Post by graywand1 on Jul 31, 2008 1:00:49 GMT -5
Prologue: Our Dearest Blood
“The woe’s to come; the children yet unborn shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.”
-William Shakespeare
Bishop of Carlisle
Richard II,
Ty Lee walked up the side of the mountain, struggling up the hill, shivering as she struggled to make it to the top. She knew she had to get there; there was something she had to stop, something that had a terrible plan for mankind, something…inhuman, alien. She shivered against the cold, and stopped in her ascent to look around; the landscape was cold, gray, and barren. The sky was dark gray, and there looked to be nothing except rain coming.
There’s nothing bigger than a mouse here, she realized, nothing except me. And she continued to climb. As before, her hand slipped on a rock face and she lost balance. She clawed desperately to stay atop the mountain, using feet, hand, even her cheek to stay atop the mountain. But she was unable too and she fell. As she fell weightless, she grasped the katana at her waist and drove the sword into the mountain. She felt her body rock and she quickly used her feet to halt her descent.
Then as always, the pain hit her back and she jumped awake. She whipped her head around, wandering as always where she was. She breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat off her brow as she saw the room full of bunk beds, bunk beds and sleeping warriors.
Remember who you are, Ty, she thought to herself, bringing herself back to reality. You are a Kyoshi warrior. Sworn to live and die by Suki’s command. She silently got out of her bunk and grabbed the katana she kept next to her bed and heading out the door to the room. She walked through the wooden corridor and out into the hallway. She walked out to the beach, and drew her blade, letting it shine in the light of the moon. She lunged, attacking her invisible enemy with her blade. She technically wasn’t obligated to more than three times weekly weapons sessions, but that wasn’t enough for her. She was determined not only to be the best warrior she could be, but the best warrior the Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation had ever seen. She didn't think she'd get much of a chance to use her training, the war was over and the most that could happen was dealing with drunken sailors.
But still, you never know, she said. Pirates are still a going concern out here. She moved fluidly through her forms, cutting through the air as she worked her blade. After thirty minutes she sheathed her sword and walked back into the village. She briefly considered going into one of the bars and ordering a drink, when she heard a large explosion off to the west. Assuming it was drunken sailors throwing Sozin’s cocktails for fun yet again. She went to assess the situation and saw to her surprise an orange glow from beyond the hill outside the village.
The next village is on fire, she thought. And she ran off up the hill. She looked out over the water to see an ironclad warship flinging explosives at the village. As each bomb landed it caused a huge crater to form in a burst of smoke and flame. She saw civilians running for their lives as each bomb fell, some landing among them, some landing in buildings and exploding sending great bursts of flame high into the sky.
Worse she saw pirates landing on the shore. One had already bounded ahead of the others, and was making a beeline for a young woman who cowered behind a building.
Not on my watch, she thought. And she ran down the hill, katana in hand, making for the soldier. She closed and swung her katana out, cutting through armor and flesh. And in an instant, she'd snapped out of the rage that had driven her. She looked down at her blade, it’s edges now soaked in the blood of her adversary, she touched her face and pulled her fingers away, to see drops of blood on her tips. She looked to see the pirate face down, not moving on the ground.
I’ve killed a man, she thought trembling slightly. Only then did she realize with a start the design of the armor he was wearing.
It was Fire Nation. Only the crest of the FN Navy was conspicuously absent.
Rouges, she thought. Pirates.
She saw a flash of light in front of her and instinctively brought her blade up and deflected the attack. She bounded out of the range of the pirate’s blade and immediately attacked back, knocking the sword out of her foeman’s hand, he attacked again, drawing another blade, causing her to kick him hard in the head. She looked around for another target and sighted a firebender, she immediately sheathed her katana and moved in, hitting her chi points and blocking her bending. She drew her sword and instinctively brought it up at the blade that came bearing down on her from her left.
It was at that point that she heard feet running up from behind her and more of her fellow warriors, with weapons and in full face paint and armor, unlike her who was still in the standard-issue trousers and tunic most Kyoshi Warriors wore when off-duty.
