Shortfic: Brave Soldier Boy
Aug. 30th, 2019 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
attackfishDisclaimer: If I owned Avatar: the Last Airbender, I would have the money to donate to charity myself.
Summary: After the Agni Kai, his father sends him away to be a soldier, to fight and die with the soldiers he spoke out to save.
Author's Note: Written for Jaggedcliffs on Tumblr as a reward for donating thirty-six dollars to HIAS, a charity that aids immigrants and refugees coming to the US and are fighting Trump's crimes against humanity. They wanted Zuko wump. This takes place in my Half Feral Firebender universe. More information can be found at the "#Half Feral Firebender verse" tag on my Tumblr: [Link]
Warnings: Attempted murder, war crimes, references to torture
Takes place in the same universe as "On the Outside"
Brave Soldier Boy
"I'm Prince Zuko," he said. "There has to be a mistake, I'm the Firelord's son!"
"If you think playing crazy is going to get you out of this," the lieutenant sneered. "You're dumber than I thought you were."
"But it's true, I swear, I'm a prince," Zuko pleaded. "You have to believe me, there has to be some kind of mistake, I'm not supposed to be here!"
He wondered if he was still feverish, if this was just another nightmare.
"You're a thief and a liar," the lieutenant spat. "Your nation spared you the execution you richly deserve for your crimes, and it's time you pay it back, you ungrateful pig-chicken."
"But-"
"If you open your mouth again, I'll give you twenty lashes to go with that scar."
"But-"
o0O0o
The lieutenant threw down the whip. "I don't know why you thought anybody would believe you, not when you're branded for everybody to see."
Zuko sagged against the post, the ropes the only thing holding him upright.
o0O0o
He knew where he was. He had seen the Pohuai Stronghold on the map in his father's war room. He knew what was supposed to happen here and how. This wasn't a mistake. He knew that now. This was where his father wanted him to be.
o0O0o
The blow to the head left him woozy, which was probably a good thing. It made everything less clear, blunted all the edges. He pushed against the bodies, against arms and legs, against flesh and fabric, slippery with blood.
Once Azula had told him that their clothes were dyed with blood, and that the dyers had to run out into battle to dip their cloth in the blood of the fallen. He knew she was lying, but for weeks he couldn't get the idea out of his head. It came back to him then as he gagged on the smell of blood and death, his clothes stained with blood, dirt, and ash.
He had to stay put. He couldn't crawl out from under the bodies yet. He had to wait. If the Earth Kingdom soldiers found him alive, they would kill him too. His head swam, and his stomach churned. He fought the urge to be sick, and struggled to still his shivering, and forced himself to sit in his little hollow of bodies until everything went quiet.
o0O0o
Zuko woke shaking in the silence. No one was moaning. There was no sound of battle, or Earth Kingdom soldiers. There was no sound at all. Mouth dry and sticky with thirst, he swallowed and stared up. Though the gaps between arms and legs, he could see starlight. He crawled through the mud toward it, shoving aside bits of other people as he dragged himself along. My father wants me dead, he heard his own mind whisper to him. He sent me here to die.
o0O0o
The forms said he was sixteen. He knew this because he had snuck a peek at them when they were still waiting to be reassigned. Out of an army of a thousand, there were barely sixty survivors, and Zuko knew none of them. But they had drawn out the Earth Kingdom army guarding the Pohuai Stronghold, and experienced Fire Nation forces had captured it easily, and when the Earth Kingdom army returned, they had fire rained down on them until they died just like the raw recruits they had killed the day before. The general's plan worked. His father had gotten what he wanted. The new commander of Pohuai thanked them for their service and sent them on their way.
Zuko's paperwork also said he was a thief from the capital, who had been offered the choice to join the army or be executed. He wondered if his father had decided what they should say personally, or if they had left it for someone else. He didn't know which was worse.
o0O0o
"If you're sixteen, I'm the Earth King," Jiro laughed.
"That's what my paperwork says," Zuko told him. "Check it if you don't believe me."
"So you lied to the recruiter," Jiro shot back. "So did I when I told him I knew how to write more than my name."
"Yeah, well I didn't get a choice."
"And they sent you right off to Pohuai? Who did you piss off."
The Firelord. "No one."
Jiro looked at him funny. "You either have the worst luck in the world,kid, or the best. I hope you don't mind if I'd rather not get too near you."
o0O0o
Fire comes from the breath, he remembered. He breathed in deep and punched. He punched and punched and punched until the wall was covered in heat-blackened smudges. The cell didn't have a cot in it, or a window. He could only see the marks when he punched another ball of flame. His stomach grumbled, loud in the echoing quiet. But even through the brick and plaster, he could feel the sun rising.
The door opened. "You ready to do what you're told soldier?"
