Soldier's Boy

Fourteen

They'd been sitting there for a half-hour, maybe longer, when Appa, accompanied by Aang and the others, and a few strangers wearing what looked like clothing made entirely out of leaves, crashed into their little clearing.  The noise alerted Kouji before anything else, and he'd bounced to his feet in front of Zu— of Lee, hands up in a fighting stance.

"There you are," Katara said, relieved, jumping down off of Appa and running over to hug the two boys.

"K-Katara!" cried Kouji, clinging desperately to her.

"What happened? Are you two okay?" she spilled over, clinging back. Lee remained where he was, hugging his knees to his chest and trying to get a little more under control.

"I'm fine, but — but Lee…"  He'd almost slipped.  He'd have to watch himself more carefully.

She let go and went over to the older boy. "Lee?" she asked quietly.

"Y-yeah?"

"Want to talk about it?"

He shook his head. "Can we leave now?"

She hesitated, biting her lip. "I think we're going to have dinner first — those guys are waterbenders, here in the swamp, and—"

"Okay. Okay, it's okay," he cut her off, standing up.  Kouji hurried to his side and very decisively took the older boy's hand.  Looking at them just then, it was hard to tell who was truly the elder brother at the moment, height and age aside.

Lee squeezed his hand and managed a shaky smile, trying to reassure him that he was all right now.  Kouji clearly didn't believe that, but didn't argue.  Katara hugged them each one more time, then they all climbed back onto Appa. The swampbenders told them how to find their village, and they settled in for dinner. Lee, still more agitated than he was letting on, didn't eat anything; Kouji merely picked at his food and refused to be separated from Lee for more than a few minutes at a stretch.

Sokka, meanwhile, argued with Katara and Aang about whether or not their visions had actually been anything supernatural.  "Wait," said Kouji, looking up.  "You said the swamp showed you people you lost?"

Sokka and Katara nodded, but Aang shook his head. "I saw someone I haven't met yet."

"I didn't see anything," the boy admitted.  "But Lee…"  He glanced over at his brother, who just stared down at the giant cooked bug he'd been handed, not eating it.  Kouji turned back to the others.  "I… I think the swamp showed him me.   Dead."

"Other things, too," Lee said, dully. "And can we not talk about it? Please?"

"Sorry," the boy said softly.

The others were silent for a long minute, then Sokka loudly and awkwardly changed the subject.  Kouji simply snuggled closer to Lee and closed his eyes.  Apparently, he fell asleep, because the next thing he knew, Lee was gently shaking him awake. "Time to leave," he said. It was light even here under the canopy, which meant it was probably midmorning at the earliest. It looked like Lee had stayed up all night.

"Good," Kouji replied softly, clambering to his feet.

Katara had a last minute note-comparing session with the swampbenders, then they got underway.

"So, now where are we going?" the boy wanted to know.

"To try and look for the girl Aang saw," Sokka said, sharpening his machete.

"What's the plan, then?  To look from village to village until we find her?" Kouji asked him.  "It's a big world.  That could take the whole year!"

"What else can we do?" Aang asked. "She's supposed to teach me earthbending."

Kouji sighed.  "Yeah, guess so.  Not like we have to rush or anything."

"Well, actually…" Sokka said.

The boy gave Sokka a withering look.

"There's this comet coming at the end of next summer," Aang explained. "I have to beat the Firelord before it comes."

Kouji went utterly pale.  "S-Sozin's Comet returns this year!?"

"Yeah," Aang said. "So we're going to try and beat the Firelord before it shows up. For that, I need the exact right earthbending teacher, which is why I have to find that girl."

The shaken boy fell back against the supplies, still white.  "I won't let anyone hurt you," Lee said, quietly, hugging him gently. "I promise."

"It isn't just me I'm worried about," he whispered.  "Ichiro… told me things.  Things we weren't supposed to know about.  Things he wasn't supposed to know about."

Lee started to ask, then stopped. Kouji probably didn't want to go into any more detail.  The boy drew his knees to his chest.  "We're not taught about what happened to the airbenders — at least, not the truth of it," he said quietly.  "And they watch us colony kids closely, to make sure we don't discover the truth."

Lee just nodded. "If you don't want to get into it, you don't have to." He had a feeling he knew where Kouji was headed with this, and it was likely to make Aang fly off the handle if he overheard.