The quick-reaction force, she thought. They were part of the forces stationed around the Island to meet any situation that warriors like her couldn’t handle on her own, unaware in the heat that she was supposed to be their second-in-command. She swung her sword out again, catching a thrust from a particularly vicious looking woman who was doing her level best to take her head off. She kicked her legs out from under her and slashed at her with her sword. She looked around to see her comrades moving forward full against the enemy onslaught.
She heard a scream to her right and saw Yuko, the leader of the reaction force, laying dead on the ground. Her killer, a particularly vicious young man with a bloodied jian in his hand found himself ran through with Ty’s blade a moment later.
Ty Lee, stopped to realize that the other Kyoshi Warriors in the reaction unit were looking at her. She was abruptly reminded of the fact that, with Yuko dead, she was now the commander of the reaction unit. She’d excelled in leadership and strategic training and Suki had given her command of the reaction unit every other day, which also made her second-in-command of the unit of seven warriors, ultimately.
“You,” she said, pointing out a Kyoshi Warrior that was sitting there looking like an Equus asinus, she hated thinking of her like that, but only a few of the Kyoshi warriors had left to take up arms against the Fire Nation during the war, the rest of them she didn’t know personally, only professionally. “Haul that Equus asinus of yours back and see what’s holding up our reinforcements.”
“Yes,,” she said and she ran back towards the hill. As she moved off into the distance, Ty Lee turned toward the rest of the unit. She’d better get going before the warriors ransacking the village made good their escape, or worse, noticed they were standing around and attempted to attack.
“The rest of you,” she said. “On me. We’re going on the offensive.”
Ty and the rest of her team were quickly; thankfully joined by the reinforcements that Suki was able to spare her. As they cut through the enemy resistance, she noticed with pride the warriors using the qi blocking moves that she’d taught her friends in prison, disabling the benders before they could continue their attack. It was at that point that he heard a great blast of a horn and the remaining pirates began to pull back to their landing ships. She ran forward after them and, felt her world disappear out from under her, and rapidly reappear as she struck the ground.
Being a soldier full time after the war is a lot more complicated then I really wanted it to be, she thought.
She looked to see that a telescope had tripped her.
They must have looted it and one of them must have dropped it, she thought. She picked up her telescope and brought it to her eye, hoping she’d see the leader of the pirates.
No, she thought, scared, causing her to drop the telescope from her eye. She looked again, half-certain that the woman she used to consider as a sister, the woman she now reviled above all others wasn't commanding this attack. But. no, the woman she feared was there.
Sitting on the deck, watching the raid with the hunger of someone who loved inflicting pain on innocent people, her long hair to her shoulders, her armor glinting in the light of the moon, was Azula.
Firelord Zuko felt the sun on his face and he woke up. He immediately felt a panic attack, before remembering the war was over and he was supposed to be here. This was his bedroom after all.
Strange I feel that I should be out camping with Aang and the others out in the wilderness. He sighed. Over the past three months he almost wished he could, but no, he had a nation to run, rebellions to quell, diplomats all up in his face about every little thing, the evacuation of all Fire Nation colonists from Earth Kingdom territory to organize, in short he was swamped.
It’s always “crisis this” or “end of the world” that, he thought only half jokingly. Nobody opens with a joke.
Well that wasn’t entirely true, Sokka opened with a joke, but Sokka was the only one of the people he regularly talked with who did. Zuko had discharged his advisors, they were all suspected of war crimes anyway, and had given their jobs to Katara and Mai. Who’d eagerly accepted, they knew enough about war and other matters to be able to provide him good advice. Plus it set a new precedent, the military and security services would never again be independent or superior to the civil power ever again. But all the situations they advised him on were so...depressing.
You'd think with the end of war, people would be more...happy, but no.
But what to do with Sokka and Toph, he thought. Frankly, Toph and Sokka had the experience, but not the desire to be his advisors. So they stayed as guests of him in the palace, which was good. Mai was his girlfriend, Katara was his friend, but they spent so much time advising him on matters of state, matters which tended to be depressing, that he felt good to be with people whom he could laugh with once in awhile.
It was at that point that Katara walked into the room and closed the door behind her. She was resplendent in her new robes, a black robe with the Fire Nation flag on the left breast. She was carrying scrolls and had a determined, almost scared look on her face.
