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Chapter Text

It had been almost laughably easy. All she had done was dump the tiny vial into the old man’s evening tea and by the time his steward came to check on the horrible old fire newt in the morning, it would be too late.

Funny that. Ozai had scoffed at the idea of the poison, dismissing it as a woman’s weapon, the last resort of the weak and the helpless, for those who didn’t have the moral fiber to slip a dagger through a man’s ribs, but Ursa had found a dark sort of poetry in it.

How ironic, that the most powerful man in the world be killed by the innocent blue and purple flowers that climbed up his walls and decorated his meals, by the hand of a woman he saw as no more different from them. Pretty, sweet-smelling, ever agreeable, ever reaching for the sun just out of her grasp. Which is why he never suspected she would kill him.

She can’t stay, not here, not anymore. She’s not nieve, or stupid despite what all noblemen and advisors seem to think. She is the daughter of Jinzuk and Rina of Koi Island, Great-Granddaughter to Avatar Roku and Ta Min of the Caldera, Descendant of the Sun Dragon Emperor, part of a noble lineage that stretches out far beyond the unification of the islands.

Intrigue is in her blood, strategy is fused into the marrow of her bones. And there is no way, under Agni’s sun, that she can escape justice for what she’s done and still remain Princess Ursa of the Fire Nation.

Her bag is already packed and a thick gray traveling cloak hangs on a peg by the door. It’s the work of a moment to change into a practical, well-worn dress, wipe off any remaining traces of makeup and remove and store her jewelry in several small, hidden silk bags about her person, wrapping them in koala-wool to keep them from clinking. She lingers on the golden-flame hairpiece of her rank to long for her liking. True, it’s near-solid gold, and it’s a sale would most certainly bring her enough coin to set herself up for several lifetimes, not to mention she feels an odd juvenile thrill at the idea that she could steal a dynasty treasure from under the new Fire Lord’s very nose. On the other hand, it’s large, heavy and conspicuous. Even if she were to find some fence willing to take the risk, all it would take was one drunken word in the ear of the wrong person and she could kiss her chance at a new life goodbye.

Besides, Ursa thinks, looking around at the pitch-black room, the crown of the Fire Princess is Azula’s birthright, and Ursa wants her stubborn little girl to have something to remember her by after she’s gone.

The wrenching, freezing cold pit in her stomach at the thought of her babies sweet faces is expected, but no less painful. All night, she has been at war with herself, torn between the insane, foolish notion of grabbing both of them from their beds and fleeing like a thief in the night, and the reasoned but heartbreaking reality of leaving them behind. 

They will be safe here, the Princess says; Here, they are the future of the Nation, the revered Prince, and Princess. No one dares raise a hand to them, or put them in fear. They will never know the aching gnaw of hunger, or the sharp biting, sting of cold. Sickness can never claim them, discomfort never harries them. Here, they own the world. Zuko will one day rise to rule the largest empire since the fall of Hua the Conqueror, and Azula will no doubt run his military, or the royal court, or whatever else she so pleases. Here, they are the sun.

But they need me, the Mother weeps; Children need their mother. How can I abandon them here, in this place full of vipers that speak words sweet as honey? How can I protect them from the darkness that stalks them both like a predator? How will I teach them from an ocean away, how to laugh and cry and rage and love? How can I hold them, when their memories of me turn to dust that blows away in the wind?

The two sides found a compromise yesterday evening, as she was boiling the seeds to extract their fatal liquor. Nither half is pleased by the arrangement, which is why, of course, it is a good one.

Ursa shoulders her bag and, breathing a sigh that feels more like a sob, unlocks the secret door and slips into the walls of the palace.

Azula’s room is first. Her little girl sleeps in her usual manner, blankets kicked off and tangled at her feet, strands of her hair falling into her face, expression scrunched and sour as if even her dreams displease her. Her limbs splay outward like those of a dead starfish and she is very subtlety drooling on her pillow. The sight usually brings a smile to Ursa’s face, and a pang of loneliness as she remembers how she and Ozai used to laugh at the odd poses they would find their slumbering daughter in, back before everything went wrong.

“Like a road kill squirrel-toad.” Ozai had laughed one morning at breakfast, somehow far away and long ago, yet close enough to touch.

“She was halfway off the side of the bed. I had to catch her before she hit the ground!”

Now though, as she crosses over the creaking wooden floor as slowly as she dares to kneel beside the bed, it’s all Ursa can do not to cry. Reaching out, she smooths one of the stray ebony strands behind her daughter's ear and cups the round, plump cheek, just starting to lose the warmth of baby fat. She does not fear to wake her, Azula has slept like the dead since she was born. Lu Ten once joked that a dragon could fly over the palace and Azula STILL wouldn’t wake until she was good and ready.

The thought of her nephew, buried in some paupers grave outside of Ba Sing Se, hurts almost as much as the knowledge that she must soon leave this quiet room, with it’s singed toys and decapitated dolls, and her daughter, sleeping like an awkward porcelain statue within it all. Has she always looked so small? So breakable?

Azula, the child born screaming and fat at the height of summer after an easy pregnancy, the princess who the sages had proclaimed born under a lucky sign, ideal in every way. Ursa never had fussed about Azula, never sat up sleepless as a fever seized her little body, never needed to hold her hand as she explored a new place or met a new person. Azula, who skipped crawling all together in favor of pulling herself upright and forward by grasping on to whatever was at hand, who showed signs of fire before she was even weaned, whose first word was Zuko and whose first sentence was a garbled but recognizable passage from one of Ozai’s many books of strategy.

