Late Afternoon Day
Two, Mining Village of Tongli
I
walked over to the door of the barn and placed my hand against the
frame. “Does any of this make any sense to you?” I asked Ed over
my shoulder.
“...maybe,”
Ed said. He shifted himself over so that he could lean against a
support timber.
“Maybe?”
“Listen,
I don't know where I am or how I got here,” Ed said. “Though I
may have a theory.”
“It's
better than anything I can come up with.”
“Right...
uh, this is going to sound strange, but I think when I came back from
the Gate it misplaced me.”
“The
Gate?”
“It's
this... thing,” Ed gestured vaguely in a swirling motion towards
himself. “It's inside everyone. It's what allows you to perform
alchemy. In effect, you channel energy into it and the knowledge of
the universe flows back into you. Then, bam, alchemy. It's more
complex than that, but in a nutshell the only thing you have to know
is 'To gain something, something of equal value must be lost.' That
is the First Law of Equivalent Exchange.”
“Like
conservation of mass and energy?” I asked.
“Conservation?”
“The
absolute energy of a closed system is always zero,” I explained.
“Yeah,
something like that.” Ed pulled a rake closer and began to sketch
into the dirt with it. “Except its not just mass and energy, its
mass and energy and information.”
He tapped the three symbols he had drawn. “That was the missing
part of the equation. The 'cost' of a human soul isn't just the
material ingredients or the energy needed to animate them, but also
all the information that soul has produced over its life. When we...”
He trailed off, a distant and sad expression filling his face.
Finally he audibly sighed and shook the thought away. “That isn't
important. What is important is that you can use this Gate by paying
a Tool. Equivalent Exchange, you see. My brother ended up trapped
inside the Gate however. He tried... we tried to take too much from
the Gate and it took its Tool in the form of his entire body, and my
leg.” He gestured to his stump.
I
wasn't certain how to respond to that, so I didn't. I could only duck
my head a little shamefacedly.
“It
took me a long time, but I found a way inside to rescue him. But
getting out with both our bodies and souls took a big payment.” He
took a deep breath. “My Gate. I paid it. All my alchemy... gone. We
were supposed to go back but something went wrong.”
“Your
brother?” I asked.
“Al...
Alphonse.” He shook his head. “I'm not certain what happened to
him. I know he came through the Gate with me. But where he is?” The
distant expression of pain crept onto his face again, before he
pushed it aside with obvious effort. “As soon as I came through the
Gate I was jumped by some clowns who knocked me out and then I woke
up in that cell.”
“Doesn't
answer where we are,” I pointed out.
“No.”
He shook his head. “But I can't remain here forever. I'm going to
have to start looking for my brother. Since those Fire Nation jerks
were holding us in their prison, they might be the ones who have Al.”
“You're
in no shape to be fighting an entire army,” I pointed out.
“Wouldn't
be the first time...” He muttered, crossing his arms and scowling
down at the symbols in the dirt before scuffing them out with his
foot.
“We're
going to need allies. Friends who can help us look for your brother,
and information on where he might be held as well as what kind of
opposition we can expect to face if we go after him.”
“We?”
I
shifted uncomfortably and strode back into the barn. “I'm not
saying that I'll die to help you, but you're the only person here I
can trust. Besides, maybe you can teach me this alchemy. I seem to
have a knack for it. I help you fetch your brother back, you teach me
how to use alchemy so I'm not helpless. Equivalent exchange.”
He
gave me a long look and I felt myself fidgeting under his gaze. His
bright yellow eyes were piercing, like they could see right past my
skin and into my soul. I resisted the urge to flinch. What if he
could see that I wasn't... wasn't like him? He seemed so confident in
his skin, so sure of himself that I knew he was who he was. My skin
felt like somebody had stretched out my body in all the wrong places
and pulled it tight where it shouldn't be tight. It was like an itch
I couldn't seem to scratch.
“I
don't even know your name.”
I
blushed and looked at the slippers the villagers had given me.
Looking up at Ed I introduced myself.
Ed
blinked, his mouth lowering slightly. “I'm sorry, could you repeat
that?”
I
did.
Ed
frowned and screwed his eyes shut, dipping his head as he raised his
hand to his ears. I stared in confusion but he seemed to recover
quickly, shaking his head and looking back at me. “Ugh. I think I
hit my head when we went down with the boat.” He waved my concern
away. “No, don't worry about it. It's past now.” He grinned.
“Well, now that we're properly introduced, I guess we can help each
other. Though I would need supplies and stuff. Paper and ink,
mainly.”
I
nodded. “I'll go talk to the villagers. It's a good ideas to start
finding out what I can about the local politics and stuff before we
start committing to any plans.”
“Good idea.” He waved me away. “I'd be little help in that
regard. Though maybe see if they have a dictionary or something I can
study while you're doing that?”
*
It
turned out there wasn't much in the way of dictionaries in the
village. The people here were poor and their lives mean, barely
operating above the subsistence line. One of the village elders was
able to lend Ed a few scrolls they used to help teach children their
basic numbers. I didn't have any trouble interpreting it but Ed just
looked at the scroll with drooping eyes.
“These
aren't letters, they're... I don't know what they are...” Ed
frowned when I offered to help him but he waved me off. I needed to
figure out what was going on.
This
turned out to be slightly harder than I had expected. While Haru and
his mother were both kind enough, the rest of the village was not. It
wasn't that they were hostile towards us, just that they seemed far
too busy to take time to discuss 'trivial' matters with me.