“We have a problem,” she said. “Pirates attacked Kyoshi Island four days ago. They destroyed three villages and killed about twenty people. Ty Lee and Suki are fine, but they have their hands-full dealing with the aftereffects of this.”
“Nationality?” He askd. Here we go again
She sighed, “Fire Nation, Zuko. Indications are that they were rouge, they’d cut off their flag and navy emblems before committing this atrocity.” She handed him one scroll and said, “This is the incident report from the Office of Naval Intelligence.”
He read it, there was nothing of importance. He wasn’t surprised; ONI had been gutted severely after he’d came to power. The multinational tribunal that he’d helped set up had indicted much of its senior leadership on war crimes and he’d thrown them in prison. Mai was recruiting for intelligence heavily, but it would be awhile before he had a viable intelligence network.
“And these are the reports from the Earth Kingdom and Northern Water Tribe ambassadors demanding a meeting to discuss this incident.”
He sighed, Lao Bei Fong was an Equus asinus and Hahn was an even bigger Equus asinus. He at least knew Lao Bei Fong had the credentials to be a competent ambassador. Hahn was just a teenager, and he was certain had been given the job to get him out of everyone’s hair.
Plus I distrust them both by default. Lao for his oppressive attitude toward his daughter, neither of whom do I tell them that the other is in the general area, that would be a bloodbath. Hahn, because Sokka said he was an Equus asinus, and he’s lived up to it swimmingly.
“All right,” he said. “But if Hahn mispronounces my name again I’m going to have him kicked out of the country.”
“You might want to make that a priority,” she said. “He keeps trying to chat me up. I keep telling him I’m dating Aang but he doesn’t’ take no for an answer.”
Zuko sighed. “I wish I could do anything, but he has Class III diplomatic immunity which covers him for everything except rape and premeditated murder. And since I’m determined not to be above the law I’m going to accept it.”
“Of course, Zuko,” she said. She got up and said, “I’m going to join Mai for breakfast. You wanna come?”
“I’ll be right with you guys,” he said. “I need to think about this.” And he lay down on his bed.
“Okay,” he said to no one in particular. “Next crisis.”
“The woe’s to come; the children yet unborn shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.”
-William Shakespeare
Bishop of Carlisle
Richard II,
Ty Lee walked up the side of the mountain, struggling up the hill, shivering as she struggled to make it to the top. She knew she had to get there; there was something she had to stop, something that had a terrible plan for mankind, something…inhuman, alien. She shivered against the cold, and stopped in her ascent to look around; the landscape was cold, gray, and barren. The sky was dark gray, and there looked to be nothing except rain coming.
There’s nothing bigger than a mouse here, she realized, nothing except me. And she continued to climb. As before, her hand slipped on a rock face and she lost balance. She clawed desperately to stay atop the mountain, using feet, hand, even her cheek to stay atop the mountain. But she was unable too and she fell. As she fell weightless, she grasped the katana at her waist and drove the sword into the mountain. She felt her body rock and she quickly used her feet to halt her descent.
Then as always, the pain hit her back and she jumped awake. She whipped her head around, wandering as always where she was. She breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat off her brow as she saw the room full of bunk beds, bunk beds and sleeping warriors.
Remember who you are, Ty, she thought to herself, bringing herself back to reality. You are a Kyoshi warrior. Sworn to live and die by Suki’s command. She silently got out of her bunk and grabbed the katana she kept next to her bed and heading out the door to the room. She walked through the wooden corridor and out into the hallway. She walked out to the beach, and drew her blade, letting it shine in the light of the moon. She lunged, attacking her invisible enemy with her blade. She technically wasn’t obligated to more than three times weekly weapons sessions, but that wasn’t enough for her. She was determined not only to be the best warrior she could be, but the best warrior the Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation had ever seen. She didn't think she'd get much of a chance to use her training, the war was over and the most that could happen was dealing with drunken sailors.
But still, you never know, she said. Pirates are still a going concern out here. She moved fluidly through her forms, cutting through the air as she worked her blade. After thirty minutes she sheathed her sword and walked back into the village. She briefly considered going into one of the bars and ordering a drink, when she heard a large explosion off to the west. Assuming it was drunken sailors throwing Sozin’s cocktails for fun yet again. She went to assess the situation and saw to her surprise an orange glow from beyond the hill outside the village.
