The Outsider- Avatar Fanfic

Chapter 26 - Allusion or illusion?

I was up to my waist in shit.

Well, it may have not been literal shit, but you can never be too sure with swamps — particularly ones that for some reason decide to 'call' a certain Avatar to land in it. While a revelation such as this would have normally resulted in at least one raised eyebrow and a questioning look, considering the fact that I was talking with a mutant wolf pup telepathically, a swamp sending out messages didn't really amount to much. This world, as I'm sure you've noticed, is whacky as shit.

However, when a random tornado appeared out of the clear sky behind us, crashing into Appa and scattering us into the murky water below, I arrived to the conclusion that it was going to be one of those days. And so, the scene is now set for what is still one of the weirdest days of my life.

oOo

A continual stream of curses followed me as I moved between the dappled light of the murky trees, the thick water seeping into my trousers that had been so kindly given to me by the Northern Water Tribe. We had left a little under a week ago, much to the dismay of Chief Arnook and the rest of the Tribe. We were sad to leave, having grown comfortable among the ice of the North — I would even go so far as to admit missing Master Pakku's dry comments — but Aang needed an earthbending teacher. Incidentally, so did I. So, logically, we had travelled to Omashu to see King Bumi. I had felt a little uneasy at the thought of having to see the old man again, considering the extreme, even traumatic, events that had transpired last time we were there. However, as soon as we had arrived we discovered the mountain city overrun with the Fire Nation, so that idea promptly went out the window.

Before we'd left the North, I had passed by the holding cells filled with Fire Nation soldiers that hadn't been killed or frozen during the siege; bodies were still drifting to shore from the remains of the fleet Aang had destroyed. He had kept his eyes firmly on the horizon, not looking down at the ocean as we passed overhead, so as to avoid seeing the small red specks of Fire Nation bodies inevitably collecting on the shoreline.

Anyway. I had been passing by the holding cells, for no particular reason other than curiosity, when I had spied a familiar face. Lin, the young soldier on Zuko's ship that had danced with me on Music Night, was slouched in a tiny single cell. His previously bright, handsome face was dark from exhaustion, and I suspected the events of what must have been his first proper military combat was weighing on his mind. He was, after all, one of the lucky ones. He was still alive.

He still remembered me, his face even brightening a little when he saw my face. We talked for hours, the Water Tribe guards leaving us be. That had begun to happen more often after the events of the siege, as stories of the Avatar and his friends began to take hold; a look of quiet awe followed us wherever we went.

We talked about how he had ended up being transferred from Zuko's ship to Zhou's fleet, my bursts of laughter frequent and genuine. He was a born storyteller, with extravagant gestures and perfect timing, and for a while it felt like it was just me and him, two people enjoying each other's company. He sobered a little when he reached the part of him joining the siege fleet, and thinking he was going to die when he found out he was a part of the initial invasion wave.

'I was lucky,' he said with a shrug. 'Turned out the ones who stayed behind died instead.'

Lin expressed concern over his wellbeing as a prisoner of war, trying to mask his fear with dark humour. I assured him the Water Tribe didn't treat prisoners the same way as the Fire Nation did. He winced at that, looking apologetically over at me. He didn't actually say sorry, but I accepted it nonetheless. He was a good man, with a good heart. I wasn't so naive or bitter as to think that all Fire Nation citizens were inherently evil, he was just a young man conscripted into fighting for his country. But something told me that the siege had shown him, for the first time, what exactly it was that the Fire Nation was doing: tearing lives apart for the sake of insatiable world power.