How could her smart, tough little girl suddenly look so fragile?

Because I’m leaving; a mournful voice inside her heart whispered, and with a choked sob, Ursa bent and placed one final kiss on her daughters scrunched brow before fleeing the soft, silent room.

Azula never even stirred.

Zuko’s room is just how she remembers it this morning.

That is to say, a mess.

Her sweet boy has yet to internalize the simple message she and the maids have been trying to drill into his head for years. That being, if he occasionally picked up and organized his room, his beloved Dao blades would stop wandering off without his permission. As would his calligraphy brushes. And his toy soldiers. And his stuffed komodo-rhino he swears he’s too old for.

Her son sleeps fitfully, and Ursa creeps as close as she dares to his bed. Zuko has been a light sleeper since a bout of fever had nearly stolen his life when he had been no more then four-months-old.

“Well, he’ll be a good lookout in any case...” Ozai had commented one dark night when Zuko’s squalling had roused both him and Ursa from their bed.

“Can you imagine? No Bone-chewer or Dirt-licker could ever sneak up on him! One of them BREATHES too loud and he’ll be up burning their ranks to a crisp before they ever knew what hit them!”

It had been funny at the time, both of them half-mad with lack of sleep and thick, soaking relief that their son had finally beaten the malady that had seemed so certain to end his young life before he could even crawl. Now, though, it was another bittersweet memory of a time that could never come back.

“Mom?”

Ursa started, her heart suddenly pounding like a taiko drum. Had she woken him? But she had been so careful! How had she-!

“Mom? Azula? Lu Ten?”

Oh. Oh. He was talking in his sleep. It was fine. It was all fine. She could still sneak away.

“Where are you going? Why do I have to stay here? Mom… Lu Ten… please, it’s dark. Lala’s scared of the dark Lu Ten, my fire isn’t strong enough. Mom? Mom, where are you going?”

Sweat had broken out on her son's brow, and his restless movement had become frantic and thrashing, twisting the bedcovers in white-knuckled hands, as the horror of his nightmare unfolds itself behind his tightly pinched eyelids.

“Mom! Mom, please! Don’t leave us! Don’t go with Lu Ten! Lala… I can’t protect Lala by myself… Mom?!”

Something in her soul bends, splinters, and breaks.

She does the one thing she promised herself she would not do.

She reaches out to hold her son.

His mother's hand on his shoulder wakes him. Dawn is just beginning to poke its golden fingers over the eastern horizon. 

“Mom?”

“Zuko. Please, my love, listen to me.”

She pulls him up by his shoulders and embraces him. She’s dressed in a rough grey traveling cloak that scratches his cheek, and she’s not put on her usual lilac perfume, but her hair still smells the same, like sun-soaked grass and something warm and sweet that’s uniquely her own.

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to protect you.”

He’s still mostly asleep, but he feels her start at… something. She unwraps her arms from around him and makes him look her in the eyes, face folded with worry and something else.

“Remember this Zuko; No matter how things seem to change, NEVER forget who you are.”

He doesn't stay a word, just stares at her. The light makes everything shadowy and blurred, like something from a dream, or a nightmare. He’s still not sure he’s even awake. Mother doesn't wait for an answer, just raises herself from his bedside and pulls cloaks hood up to cover her face. He blinks, once, twice before sleep overtakes him and he falls back onto his pillow. Perhaps his next dream will make more sense.

Chapter Text

The flight out of the inner city is a terrifying blur. She feels as if the whole world can read her shame, see her guilt as if it is spelled out in glowing calligraphy on the back of her cloak. She must STINK of nobility. She pulls the cloak tightly around herself and tries to hunch down, to fold herself away and out of notice, but the pale gray light of the new day is spreading throughout the city and it seems to be chasing her as surely as the royal guard will once the palace discovers her treason.

She buys the fastest mount she dares, a brown and black striped buffalo-boar for a truly exorbitant amount of money from a cranky old woman with thick brown hair and deep-set black eyes down at the livestock pens, trying all the while not to look too eager or stare out at the large number of departing fishing boats in the harbor, trying to remind herself that it’s too dangerous to charter a ship directly from the Caldera, and that the weeks she will have to spend with this smelly animal in the hot and buggy forests of her homeland will all be worth for the life of freedom she’ll earn on the other end.

If they don’t catch her, that is.

“How much would it take to persuade you that I was never here?”

The old woman looks her up and down with an appraising eye.

“One of those pretty baubles you’ve got hiding up your knickers.”

Her shock must show on her face, because the old woman cackles, showing a row of surprisingly white teeth.

“You think your the only noble girl that’s come through my pens looking for a fast way out of town? Please. Word of advice though. You want to get to wherever you're going, stop holding yourself up like the bloody Fire Lady whenever you talk to us “common folk.” And lose the fake accent. Sounds like a badger-frog with a stick shoved up its ass.”

Thoroughly humiliated and re-scared by the talk of Fire Ladies, Ursa tugs up her cloak and grabs the stamping animals reins from the woman's scarred, leathery hand.

As she rides out of the courtyard of pens, Ursa barely catches the old woman’s last words, so soft that Ursa’s not quite sure it was meant for her ears.