The next village is on fire, she thought. And she ran off up the hill. She looked out over the water to see an ironclad warship flinging explosives at the village. As each bomb landed it caused a huge crater to form in a burst of smoke and flame. She saw civilians running for their lives as each bomb fell, some landing among them, some landing in buildings and exploding sending great bursts of flame high into the sky.
Worse she saw pirates landing on the shore. One had already bounded ahead of the others, and was making a beeline for a young woman who cowered behind a building.
Not on my watch, she thought. And she ran down the hill, katana in hand, making for the soldier. She closed and swung her katana out, cutting through armor and flesh. And in an instant, she'd snapped out of the rage that had driven her. She looked down at her blade, it’s edges now soaked in the blood of her adversary, she touched her face and pulled her fingers away, to see drops of blood on her tips. She looked to see the pirate face down, not moving on the ground.
I’ve killed a man, she thought trembling slightly. Only then did she realize with a start the design of the armor he was wearing.
It was Fire Nation. Only the crest of the FN Navy was conspicuously absent.
Rouges, she thought. Pirates.
She saw a flash of light in front of her and instinctively brought her blade up and deflected the attack. She bounded out of the range of the pirate’s blade and immediately attacked back, knocking the sword out of her foeman’s hand, he attacked again, drawing another blade, causing her to kick him hard in the head. She looked around for another target and sighted a firebender, she immediately sheathed her katana and moved in, hitting her chi points and blocking her bending. She drew her sword and instinctively brought it up at the blade that came bearing down on her from her left.
It was at that point that she heard feet running up from behind her and more of her fellow warriors, with weapons and in full face paint and armor, unlike her who was still in the standard-issue trousers and tunic most Kyoshi Warriors wore when off-duty.
The quick-reaction force, she thought. They were part of the forces stationed around the Island to meet any situation that warriors like her couldn’t handle on her own, unaware in the heat that she was supposed to be their second-in-command. She swung her sword out again, catching a thrust from a particularly vicious looking woman who was doing her level best to take her head off. She kicked her legs out from under her and slashed at her with her sword. She looked around to see her comrades moving forward full against the enemy onslaught.
She heard a scream to her right and saw Yuko, the leader of the reaction force, laying dead on the ground. Her killer, a particularly vicious young man with a bloodied jian in his hand found himself ran through with Ty’s blade a moment later.
Ty Lee, stopped to realize that the other Kyoshi Warriors in the reaction unit were looking at her. She was abruptly reminded of the fact that, with Yuko dead, she was now the commander of the reaction unit. She’d excelled in leadership and strategic training and Suki had given her command of the reaction unit every other day, which also made her second-in-command of the unit of seven warriors, ultimately.
“You,” she said, pointing out a Kyoshi Warrior that was sitting there looking like an Equus asinus, she hated thinking of her like that, but only a few of the Kyoshi warriors had left to take up arms against the Fire Nation during the war, the rest of them she didn’t know personally, only professionally. “Haul that Equus asinus of yours back and see what’s holding up our reinforcements.”
“Yes,,” she said and she ran back towards the hill. As she moved off into the distance, Ty Lee turned toward the rest of the unit. She’d better get going before the warriors ransacking the village made good their escape, or worse, noticed they were standing around and attempted to attack.
“The rest of you,” she said. “On me. We’re going on the offensive.”
Ty and the rest of her team were quickly; thankfully joined by the reinforcements that Suki was able to spare her. As they cut through the enemy resistance, she noticed with pride the warriors using the qi blocking moves that she’d taught her friends in prison, disabling the benders before they could continue their attack. It was at that point that he heard a great blast of a horn and the remaining pirates began to pull back to their landing ships. She ran forward after them and, felt her world disappear out from under her, and rapidly reappear as she struck the ground.
Being a soldier full time after the war is a lot more complicated then I really wanted it to be, she thought.
She looked to see that a telescope had tripped her.
They must have looted it and one of them must have dropped it, she thought. She picked up her telescope and brought it to her eye, hoping she’d see the leader of the pirates.
