99 A.G
Aang had thought being followed by the children of Kyoshi Island would be fun, and for a while it had been.
Once one of them had gathered enough courage to ask if he could really fly, the rest had surrounded him with questions. They wanted to see airbending tricks, then Momo, then Appa, then more airbending tricks, and every time Aang tried to excuse himself, another kid asked for just one more.
By the time he slipped behind one of the houses near the edge of the village, he was more tired than he expected. Momo landed on the roof above him with a stolen fruit in his paws, and Aang raised a finger to his lips.
The flying lemur stared at him, took a bite, and somehow the children rushing down the nearby road still failed to notice them. When their voices faded, Aang stepped out again and went looking for Katara.
The news Suki had given him had given him a lot to think about but he had delayed thinking much on it with the kids. Now though, he had to focus back on it. Omashu had fallen to the Fire Nation. So traveling there didn't seem like a good plan anymore.
He did not know much about what the city was like now, but he didn't think it would be very welcoming. He had wanted to stop there before going north, because it was familiar, and he had happy memories of the place.
He found Katara near the water, practicing with a wooden bowl she had filled from the shore. A thin stream rose between her hands, trembled for a few seconds, then splashed back down before she could shape it properly.
"You almost had it." Aang said.
Katara turned, then sighed when some of the water spilled over the rim. "Are you finally done playing around?"
"I guess so..."
Momo chattered from his shoulder, and Katara smiled gently. "I'm sorry, I just don't think we should stay in one place for very long. Getting comfortable like this doesn't feel right." she said.
Aang nodded. "Speaking about that… we cannot go to Omashu anymore.."
"Why?"
"Suki told me the Fire Nation controls the city, flying in on Appa would be a bad idea." Aang looked down at the bowl, watching the water settle. "I thought we could get some rest there, maybe hear what was happening in the Earth Kingdom, but if the city is indeed occupied, we need another plan."
Katara lowered her hands. "Then we find another place."
"That sounds easier when you say it."
"Well, the Earth Kingdom is quite huge. I'm sure we will find somewhere else the Fire Nation hasn't touched yet. We still have to go north." She said.
Aang nodded but he had no alternative yet really. Much like himself, Katara also needed a waterbending master, and the North Pole was still the only clear place they knew to find one.
They went to find Sokka and discovered him at the training ground, dressed in the green robes of the Kyoshi Warriors with his face painted white and red. He held a pair of fans while Suki corrected the angle of his arms, and he was trying so hard to look serious that Aang started laughing before he could stop himself.
Sokka turned toward them. "Don't."
Katara pressed her lips together. "We didn't say anything."
"You don't need to!"
"You look nice, brother."
"That is worse!"
Suki adjusted his stance with a calm expression. "Your knees are too high again."
"My knees are doing their best…" Sokka complained, lowering himself with a grimace. "Everything hurts. My arms hurt, my legs hurt, and I think my back is angry at me. This is the most intense training I have ever seen!"
Aang smiled, but he remembered why they had come quickly enough. "Sokka, we need to talk about Omashu."
Sokka's expression changed despite the paint. "Suki told me. I was going to bring it up after training."
"So you agree?" Katara asked.
"That we shouldn't fly into a Fire Nation occupied city? Yes, I agree with that." Sokka closed one of the fans. "We still need to plan where to stop to rest at times, and we still need a route north, but Omashu is definitely out."
Aang looked toward the village road. "Then we need another plan."
Shouting rose from the far side of the village before anyone could answer. The warriors stopped training at once, and several villagers ran past the open space with frightened faces. The elder arrived moments later, breathing hard.
"Fire Nation soldiers are marching toward the village, we need you out there." he said.
Suki looked at Aang immediately. "You need to hide."
"I can help." Aang said, quickly.
"If they came looking for you, showing yourself will make this worse." Suki said. "Let us speak to them first."
The elder nodded. "We will buy you time if we must, you have to leave, they cannot capture the Avatar now that he is back!"
"Wait, please… I… I want to apologize before I stop having the chance to do so. You are a great warrior, I'm sorry I saw you as just a girl." Sokka said to Suki, looking down.
"Sokka, I'm a warrior, but I'm also a girl. Thank you." Suki said, giving him a light peck on his cheek, then rushing out.
Aang did not like it, but Katara had already reached for his sleeve pulling him towards safety, and Sokka followed while still wearing the Kyoshi Warrior robes. They crouched behind a low wall near the storage buildings, close enough to hear the road and see part of the village entrance between the houses.
The Fire Nation soldiers entered atop Komodo Rhinos. At their front rode the burned teenager from the sanctuary, the same one who had chased Momo and seen Aang's arrow before they escaped.
He stopped before the elder and the Kyoshi Warriors. "I am Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation. I know you are hiding the Avatar. Give it to me and no one gets hurt."
Katara's hand tightened on Aang's sleeve.