Especially stuff that everyone seemed to know. The first time I asked
'who are the Fire Nation' I was literally laughed out of the room, my
cheeks burning in humiliation at the taunts and insults at how
'stupid' I was or what kind of 'fool did I take them for'.
It
was hard to blame them for their attitudes however. Everyone in the
village seemed to be on pinheads. The slightest disturbance outside
the walls caused all activity to cease until the all clear was given.
From what I could tell the people here were also on short rations and
the houses were overpopulated, with most people not even bothering to
stay indoors. Doing some quick math I concluded that a small agrarian
village that had absorbed a huge host of war prisoners was probably
already stretched to the limits of its capacity to feed and house
them.
Eventually
I decided to stop asking direct questions and just absorb the gossip
around me. My footsteps were very quiet and I seemed to have a knack
for finding places to stand where I could go unnoticed. Blending into
the shadows and drifting from conversation to conversation I learned
quite a bit.
“It
never used to be this bad. I almost think it wasn't worth it to break
out of that prison.”
“At
least it calmed down in the last few days.”
“If
Haru is to believed that's because the firebenders are making a big
push to take Omashu.”
“If
we loose Omashu, then there is nothing to stop them coming back and
crushing us.”
“Not
much we can do about that, though. Come on, help me move this
Moo-sow...”
Drift
away, find another group who catches my ear.
“Yeah,
well you didn't see that fleet. I was up on Ling's Pass the other day
and I saw a lot of ships on the horizon. It was a wall of black
smoke. There had to be hundreds of them.”
“Headed
south?”
“Yeah,
just glad they didn't stop here. I haven't heard of that many
firebenders in one place since they failed to take Ba Sing Se.”
“Maybe
the Avatar will stop them?”
“We
can only hope.”
They
drifted into more casual conversation so I drifted away again until
the word 'Avatar' caught my attention again.
“...all
his fault. If he hadn't come back...”
“We'd
still be in prison.”
“Yeah,
he may be a kid, but he has spirit. And that girl with him is a
fighter, too.”
“But
before he came back the Fire Nation was content to do this slow and
steady. They've been too reckless lately. Something changed,
something big. They've been attacking all over the coast, taking
earthbenders from their homes in the middle of the night, I hear.”
“And
how do you know all this, Jing?”
“I
hear it from travellers. Lots more refuges fleeing inland these days.
I'm telling you, this war got worse when the Avatar showed up again,
not better.”
“How
much worse could it get than loosing steadily for a hundred years?”
“...I'm
not certain I want to know.”
Drift
away, find another pair arguing on top of the wall, their voices
drifting down to me from above.
“Remember,
the weakest part of the firebender is their stance. If you can
destroy their balance, they can't shoot fire at you.”
“I
tried that, I still have the scar on my arm. That patrol we ran into
wasn't fighting like any other firebenders I've ever seen. Not even
the ones who captured me in the first place. These guys were...
desperate somehow. They just threw themselves at us recklessly, like
they didn't care about anything but capturing us.”
“How
did you get away?”
“We
hid, spent nearly two hours underground. I felt like I was going to
faint before Tyro let us up for some air.”
“Still,
better than going back to prison.”
“Yeah,
but I'm not sure for how much longer we'll be safe here.”
“We
can hold out until the Avatar masters the four elements. Then... then
maybe there will be peace.”
“I
hope so.”
I
drift away again and this time I find a more friendly face, though he
doesn't look pleased. Haru is standing at the edge of the village,
arguing with a taller man with a long white beard and bald head. The
man was massive, dressed in much darker green than Haru was. Still,
there was a resemblance between the two.
“...can't
just leave them to fend for themselves!” Haru was shouting as I
approached.
“Son,”
the bald man placed a hand on the younger man's shoulder. “I know
it seems bad, but Omashu is one of the most heavily fortified cities
on the continent. Only Ba Sing Se is more heavily defended. Plus I
hear their King is a wily one, and won't go down easily to Fire
Nation trickery.”
Haru
clenched his fists, his eyes narrowing. “This isn't like it was
five years ago!” he snapped.
The
older man frowned. “We have to think about our own home first.
Almost half the men we liberated from the prison were captured again.
We simply can't spare the earthbenders to try and help out. Not to
mention that our contribution to the defence would be pitiful
compared to what Omashu already has within its walls.”
“I
don't just mean like that...” Haru backed up a few steps, taking
him out of his father's reach. The old man's arm fell to his side
and a brief look of hurt passed across his face. “The firebenders
have gone crazy.”
“Crazy?”
“You've
fought them in the last few weeks. Tell me I'm not right. There's
something different about them.” Haru rubbed his nascent beard.
“They're taking too many risks to capture people alive.”
“That's
a bad thing?” the old man grumbled. “It means we can break them
out from that prison.”
“But
according to those two boys we rescued, there is nobody there to
rescue.”
“Impossible.
There should be hundreds there, not just from the ones they
recaptured but all the earthbenders they've been taking in raids up
and down the coast.”
“Exactly!”
Haru stamped his fist into his hand. “All the earthbenders they're
taking, and they vanish without any trace? If they'd moved them we
should have seen something, heard something.”
“How
trustworthy are these escapees?” the old man said.
“I
can answer any question you have,” I stepped out of the shadows.