Zuko glowered, but he bowed his head.
o0O0o
"What happened here?" Zuko asked, trying to keep his voice steady. The skeletal outlines of burned houses stood black against the sky.
Li shrugged. "This village was supplying the Earth Kingdom army. They had to be stopped."
"What happened to the people who lived here?" he asked, worried he already knew, and feeling hopelessly jaded and hopelessly naive all at once.
Li raised his eyebrows. "What do you think happened to them?"
The smell of ash filled his nose. Zuko forced the bile down.
o0O0o
"That's a heck of a scar you got there," Li said. "Where did you get it anyway? You get it in battle?"
He had, hadn't he? Kind of. He got it in an Agni Kai. He nodded.
"Liar." Kazumi sneered at them both. "How would you get a burn scar fighting against the Earth Kingdom?"
"He could have been captured," Li suggested. "Put on the front lines in an Earth Kingdom uniform like they did with Jin Lu's bunch."
"Yeah, but then he'd be dead," Kazumi pointed out. "We'd have killed him."
"The Earth Kingdom really does that?" Zuko said, throat try.
"Yeah," Kazumi said , voice suddenly soft. "Yeah, they do it all the time."
o0O0o
The first time he bent fire at a living person, it flew true, and the Earth Kingdom soldier's hair and uniform caught. He fell down screaming, body contorting as the fire cooked him alive. For months, he couldn't stop wondering if he had been a captured Fire Nation soldier.
o0O0o
Private Zuko, Private Jiro you two are going to take this shipment of grain to General Rin's troops."
"Not that one, lieutenant," Captain Yuma ordered, pointing at Zuko. "He's a branded liar, and his records say he's a thief. Pick someone trustworthy."
Zuko gritted his teeth.
o0O0o
"And Private Zuko is awarded this metal for bravery in the face of the enemy, for a daring raid on a heavily defended Earth Kingdom fort to free Captain Yuma." The lieutenant pinned the metal to the chest of his uniform. "We honor his courage. May he ever falter in his duty."
o0O0o
Zuko sat on the floor of the cell, a handful of fire letting him read the scratch marks carved into the plaster. Five tallies. Three tallies. Youko was here. lieutenant Lu is piece of shit. Captain Yuma fucks komodo rhinos. Li was here. Hey, I'm Li too! There are a million Lis and all of them are idiots. An obscene picture of Captain Yuma and a komodo rhino. Glory to the Fire Nation and Firelord Azulon! Suck up. Happy birthday to me, best birthday ever. A picture of Captain Yuma and a komodo rhino inside of a heart.
o0O0o
"And Private Zuko is awarded this metal for bravery in the face of the enemy, for carrying two of his wounded comrades to safety under heavy bombardment from earthbenders." The lieutenant pinned the metal to the chest of his uniform. "We honor his courage. May he ever falter in his duty."
o0O0o
"Are you ever not on latrine duty, Zuko?"
"Are you ever not annoying?" Zuko retorted, voice muffled by the rag tied over his face. He flung a shovel full of dirt onto the latrine pits to bury them.
"Hey, I was just asking, sheesh."
Zuko remembered how it was at first, when the fluid from his blisters, and then the blood had rolled down the shovel handle as he worked. He didn't get blisters anymore from the shovel. "I'm not always on latrine duty."
"No? Could have fooled me."
"Shut up."
"You know," Kazumi said. "If you just did what you were told and stopped letting lieutenant Lu get under your skin, I bet you could get promoted out of this miserable pit. You rescued Captain Yuma."
"Maybe," he said. And maybe someone who knew him would see him and say oh, this was all a terrible mistake and his father wanted him home. Or his father would find out he was alive and send an assassin to finish him off. Or Captain Yuma would decide to leave the army to open up a sausage cart in the capital.
o0O0o
Li walked into the barracks "So guess what I heard."
"Don't have to," Kazumi told him. "You're going to tell us anyway."
"Shut up, Kazumi. Anyway, I hear one of the captains stationed on the southern front, out on the other side of the Si Wong Desert, started dressing up Earth Kingdom prisoners as Fire Nation soldiers, and letting the Earth Kingdom army take care of them for us."
"Don't they do that to us?" Zuko said, feeling sick.
"Yeah, that's what makes it perfect," Li crowed. "Let them get a taste of their own medicine for a change."
Zuko tried not to remember sitting in class learning about how the Fire Nation was bringing civilization to the barbaric Earth Kingdom, and forcing them to leave behind their benighted ways. "I don't think that's how it's supposed to work."
"Sure it is, Zuko," Li told him. "We're just teaching the Earth Kingdom a lesson.
o0O0o
Kazumi scrubbed her hands at the pump, washing the dirt out of her open blisters. "How did you really get that scar?"
"I got it in an Agni Kai," he said. He had. It wasn't a lie.
