"Very well. We depart!" Azula ordered, and after stocking up on supplies, we set out southeast, skirting the Earth Kingdom fortresses along the coast.
A week-long journey to Omashu lay ahead of us—or even longer, if we happened to stumble into any "adventures" along the way. Speaking of adventures, it wasn't exactly a landmark event, but something memorable happened that very evening. It went like this:
"That's it for today. We'll make camp here," I ordered. "Dandan, take care of the lizards. Ju, dinner. Toph, camp."
"You're putting a little blind girl in charge of setting up camp?" The princess looked... bewildered, to put it mildly. "I can understand why you brought her along. The daughter of one of the Earth Kingdom's wealthiest men is certainly a valuable asset. But making her build the camp?"
The heir to the throne looked at me with a mixture of genuine "admiration" for my "inhuman cruelty" and more than a little doubt about the Fire Herald's sanity.
Meanwhile, Toph had already launched into her usual grumbling.
"Oh, sure. Whenever something fun comes up, it's 'Toph, don't go charging headfirst into danger.' Kind of a weird saying, by the way... But when it's boring, routine work, it's always 'Toph, camp'..." The little blind girl stamped her foot, raising a dozen simple stone shelters all at once—basically stone boxes, only missing one wall.
A couple more sweeping motions, and actual hinges appeared on the walls—even if they were made of stone. She clapped her hands, and stone doors rose out of the earth, their matching hinges already attached, floated through the air, and settled neatly into place. Then came the finishing touch: a quick scrape of her foot, and all the pits left behind merged into a respectable moat encircling the night's encampment—a fortress worthy of any paranoid dream.
"Done!" the little bandit declared proudly, lifting her chin.
"Thank you." I gave the girl a polite nod before turning toward Azula.
The princess was staring at the Blind Bandit with a completely vacant expression. Her mouth hung slightly open, and her face was the very picture of utter incomprehension.
Blast, who happened to be passing by, froze as well, glancing around the area with mild concern. A second later, the princess unconsciously mirrored the gesture, clearly expecting to see... something. Anything. But the Kyoshi Warriors carried on as though nothing unusual had happened, while a few had already begun claiming houses and carrying their belongings inside.
"Princess?" At my voice, Azula blinked and returned to something resembling reality.
"Chan," the Fire Lord's daughter began in an even tone, "do you have an earthbender in your unit?"
"Well, setting a few details aside... yes." I nodded.
"And she's loyal to the Fire Nation."
"Naturally." I nodded again.
"And... just how powerful is she?" the princess asked, forcing herself back onto more rational ground. "Judging by how effortlessly she built this camp..."
"She's a prodigy who was taught by the original earthbenders—the badgermoles." I shrugged.
"In terms of raw power and talent, she's the most gifted earthbender I've ever met." Meanwhile, said "prodigy" was making a tremendous effort to pretend she wasn't eavesdropping in the slightest. "Give her a little more experience and a better grasp of discipline, and she'd be priceless."
"You have some very unusual connections, Chan." The princess slowly shook her head. "An earthbender of that caliber who's loyal to the Fire Nation... I was already surprised by how closely the different peoples worked together in Yu Dao, but you..."
"Wow! They're real houses! There's even a bed in here!" Ty Lee called happily from outside one of the stone buildings she'd somehow managed to get inside before anyone noticed.
"Toph, you can do this?! You're amazing!" A whirlwind of pure positivity descended upon the little girl, swept her into a crushing hug, and spun her around merrily. Toph barely had time to let out an incoherent squeak.
"AAAAAH! Let me go!" A heartbeat later, the camp rang with her desperate cry, sending the Kyoshi Warriors into peals of laughter.
"You flatter me, Your Highness. I merely acted according to the circumstances and to the best of my abilities," I replied with a courteous smile, watching the thoroughly ruffled little girl struggle desperately to break free.
"You wouldn't happen to have any waterbenders among your friends too, would you?" Azula asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously, though judging by her tone, she wasn't exactly opposed to the idea.
"Well... there's one cantankerous old man I managed to convince to help our administration up at the North Pole, but I wouldn't exactly call him a friend. After all, I invaded his homeland and killed several dozen of his apprentices."
Modesty above all!
"Pakku, I assume?" the princess asked knowingly. "And you trust him?"
"Of course not!" I replied with mock indignation. "But he's no fool, and he loves his people. Besides, like most old men, he absolutely hates reversing his own decisions, so he'll be able to keep the hotheads from throwing their people away in a pointless confrontation. Fortunately, most of those hotheads have already been shipped out of the Northern Water Tribe."
"I see," the princess said in a perfectly neutral tone before shifting her attention back to the ongoing struggle between one adorable bundle of positivity and another's personal space…
***
Five days later.
"AAAAAH! Run! It's the Hera—"
THUD!
"My arm... my ar... ghk..." The caravan driver's suffering ended as a heavy heel crushed his throat.
"Run!" Two soldiers tried to flee. One caught a compact bolt between the shoulder blades from my hand crossbow. I was already lining up the second in my sights when—
"Let him go," Azula interrupted.
"Hm?"
"He's on foot. At best, it'll take him two days to reach his people," the princess explained.
"By then we'll already be gone, but word that the Herald has appeared in this region will force them to assign additional troops to guard their supply lines." She smiled faintly. "Especially if the news comes from the only survivor out of three caravans."
"Reasonable." I lowered my weapon. "Though that also means we need to leave this area as quickly as possible."
(End of Chapter)
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