K sai Wrote:except I'm not sure the captain was in charge. Who was that girl?
Just a generic female Fire Nation soldier. They have a slightly different armour design.
Evening Day Four, Captured Fire Nation Vessel
“And what's this word?”
“Reward.” I ran my finger over the scroll and pronounced it in
the local language. Ed nodded and frowned down at the scroll in his
hands. He took a moment to consult the notes he had on the made in
the scroll next to him before returning his attention back to the
ones we had seized from the Fire Nation ship.
“I could just read them to you,” I pointed out.
“You need to rest,” Ed said absently, turning his head from the
scroll to his notes with a puzzled frown. I groaned and leaned my
head back against the pallet. The steady rocking of the ironclad as
it made its way back to shore was making it hard to rest, not to
mention the awkward pose I had to take to keep from aggravating the
burns on my back. They weren't as bad as I had feared, and the crew
had some unguents on hand that helped reduce the pain to a more
manageable degree, but that didn't make it anything approaching
comfortable.
“Besides, I have to learn the language here at some point,” Ed
argued. “It's really no different than decoding an alchemy cipher.
I just need time and hard work.” He frowned at the scroll. “And
the translation for this word.” He held up the scroll and pointed
at a symbol.
“It's a proper name, a port city I think.” I pronounced it for
him anyway.
I tilted my head away and stared up at the ceiling. Ed was hoping to
find some clue as to the location of his brother in the documents we
had managed to secure before the enemy ship had finished sinking. At
least the scroll cases he'd found, and the metal he'd had some
earthbenders help him salvage, meant I hadn't needed to go into the
sunken prison. That and my injuries. I was perfectly fine with that,
since it meant I wouldn't have to go underwater again.
It was not an experience I was looking forward to ever repeating.
“Hey, you okay?” Ed asked.
“...fine.”
“You look pale.”
“Just remembering the dive,” I said, waving his concern away.
“How about you? Are you doing okay?”
Ed ducked his head. “The grammar of this language is all different
and the words are confusing. It's all ideograms, with no real
alphabet.”
“I meant... are you okay in general, not just with the language.”
Ed considered my question for a few moments. “There have been
times we're I've been separated from my brother for longer, but it's
still not fun. At least now we may have a lead. Maybe.”
“If the crew talks,” I added.
“They'll talk.”
I didn't think so. From what I had seen of the way the crew reacted
to the earthbenders I doubted they would break. Frankly, the captured
crew looked terrified. But not of us.
“Hey, what does this say?” He held up a section of scroll.
“Let me see. 'All traffic around Point Mako is hereby restricted
by order of her royal highness, Princess Azula. Any unauthorized
traffic within thirty li will be treated as hostile.'”
“Li...” Ed did some calculations in his head. “That's like...
half a kilometre, right?”
“Close enough,” I said.
“So what's so important at this Point Mako that they don't want
anyone coming within fifteen kilometres of it.” Ed had a grin on
his face.
“I don't recall a Point Mako on the maps we've seen,” I told
him, trying not to get his hopes too high up.
“It's probably a code of some kind.” Ed gestured. “But the
Captain of the captured ship woudl have to know where it is, if only
to keep as far away from it as possible.”
“But he isn't talking.”
Ed frowned. “Then we'll just have to find out some other way.
Maybe it's listed in one of these scrolls?” I let my head loll back
onto the pallet as Ed began to dig through more of the scrolls.
*
Tyro was standing near the bow of the ship, frowning through the
darkness at the shoreline. The shore was nothing more than a looming
shadow in the pre-dawn light. My footsteps rang off the deck as I
walked up to him and he looked over at me.
“Where's your friend?”
“Still asleep,” I said.
“You should be resting.” There was no accusation in his voice,
just concern.
I waved him off and placed one hand against the railing to support
myself as the ship rocked in the tides. “I'll be fine.”
“Your ribs will only grow worse if you aggravate them,” he
informed me gently. I winced and grabbed at them but shook my head.
“What do you plan on doing with the prisoners?”