Both
men started and turned on me, there eyes wide. The old man's hand
fluttered up to his heart, then fell down again.
“You
scared me,” Haru accused, pointing a finger at me.
“Sorry,”
I replied. “But I overheard you talking about me.”
“Hmmm.”
The old man nodded. “So you're the castaways my son fished out of
the ocean?”
I
nodded.
“Ah,
I'm being impolite.” Haru stepped between us. “This is my father,
Tyro. Father, this is... I'm sorry, I never caught your name.”
I
told them both.
A
look of discomfort passed across their faces. Tyro's hand reached up
to his ear. Haru blinked rapidly.
“Could
you... speak up?” Tyro asked.
I
sighed and repeated it again. Was my voice going or something?
“Your
name...” Tyro blinked dizzily for a few seconds before seeming to
firm himself. “Your name is Nin?” He was mispronouncing it
slightly, but I nodded anyway. It was good enough.
“So,
my son tells me that the prison you escaped from was abandoned?”
“Truthfully
I didn't have the time to explore it fully, but all the cells were
empty.” I paused thinking back. “Though it looked like there were
people in them not too long ago.” I shrugged. “There was some
sort of explosion that knocked the whole place over. Maybe your
people escaped because of that? Maybe caused it?”
“If
so, why haven't they come back?” Haru asked pointedly. I could only
shrug at that.
“And
were there any Fire Nation troops there?” Tyro asked.
“If
the Fire Nation are those guys in the red armour, then yes. We had to
escape from a few of them when we got out of our cells.”
“How
many troops?”
“I
don't know... a few dozen? However many would be carried in one of
those ironclads.”
“Just
one ship?” Tyro didn't seem to believe me. He scratched his beard.
“There is no way they could control the prison population with just
one ship. Even if they were all firebenders. It's just too big a
difference.”
“I
can only tell you what I saw. Oh, and the ship was probably there to
get us. Ed and I, that is. The soldiers we ran into mentioned wanting
to capture us alive.”
“I
still don't like it. We have one ship left from our escape. I want to
take some men out, investigate the area. See if we can learn where
they might have taken our people.”
“What
about Omashu?”
Tyro
considered his son's appeal for a few seconds. “I can't send enough
troops to matter. But if the Fire Nation is up to something tricky
here, they should probably be warned.”
“I
can take the two fastest runners with me, we can be in Omashu within
three days.”
Tyro
seemed pained by the declaration but finally relented in the face of
his son's eagerness. “Okay, but don't
engage any firebenders! Your job is solely to warn the King that
trouble is coming.”
“You
won't regret it! Katara taught me that we all have to fight together,
or we'll fall apart. I'll prove it to you!” Haru turned to me and
gave a slight bow before running deeper into the village.
“Katara?”
I asked Tyro.
“A
water tribe girl Haru was somewhat taken by,” Tyro explained.
“Ah.”
I looked down at myself in misery for a moment before forcing my
brain back to the present. “What happened to her?”
“Hmm?
Oh, she's safe. As anyone is these days, I suppose. She was
travelling with the Avatar last I saw her.”
“I've
heard people talking about the Avatar, who is that?”
Tyro
gave me a long look and then chuckled. “I suppose you're young
enough you may never have heard the story. I had just about given up
hope myself until I saw him in the flesh. Remarkable boy. Still, to
have such a destiny at his age.” He scratched his beard and clucked
his tongue. “The universe can be unfair.”
I
raised my eyebrow at his non-explanation and he cleared his throat
before continuing. “The Avatar is the one person in all the world
who can bend all four elements. Every time the old Avatar dies a new
one is reincarnated in the order of the elemental cycle; Air, Water,
Earth and Fire. The current Avatar is an airbender named Aang. I'm
not certain how he survived the massacre, much less how a child
managed to survive one hundred years but...” He shrugged. “He's
the only hope we have.”
“Massacre?”
I asked idly.
His
brow darkened. “Yes, one hundred years ago the Fire Nation started
this war by wiping out all the Air Nomads. There hasn't been an
airbender in almost a hundred years.”
He
shook his head and turned to me with an apologetic look. “I'm sorry
I don't have any more time to talk. I'll have to go gather up the
scouts and check up on our captured ship. You should head back to the
house, Mani will be upset if you're gone too long.”
I
nodded then watched as he walked up to the wall. To my surprise he
didn't climb call for a ladder or rope, instead he took a wide-legged
stance and clapped his hand together. With a soft grunt h pulled his
hands violently apart and the wall in front of him just... parted. It
was like he had stuck his hands in an invisible crack and yanked the
wall aside like a sliding door, except he was standing nearly two
meters from it. I was still blinking and rubbing my eyes as Tyro
walked through the partition and turned around before clapping his
hands together, the wall merging seamlessly back together in
response.
Well,
at least now I knew how they got in and out of the village.
*
“Sounds
like alchemy to me,” Ed pointed out. We were alone at the table in
Tyro's house. His wife had left some soup and rice for us. It wasn't
very filling, but considering the circumstances it was more than
generous.
“I
don't know, it didn't look like the alchemy I've seen.”
“There's
all kinds of alchemy,” Ed pointed out. He gestured with the
chopsticks in his hand before trying (and failing horribly) to get
some of the rice with them. “Gah, these things are insane. Has no
one here heard of a fork?”
I
smirked behind one hand as I expertly retrieved some rice and even
dunked them in my soup before eating them with an exaggerated motion.