"Liar."
"No, I really did!"
"You're what, like twelve?" she laughed. "Who's going to fight an Agni Kai with a kid?"
"I'm fourteen." He had been thirteen then, but she didn't have to know that.
"Still. Too young for an Agni Kai." She shot him a sly look. "Too young for the army too."
"My paperwork says I'm seventeen."
Kazumi cackled. "Nobody with have a brain's going to believe that. I hear you were a thief. You piss off the judge badly enough for him to brand you or something?"
"I'm not a thief," Zuko snapped. "That's not true any more than my age is."
"Wow," Kazumi said. "Who did you piss off to get stuck here?"
"I survived the Pohaui massacre. That's where I was sent." Zuko scrubbed his own hands, the cool water helping with the aches.
Kazumi's eyes went wide. "Wow kid, you really need to learn how to keep your mouth shut."
"No kidding."
o0O0o
The earth rumbled and Zuko froze. With a yell, Kazumi thrust her pike down into the ground. It was just in time. Her komodo rhino squealed as the earth opened up and it fell away under her Zuko leapt to the side, bit it was too late. For one breathless instant, there was nothing under him, but then Kazumi's arm was around his waist, holding him as she clung to her pike with the other.
The sides of the chasm rumbled. "Quick," Kazumi shouted, even though he was right there. "It's going to close, climb up, climb up!"
Zuko grabbed onto her. "I'll pull you up," he told her, climbing her body and arm like it wasn't a person. "Don't let go!"
"You better," she yelled. As soon as his feet were on the ground, he grabbed her arm and pulled.
The ground closed up just behind her foot, as if the chasm had never been. They looked at each other. Her face was pale. He could feel himself shaking. Chasms were opening and closing up all around them.
"There," Kazumi pointed, voice hoarse.
Zuko followed her finger. It was an old woman, squat and wrinkled, feet hitting the ground in time with the fissures opening.
"Can you do that thing that some firebenders can do where you shoot off the ground with firebending?"
He shook his head.
"What if I pole vault you up first?" she asked.
"We can try," he croaked nervously.
They ran. She slammed her pike into the ground and grabbed him just before she went flying. They sprang into the air. Zuko kicked backward as hard as he could, riding the jets of flame until he was right over the earthbender's head. He let himself drop, A fireball filling his hands.
o0O0o
Jiro, Li, and Kazumi were carrying jugs of rice wine when they showed up at his bunk. "Come on, get up," Li told him. "You're leaving tomorrow, which means we have to celebrate tonight."
"I can't believe you got promoted, Sargent," Kazumi laughed. No more latrine duty."
"Does this mean you can give us latrine duty?" Li asked.
"Why, do you want latrine duty?" Jiro asked.
"I'm not a sargent until I leave," Zuko told them irritably.
"I bet they only made you a sargent because someone asked for a sargent, and Captain Yuma figures it was the fastest way to get rid of you," Kazumi remarked shrewdly.
"Probably," Zuko acknowledged. It was the only reason he would get promoted and Kazumi wouldn't.
"Well, however you got your promotion," Li said. "Rice wine. Drink. If you aren't horribly hung over when you leave us, we are all rotten failures."
"Speak for yourself. I'm a fresh, delightful failure."
"Yeah keep telling yourself that, Kazumi." Li pressed the jug into his hands and stared at him until he took a sip.
He gagged and struggled not to vomit. "That's horrible."
"First drink?" Jiro asked sympathetically, and when Zuko nodded, he said, "Getting you drunk is going to be easier than we thought."
o0O0o
Zuko handed Captain Yuma's letter to the lieutenant and bowed. The lieutenant let him into the captain's tent and handed the letter to the captain. The captain looked up only to stop dead. "Prince Zuko."
Zuko flinched.
"My niece asked about you," the captain said. "She was told there had never been a Prince Zuko. She was very upset."
"Who..." He drew in a steadying breath. "Who is your niece?"
"Mai. She's friends with your sister."
"I know Mai," he said softly.
"She misses you." He opened the letter from Captain Yuma. "Officially, Prince Zuko, you don't exist. This letter says you're a thief, and that you're eighteen years old."
"I know what it says, sir."
"It also says you survived the Pohuai massacre. Am I right in thinking you were't supposed to?"
Zuko nodded.
"Then I bet the last thing you want is for your father to find out you're alive."
Zuko flinched again and took a step back, which was stupid. He had nowhere to run.
"Don't worry. I don't have any plans to tell anybody who you really are." He smiled, but it wasn't at all comforting. "Congratulations on your promotion. If I were you, I'd make sure it was your last. You don't want to rise high enough to attract attention."
"It's not really my choice," Zuko reminded him. "Sir."