“I hope you make it missy, I really do. I’ve seen far too many executions in my time…”

She names the buffalo-boar Kenta, after the disagreeable captain of fathers old household guard. It’s a fitting name.

They’re both ill-tempered, bristly, heavily muscled and smell vaguely of rice vinegar.

But they are also dependable, solid and have impeccable instincts, like when Kenta the man deduced the route a would-be-assassin had taken to try and kill Father, or when Kenta the boar refused to swim across a muddy river, infuriating Ursa until she noticed some of the rain-soaked logs around it had golden EYES poking out at the top. She could swear her mount rolled his own at her stupidity.

The dry season has rendered the understory cool and dry, but she often has to jump down into a pile of crackling leaf matter to help her buffalo-boar fight her way through the massive tangle of vines and leaves that have sprouted since the rainy season ended two months ago, him with his massive, back-curving horns and sharp canine teeth, her with a light machete she stole from a coconut grove a few days back. She had felt so guilty about the theft she had circled back the next night to leave some payment for the farmer, much to the displeasure of Kenta and her own self-preservation instinct.

She’s kept off the roads, curving and doubling back on her own trail often, which, while effective at confusing any would-be pursuers make the days incredibly tiresome and long. She’s mostly given up on setting up a shelter at night, usually stumbling out of the saddle only long enough to stretch a rain tarp, make water and scarf down some dried meat and salted plums before collapsing against Kenta’s scratchy side to sleep.

When she dreams, which isn’t often, she sees her children.

Weeks pass in this manner. Her provisions run out at the beginning of the new month, and suddenly a good portion of her day is spent scoring the everything in the forest, from the canopy to leaf litter, for something to eat.

Some days she is lucky, like the morning she followed Kenta to an old, rotten stump and found it alive with bright orange lobster-crab mushrooms. She grilled them in a bed of bitter greens she found along the banks of a nearby stream and gathered more to dry on the flat rocks of her campsite before stringing them together with a piece of sturdy twine.

Other days, her stomach rumbles unhappily, and she looks on in envy as Kenta chews on the woody vines as if they are nothing more then bunches of rice noodles.

Slowly but surely the trees thin, the air cools and one day she finds herself driving Kenta’s great bulk over whispering grey-green grasses and bare, rocky outcroppings. She starts needing to wrap herself in extra layers to stay warm at night, snuggled down into the earthen hollow Kenta digs every night to shield his large girth from the worst of the prairie wind.

They find the road the same day they find the Two Brothers, the giant, cloud-capped volcanoes looming above the landscape like sentinels; which, according to legend, they are.

She stays on top of the hill Kenta climbed watching the brown ribbon of road and the puffs of dust kicked up behind trade caravans and farmers carts. It’s busy, of course, overland travel is easiest during the cool, dry months of autumn and winter when the roads are solid and the possibility of heatstroke passed. Isn’t that why she waited till two months after the end of the last summer rain to feed Azulon her deadly brew?

Kenta snuffles, shifting his weight from one leg to another. His warm breath has begun to form faint clouds in the air in the early dawn and late dusk, and his hairy hide has grown thicker and softer as he grows his winter coat. Ursa has been forced to cannibalize some of her clothes to line her boots and coat and has taken to hiding her hands in her long sleeves to shield them from the chill. This morning, when she woke, the grass outside her hollow was kissed with frost. She looks back down at the ribbon of road and turns Kenta back towards the savannah. A few more weeks.

She can wait a few more weeks.

In the end, it’s a week and a half before she’s forced onto the road and thus, back into civilization. She would have stayed away longer if she could have, but the closer they get to the Brothers, the steeper and more treacherous the terrain becomes, and, stubborn and solid as he is, Kenta is no puma-goat. After a particularly nerve-wracking accent up an incline that seems all loose dirt and slippery basalt, Ursa takes pity on her loyal buffalo-boar, and her rapidly fraying nerves and turns him back down toward the valley and, more damningly, the busy trade road below.

Despite everything, it’s a relief to get back on to flat, paved earth. Kenta’s gate picks up from a stolid plod to a jaunty walk, then a trot, then long paced canter and finally, an explosive gallop, accompanied by a clatter of cloven hooves and piggy squeals of joy. Ibex-camels spook, hippo-cows bellow, carters curse, and pedestrians jump into ditches to avoid the flying buffalo-boar. Ursa can’t bring herself to care. Hood whipped back from her head, wind stinging her eyes, cold chapping her cheeks and lips she throws her head to the sky and laughs.

She’s never been as free as she is right now.

Telur Naga is a bustling if rough town. Nestled at the foot of the larger volcano, Urkit, it is a mess of smelters and mining carts mixed in with jewelers, bladesmiths and other refiners of the mountain's bounty. It was also an important trade stop, a place for southern traders to swap bales of koala wool, casks of preserved fish and copper ore for lumber, silk, various plant fibers, rice, and vice versa.

All this Ursa learned from Jae-beom, a kind, excitable young man with thick brown hair that ran the Crimson Merganser, the inn she had acquired a room for on Telur Naga’s central plaza. Jae-Beom’s wife, a pretty petite woman by the name of Megumi, had been kind enough to draw her a blistering hot bath along with a creamy bar of hippo-tallow soap and even managed to find a worn but sturdy comb so that Ursa could at least make an attempt at brushing out the birds nest that was her hair. Kenta for his part seemed quite happy to sleep in a protected stable once again, and enjoy a steady diet of forage, rice mash, and sugar cane stalks. And the red banana’s Ursa found herself slipping him every night. She had grown quite fond of her grumpy buffalo-boar.