I deflected Ed's disapproving glower with a smile and a question. “So
alchemy can manipulate all four elements?”
“Ninety-two
elements, actually.” Ed shrugged and dropped his sticks and began
to spoon the rice into his mouth with his fingers. “Though four of
them exist only as alchemic byproducts and don't seem to occur
naturally, and there are people who talk about transuranic elements.
Though the guy who was doing research into those died of some sort of
wasting sickness and the military forbid any further research.”
“And
alchemy can manipulate them all?”
“With
the right equation, yes. Heck you can even convert one into the other
if you know what you're doing. Making gold is forbidden.”
“You
can make gold?” I asked in awe.
“Not
anymore, and its not as useful as you think.” He frowned. “You
said he talked about manipulating fire, earth water and air?” I
nodded. There had been a lot of talk about 'firebenders' and
'earthbenders' around the village. A few mentions of 'waterbenders'
when I discretely asked, though apparently that girl Katara was the
only one they had ever encountered. And the Avatar, of course. The
supposed Last Airbender. “Sounds like the classical elements...”
Ed snorted. “Maybe these people just don't understand what they're
doing. Water is a compound, not an element, for one thing. And fire
isn't even matter, it's a chemical reaction!”
“The
rice grains jump off your cheeks when you yell,” I pointed out with
a chuckle. “Besides, didn't you mention something about flame
alchemy back at the prison?”
He
snickered and wiped his face off. “I did?” He shrugged. “I
guess they could have produced flame alchemy here, but its an almost
impossible to master alchemy back in Amestris. I only know one guy
who could use it, and our society has been using science to classify
alchemy for hundreds of years, not some backwater mysticism.”
“Backwater
mysticism or not, it works. I saw a few more people moving the earth
around just by going through kata around the village.”
“Bah!
If I still had my Gate, I'd show them how superior science is to
their superstitions,” Ed declared bombastically. It was hard to
tell if he was being serious or not. Suddenly his expression grew
graver. “So, you heard anything more about those red armoured
goons?”
“Nothing
good.” I outlined what I had learned of the Fire Nation, and their
genocidal and (increasingly erratic) soldiers. “Apparently they
come from the west. That continent to the west of the big one on the
map they showed us.”
Ed
nodded grimly. “So if they're holding my brother anywhere, its
probably in their home country.” He picked up a chopstick and began
to idly doodle on the table. “Or at least we could pick up a lead
there. Though it looks like they have total control over the ocean,
with those... what did you call them?”
“Ironclads.”
“Right,
ironclads. That would make getting into their homeland difficult.”
“But
not impossible,” I said with as much encouragement as I could.
“Right.
Maybe while they're bust chasing this Avatar idiot for their bizarre
religion we can sneak in?” He tapped the table a few times. “But
we'll need a few things.”
“Such
as?”
“I
need a new leg. I'm no good in a real fight like this.”
“New
leg?”
Ed
propped his stump on the table and pulled back the cloth on the
dangling leg of his pants. I gasped. Instead of a rounded knee, his
leg ended in what looked like a metal socket. “Automail,” he
explained. “Metal limbs that work just as good as the original,
better in some cases.” He grimaced and hid the leg back under the
table. “Though from the looks of this place, I highly doubt they
have advanced enough alchemy to manufacture the materials needed.
Though a leg is not an arm. If I could get my hands on a decent
supply of quality steel, I could probably get a replacement that
would work... okay enough.”
I
shuddered and clutched my own legs. No matter what had happened to me
and my body, at least it still had all its limbs.
“Second,
we can teach you alchemy. Or maybe first. We can work on those two at
the same time.”
“Sounds
good to me.”
“Third,
we're going to have to find someone who can sneak us into the Fire
Nation.” Ed tapped his chopstick against the table and made a
slashing motion. “No matter how major the war is, there's going to
be someone who knows a backdoor, or the right official to bribe or
something.”
“Smugglers?
Pirates?” I guessed.
“And
other assorted scum, yeah.”
“We're
not likely to run into them around here.”
“Nope.
And to deal with scum, we'll need money. Money and the ability to
defend ourselves. Which brings me back to points one and two.”
“Anything
else?”
“Lots
of things, but there are two many variable in the equation as it
stands.” He shrugged and leaned back. “So we should rest the
night and decide what to do tomorrow.”
“Sounds
good.”
“So,
why don't you tell me about yourself?” Ed asked as I was standing
up.
“I...
uh...”
“Part
of teaching you alchemy means I have to understand were you're coming
from. I have to know how you fit into the world. So, the more I know
about you, the better.”
I
opened my mouth and then closed it again. I should tell him about my
condition, about waking up with an unwanted organ between my legs and
how my body felt like it had been warped. But I couldn't. I just
couldn't say it out loud. What if he thought I was a freak? A
pervert? He was the only person I could trust and if I drove him away
then I would just be lost and what the hell would I do?
So
I didn't say anything about that, instead I told him about my life, a
little edited for his ears.
Pick
three!
[
]I grew up in a big city.
[
]I grew up in the country.
[
]I grew up on the coast.
[
]I was constantly moving as a kid.
[
]My parents were rich.
[
]My parents were middle-class.
[
]My parents were poor.
[
]I'm an orphan.
[
]I was studying for a social science degree.
[
]I was active in politics.
[
]I was studying the hard sciences.
[
]I was planning to join the military.
