Soldier's Boy

Seventeen

Around evening a day or two later, Kouji spotted what he thought was the perfect site and convinced Aang quickly that it was viable for earthbending.  While it would be too late to start practise that day, they'd still be able to make camp and start in the morning.

"Wow, you guys picked a great campsite," Toph said, once she'd jumped down. "The grass is so soft."

"That's not grass," Sokka said. "Appa's shedding."

"So is Fluffy," Kouji pointed out, brushing brown fur and white feathers from his shirt.

"Her name's not Fluffy," Lee said, exasperated, for what felt like the billionth time.

Kouji just grinned at him, settling the bunny-cygnet in his brother's hands.  "Not Fluffy, then."  She chirped, and wriggled out of Lee's hands to curl up on his shoulder and nuzzle his cheek.  "I'll leave her with you while—" Appa sneezed, covering them all in fur.  "—I get some firewood," Kouji finished as if he hadn't been interrupted.

"Fine," Lee muttered, totally not stroking the baby animal while going about his appointed tasks.

Laughing, Kouji flitted off into the woods to fetch the wood.  At Aang's insistence — and from pure common sense — Kouji only took that which lay on the ground, no longer of use to the tree and less inclined to smoke badly.  Night had fallen completely by the time he got back, and Toph and Katara were arguing. Loudly.

"…did I miss something?" Kouji asked Lee.

"Katara asked Toph to help set up camp. Toph insists she's carrying her own weight," Lee summarized, taking the firewood to start setting it up in the firepit he'd dug.

"Maybe Toph has my problem?" Kouji offered.

"She could at least help with the digging."

Kouji hesitated.  "…yeah, I guess.  She does have more control than I did the last time I tried."  He winced.

"Don't worry about it, we got all the dirt out of Appa's nose," Lee assured him. "And she definately has the control for it, she made her own tent out of rock."

The boy flushed pink, and then glanced over at the evidence.  "I guess so."

"Well, maybe Aang will talk her around, once Katara's done yelling." He stretched, wincing when his back cracked — under the coating of Appa-fur, the ground at tonight's campsite was actually fairly hard.

Kouji frowned, then knelt on the ground, placing his hands flat against it.  "I wonder if I could turn it to sand…"

"Save the experimenting 'til after you have a couple more lessons," Lee said, a little doubtfully. "The way you tire yourself out when you do serious bending, if you try now, you might not have enough energy tomorrow morning. Toph looks like she'll be a hard teacher."

"Yeah, you're right," Kouji replied.  "I'll just sleep on Appa."  He grinned at Lee.  "You too, niisan."

Lee started to object, reconsidered, then shrugged, wincing a little. "Yeah, okay."

Laughing, Kouji pulled him over to Appa's tail, where he made a small nest for himself of shed fur and curled up in it.

"I'm going to make dinner," Lee said, after setting up his own nest. "It's Katara's turn, but I don't trust her around fire and sharp objects when she's this annoyed."

Kouji sat up, his green shirt now white with fur.  "Can I help?"

Lee considered a minute. "I'll see what our supplies are. There might be something you can do."

"Okay!" said the boy eagerly.  He seemed to be outgrowing the clumsiness that had plagued him over the winter — or maybe it was the return of warmth that was helping him.  Unfortunately for Kouji, Zuko decided to make something fast rather than tailoring the meal so Kouji could help, and wasn't sure he wanted to risk letting Kouji help chop and skewer the kabobs he was making.

Sighing, Kouji flopped lightly back onto the nest he'd made on Appa's tail and rotated rocks over his hand.  The food was done in about twenty minutes. Lee passed it around and joined Kouji on Appa's tail with their shares.  Kouji lightly tossed his stones away and ate quickly.  "You're a good cook, Lee," he told his brother, smiling.

"My mom was our town's apothecary," he explained. "And since the doctor was really old, she did a lot of the emergency stuff, especially at night. So I had to learn."

Kouji nodded, leaning into Lee's side to try to comfort him.  If he hadn't met me, would he have gone back home? Kouji wondered.  And if he'd gone back, would Zhao have killed him, too?

Lee stared at his dinner, suddenly having no more interest in it. "You want the rest of this?"

"…Yeah."  He would save some in case Lee woke up hungry in the night.

Lee handed him the skewer, and stood up to try and stretch out some more, so he wouldn't be too stiff to move in the morning.   Kouji ate half, found a non-furred cloth, and wrapped the rest to save it.

*           *           *

Late that night, Toph suddenly roused the whole group. "There's something coming toward us!" she shouted, running out of her tent.

"Arglefraster!" yelped Kouji, leaping to his feet and looking around wildly.

Lee was already awake, and started grabbing all their essentials, while Aang asked Toph what it was, and Sokka derided her vague answer.

"No," said Kouji, now crouched as well.  "I feel it too."  He paled.  "It… it's like the tanks.  But bigger."