"You're right," Mai's uncle said. "It's not."
o0O0o
"So I hear you were a thief," she said without introduction. "Kind of ironic you're a prison guard now."
"It just goes to show that anybody can be redeemed."
"Ugh, don't listen to Riku," she told him. "He should have been a Fire Sage, but his parents wouldn't let him."
"Well we're going to be working in a prison," Riku shot back peevishly. "It's a good thing if I think people can be redeemed. I bet Zuko's experience as a former criminal will be invaluable to us in our efforts."
"Ugh," she said again. "I'm Kazi, by the way. This is my first posting. I'm really excited about it, I mean, just being away from home and doing something important!"
Zuko drank the awful cafeteria tea and waited until she finished. "Where did you hear I was a thief?"
Riku shrugged. "I told her. I'm the captain's clerk. I get to see everybody's papers. I'm a sargent too. So's Kazi. She's only one because her parents are rich."
"I got top scores at the army academy."
"Which you went to because your parents could pay for it."
"Yeah well your parents paid for you to go to school too."
"I didn't say they didn't."
"So you're a street thief," Kazi said loudly, shooting a glare at Riku. "Did you go to school?"
"No." he had tutors.
"So you can't read or write?"
"Of course I can read and write," he snapped. Jiro couldn't. Kazumi could read but not write. There was no of course about it. "Look, I don't think I'm going to be any help. This is the Boiling Rock. We're not going to be guarding pickpockets."
o0O0o
"Who's that?" Zuko asked.
Riku looked up from his logbook down at the prison yard below. It wasn't hard to spot the one Zuko meant. He was middle-aged and stocky, but even under his beard, It was obvious his face was ashy and drawn. "That's the captain of the Omashu city guard. He's here while he's being questioned."
The man didn't stand up. Zuko watched him lean on another prisoner when it was time to go back inside, his feet sliding out from under him. Questioning. Sure.
o0O0o
"I'm sending you to Omashu, the warden said. "You're being promoted to lieutenant."
"I thought you said I shouldn't get promoted again," Zuko said.
"You can turn it down," the warden smirked. "In fact, you probably should. "My sister's husband just got made governor. I'm sending you there because my niece is there."
o0O0o
Zuko swallowed hard and followed Mai out of the governor's family quarters. It was weird seeing her. She looked elegant and graceful, like something from another world. He used to be part of that world, but he wasn't anymore.
The hallway was dark, new Fire Nation candlelight doing little to dispel the Earth Kingdom gloom. Once they were alone, he stepped out of the shadows. "Hi Mai."
Her shuriken pinned him to the wall. She stopped and stared. "Zuko?"
"Yeah, um..."
"I thought you were dead!" she hissed. "I thought your dad killed you and covered it up!"
"I mean that did happen. He tried, but I lived through it." He looked away. "He doesn't know I'm alive. He'd probably try to have me killed again if he did."
She leaned over him, pulling out her darts one by one. "How did you even get here?"
"Your uncle sent me." He blushed. "He thought you might want to see me. I'm... I'm in the army now. I'm a lieutenant in the governor's guard."
Her hands brushed his face, then fell away again. "Do you mind if I touched you?"
"Go ahead," he whispered.
Her hands reached out and cupped his face. She pressed her forehead against his. "I can't believe you're alive."
"Yeah," he said. "Me neither."
o0O0o
He was in the guardhouse making up the duty roster when she came inside, face like stone. "Azula's here."
"What?" He staggered back against the wall. "How?"
"I don't know, I don't, but she's here, and somebody kidnapped Tom Tom, and I'm supposed to trade King Bumi for him, and I know she's never going to let me go through with it, and..." Her eyes bored into his. "And you need to stay out of sight. She can't find you."
"Why is she even here?" he demanded, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.
"She's hunting the Avatar. He's back. He's responsible for the North Pole."
"The Avatar," he said disbelievingly. "Wait, you said Tom Tom was kidnapped!"
Mai nodded. "By the resistance. Look, Azula wants me to go with her. I'm going to have to go. Just... wait here for me? She has to let me come back eventually. Wait for me."
Zuko nodded. "I'll wait for you, I promise."
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed him to her like she couldn't get close enough. Maybe she couldn't. Maybe none of them could ever get close enough.
He hugged her back, and put his cheek against hers, just to feel the human warmth in place of stone.
o0O0o
From the shadows, Zuko watched the governor and his wife scoop their son up into their arms. Tom Tom was safe. He was home. The Avatar himself had returned him, which made him ten times as good as Azula. Azula was gone with Mai, and there was no one left to catch him. There was nothing holding him there at all. It was so strange. He was going to disappear in the middle of the night, and no one was going to stop him. He was free. He just wished he could say goodbye one last time, so they would be his goodbyes instead of Mai's, so she would know he wasn't waiting for her. He was going to find the Avatar. He was going to help end this war, and maybe, at last, he would get to do something that actually mattered.