Two, Mining Village of Tongli
I
walked over to the door of the barn and placed my hand against the
frame. “Does any of this make any sense to you?” I asked Ed over
my shoulder.
“...maybe,”
Ed said. He shifted himself over so that he could lean against a
support timber.
“Maybe?”
“Listen,
I don't know where I am or how I got here,” Ed said. “Though I
may have a theory.”
“It's
better than anything I can come up with.”
“Right...
uh, this is going to sound strange, but I think when I came back from
the Gate it misplaced me.”
“The
Gate?”
“It's
this... thing,” Ed gestured vaguely in a swirling motion towards
himself. “It's inside everyone. It's what allows you to perform
alchemy. In effect, you channel energy into it and the knowledge of
the universe flows back into you. Then, bam, alchemy. It's more
complex than that, but in a nutshell the only thing you have to know
is 'To gain something, something of equal value must be lost.' That
is the First Law of Equivalent Exchange.”
“Like
conservation of mass and energy?” I asked.
“Conservation?”
“The
absolute energy of a closed system is always zero,” I explained.
“Yeah,
something like that.” Ed pulled a rake closer and began to sketch
into the dirt with it. “Except its not just mass and energy, its
mass and energy and information.”
He tapped the three symbols he had drawn. “That was the missing
part of the equation. The 'cost' of a human soul isn't just the
material ingredients or the energy needed to animate them, but also
all the information that soul has produced over its life. When we...”
He trailed off, a distant and sad expression filling his face.
Finally he audibly sighed and shook the thought away. “That isn't
important. What is important is that you can use this Gate by paying
a Tool. Equivalent Exchange, you see. My brother ended up trapped
inside the Gate however. He tried... we tried to take too much from
the Gate and it took its Tool in the form of his entire body, and my
leg.” He gestured to his stump.
I
wasn't certain how to respond to that, so I didn't. I could only duck
my head a little shamefacedly.
“It
took me a long time, but I found a way inside to rescue him. But
getting out with both our bodies and souls took a big payment.” He
took a deep breath. “My Gate. I paid it. All my alchemy... gone. We
were supposed to go back but something went wrong.”
“Your
brother?” I asked.
“Al...
Alphonse.” He shook his head. “I'm not certain what happened to
him. I know he came through the Gate with me. But where he is?” The
distant expression of pain crept onto his face again, before he
pushed it aside with obvious effort. “As soon as I came through the
Gate I was jumped by some clowns who knocked me out and then I woke
up in that cell.”
“Doesn't
answer where we are,” I pointed out.
“No.”
He shook his head. “But I can't remain here forever. I'm going to
have to start looking for my brother. Since those Fire Nation jerks
were holding us in their prison, they might be the ones who have Al.”
“You're
in no shape to be fighting an entire army,” I pointed out.
“Wouldn't
be the first time...” He muttered, crossing his arms and scowling
down at the symbols in the dirt before scuffing them out with his
foot.
“We're
going to need allies. Friends who can help us look for your brother,
and information on where he might be held as well as what kind of
opposition we can expect to face if we go after him.”
“We?”
I
shifted uncomfortably and strode back into the barn. “I'm not
saying that I'll die to help you, but you're the only person here I
can trust. Besides, maybe you can teach me this alchemy. I seem to
have a knack for it. I help you fetch your brother back, you teach me
how to use alchemy so I'm not helpless. Equivalent exchange.”
He
gave me a long look and I felt myself fidgeting under his gaze. His
bright yellow eyes were piercing, like they could see right past my
skin and into my soul. I resisted the urge to flinch. What if he
could see that I wasn't... wasn't like him? He seemed so confident in
his skin, so sure of himself that I knew he was who he was. My skin
felt like somebody had stretched out my body in all the wrong places
and pulled it tight where it shouldn't be tight. It was like an itch
I couldn't seem to scratch.
“I
don't even know your name.”
I
blushed and looked at the slippers the villagers had given me.
Looking up at Ed I introduced myself.
Ed
blinked, his mouth lowering slightly. “I'm sorry, could you repeat
that?”
I
did.
Ed
frowned and screwed his eyes shut, dipping his head as he raised his
hand to his ears. I stared in confusion but he seemed to recover
quickly, shaking his head and looking back at me. “Ugh. I think I
hit my head when we went down with the boat.” He waved my concern
away. “No, don't worry about it. It's past now.” He grinned.
“Well, now that we're properly introduced, I guess we can help each
other. Though I would need supplies and stuff. Paper and ink,
mainly.”
I
nodded. “I'll go talk to the villagers. It's a good ideas to start
finding out what I can about the local politics and stuff before we
start committing to any plans.”
“Good idea.” He waved me away. “I'd be little help in that
regard. Though maybe see if they have a dictionary or something I can
study while you're doing that?”
*
It
turned out there wasn't much in the way of dictionaries in the
village. The people here were poor and their lives mean, barely
operating above the subsistence line. One of the village elders was
able to lend Ed a few scrolls they used to help teach children their
basic numbers. I didn't have any trouble interpreting it but Ed just
looked at the scroll with drooping eyes.
“These
aren't letters, they're... I don't know what they are...” Ed
frowned when I offered to help him but he waved me off. I needed to
figure out what was going on.
This
turned out to be slightly harder than I had expected. While Haru and
his mother were both kind enough, the rest of the village was not. It
wasn't that they were hostile towards us, just that they seemed far
too busy to take time to discuss 'trivial' matters with me.