"Which is why we need to go," Lee snapped. He was still hurting, this was yet another night he'd been unable to sleep, and he had a sneaking suspicion of who was in that tank. "Get up here, I've already loaded the essentials, we can leave everything else."  Kouji nodded and ran up Appa's tail to get to the saddle.  In less than a minute, everyone was aboard and Appa had taken off. 

Sure enough, something was moving below them, trailing a heavy plume of thick black smoke.  Staring at it, Kouji moved to Lee's side and all but crawled into his shirt.  Lee, too, was shaken, and whispered, "Kouji, if that turns out to be those girls from Omashu, I want you to promise me you'll stay away from any fighting."

Startled, the boy turned to stare up at him.  "What?  But Lee—"

"Promise me," he insisted, several shades paler than normal.

"Lee, I can help fight, I—"

"This isn't a game, Kouji," Lee said, a little more sharply than he intended. "The main girl — the princess — she plays for keeps, and she will kill you, or worse. I want your word you'll stay away."

Kouji's breath caught in his throat.  "Worse?"  There were things worse than death?

"Promise me," Lee insisted for a third time.

"I promise," the boy whispered.

His brother visibly relaxed, and hugged him, tight, shaking a little.  Kouji hugged him back, wondering at Lee's obvious fear — fear of whoever was chasing them, especially the princess and her friends, and fear for him, the adopted colony brother.

After a couple hours of flight, they landed on a rocky mesa in a nearby mountain range.

"Land, sweet land!" Toph cried, practically falling off of Appa.

Kouji stayed where he was — he hadn't left Lee's arms since their quiet talk, and he wasn't sure he wanted to.

Katara and Toph started arguing again, when the older girl asked the younger to help unload.

As they did, the boy groaned.  "It's too late for this," he moaned.  Lee said nothing, watching over his shoulder for signs the tank had managed to follow them.  The argument below them escalated, and Kouji decided he would just sleep on the saddle.

Eventually, the shouting died down, and Sokka, Katara, Aang, and Toph set up their sleeping places and lay down.

Then the sniping started.

Lee and Toph cut it off at the same time, Toph feeling the tank coming and Lee seeing the smoke through the trees.

"This," said Kouji, staring at the thing, "is starting to become a bad case of déjà vu."

Without much further discussion, they scrambled back up onto Appa and took off again, Aang saying he would make sure they couldn't be followed this time.

After a short flight, they landed on a rocky mesa. Appa rolled over, depositing them all on the ground along with some of their supplies that hadn't been tied down quite tightly enough.

"Forget about setting up camp," Sokka mumbled, "I'm finding the softest pile of dirt and going to sleep."

"That's good," Katara said, sweetly. "Because Toph wasn't going to help anyway."

"Oh, I didn't realize Baby still needed someone to tuck her in bed," Toph shot back.

"Come on, guys," Aang said, wearily. "There's something after us, and we don't even know what, or who, it is."

"Yeah," Lee muttered, picking himself up and dusting himself off. "Shut up and sleep. I'll keep watch."

Katara sullenly shut her mouth and curled up.

Lee wandered over to the edge of their new campsite, and sat there, staring down, searching for the smoke.

Kouji rolled over and closed his eyes, letting sleep take him.

The next thing he knew, Lee had grabbed him and was carrying him back up onto Appa. Apparently, their pursuers had found them. They'd waited a few seconds to see who they were, then Toph had called up a large wall and now they were running again.

He blinked muzzily at his brother.  "So who is it?"

"Remember what you promised me," was all Lee said.

Kouji was wide-awake instantly and shaking.  Clinging to Lee, he nodded.  As they flew, Katara and Toph started arguing again, but this time over whether or not they should've stayed and tried to fight the girls off.

Kouji looked over at Toph and felt obliged to add on to Katara's point after mentioning the loss of her bending.  "And the knife girl poisons her blades."

Sokka cut off further conversation, noting the sun rising. "We've been up all night with no sleep," he complained.

"Sokka, we'll be okay," Aang said, wearily.

"Are you sure?! I've never not slept before! What if I fall asleep now and something h — "

Lee hit him. "Shut. Up."

Kouji just growled and burrowed under the supplies, as Katara pointed out that every time they landed the three girls found them.

"We can't keep flying forever," Aang pointed out, doubtfully.

"So we keep going as long as Appa holds up. When he can't fly anymore… well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Lee said, softly, pulling out his swords for the umpteenth time to check the edges.

Kouji mumbled something, but the blankets and bags burying him muffled his words.[1]  Lee, the only one who heard, flinched a little, and cut his palm open.

"So, what's the plan?" Aang asked.

"Don't know. Too tired to think," Toph mumbled.

"We'll come up with something after a short nap," Katara said, sleepily.

"Yes! Sleep!" Sokka added.

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