So, it seemed had Jae-Beom and Megumi’s sons’ Hiro and Beom-Seok, who had taken to clambering all over the bristly hide and hanging off the back-curving horns, much to Kenta’s exasperation. It made her heart ache to watch them, amber eyes sparkling with glee, crowding their mother around the stove, or pestering their father or the way Hiro always made sure to hold tight to Beom-Seok’s hand when their parents shooed out of the house to play with the other children and stop getting underfoot.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Indra.” Megumi had said, after shooing away her inquisitive offspring from Ursa’s table for the third time that morning and blowing a strand of black hair out of her face.

“I keep telling them not to bother the guests but they never listen to me!”

“I don’t mind,” Ursa said, smiling out the door the two little boys had retreated to.

“I have some of my own just like them. Well… had.” she said, trying to ignore the sharp stab of pain as she thought of Zuko's golden eyes and Azula’s incessant questions.

Megumi’s face fell in the sympathy of all mothers, especially ones who had lost a child.

“I’m so sorry. Consumption?”

Ursa nodded sadly, pushing down the pang of guilt that rose up in her belly at the lie.

Megumi’s face crumpled. “Us too. Took my little Ying Yu. Named after the late Fire Princess you know,” Megumi said, sighing and beginning to clear the breakfast dishes.

“She had the fattest little cheeks. And the most beautiful grey eyes…”

Ursa did not know what to say. Megumi swiped at her wet eyes with a thumb.

“Ah, well. Sorry, I still get weepy when I think about it. It was almost three years ago now.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Ursa said, tongue finally ungluing itself from the roof of her mouth as she reached out to squeeze Megumi’s arm.

“You’ll never stop missing your babies.”

You know that even better than me.

“But remembering the good things… It-it helps.”

I have to believe that, or else I’ll never recover from leaving them behind.

Megumi smiles, a bit damply and shifts some dishes to squeeze Ursa’s hand back.

“Thank you, Mrs. Indra. That means a lot to me.”

Ursa just squeezes her hand before letting her go about her chores.

Later, when a grateful Jae-Boom invites her to dine with the family and little Beom-Seok gorges himself silly on moon cakes and falls asleep in Ursa’s lap in the middle of a question about Komodo Rhinos, Ursa can almost believe it really is going to be alright.

She’s been in Telur Naga for two weeks when the soldiers arrive. At first, it’s not obvious, someone has clearly told them to keep a low profile because at first glance, they seem to be a simple trading caravan but little things just don’t add up.

Like the fact that the carts are pulled by dragon moose instead of the usual elephant-antelope or donkeydillo and the “scruffy sellswords” guarding the never fully unveiled cargo clearly have military training and their dark cloaks and scuffed boots are of VERY good lambswool and leather rather than the usual mino and geta.

They make the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end, and she’s not the only one.

“I hope they leave soon…” Megumi says the second day of the caravans visits coming in the door with Ursa’s dinner tray balanced expertly on her arm. She’s been bringing them up ever since Ursa pleaded illnesses in an attempt to avoid the mysterious caravan and despite Ursa knowing that Megumi almost certainly knows that she’s faking it, the other woman doesn’t pry, a fact that Ursa is extremely grateful for.

“They're scaring everyone. The market is practically a ghost town. Can’t blame them of course, they look like trade inspectors and Agni knows we’re not particularly vigilant about certain regulations. Still, it’s better then…”

She trails off and Ursa’s mind fills in the blank Megumi left unsaid. Recruitment officers. Otherwise known among the general populous as “Butchers” or “Bleeders.”

Legally, the minimum age required for military recruitment is eighteen, but that hasn’t stopped unscrupulous agents accepting children as young as thirteen into the ranks, or, in lower-class neighborhoods, impressing or kidnapping children as young as EIGHT to serve as messengers, army mechanics, and other, much darker things.

Ursa knows the war is necessary, understands the need for new blood and fresh soldiers out on the front, but… the idea of young children facing a wall of fully grown, ruthless Earthbenders or a bloodthirsty armada of Water tribesmen makes her stomach churn. As for the other things… well… Ursa supposes that evil is everywhere. That doesn’t mean she wants to accept it.

Suddenly her eyes widen and she sits up sharply almost spilling Megumi’s carefully-prepared tray.

“You’re boys, are they… I mean do they… do they understand what-”

“Hiro knows. Beom-Seok doesn’t and we intend to keep it that way for as long as we can, but it does mean he’s practically bouncing off the walls in frustration. He’s probably going to break in unannounced one of these days, so I’ll apologize in advance for that.”

Ursa feels her muscles unwind and forces herself to settle back into the pillows.

“It’s no trouble Megumi. Little children always chafe at staying still and better snooping around my room than trying to sneak out without permission.”

Megumi smiles a grateful if tired, smile.

“Thank you, Ms. Indra.”

“Just Indra, please. You’ve more than earned it.”

That gets her a brighter smile, and for a moment she sees her cousin Seina reflected back at her from ten years hence in Megumi’s dark brown eyes.”

“Alright then, Indra it is then. Get better soon, My boys miss you.”

I miss them too. Ursa wants to say.