Especially stuff that everyone seemed to know. The first time I asked
'who are the Fire Nation' I was literally laughed out of the room, my
cheeks burning in humiliation at the taunts and insults at how
'stupid' I was or what kind of 'fool did I take them for'.
It
was hard to blame them for their attitudes however. Everyone in the
village seemed to be on pinheads. The slightest disturbance outside
the walls caused all activity to cease until the all clear was given.
From what I could tell the people here were also on short rations and
the houses were overpopulated, with most people not even bothering to
stay indoors. Doing some quick math I concluded that a small agrarian
village that had absorbed a huge host of war prisoners was probably
already stretched to the limits of its capacity to feed and house
them.
Eventually
I decided to stop asking direct questions and just absorb the gossip
around me. My footsteps were very quiet and I seemed to have a knack
for finding places to stand where I could go unnoticed. Blending into
the shadows and drifting from conversation to conversation I learned
quite a bit.
“It
never used to be this bad. I almost think it wasn't worth it to break
out of that prison.”
“At
least it calmed down in the last few days.”
“If
Haru is to believed that's because the firebenders are making a big
push to take Omashu.”
“If
we loose Omashu, then there is nothing to stop them coming back and
crushing us.”
“Not
much we can do about that, though. Come on, help me move this
Moo-sow...”
Drift
away, find another group who catches my ear.
“Yeah,
well you didn't see that fleet. I was up on Ling's Pass the other day
and I saw a lot of ships on the horizon. It was a wall of black
smoke. There had to be hundreds of them.”
“Headed
south?”
“Yeah,
just glad they didn't stop here. I haven't heard of that many
firebenders in one place since they failed to take Ba Sing Se.”
“Maybe
the Avatar will stop them?”
“We
can only hope.”
They
drifted into more casual conversation so I drifted away again until
the word 'Avatar' caught my attention again.
“...all
his fault. If he hadn't come back...”
“We'd
still be in prison.”
“Yeah,
he may be a kid, but he has spirit. And that girl with him is a
fighter, too.”
“But
before he came back the Fire Nation was content to do this slow and
steady. They've been too reckless lately. Something changed,
something big. They've been attacking all over the coast, taking
earthbenders from their homes in the middle of the night, I hear.”
“And
how do you know all this, Jing?”
“I
hear it from travellers. Lots more refuges fleeing inland these days.
I'm telling you, this war got worse when the Avatar showed up again,
not better.”
“How
much worse could it get than loosing steadily for a hundred years?”
“...I'm
not certain I want to know.”
Drift
away, find another pair arguing on top of the wall, their voices
drifting down to me from above.
“Remember,
the weakest part of the firebender is their stance. If you can
destroy their balance, they can't shoot fire at you.”
“I
tried that, I still have the scar on my arm. That patrol we ran into
wasn't fighting like any other firebenders I've ever seen. Not even
the ones who captured me in the first place. These guys were...
desperate somehow. They just threw themselves at us recklessly, like
they didn't care about anything but capturing us.”
“How
did you get away?”
“We
hid, spent nearly two hours underground. I felt like I was going to
faint before Tyro let us up for some air.”
“Still,
better than going back to prison.”
“Yeah,
but I'm not sure for how much longer we'll be safe here.”
“We
can hold out until the Avatar masters the four elements. Then... then
maybe there will be peace.”
“I
hope so.”
I
drift away again and this time I find a more friendly face, though he
doesn't look pleased. Haru is standing at the edge of the village,
arguing with a taller man with a long white beard and bald head. The
man was massive, dressed in much darker green than Haru was. Still,
there was a resemblance between the two.
“...can't
just leave them to fend for themselves!” Haru was shouting as I
approached.
“Son,”
the bald man placed a hand on the younger man's shoulder. “I know
it seems bad, but Omashu is one of the most heavily fortified cities
on the continent. Only Ba Sing Se is more heavily defended. Plus I
hear their King is a wily one, and won't go down easily to Fire
Nation trickery.”
Haru
clenched his fists, his eyes narrowing. “This isn't like it was
five years ago!” he snapped.
The
older man frowned. “We have to think about our own home first.
Almost half the men we liberated from the prison were captured again.
We simply can't spare the earthbenders to try and help out. Not to
mention that our contribution to the defence would be pitiful
compared to what Omashu already has within its walls.”
“I
don't just mean like that...” Haru backed up a few steps, taking
him out of his father's reach. The old man's arm fell to his side
and a brief look of hurt passed across his face. “The firebenders
have gone crazy.”
“Crazy?”
“You've
fought them in the last few weeks. Tell me I'm not right. There's
something different about them.” Haru rubbed his nascent beard.
“They're taking too many risks to capture people alive.”
“That's
a bad thing?” the old man grumbled. “It means we can break them
out from that prison.”
“But
according to those two boys we rescued, there is nobody there to
rescue.”
“Impossible.
There should be hundreds there, not just from the ones they
recaptured but all the earthbenders they've been taking in raids up
and down the coast.”
“Exactly!”
Haru stamped his fist into his hand. “All the earthbenders they're
taking, and they vanish without any trace? If they'd moved them we
should have seen something, heard something.”
“How
trustworthy are these escapees?” the old man said.
“I
can answer any question you have,” I stepped out of the shadows.
