Avatar: after the war ends Ch7

Chapter 7: The Next Step

When we woke in the morning Azula was still alive, though she hadn’t regained consciousness. Ty Lee looked tired and her eyes looked puffy, like she’d spent most of the night crying. Since no one wanted to say anything we ate in silence, then continued to Dairen. We did the same as yesterday; me, Suki, and Ty Lee carried Azula, and Toph carried the bowl of berries. I calculated that if we kept up the same pace as yesterday we should arrive in Dairen by the middle of the afternoon, then we could take Azula to a doctor.

We’d been carrying Azula for most of the morning when she started stirring. We quickly put her down and waited to see if she’d regain consciousness. Azula then opened her eyes and started to sit up. Though I didn’t know as much about medicine and healing as my sister I didn’t think it was a good idea for Azula to be moving too much, so I told her to try not to move. Azula seemed to comply but looked a little confused.

Now that Azula was awake we’d needed to help her get back to normal. Since we were all crowding around her I told everyone to pull back to give her some room. As Ty Lee had the closest relationship with Azula I told her to go talk to Azula. Unfortunately Ty Lee had no idea what to do and just looked at Azula (Ty Lee’s face gave away how confused she was). I told her to ask Azula if she wanted any water (she hadn’t drunk anything in nearly a day). Azula said yes, so Ty Lee let Azula drink from her gourd. When Azula had finished drinking Toph asked whether Azula wanted these berries or not. Azula didn’t seem too keen on eating berries but Ty Lee pleaded with her until she ate them. Since we weren’t going to go anywhere for a while we decided to have an early lunch.

After we finished lunch we decided to set off. By then Azula had greatly recovered and was able to talk coherently (did the berries have medicinal effects?). This pleased Ty Lee who was hugging Azula, while Azula tried to pry Ty Lee off. Though Azula wanted to walk by herself the rest of us opposed this since we didn’t want her to collapse again. So Suki and Ty Lee carried Azula, while Toph and I carried Ty Lee’s and Suki’s bags (we told her this was how we’d carried her through the forest). We continued like this until we reached the walls of Dairen, then we let Azula walk by herself (mainly because it’d look suspicious if we were carrying her).
After we’d entered Dairen Ty Lee tried to convince Azula to see a doctor but Azula refused saying that she felt fine. Since she was better and Azula was unlikely to change her mind for the moment we decided not to take her to a doctor. We then decided to split up, I’d go check when the next ship to the Fire Nation was and everyone else would go rent a room at the usual Inn.

At the docks I found that getting back to the Fire Nation would be difficult. Though there were plenty of ships going from the Fire Nation to Dairen almost of them travelled south to the Fire Nation Colony cities of ‘Nanjing’ and ‘Guangzhou’ before returning to the Fire Nation. This meant that we couldn’t quickly leave the Colonies. However this didn’t mean we couldn’t send a message to Zuko warning him that his generals were trying to betray him and Azula was their puppet. As I headed to the Post Office to get some paper I remembered Xiaohong and wondered if he’d returned yet.

At the Post Office I found that Xiaohong had returned and had a message from Aang. The message said that Aang had found Azula leading a rally in the Southern Colonies (he was sure it was her because of her blue flames), however when he and Katara tried to capture Azula they found that she’d switched with a body double and that despite extensive searching they couldn’t relocate Azula. Given that we had the real Azula the ‘body double’ was the Azula leading the rally. This would explain why any attempt to capture Azula resulted in a ‘body double’ being captured, she was never there to begin with. However the blue flames part seemed odd. It’s unlikely that there’d be another Firebender who looked like Azula and had blue flames, so they were probably using some sort of trick (I’d figure it out later). I then bought some paper and ink, and headed to the Inn we were staying at.

Outside of the Inn I met Suki. She told me that she’d purchased two rooms; one for her, me, and Toph; and the other for Azula and Ty Lee. While I would have preferred to be alone with Suki I wouldn’t want to force Toph to share a room with Azula (we never rented single rooms because they left us too vulnerable to attacks). I told Suki we’d need to discuss what to do next in our room.