On the Outside
Summary: After the Agni Kai, his father sends him away to be a soldier, to fight and die with the soldiers he spoke out to save.
Author's Note: Written for Jaggedcliffs on Tumblr as a reward for donating thirty-six dollars to HIAS, a charity that aids immigrants and refugees coming to the US and are fighting Trump's crimes against humanity. They wanted Zuko wump. This takes place in my Half Feral Firebender universe. More information can be found at the "#Half Feral Firebender verse" tag on my Tumblr: [Link]
Warnings: Attempted murder, war crimes, references to torture
Takes place in the same universe as "On the Outside"
Brave Soldier Boy
"I'm Prince Zuko," he said. "There has to be a mistake, I'm the Firelord's son!"
"If you think playing crazy is going to get you out of this," the lieutenant sneered. "You're dumber than I thought you were."
"But it's true, I swear, I'm a prince," Zuko pleaded. "You have to believe me, there has to be some kind of mistake, I'm not supposed to be here!"
He wondered if he was still feverish, if this was just another nightmare.
"You're a thief and a liar," the lieutenant spat. "Your nation spared you the execution you richly deserve for your crimes, and it's time you pay it back, you ungrateful pig-chicken."
"But-"
"If you open your mouth again, I'll give you twenty lashes to go with that scar."
"But-"
o0O0o
The lieutenant threw down the whip. "I don't know why you thought anybody would believe you, not when you're branded for everybody to see."
Zuko sagged against the post, the ropes the only thing holding him upright.
o0O0o
He knew where he was. He had seen the Pohuai Stronghold on the map in his father's war room. He knew what was supposed to happen here and how. This wasn't a mistake. He knew that now. This was where his father wanted him to be.
o0O0o
The blow to the head left him woozy, which was probably a good thing. It made everything less clear, blunted all the edges. He pushed against the bodies, against arms and legs, against flesh and fabric, slippery with blood.
Once Azula had told him that their clothes were dyed with blood, and that the dyers had to run out into battle to dip their cloth in the blood of the fallen. He knew she was lying, but for weeks he couldn't get the idea out of his head. It came back to him then as he gagged on the smell of blood and death, his clothes stained with blood, dirt, and ash.
He had to stay put. He couldn't crawl out from under the bodies yet. He had to wait. If the Earth Kingdom soldiers found him alive, they would kill him too. His head swam, and his stomach churned. He fought the urge to be sick, and struggled to still his shivering, and forced himself to sit in his little hollow of bodies until everything went quiet.
o0O0o
Zuko woke shaking in the silence. No one was moaning. There was no sound of battle, or Earth Kingdom soldiers. There was no sound at all. Mouth dry and sticky with thirst, he swallowed and stared up. Though the gaps between arms and legs, he could see starlight. He crawled through the mud toward it, shoving aside bits of other people as he dragged himself along. My father wants me dead, he heard his own mind whisper to him. He sent me here to die.
o0O0o
The forms said he was sixteen. He knew this because he had snuck a peek at them when they were still waiting to be reassigned. Out of an army of a thousand, there were barely sixty survivors, and Zuko knew none of them. But they had drawn out the Earth Kingdom army guarding the Pohuai Stronghold, and experienced Fire Nation forces had captured it easily, and when the Earth Kingdom army returned, they had fire rained down on them until they died just like the raw recruits they had killed the day before. The general's plan worked. His father had gotten what he wanted. The new commander of Pohuai thanked them for their service and sent them on their way.
Zuko's paperwork also said he was a thief from the capital, who had been offered the choice to join the army or be executed. He wondered if his father had decided what they should say personally, or if they had left it for someone else. He didn't know which was worse.
o0O0o
"If you're sixteen, I'm the Earth King," Jiro laughed.
"That's what my paperwork says," Zuko told him. "Check it if you don't believe me."
"So you lied to the recruiter," Jiro shot back. "So did I when I told him I knew how to write more than my name."
"Yeah, well I didn't get a choice."
"And they sent you right off to Pohuai? Who did you piss off."
The Firelord. "No one."
Jiro looked at him funny. "You either have the worst luck in the world,kid, or the best. I hope you don't mind if I'd rather not get too near you."
o0O0o
Fire comes from the breath, he remembered. He breathed in deep and punched. He punched and punched and punched until the wall was covered in heat-blackened smudges. The cell didn't have a cot in it, or a window. He could only see the marks when he punched another ball of flame. His stomach grumbled, loud in the echoing quiet. But even through the brick and plaster, he could feel the sun rising.
The door opened. "You ready to do what you're told soldier?"
Zuko glowered, but he bowed his head.
o0O0o
"What happened here?" Zuko asked, trying to keep his voice steady. The skeletal outlines of burned houses stood black against the sky.