The elder stood firm. "Kyoshi Island is neutral. We trade with the Fire Nation, we are partners, you cannot demand anything of us like this."
"You are protecting an enemy of my nation." roared Zuko
"There is no enemy here, he is already gone." Suki said.
Zuko's face tightened. "I know he is here."
"I assure you, he is already gone." Suki answered. "You have no reason to threaten this village."
For a few seconds, the road went quiet. Then Zuko raised his hand and sent a blast of fire toward the ground near the elder's feet. One of the warriors quickly grabbed him, taking him to a safe place in one of the houses.
The rest of the Kyoshi Warriors moved to engage them as they dismounted from their rhinos. Suki struck first, opening her fans as she forced one soldier back, blocking the fire and closing the distance.
The others followed her, quick and disciplined, meeting fire with steel fans, and sweeping strikes. The Fire Nation soldiers answered with flames, and the road filled with smoke and shouts as villagers fled toward the houses.
Aang watched from behind the wall, angry and guilty at the same time. A blast of fire caught the side of a house, and flames began climbing along the wood beneath the roof.
"We need to get to Appa, quickly!" Sokka whispered.
Katara pulled Aang's sleeve. "Come on."
They ran through the side paths toward the field where Appa waited. Momo clung to Aang's shoulder, and Sokka nearly tripped twice over the warrior robes before they reached the saddle.
"Yip yip!" Aang shouted.
Appa rose above the village. From the air, Aang could see the Kyoshi Warriors forcing the Fire Nation soldiers back toward the shore. They were holding them off, but some of the warriors were limping, and smoke rose from more than one roof.
Near the road, Zuko looked up and met Aang's eyes. Then he turned toward his soldiers, shouting for them to retreat and follow.
"Oh good, they are going to follow us then." Sokka said.
Aang kept looking at the burning houses, then at the water around the island where the Unagi moved beneath the surface.
"I can put out the fires before we leave."
Sokka stared at him. "Please tell me that does not involve something crazy."
Aang jumped from Appa above the sea, he vaguely heard Sokka say something about madness. As he went deeper he saw the giant creature swimming quickly his way. With the help of his air control he quickly evaded him, and Aang caught one of its long whiskers with both hands.
The Unagi burst from the water with a roar, thrashing beneath him, dragging him across the waves, but he used the wind to keep his grip and his feet guided its head back toward the village. The Unagi released a massive spray of water, trying to get him, and covered over the houses.
The rain from its spray drowned the flames beneath. The worst fires disappeared, leaving soaked wood and thin traces of smoke behind.
The Unagi twisted hard, and Aang let the movement throw him upward, back toward Appa, who promptly caught him, landing wet and breathless in the saddle while Katara grabbed the back of his shirt to keep him from sliding.
Sokka stared at him with smeared face paint. "Well, you really did get to ride a giant monster."
Aang smiled at him, although internally, he felt guilty. The village had come to danger because of him. It was clear to him that Katara was right, they couldn't stay in one place for very long.
The village was damaged, and he could see a Fire Nation ship close to the shore; he hoped they would just leave them alone and follow him. Aang stayed facing the island until the houses grew small behind them.
----0000----
Chin City was really progressing to become one of the biggest cities in the south of the continent, rivaling Gaoling and New Ozai eventually. Having contacted her brother Raizo, she had begun immigration plans from the other colonies, and expansion was rapidly taking place.
At the same time, her campaign toward Ba Sing Se was progressing here as well. The trains were ready, the supply logistical plans had been checked, and the next stop would be New Ozai, where the rest of the convoy would assemble before moving toward the front.
The occupied mountain city was already serving as a stronger anchor for the campaign than most of the officers had expected, although Lin suspected that said more about their lack of imagination than about the value of New Ozai itself.
Now she was facing another issue altogether. The problem was how to keep the food for a long campaign in the front. There were no problems with production, there was too much of it at the moment, and too many people were treating that as good news. The problem was how to keep the front supplied, especially when they moved inside the first ring of Ba Sing Se.
Lin had spent the morning reviewing storehouse reports, harvest projections, rail capacity, and expected consumption for the next months. The numbers looked favorable only if one ignored the seasonal change ahead.
Production would drop once the weather changed on the other side of the continent, and the army was too big at the moment to suffer food shortages. If they celebrated the current surplus without preparing for the later fall, they would create a shortage out of their own success.
It was an irritating sort of problem as it was something solved so easily in her past life. Salt preserved meat, but it was not enough. Drying and smoking helped, but both required time, space, and labor that would be needed elsewhere once the campaign widened.
Grain could be stored more easily, but vegetables, fish, and fresh meat spoiled too quickly near the rail lines, so she needed to find a way to create cold storage. A fridge was something that had come years before she was born already, and she didn't know exactly how it worked.
Her family engineers had received her notes on vapor-compressor refrigeration weeks ago, and the latest report had been honest enough to be disappointing. They couldn't find a way to make it small enough, and so far all of the experiments had failed in terms of cost and how well they operated.