Being with all of you is like being back on Ember Island with my family. She wants to say, but the words get lodged in her throat. All this kindness, all this warmth is built upon the fragile shoulders of Indra, the widow of Komodo Isle, a woman who doesn't exist and never will. Every smile she gives, every chore she helps with, every laugh that bubbles unbidden from her throat, is a lie, a necessary evil. Indra loves these people but Indra isn’t real. Ursa would love these people, but Ursa is dead.

“Sleep well.” the woman who used to be Ursa says.

The soldiers are looking for someone, or so Jae-Beom says the next morning over hot rice porridge. They don’t say so, directly anyway, but they have been asking a lot of questions about recent arrivals and scouring the local inns and taverns for someone. They even apparently searched the Governor's house, or so the cook's boy told him when he was out gathering ingredients for that night's dinner. The owner of the mysterious caravan has also a guest at the governor's house and that fact alone would be enough to make her hair stand on end.

“Who are they looking for Dad?” Hiro asked as his mother packed more rice into his bowl. Jae-Beom sighed, shaking his head.

“Rumor is its some nobleman's daughter who ran away from her wedding, but no one really knows for sure.”

“But why would she do that? Aren’t girls happy about getting married? Aunt May told me she wishes she could get married to Aunt Lu.” Beom-Seok asked looking up from his bowl, cheeks bulging outwards like a chipmunk-skunk.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Megumi chided, reaching out to wipe away a grain of rice from her youngest sons face even as he protested.

“And not all girls want to get married. And even if they do they will want to marry someone they love, instead of someone their father has picked out for them.”

“But didn’t Ojichan pick out Daddy for you? Did you not love him?!” Beom-Seok asked, a note of panic entering his voice, but his father just laughed.

“Well it’s true I had your Oji’s approval, your Mama actually made the decision. She’s a very pretty woman, and I was hardly the only man who wanted her hand.”

“And, happily, it worked out, considering you were the only one I wanted to give it to.” Megumi smiled, reaching out to squeeze Jae-Beom’s hand.

Watching them, Ursa felt an odd, bone-deep pang, a longing she’d almost forgotten. Was this what she and Ozai used to be like, back before everything went wrong? She shook her head, trying to dislodge the thought. Best not to dwell on it. Besides, Beom-Seok had asked another question.

“So this Lady doesn’t love her new husband?”

Jae-Beom sighed again, face lined with pity.

“I’m fairly certain, yes.”

Beom-Seok frowned and he said, with all the stolid certainty of a young child, “Well then, she shouldn’t have to marry him. It’s stupid to marry somebody you don’t love.”

The adults all exchanged a look, and Ursa sighed and lifted a hand to smooth back the young boy's hair.

“The world would be a much better place if more people believed that, Beom-Seok.”

Tomorrow. She must leave tomorrow. Early in the morning, when most people aren’t awake yet. The undercover soldiers were a clear and urgent sign she had overstayed her welcome. The rumor that they were looking for a young runaway bride instead of a murderous Fire Lady had helped some, but soon enough someone would put together that the recently arrived and apparently widowed lady and the cadre of noblewoman seeking soldiers together and then all hope would be lost.

She had spent the week quietly acquiring supplies. An oil lamp there, a bedroll here, not to mention the small pile of dried meats, sturdy fruits and vegetables and sacks of rice she’s been squirreling away since she first got here.

She’s been careful. She didn’t buy the lamp and the bedroll at the same stall for example and she’s waylaid suspicion about the great quantity of food she’s been buying by offering to run errands for the inn and chipping in a bit of her own money to hide an extra flat of jerky or another bag of onions among the pile of food it takes to run an inn like the Crimson Merganser, even if the unwelcome caravan has begun to scare off some of the travelers.

Even so, fear pricks at her as she wanders the stalls of the market, hood up and pulled low over her face, expecting at any moment that a great meaty hand will clamp over her wrist and she will be face to face with the sneer of some Imperial guard, bent on dragging her back to the Caldera to face execution.

“G’ morning Ms. Indra! Running some more errands for Meguimi again?”

Ursa smiles, plastering on the facade of Indra the widow and stepping up to the stall smartly.

“Good morning Ho-jun. How’s your granddaughter doing?”

The old man grimaces a little before his face takes on the slightly far away softness of all doting grandparents.

“Teething. I swear she’s got the makings of an opera singer the way she howls. And round as a moon peach. Sweet as one too, when she’s not keeping us all awake for hours on end. What's your pleasure?”

Laughing a bit in recognition, the woman known as Indra scanned the piles of produce on the cart.

“I always used licorice root for my little ones. Has your daughter-in-law tried that yet?” she asked, perusing the stacks of squash and yams and other products of the harvest bounty.

“No, not yet. Her mother swore by peeled ginger root rubbed over the gums. Do they chew it?”

“Yes, it’s sweet and numbs their gums. Soaking a cloth in catnip and camomile tea and partially freezing it works too. Oh, are those sand pears?”

“Freshly picked this morning! One copper for three. And thank you for the advice, poor Anong has been driving herself half-crazy. My Soo-ah has been trying to tell her and our In-suk it will all be alright, but you know young parents. Agni knows Soo-ah and I were a wreck with our first as well.”

“I’ll take a silver's worth. And we all are. Tell your family a say hello!”

“Thank you very much, Ms. Indra. Have a lovely day!”