Li shrugged. "This village was supplying the Earth Kingdom army. They had to be stopped."
"What happened to the people who lived here?" he asked, worried he already knew, and feeling hopelessly jaded and hopelessly naive all at once.
Li raised his eyebrows. "What do you think happened to them?"
The smell of ash filled his nose. Zuko forced the bile down.
o0O0o
"That's a heck of a scar you got there," Li said. "Where did you get it anyway? You get it in battle?"
He had, hadn't he? Kind of. He got it in an Agni Kai. He nodded.
"Liar." Kazumi sneered at them both. "How would you get a burn scar fighting against the Earth Kingdom?"
"He could have been captured," Li suggested. "Put on the front lines in an Earth Kingdom uniform like they did with Jin Lu's bunch."
"Yeah, but then he'd be dead," Kazumi pointed out. "We'd have killed him."
"The Earth Kingdom really does that?" Zuko said, throat try.
"Yeah," Kazumi said , voice suddenly soft. "Yeah, they do it all the time."
o0O0o
The first time he bent fire at a living person, it flew true, and the Earth Kingdom soldier's hair and uniform caught. He fell down screaming, body contorting as the fire cooked him alive. For months, he couldn't stop wondering if he had been a captured Fire Nation soldier.
o0O0o
Private Zuko, Private Jiro you two are going to take this shipment of grain to General Rin's troops."
"Not that one, lieutenant," Captain Yuma ordered, pointing at Zuko. "He's a branded liar, and his records say he's a thief. Pick someone trustworthy."
Zuko gritted his teeth.
o0O0o
"And Private Zuko is awarded this metal for bravery in the face of the enemy, for a daring raid on a heavily defended Earth Kingdom fort to free Captain Yuma." The lieutenant pinned the metal to the chest of his uniform. "We honor his courage. May he ever falter in his duty."
o0O0o
Zuko sat on the floor of the cell, a handful of fire letting him read the scratch marks carved into the plaster. Five tallies. Three tallies. Youko was here. lieutenant Lu is piece of shit. Captain Yuma fucks komodo rhinos. Li was here. Hey, I'm Li too! There are a million Lis and all of them are idiots. An obscene picture of Captain Yuma and a komodo rhino. Glory to the Fire Nation and Firelord Azulon! Suck up. Happy birthday to me, best birthday ever. A picture of Captain Yuma and a komodo rhino inside of a heart.
o0O0o
"And Private Zuko is awarded this metal for bravery in the face of the enemy, for carrying two of his wounded comrades to safety under heavy bombardment from earthbenders." The lieutenant pinned the metal to the chest of his uniform. "We honor his courage. May he ever falter in his duty."
o0O0o
"Are you ever not on latrine duty, Zuko?"
"Are you ever not annoying?" Zuko retorted, voice muffled by the rag tied over his face. He flung a shovel full of dirt onto the latrine pits to bury them.
"Hey, I was just asking, sheesh."
Zuko remembered how it was at first, when the fluid from his blisters, and then the blood had rolled down the shovel handle as he worked. He didn't get blisters anymore from the shovel. "I'm not always on latrine duty."
"No? Could have fooled me."
"Shut up."
"You know," Kazumi said. "If you just did what you were told and stopped letting lieutenant Lu get under your skin, I bet you could get promoted out of this miserable pit. You rescued Captain Yuma."
"Maybe," he said. And maybe someone who knew him would see him and say oh, this was all a terrible mistake and his father wanted him home. Or his father would find out he was alive and send an assassin to finish him off. Or Captain Yuma would decide to leave the army to open up a sausage cart in the capital.
o0O0o
Li walked into the barracks "So guess what I heard."
"Don't have to," Kazumi told him. "You're going to tell us anyway."
"Shut up, Kazumi. Anyway, I hear one of the captains stationed on the southern front, out on the other side of the Si Wong Desert, started dressing up Earth Kingdom prisoners as Fire Nation soldiers, and letting the Earth Kingdom army take care of them for us."
"Don't they do that to us?" Zuko said, feeling sick.
"Yeah, that's what makes it perfect," Li crowed. "Let them get a taste of their own medicine for a change."
Zuko tried not to remember sitting in class learning about how the Fire Nation was bringing civilization to the barbaric Earth Kingdom, and forcing them to leave behind their benighted ways. "I don't think that's how it's supposed to work."
"Sure it is, Zuko," Li told him. "We're just teaching the Earth Kingdom a lesson.
o0O0o
Kazumi scrubbed her hands at the pump, washing the dirt out of her open blisters. "How did you really get that scar?"
"I got it in an Agni Kai," he said. He had. It wasn't a lie.
"Liar."
"No, I really did!"