“They don't seem to be willing to answer any questions, even when
we offered to let them go.” He frowned into the darkness. “As
long as they're on board we can't return to the village either. I
sent a few men to shore on a skiff and they're going to contact the
village, let them know we won't be returning for some time.”
“You're taking them somewhere?”
“There is an Earth Kingdom outpost along the Western Coast some Li
north of our village. We shall bring the prisoners there.” He
glanced at me. “They also have excellent medics.”
“Do you think that they can get the prisoners to talk?” I
ignored his reference to my condition.
“General Fong is a hard man, from what I hear. But there is
something about these soldiers. They are not scared of us. Frankly, I
think they're more afraid of being released back to their own people
than being held by us.”
I considered his words for a few minutes. “I'd like some time
alone with the Captain of that ship.”
“That doesn't sound like a good idea, you're injured.”
I rubbed the bandage on my cheek. “Aside from this, not visibly,
and I'm a good actor. Plus I'm the one most responsible for sinking
his ship. He might let something slip to me in anger that he
wouldn't to you.”
Tyro rubbed his beard and then nodded. “Very well.”
*
The door closed behind us, leaving me and the Captain alone in the
room. The room had probably once been used for briefings and reports,
because it was large enough for several people to stand around in and
had a large metal table in the centre. The Captain was seated in a
chair across from me, his arms bound behind his back in granite
blocks and his feet similarly constrained. He was looking slightly
more tired than when he had surrendered his ship and crew to me. His
eyes were blazing yellow and his lips were white as he glared at me.
“I have a few questions for you.” I reached down and pulled out
a knife, a replacement for the one I had lost on the sunken ship.
“You are going to answer them.”
“I have already suffered enough humiliation by surrendering to a
child like you, I will not compound my crimes by betraying my
country,” he snarled.
“I admire your resolve,” I told him. “But my friend needs to
know what you know, and I intend to provide him with that
information.” I quickly ran the knife across my fingertip, blood
started welling up nearly instantly.
“Wh-what are you doing?” he gasped at my self-mutilation.
I placed my finger on the surface of the table. “I was the only
person who boarded your ship, Captain. A single person who sunk a
Fire Nation ironclad.” I began to draw. “Did you want to see how
I did it?”
His eyes widened as I continued to trace the outline of the array.
“You're crazy,” he said.
“Probably. I've had an unpleasant time since I woke up in your
prison. People throwing fire at me. Storms trying to drown me. I'm
tired of playing around.” I finished the symbol and placed one hand
on it. “This, Captain, is how I sunk your ship.”
Blue lightning flared around my palm before racing out across the
surface of the table. In its wake, the table turned red. Then
disintegrated into a pile of rust which flowed around his feet.
“Ahhh!” He gasped. “What did you do! You... you bent the
metal! But that's impossible!”
“I can bend a lot of things that the earthbenders can't.” I
walked up to him, the pile of rust scattering around my feet. I
brandished my knife. “Now, I'm going to ask you some questions.”
“You... you don't scare me!” He was lying. I grabbed his sleeve
and ripped into it with the knife. “What are you doing?” he
nearly shrieked. I continued in silence, cutting off his shirt with
calm efficiency. When I was done his chest was fully exposed. “I
won't say anything! You can't do this to me!” I placed my bleeding
finger against his chest, and began to draw. “No! No! You don't
understand! She'll kill me! She's crazy!”
I looked into his eyes once I finished the array. “Your Princess,
I assume?” He nodded frantically.
“She'll kill me if I say anything. She might just kill me for
being captured at all!” There were tears in his eyes. “Fire Lord
Ozai used to keep her under control, but with his death...” He
trailed off, probably realizing he had said something he shouldn't
have.
“I'm not interested in your internal politics.” I placed my hand
against the man's chest. “The question you have to ask yourself
here is; who is in the room with you now, your Princess or me?”
*
I flicked the last of the red tinged water off my fingers. There was
a distinctive thud-clock of Ed's crutch as he walked up to me.