Both
men started and turned on me, there eyes wide. The old man's hand
fluttered up to his heart, then fell down again.
“You
scared me,” Haru accused, pointing a finger at me.
“Sorry,”
I replied. “But I overheard you talking about me.”
“Hmmm.”
The old man nodded. “So you're the castaways my son fished out of
the ocean?”
I
nodded.
“Ah,
I'm being impolite.” Haru stepped between us. “This is my father,
Tyro. Father, this is... I'm sorry, I never caught your name.”
I
told them both.
A
look of discomfort passed across their faces. Tyro's hand reached up
to his ear. Haru blinked rapidly.
“Could
you... speak up?” Tyro asked.
I
sighed and repeated it again. Was my voice going or something?
“Your
name...” Tyro blinked dizzily for a few seconds before seeming to
firm himself. “Your name is Nin?” He was mispronouncing it
slightly, but I nodded anyway. It was good enough.
“So,
my son tells me that the prison you escaped from was abandoned?”
“Truthfully
I didn't have the time to explore it fully, but all the cells were
empty.” I paused thinking back. “Though it looked like there were
people in them not too long ago.” I shrugged. “There was some
sort of explosion that knocked the whole place over. Maybe your
people escaped because of that? Maybe caused it?”
“If
so, why haven't they come back?” Haru asked pointedly. I could only
shrug at that.
“And
were there any Fire Nation troops there?” Tyro asked.
“If
the Fire Nation are those guys in the red armour, then yes. We had to
escape from a few of them when we got out of our cells.”
“How
many troops?”
“I
don't know... a few dozen? However many would be carried in one of
those ironclads.”
“Just
one ship?” Tyro didn't seem to believe me. He scratched his beard.
“There is no way they could control the prison population with just
one ship. Even if they were all firebenders. It's just too big a
difference.”
“I
can only tell you what I saw. Oh, and the ship was probably there to
get us. Ed and I, that is. The soldiers we ran into mentioned wanting
to capture us alive.”
“I
still don't like it. We have one ship left from our escape. I want to
take some men out, investigate the area. See if we can learn where
they might have taken our people.”
“What
about Omashu?”
Tyro
considered his son's appeal for a few seconds. “I can't send enough
troops to matter. But if the Fire Nation is up to something tricky
here, they should probably be warned.”
“I
can take the two fastest runners with me, we can be in Omashu within
three days.”
Tyro
seemed pained by the declaration but finally relented in the face of
his son's eagerness. “Okay, but don't
engage any firebenders! Your job is solely to warn the King that
trouble is coming.”
“You
won't regret it! Katara taught me that we all have to fight together,
or we'll fall apart. I'll prove it to you!” Haru turned to me and
gave a slight bow before running deeper into the village.
“Katara?”
I asked Tyro.
“A
water tribe girl Haru was somewhat taken by,” Tyro explained.
“Ah.”
I looked down at myself in misery for a moment before forcing my
brain back to the present. “What happened to her?”
“Hmm?
Oh, she's safe. As anyone is these days, I suppose. She was
travelling with the Avatar last I saw her.”
“I've
heard people talking about the Avatar, who is that?”
Tyro
gave me a long look and then chuckled. “I suppose you're young
enough you may never have heard the story. I had just about given up
hope myself until I saw him in the flesh. Remarkable boy. Still, to
have such a destiny at his age.” He scratched his beard and clucked
his tongue. “The universe can be unfair.”
I
raised my eyebrow at his non-explanation and he cleared his throat
before continuing. “The Avatar is the one person in all the world
who can bend all four elements. Every time the old Avatar dies a new
one is reincarnated in the order of the elemental cycle; Air, Water,
Earth and Fire. The current Avatar is an airbender named Aang. I'm
not certain how he survived the massacre, much less how a child
managed to survive one hundred years but...” He shrugged. “He's
the only hope we have.”
“Massacre?”
I asked idly.
His
brow darkened. “Yes, one hundred years ago the Fire Nation started
this war by wiping out all the Air Nomads. There hasn't been an
airbender in almost a hundred years.”
He
shook his head and turned to me with an apologetic look. “I'm sorry
I don't have any more time to talk. I'll have to go gather up the
scouts and check up on our captured ship. You should head back to the
house, Mani will be upset if you're gone too long.”
I
nodded then watched as he walked up to the wall. To my surprise he
didn't climb call for a ladder or rope, instead he took a wide-legged
stance and clapped his hand together. With a soft grunt h pulled his
hands violently apart and the wall in front of him just... parted. It
was like he had stuck his hands in an invisible crack and yanked the
wall aside like a sliding door, except he was standing nearly two
meters from it. I was still blinking and rubbing my eyes as Tyro
walked through the partition and turned around before clapping his
hands together, the wall merging seamlessly back together in
response.
Well,
at least now I knew how they got in and out of the village.
*
“Sounds
like alchemy to me,” Ed pointed out. We were alone at the table in
Tyro's house. His wife had left some soup and rice for us. It wasn't
very filling, but considering the circumstances it was more than
generous.
“I
don't know, it didn't look like the alchemy I've seen.”
“There's
all kinds of alchemy,” Ed pointed out. He gestured with the
chopsticks in his hand before trying (and failing horribly) to get
some of the rice with them. “Gah, these things are insane. Has no
one here heard of a fork?”
I
smirked behind one hand as I expertly retrieved some rice and even
dunked them in my soup before eating them with an exaggerated motion.