Instead, Kouji skirted the issue.  "Ichiro managed to find out a lot of things we wouldn't know otherwise.  Especially about the… day the comet arrived."

"Like what?" Aang asked.

"Well and apart from the comet enhancing firebending," said Kouji, picking his words carefully, "the invaders had… help."

"…What do you mean?" Aang asked.

"There was a traitor among the Air Nomads," the boy said quietly.

Aang froze, knuckles going white on the reins. Katara, sensing danger, quickly crawled over the saddle to him to try and calm him down before he flipped out completely.  Nervous, Kouji slipped down and made himself as small as he could.  Maybe I shouldn't have told him that…  Lee hugged him, saying nothing. Katara managed to calm Aang down, and they spent the rest of the day in an uncomfortable silence.

Kouji didn't speak again until late that night, passing by Aang on his way to use a bush.  "Sorry," he mumbled.

"S'fine," Aang said, quietly, poking at the campfire.

*           *           *

Aang was something closer to his usual self when they got started the next morning. Lee looked tired again — he hadn't slept well.  Kouji, however, was still quiet and uncommunicative, speaking only in monosyllables when a grunt wouldn't do it for him.  The next few days passed in this way, with Lee unhappy and withdrawn, and Kouji quiet and uncommunicative. Then, one morning, they were woken up by four angry-looking men on komodo rhinos crashing out of the bushes to surround them. They barely managed to retrieve Katara's scrolls and Aang's staff and clamber up onto Appa in time to escape injury.

Predictably, Lee was the last to climb up, falling back onto his rear-guard habit.

"Words cannot express how much I hate those bastards," Kouji snarled as he flew away, the most he'd said at one time in the past four days.

"Who were they?" Aang asked, as Katara and Sokka argued over going back for the Water Tribe warrior's boomerang.

"Rough Rhinos," Lee explained. "Bounty hunters and wanderers who generally like to hit things. Also, they sing."

"Yui's better," Kouji said, crossing his arms over his chest and scowling.

"I'm sure she is," Katara said, soothingly, while Sokka sulked. "We need to stop and replace our food, we left it all behind."

Kouji treated them to random grumblings the entire way.

They finally found a roadside stand, and stopped there. Aang tried to comfort Sokka about the loss of his boomerang and Lee watched the shadows to see if the Riders had somehow managed to find them, while Katara bought the food.  At the stand, Kouji finally shut up with his complaints about the Rough Rhinos, instead choosing to hang out on top of Appa.

The shopkeeper told them to have a nice Avatar Day as they started to head off.

"Avatar Day?" Aang asked, perking up.

"You guys are going to the festival, right?" the man asked, shutting up his stand and starting down the road to what was presumably a town.

"Another festival?" Kouji said doubtfully.

"Somehow, I doubt this is going to turn out the way you think it is," Lee muttered in Aang's general direction.

"Come on!" Aang said, gleefully. "It's Avatar Day! It'll be fun!"

"Aang, remember the last festival you were at?" Kouji pointed out.

"Yeah, but this is an Earth Kingdom festival," Katara pointed out. "Less likely to involve people who want us arrested or worse."

"If there's even the slightest hint that fire may be involved, I'm sitting this one out," the boy retorted.

"That's your choice," Aang said, shrugging. "Come on, let's go!"

Unfortunately for the pyrophobic earthbender, the hints about whether or not fire would be involved didn't come until they were already there and the festival had started. Three giant wicker statues were wheeled out, one of Avatar Kyoshi, one of Avatar Roku, and one of Aang.

All three were burned as the crowd jeered.

Kouji yelped and clung to Lee, hiding his face and trying not to tremble.  Lee hugged him tightly, then started gently drawing him away, behind the crowd as Katara ran into the square and put the fires out.

"Hey! That party pooper's ruining Avatar Day!" someone from the crowed called out sulkily.

"Good," mumbled Kouji, still clinging tightly to his brother.

Aang jumped up onto his own effigy and shouted back. "That party pooper's my friend!"

"It's the Avatar himself!" a man whose clothing was a cut above the others' shouted, pointing up at him.

"He's going to kill us with his awesome Avatar powers!" another shouted.

Sheer stupidity, alas, was not enough to cut through Kouji's terror, though he was at least starting to calm down.

Aang was insisting he wasn't, but a couple of people in the crowd were already running.