"You're what, like twelve?" she laughed. "Who's going to fight an Agni Kai with a kid?"
"I'm fourteen." He had been thirteen then, but she didn't have to know that.
"Still. Too young for an Agni Kai." She shot him a sly look. "Too young for the army too."
"My paperwork says I'm seventeen."
Kazumi cackled. "Nobody with have a brain's going to believe that. I hear you were a thief. You piss off the judge badly enough for him to brand you or something?"
"I'm not a thief," Zuko snapped. "That's not true any more than my age is."
"Wow," Kazumi said. "Who did you piss off to get stuck here?"
"I survived the Pohaui massacre. That's where I was sent." Zuko scrubbed his own hands, the cool water helping with the aches.
Kazumi's eyes went wide. "Wow kid, you really need to learn how to keep your mouth shut."
"No kidding."
o0O0o
The earth rumbled and Zuko froze. With a yell, Kazumi thrust her pike down into the ground. It was just in time. Her komodo rhino squealed as the earth opened up and it fell away under her Zuko leapt to the side, bit it was too late. For one breathless instant, there was nothing under him, but then Kazumi's arm was around his waist, holding him as she clung to her pike with the other.
The sides of the chasm rumbled. "Quick," Kazumi shouted, even though he was right there. "It's going to close, climb up, climb up!"
Zuko grabbed onto her. "I'll pull you up," he told her, climbing her body and arm like it wasn't a person. "Don't let go!"
"You better," she yelled. As soon as his feet were on the ground, he grabbed her arm and pulled.
The ground closed up just behind her foot, as if the chasm had never been. They looked at each other. Her face was pale. He could feel himself shaking. Chasms were opening and closing up all around them.
"There," Kazumi pointed, voice hoarse.
Zuko followed her finger. It was an old woman, squat and wrinkled, feet hitting the ground in time with the fissures opening.
"Can you do that thing that some firebenders can do where you shoot off the ground with firebending?"
He shook his head.
"What if I pole vault you up first?" she asked.
"We can try," he croaked nervously.
They ran. She slammed her pike into the ground and grabbed him just before she went flying. They sprang into the air. Zuko kicked backward as hard as he could, riding the jets of flame until he was right over the earthbender's head. He let himself drop, A fireball filling his hands.
o0O0o
Jiro, Li, and Kazumi were carrying jugs of rice wine when they showed up at his bunk. "Come on, get up," Li told him. "You're leaving tomorrow, which means we have to celebrate tonight."
"I can't believe you got promoted, Sargent," Kazumi laughed. No more latrine duty."
"Does this mean you can give us latrine duty?" Li asked.
"Why, do you want latrine duty?" Jiro asked.
"I'm not a sargent until I leave," Zuko told them irritably.
"I bet they only made you a sargent because someone asked for a sargent, and Captain Yuma figures it was the fastest way to get rid of you," Kazumi remarked shrewdly.
"Probably," Zuko acknowledged. It was the only reason he would get promoted and Kazumi wouldn't.
"Well, however you got your promotion," Li said. "Rice wine. Drink. If you aren't horribly hung over when you leave us, we are all rotten failures."
"Speak for yourself. I'm a fresh, delightful failure."
"Yeah keep telling yourself that, Kazumi." Li pressed the jug into his hands and stared at him until he took a sip.
He gagged and struggled not to vomit. "That's horrible."
"First drink?" Jiro asked sympathetically, and when Zuko nodded, he said, "Getting you drunk is going to be easier than we thought."
o0O0o
Zuko handed Captain Yuma's letter to the lieutenant and bowed. The lieutenant let him into the captain's tent and handed the letter to the captain. The captain looked up only to stop dead. "Prince Zuko."
Zuko flinched.
"My niece asked about you," the captain said. "She was told there had never been a Prince Zuko. She was very upset."
"Who..." He drew in a steadying breath. "Who is your niece?"
"Mai. She's friends with your sister."
"I know Mai," he said softly.
"She misses you." He opened the letter from Captain Yuma. "Officially, Prince Zuko, you don't exist. This letter says you're a thief, and that you're eighteen years old."
"I know what it says, sir."
"It also says you survived the Pohuai massacre. Am I right in thinking you were't supposed to?"
Zuko nodded.
"Then I bet the last thing you want is for your father to find out you're alive."
Zuko flinched again and took a step back, which was stupid. He had nowhere to run.
"Don't worry. I don't have any plans to tell anybody who you really are." He smiled, but it wasn't at all comforting. "Congratulations on your promotion. If I were you, I'd make sure it was your last. You don't want to rise high enough to attract attention."
"It's not really my choice," Zuko reminded him. "Sir."
"You're right," Mai's uncle said. "It's not."
o0O0o
"So I hear you were a thief," she said without introduction. "Kind of ironic you're a prison guard now."
