"Are you sure you're alright, Xing?" Mozi asked for the fourth time as their carriage trundled on and the Fujima clan's compound shrank away behind them.
The boy colonel gave a soft sniffle as he nodded. "Yeah."
"We have the time, we could've stayed a little longer…"
Contrary to Xing's expectations of being berated or ridiculed or thrown out, the clan's matriarch welcomed the two officers with undeserving warmth, maintaining her courtesy even as Xing stiffly handed over the plain silver urn etched with her granddaughter's name.
Mozi had felt like an intruder when the gathered family of the late Captain Chiya broke down with grief as they received the vessel symbolically carrying her ashes. The sense of deep loss in their wails and sobs was unnerving because of how genuine it all was. To see grown, wet-eyed men - Chiya's cousins, if Mozi remembered right - holding each other up while Lady Miriya clutched the urn close to her and cried herself hoarse, to see how the whole clan mourned for their lost daughter…it wrenched Mozi's heart just as it spurred a guilty pang of envy.
Here was a noble family that truly, sincerely grieved as one. There were no forced tears, no false stoicness hiding smug satisfaction, no overacted theatrics.
Among the higher nobility, the behavior of the Fujima clan was almost an aberration.
Or perhaps it was a testament to the character of the captain. It was hard to hate Chiya Fujima, it was harder to view her with anything but respect.
Of all the officers in the 11th, Captain Chiya Fujima was quite possibly the only one who willingly took up her commission without any good reason to. She was not escaping the oppressive burden of family obligations like Mozi or Ren, nor was she fleeing some sort of scandal like Rufen or Sungho. She wasn't even escaping a heinous engagement like Ping.
Chiya served in the 11th because it was where she happened to be sent to, and she accepted the position with dutiful cheer rather than resignation.
Apparently, the late captain had even rejected multiple offers of reassignment when the officials in the War Ministry realized they'd actually randomly put her in the 11th.
The 11th didn't deserve her, just as she didn't deserve to be in the 11th.
It might be unfair, but the inability to recover her remains, more so than the other men and women who fell that day, stung like a great humiliation for the regiment.
Especially for Xing, Mozi could imagine, as he glanced at the young colonel who was doing his best to rub the redness in his eyes away.
Ren might have found him, and Kai might have offered the support only a brother can, but it was Chiya who nursed and raised Xing, Chiya who made him her responsibility, Chiya who cared more about Xing's safety rather than be excited about whatever new ploy he concocted. The two captains might fight over being his older sibling, but Chiya had undoubtedly been his mother.
"The clan would've gladly accommodated you for the evening."
Xing offered a weak smile as he replied. "I know. But I couldn't… I wouldn't last."
The major simply nodded at the excuse. The colonel was barely keeping himself together when he stood before the Fujima clan, he was probably at his limits.
Supposedly, when returning the dead to their family, the officer offering the urn should bawl their eyes out - the louder and tearier the cries, the more 'proper'. It was as much a show of grief as it was an act of superstition that - along with the incense burned for the symbolic ashes in the urn - would guide the spirit of the deceased back to their families, to look after them and find peace.
Xing had been almost completely silent throughout his encounter with Chiya's family, though considering he was just a boy, nobody would hold that against him. Besides, he was still recovering from his wounds. Mozi could very well imagine that if Xing did give in to his emotions, it might literally break his heart.
And the more cynical side of Mozi also suspected that the young colonel's stoicness was too trivial a scandal to make its rounds in the gossip of the nobility. He was, again, just a boy; Breaking down bawling would've been normal, expected and not as dramatic as grizzled old commanders bursting into tears out of regret.
The colonel gave another sniffle, dragging Mozi out of his dark thoughts. "So…it's the lieutenants after this?"
Accepting the change of topic, the major nodded curtly. Thankfully all the fallen officers of the 11th (those that came from noble or landed gentry families anyway) had family holdings within the main island, otherwise Xing insisting on following the custom of returning urns might see them spend months travelling from one Fire Nation island to another.
"We'll visit the Wai manor tomorrow morning, for lieutenants Yang-Sang and Koh-Sing."
Xing gave a sigh, his composure threatening to crack again. "Hopefully they'd finally be forgiven."
Mozi wanted to snort derisively at that. The cousins had sought refuge in military service for the crime of killing a noble scion. It didn't matter that said scion was attempting to force himself on Koh-Sing's sister, or that the Wai cousins were themselves goaded into a fight by the noble and his friends; what mattered was that the Wai clan was gentry, and a relatively new one at that, while the Liaos were an old name in the noble circles. The 'murder' had ruined business relations between the two clans, which was more important than the wellbeing of a young woman.
"If their families are that petty, then Yang-Sang and Koh-Sing are better off finding more deserving resting places," the major muttered with unintentional venom, thinking of his own family issues.
Xing hummed in agreement, and then sighed again. "Will we be able to get all of this done in time?"
The major took a second to make a rough calculation. "Assuming our visit with the Wai clan goes smoothly, we'll be able to return Lieutenant Hida to his family in the afternoon… Assuming that we don't have to travel beyond the Capital City, and we can keep it to two visits a day, we'll have ample time before the official mourning period ends."
Due to the necessities of war, the Fire Nation had instituted a hard limit on how long a regiment could wallow in grief. From what Mozi understood, it was an old tradition, long before the Fire Islands were united, and was brought back and enforced after the failed Southern Campaign to take Omashu.
Entire armies were swallowed by the earth or crushed under mountains thanks to the Mad King of Omashu. Almost an entire generation of the Fire Nation's best and brightest warriors were lost, and some noble families lost every male member as fathers and sons and cousins were buried together.
The Fire Lord Azulon was forced to enforce the grieving limits then to cut the funeral parades and wakes short to rebuild the gutted military and maintain control of the colonies. In time, the nobles found other ways to theatrically show of grief (and flaunt their influence), and soon the image of a stoic warrior immediately returning to the fight despite losing it all became a new trope in the plays.
The young colonel nodded. "If we have extra time, then we'll do what we can for Tsoh and the others whose families aren't within reach."
"Beyond sending letters."
Xing nodded again, more firmly this time. "They died salvaging what they could, buying us all time. They were still officers, their families still deserve more than just the barest formalities of an apology and a widow's pension."
"We can discuss this with the others," Mozi offered. "Perhaps something can be arranged, like having the captains take over the meetings, so you can continue with your duties."
The major hardened his voice a little as he saw Xing start to frown. "You cannot do this all by yourself, Xing." And then Mozi sighed, and with a softer, more sympathetic tone said, "It is not your fault. Nobody is blaming you."
"But if-"
Mozi held up a hand to cut off the boy's trembling response. "You were barely alive. That's Shiluo's fault, too." The bastard's name was spat out with unconscious disgust. "If he hadn't committed the idiocy of flogging you, then maybe things might have changed for the better. If he had the sense to listen to any advice at all, we wouldn't be here in the first place."
With a sigh, Mozi leaned forward and placed a reassuring hand on Xing's shoulder. "You were not too late to aid us, nor were you in the wrong in any way for how Tai Plains turned out." You're just a boy, he didn't add. Xing disliked that insult. "It is not your fault."
The major held the gaze of his colonel for several seconds before the latter finally gave a weak nod. "It still doesn't feel like it…"
Mozi didn't know what to say to that, and on impulse he wished Chiya was here because she'd probably know the right words to calm the boy who'd been adopted by the 11th.