Once I, Suki, Toph, and Ty Lee were in my room I explained to them about the letter from Aang. Though Ty Lee wanted to include Azula in this meeting I reminded her that since Azula didn’t want to leave the mine she wouldn’t be interested in a discussion about leaving the Colonies. I then explained that our options were to send Xiaohong to Aang and wait for him in Dairen (though we didn’t know how long this would take), or travel to another city (this would move us further from the Fort and its Captain). There was a ship for Nanjing leaving in 3 days, that would take 2 days to reach Nanjing; while we’d have to wait a week for a ship to Guangzhou and it would take 4 days to get there. Nanjing was located in the Northern Colonies but was close to the Earth Kingdom area, which would be a good place to hide; while Guangzhou was in the Southern part of the Colonies but was closer to Aang (since most of the Earth Kingdom / Fire Nation conflict was in the Southern part). We then discussed our next move.

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The others all went next door to talk about something. Not that I care. I’m about to be humiliated, as I have to return to the Fire Nation and Zuko like this and admit that I lived like a rat in a cave for over a year. I can’t even rest because my feet are so sore from those damn boots and now my stomach’s started hurting. I need some Poppy Tea. Poppy Tea’s the only thing that helps me forget my pitiful life.

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After some debate we decided to travel to Nanjing and hide in Hangzhou because we needed to get away from the Fort as soon as we could and under the Peace Treaty agreed by the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom the Fire Nation army couldn’t enter Earth Kingdom areas (though this wouldn’t stop the Fire Nation Army it would hinder them). Before we got on the ship we’d send a letter to Aang using Xiaohong telling him where we were going. I decided not to send a letter to Aang immediately in case we had to suddenly change our plans, since Xiaohong was our only way of contacting Aang and Xiaohong could not find us.

With our escape plan finalised I then set about writing a coded letter to Zuko explaining that the generals, not Azula, were responsible for the troubles in the Colonies. Once I’d finished it I decided to send this letter to Zuko, then eat (the inn would provide you with food but it wasn’t free). Unfortunately by the time I got to the Post Office it had already closed, so I’d have to send the letter tomorrow (that was annoying).

I returned to the inn and waited for out food to be cooked. We decided to order some Juk for Azula since it would be easy for her to eat, though the difficulty would be convincing her to eat it. After waiting a while our food arrived.

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After we ordered our meal I went back to our room and tried to talk with Azula (she was in bed with her blanket wrapped around her) but she didn’t want to talk about anything. When I told her about her food she said she had a stomachache (that had to be a lie, Azula never got sick).

When my Kon Loh Mee and Azula’s Juk arrived I tried to convince her to eat it. I tried telling her to eat it before it got cold, but that didn’t work. I tried telling her that she’d look less bony if she ate it, but that didn’t work either. I then told her that she needed to keep up her strength in case she was attacked. Azula asked who was going to attack her (she said this in a mocking way) and I replied the rebel army might, since they were causing problems for Zuko. Since Azula didn’t respond to this, I tried to think up another reason why she should eat her food. Then Azula sat up, turned to me and said.

“How can an army cause problems for Zuko, why doesn’t the Avatar just crush it?”
“He doesn’t know who’s leading it so he can’t punish them,” I replied.
“That’s unlikely. Surely the Avatar or one of his lackies had some clue who’s leading it by their aims,” Azula replied, she sounded bored.
“Uh … well they claimed you were leading them and you were trying to gather enough support to overthrow Zuko,” I explained.

Azula now seemed much more interested in what I was saying. She moved closer to me and said asked me to tell her more. I replied that I wouldn’t tell her unless she ate her food. Azula looked annoyed, but she picked up her food and ate a small spoonful of it. So I continued telling her all I knew, stopping only when Azula wasn’t eating (or I was eating).

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I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. All this time I thought that as long as the Avatar supported Zuko it would be impossible for me to gather the support I needed to overthrown him, yet someone had done this for me.

By questioning Ty Lee I found out that she didn’t understand exactly what the army was but I was able to fill in the blanks. This army wasn’t a rebel army, since they hadn’t rebelled against Zuko (yet); but a collection of Fire Nation soldiers, generals, colonialist, and even some Dai Lee who wanted to replace Zuko with me. The exact size was unknown since it wasn’t clear which generals supported this.

When I asked why this was causing the Avatar problems since they hadn’t actually done anything Ty Lee explained that they were behind several attacks on nearby Earth Kingdom towns in the southern part of the Colonies but she wasn’t sure how they were involved. Most likely these attacks were to force the people of the Earth Kingdom to leave our Colonies (a very good idea).

If I wanted to restore my honour and restore the Fire Nation to its former glory I had to take control of this army. However finding their leaders would be difficult since they were pretending to be loyal to Zuko. Until I could determine who was loyal to me I’d remain with this group; since I knew that their loyalty was to Zuko and that none of them could be trusted.