"It just goes to show that anybody can be redeemed."
"Ugh, don't listen to Riku," she told him. "He should have been a Fire Sage, but his parents wouldn't let him."
"Well we're going to be working in a prison," Riku shot back peevishly. "It's a good thing if I think people can be redeemed. I bet Zuko's experience as a former criminal will be invaluable to us in our efforts."
"Ugh," she said again. "I'm Kazi, by the way. This is my first posting. I'm really excited about it, I mean, just being away from home and doing something important!"
Zuko drank the awful cafeteria tea and waited until she finished. "Where did you hear I was a thief?"
Riku shrugged. "I told her. I'm the captain's clerk. I get to see everybody's papers. I'm a sargent too. So's Kazi. She's only one because her parents are rich."
"I got top scores at the army academy."
"Which you went to because your parents could pay for it."
"Yeah well your parents paid for you to go to school too."
"I didn't say they didn't."
"So you're a street thief," Kazi said loudly, shooting a glare at Riku. "Did you go to school?"
"No." he had tutors.
"So you can't read or write?"
"Of course I can read and write," he snapped. Jiro couldn't. Kazumi could read but not write. There was no of course about it. "Look, I don't think I'm going to be any help. This is the Boiling Rock. We're not going to be guarding pickpockets."
o0O0o
"Who's that?" Zuko asked.
Riku looked up from his logbook down at the prison yard below. It wasn't hard to spot the one Zuko meant. He was middle-aged and stocky, but even under his beard, It was obvious his face was ashy and drawn. "That's the captain of the Omashu city guard. He's here while he's being questioned."
The man didn't stand up. Zuko watched him lean on another prisoner when it was time to go back inside, his feet sliding out from under him. Questioning. Sure.
o0O0o
"I'm sending you to Omashu, the warden said. "You're being promoted to lieutenant."
"I thought you said I shouldn't get promoted again," Zuko said.
"You can turn it down," the warden smirked. "In fact, you probably should. "My sister's husband just got made governor. I'm sending you there because my niece is there."
o0O0o
Zuko swallowed hard and followed Mai out of the governor's family quarters. It was weird seeing her. She looked elegant and graceful, like something from another world. He used to be part of that world, but he wasn't anymore.
The hallway was dark, new Fire Nation candlelight doing little to dispel the Earth Kingdom gloom. Once they were alone, he stepped out of the shadows. "Hi Mai."
Her shuriken pinned him to the wall. She stopped and stared. "Zuko?"
"Yeah, um..."
"I thought you were dead!" she hissed. "I thought your dad killed you and covered it up!"
"I mean that did happen. He tried, but I lived through it." He looked away. "He doesn't know I'm alive. He'd probably try to have me killed again if he did."
She leaned over him, pulling out her darts one by one. "How did you even get here?"
"Your uncle sent me." He blushed. "He thought you might want to see me. I'm... I'm in the army now. I'm a lieutenant in the governor's guard."
Her hands brushed his face, then fell away again. "Do you mind if I touched you?"
"Go ahead," he whispered.
Her hands reached out and cupped his face. She pressed her forehead against his. "I can't believe you're alive."
"Yeah," he said. "Me neither."
o0O0o
He was in the guardhouse making up the duty roster when she came inside, face like stone. "Azula's here."
"What?" He staggered back against the wall. "How?"
"I don't know, I don't, but she's here, and somebody kidnapped Tom Tom, and I'm supposed to trade King Bumi for him, and I know she's never going to let me go through with it, and..." Her eyes bored into his. "And you need to stay out of sight. She can't find you."
"Why is she even here?" he demanded, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.
"She's hunting the Avatar. He's back. He's responsible for the North Pole."
"The Avatar," he said disbelievingly. "Wait, you said Tom Tom was kidnapped!"
Mai nodded. "By the resistance. Look, Azula wants me to go with her. I'm going to have to go. Just... wait here for me? She has to let me come back eventually. Wait for me."
Zuko nodded. "I'll wait for you, I promise."
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed him to her like she couldn't get close enough. Maybe she couldn't. Maybe none of them could ever get close enough.
He hugged her back, and put his cheek against hers, just to feel the human warmth in place of stone.
o0O0o
From the shadows, Zuko watched the governor and his wife scoop their son up into their arms. Tom Tom was safe. He was home. The Avatar himself had returned him, which made him ten times as good as Azula. Azula was gone with Mai, and there was no one left to catch him. There was nothing holding him there at all. It was so strange. He was going to disappear in the middle of the night, and no one was going to stop him. He was free. He just wished he could say goodbye one last time, so they would be his goodbyes instead of Mai's, so she would know he wasn't waiting for her. He was going to find the Avatar. He was going to help end this war, and maybe, at last, he would get to do something that actually mattered.
On the Outside
