by building the defenders retook the city, the wounded staying in the fight out of sheer necessity. The remains of Azula's tanks were used to their fullest, with no chance of retreat, and were knocked out in painful assaults. Catapults and trebuchets still had ammunition, but most squads had been forced to take up the fight directly and were unable to man them. So desperation grew as they gave ground.
It was a ragged few- barely a tenth of the number that had begun the original assault- that finally took up the black flag and asked for terms. These were to surrender, unconditional and immediate, and were acceded to so long as they were to be fed. The long and weary road to rebuilding began for Tottori.
When Azula woke fully, she raged. Had the airships returned and sent more men, the city might have fallen. Had the full force of Hida Springs been sent, the city might have fallen. Had her smiths not failed in making her armor, the city might have fallen. But it was all for nought. The city had not fallen. Tottori had taken the worst Azula could throw at it, and its armies had been gutted, but it had held. That casualties had been disproportional, that losses had broken both armies equally, and that her brother was now denuded of trustworthy generals was little consolation for a girl to whom success was everything and failure was death.
What is heart's shadow,
But a tiny silhouette,
Swallowed by duty.
Kazuo died as he lived. A pathetic man who covered his selfishness with duty. He was a brute of the old generation. The war was the only place where he decided to express himself freely. It gave him a sense of direction with tangible results. Peace displeased him. Seeing others free of single-minded obligation only reminded him how trapped he was. Azula's rebellion gave him the opportunity to drag others down to his level.
So the Captain did not fall to his knees when he saw the corpse. He did not shed a tear. Such dramatic behavior would earn a rebuke from the burned flesh. A sharp retort: "Collect yourself." Even after his General's death, he found ways to please him. When the thought registered, the mask he wore distorted.
His first mistake was to touch Kazuo's singed hair. An unthinkable breach of propriety. Dutiful Naoki would never dare to cross the barrier. Nevertheless, the Captain restored some semblance of order.
His second mistake was to monologue. The General despised windbags. Cunning Hayashi would know to cut his words short. Nevertheless, the captain overcame his reluctance. The words poured out.
"You told me that we should only strive to fulfill our responsibilities. Like cogs that turn one after the other to keep the machinery running. I understand that my place is in the shadow of our master. I know that I must live to protect him from the darkness that prowls there. Loyalty above all."
His third mistake was to take Kazuo's brush and break it in half.
I HAVE NO TIME TO LECTURE OR JUDGE YOU. WE ARE BOTH CREATURES OF THE PAST. WE ARE BOTH DAMNED BY THE FUTURE. WE ARE BOTH INCAPABLE OF LIVING IN THE PRESENT. SO I HAVE THUSLY ISSUED MY AGNI KAI. ACCEPT AT YOUR PERIL; REJECT AT YOUR DISHONOR.
I HAVE NO TIME TO LECTURE OR JUDGE YOU. WE ARE BOTH CREATURES OF THE PAST. WE ARE BOTH DAMNED BY THE FUTURE. WE ARE BOTH INCAPABLE OF LIVING IN THE PRESENT. SO I HAVE THUSLY ISSUED MY AGNI KAI. ACCEPT AT YOUR PERIL; REJECT AT YOUR DISHONOR.
His men had seen the scouting balloon approaching their position. An army had to be coming nearby.
Something is wrong.
They would catch the wretched peasants who served the false Queen unaware. Then he would retreat to join the main army at Tottori.
Something is wrong.
In truth, Han found that task beneath him. It was somewhat flattering that Kazuo trusted him enough to give him an independent field command-- but he was made and trained for more straightforward goals than the ones assigned to him. Fighting like a Freedom Fighter suited him poorly.
Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong.
Han swatted the nagging voice aside (He shouldn't have done that). The true nature of a Firebender was to follow their instincts. To follow what their inner flame told them, no matter where it led. At this moment, his instincts were screaming for him to run away, to bolt off and withdraw to Tottori with forces. There was a non-insignificant chance that Kazuo would have him tried before a martial court for dereliction of duty, but the young noble doubted General Shinu would allow it with an enemy army closing into the city.
But he couldn't. Tottori was his home and Azula sought to lay waste to it. Every minute his division held them off would be a minute more for the defenders to extend their fortifications and to further prepare the grain stores for the upcoming siege. Every soldier he and his men killed would be one less soldier ravaging his city and killing his friends. So Han told his screaming instincts to shut up (He shouldn't be doing that) and braced him for the battle that was soon to start.
Something is wr--
Pain. Unimaginable pain went through his body. It hurt more than any flame he had ever faced, be it Kazuo's or Ouji's. Han never mastered that technique but he had seen it in use once, when his father visited the then Firelord Azulon in Caldera City. The cold fire. Lightning. A divine ability reserved solely for those born from royal blood.
Which meant that atop that balloon was---
Azula. Han Shinwoo would have laughed if he still could. How ironic! To be killed by the one whom he once admired the most. His idol. His goal. The one person who also truly understood the burden of perfection, the weight of being born better than others. The one person who had also seen the depravity of this Nation like he did, beyond all lies and propaganda, and chose to fully embrace it. He should have been happy with that. He should have been happy to have his life end at the hands of such a magnificent being.
But he wasn't. Han could see his men routing. The ambush would never come to fruition. He did not slow her down. Azula would come to Tottori with her army and they would lay waste to the city as punishment for its defiance. Shinu and Kazuo were as able to stop her as a man was able to stop the tides by screaming. She was truly and utterly unstoppable--only Prince Zuko, General Iroh, and the Avatar held any hope of beating her and none was present.
"I gave them a warning", Han thought. "But it won't be enough. Nothing will be enough. She won. I died for nothing... because how can mere men hope to stand to a person like that?"
At that last thought, a memory came to the forefront of Han's mind. Of his last victory, his Last Agni Kai against Ouji.
"True strength comes from standing by what you believe is right."
Ouji stood for what he believed in but when the fire within them clashed, Han won. But Kazuo had defeated him. Kazuo had beaten a stronger opponent with determination and grit. He could do it again, even if Azula was far greater than Han ever even dreamed of being.
"I gave you a warning. I gave you time, even if just a couple few minutes." Han said, choking on his own blood. "So do me a favor and save our city, Tarok Kazuo."
Engineer Kyōjin Kikan has been found guilty of treason against the Fire Nation and hostile conduct directed against the Royal House. Though an official directive from the municipal school board was not issued, it is estimated that between one fifth and one quarter of schoolhouses dismissed early after it became known that Fire Lord Zuko had personally issued the verdict, marking the first execution carried out on direct Royal authority since the beginning of the civil war.
Kyōjin Kikan was executed by decapitation in the Plaza of Radiance in central Caldera City. May he find atonement in his next life.