"I suggest you leave," the well-dressed man said. "You're not welcome here, Avatar."

"Why not?" Katara asked. "Aang helps people!"

"It's true," the Avatar replied, jumping down from his statue. "I'm on your side."

"I find that hard to swallow," Well-Dressed said, sniffing. "Considering what you did to us in your past life! It was Avatar Kyoshi! She murdered our glorious leader, Chin the Great."

"You think that I…murdered someone?" Aang asked.

"We used to be a great society before you killed our leader," an old man said. "Now look at us!"

"Aang would never do something like that," Katara insisted. "No Avatar would! And it's not fair for you all to question his honour!"

"Let's tell her what we think of the Avatar's honour!" one of the other men in the crowd shouted, tapping his rear end.

Lee, in the background, was torn. He knew how unruly mobs could get, and this one was fired up enough already (no pun intended). Should he leave with Kouji, or stick around to help the others out?

"I'll go get on Appa," said Kouji quietly.  "I'm dead weight now."

"Want me to walk with you?" Lee whispered back, keeping an eye on the mob but not really paying attention to the words anymore.

"I think I can do it on my own," the boy replied, edging away.

"Okay," Lee said, just as Aang agreed to stand trial for what Kyoshi had allegedly done.

Unnoticed by the mob, Kouji backed to the edge of the town, then bolted for the flying bison, propelling himself onto Appa's back with a pillar of earth under his feet.  "Hey, boy," he said, relieved.  Appa moaned a greeting.

Lee joined him there a half-hour later. "Apparently, they won't accept Water Tribe money for Aang's bail," he said, exasperated. "So he's sitting in jail. Sokka and Katara are investigating."

"Don't we have any Earth Kingdom funds?" Kouji asked curiously.  "Not accepting Water Tribe money is definitely an obstruction tactic; that vendor accepted it happily earlier."

Lee shook his head. "Just the money Pakku gave us."

The boy sighed.  "Of course.  It couldn't be that easy."

"Nope. The Irony Gods hate us."

"I can't believe he's putting up with that," Kouji muttered.  "He's not responsible for his past lives!"

"He said something about not being able to save the world if people think he's a murderer," Lee explained.

"…what?"

"That's what he said."

"Of all the—"  Kouji made vague strangling motions.

Lee shrugged. "The hearing will be tomorrow, so it's not like it'll take up too much time."

"This is ridiculous."

"No kidding," the older boy muttered, as Sokka and Katara came running up.

"We need to go to Kyoshi Island, get their side of the story," Sokka said, importantly, wearing a very silly hat.

"…where did you get the deerharestalker?" Kouji asked him.

"Never mind that," Katara said, as she and her brother climbed onto Appa. "Just let him indulge in his Dramatic Moment."

"Hey!"

"So what's the story so far?" Kouji asked.

"The temple was built at the same time as the statue of Chin they made after he died," Sokka informed the brothers.

"…and this means what for people who were not in on investigating?"

"That Kyoshi never went into the temple," Katara said, rolling her eyes. "It's a hole in the Mayor's story."

"Great.  What's the story?" Kouji repeated.

Katara filled Lee and Kouji in before Sokka could embellish it too much.

Kouji sighed.  "Fun."

About a half hour later, they landed on Kyoshi Island, and were immediately eagerly greeted by the townspeople, including one man who was so excited he literally started foaming at the mouth.  "…I think I'm going to stay up on Appa," Kouji said nervously.

"That's fine," Sokka said, as Katara explained to an irritated-looking little girl why Aang couldn't be there.

"I'll stay up here, too," Lee said, immediately.

"So," said Kouji to Lee once Katara and Sokka were down there.  "Bets that they've been here before?"

"I'm sure they have," Lee said. "That kid and the leader seem to know their names."

"I wonder what that story is…"

"We can ask on the way back to Stupidtown."

Kouji giggled.  "Stupidtown.  Best name ever."

Lee smiled a little. "Guess so."

Sokka and Katara rejoined them at that point, and hastily told the brothers all their new evidence. "So now we just fly back, tell the town, and get on our way!" Sokka said, grinning.

"Good," said Kouji.  "Let's get this farce over with."

Continued here.

Current Location: my bed
Current Mood: aggravated
Current Music: If You Were Gay - Avenue Q
Tags: au, avatar, fanfic, soldier's boy

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