The pressure changes damaged the piping faster than expected. Even when they managed to keep the machine running. Although the Fire Nation had managed to discover electricity and even now invented a small dynamo that could act as an electrical generator, it was still not good enough yet.
They had attached to the test engine a unit of the dynamo but it could not provide enough power for pressure and heat needed. The other issue is that she had no idea what her world had used to replace natural magnets. She was sure they were no longer being used by the time a fridge was sold commercially worldwide, but she had no clear idea.
Lin understood the concept well enough to explain what the machine was supposed to do, but not well enough to build one herself. Compress a working fluid, move heat away, allow expansion, draw heat from the storage space, then repeat the cycle.
The question was how to do that precisely and with the tools they had available. The dynamos were still too weak so it was another challenge as they had to then adapt a working prototype to a train.
The engineers were working on a solution but having only a concept was challenging for them. Besides, she was not that good in chemistry and physics, so she had no idea how to help at all. When the report began repeating the word promising, Lin folded it and put it away. They were probably years away then from a working solution for the front.
Thankfully she received a distraction to tackle that particular detail later. Toph came barreling down her office in her usual energetic way.
"Hey Metalsticks! You promised we would spend the day together today." she said.
Lin chuckled but nodded. "I suppose we can go for a walk first, I need a bit of air." she admitted.
"Oh that much I know, and I'm blind!"
"Dear me, it's that evident?" Lin asked.
"Yeah, it's in your voice. It gives tired Lin vibes."
"Alright, let's go."
The girl followed her toward the outskirts of the city. Lin liked this part of Chin, it had a lot of green and the air felt nice and cold. As they approached one of the gates, she saluted some of the guards and carried on.
"You know…" Toph said, walking beside her with both hands behind her head, "most people spend time together by doing something fun."
"Well, I think I needed a bit of relaxing first before doing something fun."
"That is not fun."
"You are right, what do you have in mind?"
"We could challenge those gamblers again."
Lin looked down at her. "You constantly cheat them of their money, Toph. I believe they don't want to play with you anymore."
"They are a bunch of crybabies, they couldn't prove anything." Toph said, irritated. "Besides I buy nice food for them with that money."
"I guess we could play just the two of us."
Toph scowled. "You crushed the dice we had last time."
"I felt them move on their own, I was surprised."
Toph made a face. "I didn't move them."
Lin did not answer, mostly because Toph would treat any answer as permission to continue arguing. The blind girl walked with her usual careless confidence, bare feet finding every change in the road before it could trouble her.
She had been restless since the beach, and although she would not say she had felt excluded, she had complained about being left behind, and had to be pacified with the promise of having fun the two of them alone, to get back at Azula.
The princess did not mind it of course, she wanted to visit Mai now that she had arrived at New Ozai, so it fit perfectly, and she had gone ahead to wait for them there and catch up with her stoic friend.
They approached one of the village gates, where two soldiers were checking travel papers beside a low guard post. Beyond the gate, the road bent toward the fields and the smaller paths used by traders coming from the coast. Lin was about to continue past when she noticed three teenagers standing near the checkpoint.
They wore travel packs and Water Tribe blue outfits. The oldest boy's hand hovered near the weapon at his side, it looked like a club, the girl beside him was nervous and was anxiously angling her body to the side for some reason.
The youngest wore a hood over his head, and held a staff in both hands. It was him that had found her staring first. His face turned to that of fear, something that Lin was used to by now, there were so many rumors going around about her, that a few people who came to visit would flee randomly upon seeing her.
For a moment, Lin simply studied them. Three Water Tribe teenagers had walked into Chin City at the same time she was trying to solve a supply problem that would be easier with access to southern ice and maybe, if she played her cards right, their labor.
They looked too young to be soldiers, too poorly prepared to be spies, and too frightened to have come here expecting her. 'This looks like a miracle sent just for me.' she thought.
Toph tilted her head. "Is something wrong?."
"Toph…There are three Water Tribe civilians at the gate."
Toph turned toward them with sudden interest. "Water Tribe? Here?"
"Yes."
"Awesome, new people, what's so special about that?"
"We have never seen Water Tribe citizens before, this is a great opportunity!"
"For what?"
"Something that will make me very happy if it works."
"Uhm, why?"
Lin started toward the gate before the soldiers could decide to handle the matter themselves. She needed to accommodate as best as possible. The guards at the gate would just scare them more.
"Toph." Lin said, keeping her voice low. "Hurry up and follow me."
"I'm already following you."
"Stay close."
She kept her pace steady, almost rushing to meet them, watching how the three teenagers reacted as she approached. The boy with the hood tightened his grip on the staff, and the Water Tribe girl's eyes followed Lin's metal arms for a second before her face showed how scared she was.
'Damn my body is a PR nightmare it seems.' she thought