And so it goes. Ursa moves between the stalls, mask firmly in place, haggling and chatting with the vendors and people she knows. She hasn't done this kind of thing since she was a girl and despite the threat of discovery, it feels oddly liberating.

When was the last time I actually shopped for food myself? ; Ursa wonders, bags laden with groceries draped across her body like banners.

Before I became engaged, surely. Spirits that must have been what? Going on fourteen years now? Yes, it must have been. After that, it was all preparations to become the Fire Prince’s wife. I forgot how fun it is!

“Ms. Indra! Ms. Indra!”

Startled from her thoughts, Ursa looks up to see the bright young face of Beom-Seok running towards her with a wide grin. He nearly collides with her legs in his enthusiasm, barely skidding to a halt in front of her.

“Careful!” Ursa chides, reaching out a free arm to steady him before looking around the nearly empty twilight streets.

“Where’s your mother? You know she wouldn't like you running off on your own, especially this late.”

The little boy's face takes on a guilty countenance.

“Umm… She’s at home…”

Ursas eyes narrowed in suspicion. Beom-Seok looked an awful lot like Zuko when he’d been caught doing something he shouldn't, like ruining his dinner with moon cakes or shirking his literature lessons to practice his swordplay.

“Beom-Seok… Do your parents know you're out here right now?”

The little boy scuffs his foot in the dirt, not quite meeting her eyes.

“Maybe?”

“That’s not a yes,” Ursa says sternly, looking out once again at the sunset painted streets.

“Where’s your brother? Is Hiro with you?”

“No…” Beom-Seok says sulkily, before bursting out with;

“It’s not fair! Why is he allowed to go outside and I’m not?!”

“He’s running errands for your father,” Ursa replies, relieved that Hiro is presumably tucked away safe at home.

“But I’m old enough to do all that stuff! And haha-ue won’t even let me go play outside the courtyard anymore! It’s so boring !” the little boy whines, stomping his foot at the unfairness of it all like Azula does when she thinks no one is paying attention to her.

Ursa sighs. This will take some doing.

“I’m sorry you feel that way Beom-Seok. And your right, it is unfair that your brother gets to go outside and you don’t.”

Beom-Seok sniffs in frustration, but his posture softens somewhat. Ursa smiles slightly, before schooling herself back to a stern countenance.

“ But , sneaking out without telling anyone where you’re going is not the way to change it. Your parents are probably worried sick about you! If you want to be trusted to go outside and run errands on your own, you have to show yourself as trustworthy and trust them to have your best interests at heart. Your parents have their reasons for keeping you inside and you are not proving yourself any by running away without telling anyone.”

The little shoulders slump and Beom-Seok sniffles again.

“...Sorry Mrs. Indra…”

Ursa sighs, but drops her stern tone.

“It’s not me you should be apologizing to. Come on. Help me carry these sand pears and I promise I’ll help you apologize to your parents.”

Another sniffle.

“Really?”

“Really. Now can you be a good little soldier and help me carry these groceries?”

The smile comes back, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud bank.

“Sure!”

Smiling, Ursa hands him the mesh bag full of sand pears. He takes it reverentially, like a sage receiving a piece of great knowledge and Ursa has to fight back a wide smile.

His reverence only lasts a few streets before he's back to his usual bubbly self, chattering excitedly about the big maple tree he climbed and his friends owl-cat that just had kittens.

“They're so soft! All fuzzy! And Akira’s mom said I could have one once they’re all grown up if my mommy agrees! I think I like the black one best, but Dad says calico ones are good luck and Akira’s owl-cat has two calico kittens but they’re both girls and I don’t know if I want a girl cat because then she might have kittens, and I really like kittens but Akira says that when they’re born they’re really gross and sticky and stuff and I don’t know if I want that-”

“Slow down!” Ursa laughs, calling out to him as he runs ahead of her, turning over his shoulder constantly to continue to talk to her.

“You're going to run into-”

It happens suddenly. One moment, Beom-Seok is running ahead, regaling her with his opinions on calico kittens, the next moment he's knocked onto his backside, dropped sand pears rolling out of the bag having smacked directly into a pair of legs.

“Watch where you're going squirt!” And angry male voice growls, and Beom-Seok, still partially stunned by his fall, flinches before his eyes begin to well up with tears. Ursa dashes toward him and kneels on the ground next to the little boy.

“Are you okay? Does anything hurt?”

Beom-Seok's lower lip is trembling with the effort of holding back unshed tears, but he still manages a resolute, if quick, shake of the head.

“Is he okay?! Little punk should watch where he’s going! I didn’t run into anyone’s shins like a charging rhino!”

“I’m very sorry sir , but-” The reprimand dies in Ursa’s throat, just before the breath freezes in her lungs.

Standing over the both of them is one of the undercover soldiers. And he looks murderous .

“This your son?!” The soldier demands. He’s a heavyset man, with thick arms and a round face. Perhaps he would be pleasant to look at, were his features not twisted with rage and all his ire not directed at a young boy who was simply doing what young boys do before they’ve learned better.

“My nephew.” Despite her panic, the lie slips out easily, and she instinctively pushes Beom-Seok behind her even as she ducks her head away from the man's face. The child's little hands grip her skirt tight as he hides his face in the small of her back.