No, she thought, scared, causing her to drop the telescope from her eye. She looked again, half-certain that the woman she used to consider as a sister, the woman she now reviled above all others wasn't commanding this attack. But. no, the woman she feared was there.
Sitting on the deck, watching the raid with the hunger of someone who loved inflicting pain on innocent people, her long hair to her shoulders, her armor glinting in the light of the moon, was Azula.
Firelord Zuko felt the sun on his face and he woke up. He immediately felt a panic attack, before remembering the war was over and he was supposed to be here. This was his bedroom after all.
Strange I feel that I should be out camping with Aang and the others out in the wilderness. He sighed. Over the past three months he almost wished he could, but no, he had a nation to run, rebellions to quell, diplomats all up in his face about every little thing, the evacuation of all Fire Nation colonists from Earth Kingdom territory to organize, in short he was swamped.
It’s always “crisis this” or “end of the world” that, he thought only half jokingly. Nobody opens with a joke.
Well that wasn’t entirely true, Sokka opened with a joke, but Sokka was the only one of the people he regularly talked with who did. Zuko had discharged his advisors, they were all suspected of war crimes anyway, and had given their jobs to Katara and Mai. Who’d eagerly accepted, they knew enough about war and other matters to be able to provide him good advice. Plus it set a new precedent, the military and security services would never again be independent or superior to the civil power ever again. But all the situations they advised him on were so...depressing.
You'd think with the end of war, people would be more...happy, but no.
But what to do with Sokka and Toph, he thought. Frankly, Toph and Sokka had the experience, but not the desire to be his advisors. So they stayed as guests of him in the palace, which was good. Mai was his girlfriend, Katara was his friend, but they spent so much time advising him on matters of state, matters which tended to be depressing, that he felt good to be with people whom he could laugh with once in awhile.
It was at that point that Katara walked into the room and closed the door behind her. She was resplendent in her new robes, a black robe with the Fire Nation flag on the left breast. She was carrying scrolls and had a determined, almost scared look on her face.
“We have a problem,” she said. “Pirates attacked Kyoshi Island four days ago. They destroyed three villages and killed about twenty people. Ty Lee and Suki are fine, but they have their hands-full dealing with the aftereffects of this.”
“Nationality?” He askd. Here we go again
She sighed, “Fire Nation, Zuko. Indications are that they were rouge, they’d cut off their flag and navy emblems before committing this atrocity.” She handed him one scroll and said, “This is the incident report from the Office of Naval Intelligence.”
He read it, there was nothing of importance. He wasn’t surprised; ONI had been gutted severely after he’d came to power. The multinational tribunal that he’d helped set up had indicted much of its senior leadership on war crimes and he’d thrown them in prison. Mai was recruiting for intelligence heavily, but it would be awhile before he had a viable intelligence network.
“And these are the reports from the Earth Kingdom and Northern Water Tribe ambassadors demanding a meeting to discuss this incident.”
He sighed, Lao Bei Fong was an Equus asinus and Hahn was an even bigger Equus asinus. He at least knew Lao Bei Fong had the credentials to be a competent ambassador. Hahn was just a teenager, and he was certain had been given the job to get him out of everyone’s hair.
Plus I distrust them both by default. Lao for his oppressive attitude toward his daughter, neither of whom do I tell them that the other is in the general area, that would be a bloodbath. Hahn, because Sokka said he was an Equus asinus, and he’s lived up to it swimmingly.
“All right,” he said. “But if Hahn mispronounces my name again I’m going to have him kicked out of the country.”
“You might want to make that a priority,” she said. “He keeps trying to chat me up. I keep telling him I’m dating Aang but he doesn’t’ take no for an answer.”
Zuko sighed. “I wish I could do anything, but he has Class III diplomatic immunity which covers him for everything except rape and premeditated murder. And since I’m determined not to be above the law I’m going to accept it.”
“Of course, Zuko,” she said. She got up and said, “I’m going to join Mai for breakfast. You wanna come?”
“I’ll be right with you guys,” he said. “I need to think about this.” And he lay down on his bed.
“Okay,” he said to no one in particular. “Next crisis.”