“You weren't in your bed,” he accused.
“I had to find out some information.”
He looked at me, then down at the gourd full of water beside me and
out to the ocean. “How?” he asked.
“I asked the Captain.”
He frowned. “What happened?”
“I learned where Point Mako is. And a few other things as well.”
Ed grimaced, opened his mouth to say something and closed it again.
Finally he groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. “What did you
learn?”
“Unfortunately, he didn't know anything about your brother,” I
answered with the first thing I thought he would want to know about.
“Also he doesn't know what happened to the earthbenders. In fact,
last he heard the prison was still operating here and he was
surprised that it had sunk. Nobody transported the prisoners
anywhere.”
“Nobody?”
“That he knows of, but his ship regularly patrols these waters so
he's unlikely to have missed enough transports to move over a hundred
earthbenders.”
“So... what happened to them?”
“He has no clue. There is good news, however.”
“Oh?”
“Apparently the Avatar destroyed most of the Fire Nation's
Northern Fleet a few days ago. One of their admiral's laid siege to
the Northern Water Tribe and was almost completely annihilated. The
few survivors have been limping back to Fire Nation ports ever
since.”
Ed turned slightly green at that. “Ugh. War never changes, does
it?”
“I guess not.”
“What about Point Mako?”
“He didn't know much. It's some sort of covert weapons development
facility headed by War Minister Wu. There are some mountainous island
North of here, in old airbender lands, where they set up shop because
of how remote it is.”
“Weapons development?” Ed rubbed his chin. “Maybe... alchemy
research? My brother can still use his alchemy. That could be why
they took him but left me behind.”
“Would your brother cooperate with them?”
“What? Never!”
I shrugged. “Oh, and one last thing. Apparently there's been some
death in the higher ups of the Fire Nation. I get the impression
there is a power struggle going on over the sucession.”
“That might explain their bizarre behaviour,” Ed said, leaning
against the rail and crossing his arms. He frowned over my shoulder.
“What's the commotion up there?”
A quick look showed Tyro and two men arguing quietly near the front
of the ship. “I'll go check, wait here.”
“...it's hopeless, Chief!” one of the men was saying. “There's
nothing we can do.”
“He's my
son,” Tyro growled out, his eyes wild.
“What's going on?” I asked as I stepped close to him.
The two men exchanged glances. “It's Omashu. The city has fallen
to the Fire Nation.”
I blinked. “When?”
“Just a few days ago,” the man said. “The news just reached
the village.”
I glanced at Tyro. “Haru?”
“No news,” one of the men said.
“He's a smart boy, Chief.” One of the men patted him on the
shoulder. “He'll see the city has been conquered and come back to
the village. There's no way he could have gotten there before the
siege started, not if the city has fallen already.”
Tyro pulled at his cheeks. “If only I could believe you. But the
Avatar and that girl put all those thoughts of helping people into
his head... he'll do something stupid, I just know it!”
“And going after him would be stupid,” one of the men argued.
“There is an entire army in the city now, and we're barely two
score able-bodied earthbenders. We're not the Avatar.”
“He's my son!”
“Maybe all hope isn't lost. The Fire Nation is in trouble at the
moment.” I outlined quickly what I had learned about the fall of
their fleet and the death of their 'Fire Lord'. “Now isn't the time
to loose your heads. You can still do something about this. If I
could ask you to help me out with something?”
[ ]The invasion must have displaced a lot of people. We can help
refugees fleeing the city and maybe learn more about Haru.
[ ]As much as I'd like to help, Ed and I have our own problems. There
is a place up North we'd like you to drop us off before you do
anything.
[ ]Head to General Fong's fortress like you planned. We still have to
dispose of those prisoners and maybe we can convince him to help us.
[ ]Head straight to Omashu! Now is exactly the time they won't expect
a counterattack!
---------------
Epsilon
Besides, the Fire Nation ship is also pretty likely to have a notion where they took the prisoners, and is presumably here to investigate/salvage the derrick themselves.