“Well, he should have more manners than this ! These are new boots!” the soldier spits, face contorted like a demon mask. Ursa suppresses a shudder of fear

“Oh come off it, Daichi. He’s a little boy, and your boots are fine. It was an accident.” Another voice sighs and from the corner of her eye, Ursa sees two more soldiers behind the fuming giant. The one who spoke is older and skinny as a rake. He has a bow and a quiver of arrows slung across his back and an expression of exasperated disdain. The other one, a younger man with thick black hair that can’t be much older than twenty or so, steps up to her, a look of concern on his face.

“Is your nephew alright Mam?”

“Yes. A bruise or two, but nothing time can’t fix.” Ursa says, keeping her voice soft and her face fixed firmly on the cobblestones below them.

The young man sighs in relief.

“Thank goodness.”

“Is he alright?! What about me?! Little brat could have taken out my kneecaps!” the giant roars, glaring at Ursa’s skirts as if he’d like to roast the little boy behind them to a crisp.

“Oh, what do you want Daichi? You mommy to kiss it better?” The older man scoffs expression morphing into a condescending smirk. Ursa could swear she hears one of Daichi’s veins burst.

“You're not helping Preecha.” The younger man groans, raising a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Look, Daichi, there’s no harm done and you’ve scared the poor kid half to death as it is. Can’t you just let it go?”

“Not until the brat apologizes!” Daichi growls.

The younger man sighs under his breath and gives Ursa and apologetic look, gesturing at Beom-Seok.

“May I?”

Ursa can only nod. What else can she say?

The man crouches down on the paving stones, peering at the scared little boy behind Ursa.

“Hello there. I’m Hyousuke. What's your name?”

Beom-Seok clenches Ursa’s skirts tighter. The silence stretches out before he whispers, near inaudible;

“Beom-Seok.” 

The man smiles gently.

“Hello, Beom-Seok. Your pretty fast aren’t you? You were really moving when you ran into Daichi huh?”

“...I guess…”

“I know! You really scared him, ya know?”

There is a noise of derision from Daichi and a sharp laugh that Preecha tries to disguise as a cough, but Beom-Seok doesn’t seem to hear either of them.

“Really?” he asks dubiously.

“Mhm. You know sometimes when people get scared, they get angry to play off the fact that they were scared?”

“Like Hiro did when I showed him my pet tarantula I found under a flower pot in the courtyard?”

Ursa’s lips pinch tight. She’s seen Birdy the tarantula in his glass terrarium, and the large, bright blue spider was frightening enough as it was. She can’t imagine an enthusiastic Beom-Seok shoving the animal in her face without prior warning. Hyousuke just seems amused though.

“ Something like that yes. You think you can apologize to Daichi for scaring him?”

“Yeah, okay!”

Compared to a few minutes ago, the little boy seems almost chipper . He steps out from behind Ursa’s skirts and looks up at the towering Daichi, face full of genuine concern and apology.

“Sorry I scared you Daichi-sama. I’ll be more careful next time.”

Ursa is almost afraid Daichi is going to literally explode from anger, but he’s interrupted by a pointed yawn before he can stop gaping like a landed fish.

“Well. We’ve just extorted an apology from a little boy and a helpless woman. Wonderful. I certainly feel like a man now.” Preecha says, sending Daichi a thinly veiled look of disgust.

Even Daichi has the decency to blush with shame at the statement.

“S’ long as he doesn't do it again.” He mumbles, and stomps off, presumably to do manly things until he feels better.

Preecha rolls his eyes, making to follow him before glancing over at his compatriot.

“Hyou, you coming or what?”

Hyousuke straightens, looking strangely bashful of all things.

“I, um… I was going to ask Ms… I’m so sorry, I don’t think I got your name.”

“Indra,” Ursa tells the cobblestones not quite believing her luck.

“Ms. Indra if she would mind an escort home. To apologize for the trouble we caused.”

Well, that luck was short-lived.

“That really won’t be necessary, we can-” Ursa tries but Preecha cuts her off with a chuckle

“To apologize for the trouble. Right… Well, I suppose even a sparrow hawk can dream of flying with a phoenix. Good luck.”

Then he’s gone and a slightly flushed Hyousuke has turned back to her.

“May I take some of your bags, Ms. Indra?”

“I really do apologize for Daichi. He’s gotten a bit full of himself since the promotion.” Hyousuke sighs, shifting the weight of the daikons from one hand to another.

Ursa’s mind whirls. HOW did she get herself into this, walking back to the Crimson Merganser with an Imperial soldier?! And he’s carrying her groceries ?!

“Promotion?” She asks, keeping her eyes fixed on Beom-Seok, walking slightly ahead of both of them, smacking a stick he found against the trees on the side of the road.

“I wasn't aware hired muscle got promotions.” 

Hyousuke stiffens a bit, and then sighs, long and low.

“They don’t, as a rule. Look, I’m a shi- Bad liar, and it’s not as if the whole town doesn't know anyway. So yes, Daichi’s recent promotion to Sargent has got him feeling a little bit too big for his britches as of late.”

“So it’s true then. Your out here looking for someone.” Ursa presses. This is a dangerous line of inquiry, but if he hasn’t recognized her yet this might be an ideal time to find out some vital information.

“A runaway bride?”

Hyousuke scoffs, face falling in exasperation.

“Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that whoever it is is important, important enough that our commander apparently got his orders from the very top . Must be pretty scandalous though, if they won't even tell us grunts who it is we’re looking for.”

“Really? My goodness, that does sound strange! But… if you don’t even know what they look like why are there so many of you?” Ursa asks, biting the inside of her cheek to curb her eagerness.