I deflected Ed's disapproving glower with a smile and a question. “So
alchemy can manipulate all four elements?”
“Ninety-two
elements, actually.” Ed shrugged and dropped his sticks and began
to spoon the rice into his mouth with his fingers. “Though four of
them exist only as alchemic byproducts and don't seem to occur
naturally, and there are people who talk about transuranic elements.
Though the guy who was doing research into those died of some sort of
wasting sickness and the military forbid any further research.”
“And
alchemy can manipulate them all?”
“With
the right equation, yes. Heck you can even convert one into the other
if you know what you're doing. Making gold is forbidden.”
“You
can make gold?” I asked in awe.
“Not
anymore, and its not as useful as you think.” He frowned. “You
said he talked about manipulating fire, earth water and air?” I
nodded. There had been a lot of talk about 'firebenders' and
'earthbenders' around the village. A few mentions of 'waterbenders'
when I discretely asked, though apparently that girl Katara was the
only one they had ever encountered. And the Avatar, of course. The
supposed Last Airbender. “Sounds like the classical elements...”
Ed snorted. “Maybe these people just don't understand what they're
doing. Water is a compound, not an element, for one thing. And fire
isn't even matter, it's a chemical reaction!”
“The
rice grains jump off your cheeks when you yell,” I pointed out with
a chuckle. “Besides, didn't you mention something about flame
alchemy back at the prison?”
He
snickered and wiped his face off. “I did?” He shrugged. “I
guess they could have produced flame alchemy here, but its an almost
impossible to master alchemy back in Amestris. I only know one guy
who could use it, and our society has been using science to classify
alchemy for hundreds of years, not some backwater mysticism.”
“Backwater
mysticism or not, it works. I saw a few more people moving the earth
around just by going through kata around the village.”
“Bah!
If I still had my Gate, I'd show them how superior science is to
their superstitions,” Ed declared bombastically. It was hard to
tell if he was being serious or not. Suddenly his expression grew
graver. “So, you heard anything more about those red armoured
goons?”
“Nothing
good.” I outlined what I had learned of the Fire Nation, and their
genocidal and (increasingly erratic) soldiers. “Apparently they
come from the west. That continent to the west of the big one on the
map they showed us.”
Ed
nodded grimly. “So if they're holding my brother anywhere, its
probably in their home country.” He picked up a chopstick and began
to idly doodle on the table. “Or at least we could pick up a lead
there. Though it looks like they have total control over the ocean,
with those... what did you call them?”
“Ironclads.”
“Right,
ironclads. That would make getting into their homeland difficult.”
“But
not impossible,” I said with as much encouragement as I could.
“Right.
Maybe while they're bust chasing this Avatar idiot for their bizarre
religion we can sneak in?” He tapped the table a few times. “But
we'll need a few things.”
“Such
as?”
“I
need a new leg. I'm no good in a real fight like this.”
“New
leg?”
Ed
propped his stump on the table and pulled back the cloth on the
dangling leg of his pants. I gasped. Instead of a rounded knee, his
leg ended in what looked like a metal socket. “Automail,” he
explained. “Metal limbs that work just as good as the original,
better in some cases.” He grimaced and hid the leg back under the
table. “Though from the looks of this place, I highly doubt they
have advanced enough alchemy to manufacture the materials needed.
Though a leg is not an arm. If I could get my hands on a decent
supply of quality steel, I could probably get a replacement that
would work... okay enough.”
I
shuddered and clutched my own legs. No matter what had happened to me
and my body, at least it still had all its limbs.
“Second,
we can teach you alchemy. Or maybe first. We can work on those two at
the same time.”
“Sounds
good to me.”
“Third,
we're going to have to find someone who can sneak us into the Fire
Nation.” Ed tapped his chopstick against the table and made a
slashing motion. “No matter how major the war is, there's going to
be someone who knows a backdoor, or the right official to bribe or
something.”
“Smugglers?
Pirates?” I guessed.
“And
other assorted scum, yeah.”
“We're
not likely to run into them around here.”
“Nope.
And to deal with scum, we'll need money. Money and the ability to
defend ourselves. Which brings me back to points one and two.”
“Anything
else?”
“Lots
of things, but there are two many variable in the equation as it
stands.” He shrugged and leaned back. “So we should rest the
night and decide what to do tomorrow.”
“Sounds
good.”
“So,
why don't you tell me about yourself?” Ed asked as I was standing
up.
“I...
uh...”
“Part
of teaching you alchemy means I have to understand were you're coming
from. I have to know how you fit into the world. So, the more I know
about you, the better.”
I
opened my mouth and then closed it again. I should tell him about my
condition, about waking up with an unwanted organ between my legs and
how my body felt like it had been warped. But I couldn't. I just
couldn't say it out loud. What if he thought I was a freak? A
pervert? He was the only person I could trust and if I drove him away
then I would just be lost and what the hell would I do?
So
I didn't say anything about that, instead I told him about my life, a
little edited for his ears.
Pick
three!
[
]I grew up in a big city.
[
]I grew up in the country.
[
]I grew up on the coast.
[
]I was constantly moving as a kid.
[
]My parents were rich.
[
]My parents were middle-class.
[
]My parents were poor.
[
]I'm an orphan.
[
]I was studying for a social science degree.
[
]I was active in politics.
[
]I was studying the hard sciences.
[
]I was planning to join the military.