Dragonfire | Mako

TWENTY-SIX

It took them two more days to see the city of Omashu in the horizon. It was a barren landscape, unhospitable at first sight. Huge, bare rocks rose from the ground as if they dull glaciers, the sun unrelenting, no sight of shade in the distance. Kaida closed her eyes as she soaked the morning sun, paying no heed to Bolin's gasps for water and Asami's quiet giggles. Mako's distressed sigh brought her to open an eye only to catch sight of him tossing Bolin a flask with water. Bolin drank as if he had been stranded in the desert.

"Guys," Korra called out from her position on the bison's head. She briefly glanced back, her expression serious as she met Kaida's gaze. "We're here."

Kaida slowly moved to the front of the sky bison, right behind Korra, and looked below her. Thousands of tents were seen in the distance, little dots in the brown handkerchief that was the soil, some of them green, others blue and some scarlet. Slowly, her eyes moved over to the city of Omashu that just appeared in the distance.

It was a fortress of rocks, she realised at once, a city that matched the reputation of the Earth Kingdom's unbreakable walls. From the stories she had heard - and they were many - she thought after Ba Sing Se, the unpenetratable city, and after the relatively newly formed city of Zaofu, Omashu was the third most secure place in the Kingdom. Now she was close, she realised taking Iroh out of there would prove to be even trickier than she had expected.

"Let's land in the edge of the camp. We'll find our way from there."

Korra nodded and Kaida returned to her seat beside Mako, her features void of any emotion as she looked at the saddle, paying no heed to the wind blowing her hair to the side, tangling it up.

The sun didn't seem all that warm anymore and the sounds her friends made seemed distant as fear crawled in the back of her mind, filling her thoughts with doubt and reminding her of all the possible ways this could go wrong. Toph's insistence Iroh could survive for a while longer had brought her hope up until a few minutes ago, but now she saw the city, despair started to claw her chest and a pit formed in her stomach as she realised there was a chance they wouldn't manage to infiltrate such a city in time for them to take out Iroh safely.

She felt sick. The possibility one of them would die in the effort to get in the city, that Iroh would already be dead or having one of them die on their way back to the camp was suddenly pretty real, even though she had thought of the results of her actions plenty of times before. She had thought she had the courage to face that fear. It appeared as if she had been wrong.

In Omashu, with their lives in line, she knew she wouldn't have much of a choice. There would no longer be a moment she could think of what she was doing. She would have to try her best, step over the bodies of her enemies if she had to in order to get her friends, her brother, her brother's men and herself out of that city safely.

It was time for her to act the way her grandfather's sister would.

A warm hand placed on her shoulder shook her out of her thoughts and slightly startled, Kaida looked up, not all that surprised to see Mako peering over at her, bright eyes clouded with worry. In an effort to reassure him she sent him a smile and reached up, pressing a kiss on his cheek.

"I'm fine," she murmured, resisting the urge to scoot closer to him and tell him all about her doubts and worries. His worry didn't seem to falter but before he could say a word, Kaida felt the sky bison come to a stop. With a nod to herself, she got off. She was the first to reach the ground.

"Follow my lead this time," she told her friends as she rolled her shoulders and raised her chin, schooling her features into a blank mask. Then she walked off as if she owned the place. Her friends exchanged a look behind her back but nevertheless followed after her.