“Escort, apparently. The commander and the captains have all been making inquiries apparently, but nothing has come of it yet. What about you? Do you live here in Telur Naga?”

“Just passing through,” Ursa replies, thanking Agni above that her elevated station of the princess has kept the majority of the Nation from intimately knowing her face.

“I was widowed a few months ago, and I’m staying with my sister and brother-in-law for a few weeks till I can get passage back home to Komodo Isle.”

“I’m so sorry. If I’d known-”

“But you couldn't have,” Ursa says allowing herself a warm but weary smile at the young soldier.

“It’s alright. I’ve come to terms with it. Though I’m not particularly looking forward to moving back in with my parents after all this time!” She laughs lightly. She can’t believe she’s getting away with this.

“Ah, yes. I can’t imagine that’s what you had planned.” Hyousuke says laughing slightly.

He clears his throat and reaches up his free hand to rub at the back of his neck.

“So… You’re not… What I mean to say is you’re… You’re not going back home to… Ahem, uh, what I mean to say is… You’re not currently… you're not promised?”

Ursa laughs at his awkwardness.

“No, Hyousuke, I’m not engaged. My husband's brothers are all married and there’s hardly a line at my father's door for his old widowed daughter. I’m afraid it’s back to the family compound for me!”

“I find that hard to believe…” Hyousuke says quietly, but Ursa just shakes her head.

“No, it’s quite alright. As I said, I’ve come to terms with it. Ah, this is us.”

The Crimson Merganser rises out of its gates like a sanctuary and despite herself, Ursa feels her steps quicken. Best not to try and push her luck for much longer. Beom-Seok has already run ahead, disappearing within the carved wooden gates and most likely into the relieved arms of his mother.

Ursa stops in front of them and takes the shopping bags back from Hyousuke.

“Thank you very much. Sorry to take you so far out of your way.”

“Oh, it was no trouble, no trouble at all. Komodo Isle, you said?”

“Oh! Yes, why?” Why is he so interested?

“Ah, right, I thought so. Umm…”

Why does he look so odd? Was it something she said? Oh gods, what if she gave herself away!?

“Well, Ms. Indra, it was lovely to meet you. Umm…”

Oh, spirits what is he aiming at?! Why does he drag it out so long?! If he’s going to capture her why doesn't he just do it already?!

“-I was hoping I could come to visit you sometime. Not right away, obviously! You’ve only been umm, unattached for a short while and I’ve got to finish up this tour of duty but, maybe, afterward? Would you be amenable to that?”

What in the world is he- 

Oh.

Oh my.

It’s been a while since this has happened.

Fourteen years, give or take.

Being persued by the Fire Prince tends to put off any other hopeful suitors, strangely enough.

Ursa feels a bit like someone hit her over the head with a heavy object of some sort, but manages to stutter out a slightly dazed;

“Perhaps?”

This seems to have been a satisfactory answer anyway, judging by the wide smile Hyousuke gives her.

“Right, well, uhh. Yes. I’ll see you- well not soon exactly, but presently? Have a lovely evening!”

“You too?” Ursa manages to get out and the young man manages to beam even brighter before setting off back towards… wherever he was going.

Still dazed, and more than a bit confused, Ursa walks back into the wooden gates, and smack into Megumi, who is grinning like the owl-cat that got the cream.

“So… anything interesting happen at the market today?” The other woman trills, looking for all the world like Ursa’s cousin Asami when she found out Ozai had paid Ursa a visit way back when.

“Nothing of note,” Ursa says, desperately trying to shut this conversation down before it starts.

“Mmhm. Well Nothing is quite handsome wouldn’t you say?”

“Megumi!”

“I’m just saying! You’re a pretty woman and you deserve a second chance!”

“He’s far too young for me.” Ursa finally manages before pushing past the laughing woman and up the stairs to her room.

And I DON’T deserve a second chance. Not after I left them behind.

“Are you sure I can’t convince you to stay a bit longer? I’m sure I could find some caravan willing to take you along to Komodo.” Jae-beom says, tightening the saddles belly band one last time.

Kenta huffs, nosing Ursa’s mittened hands for the final slice of red banana within them. The morning air is cold and clear, and the clouds above the volcanoes look like wisps of dragon beard candy above the bright eye of the rising sun.

“Thank you, but no. I’d like to get home before the winter snow really starts to sets in and I’ve waited long enough as it is.” Ursa says, feeding the treat to her loyal companion. Kenta grunts in satisfaction.

“Well, I can’t say you won’t be missed.” Jae-beom sighs, forming his hand into a step that Ursa uses to boost herself up into the saddle.

“Write some time, if you can. Megumi will want to hear from you and the boys will want to hear about the Komodo Rhinos I’d wager.”

Ursa smiles, hiding her sorrow and gathering Kenta’s reins in her hands.

“I’m sure I could manage that Jae-beom. Thank you for everything.”

“Oh, it was no trouble at all Mrs. Indra. Take care now.”

The woman known as Indra smiles in gratitude and clicks to her mount, who starts up a bouncy trot, waving over her shoulder at the innkeeper.

She makes it until past the city gates before she blows away like sea mist before the morning sun and the woman who used to be Princess Ursa, and now used to be Indra of Komodo Isle, nudges her buffalo-boar into a gallop, pulling away from Telur Naga and leaving the women she pretended to be behind like so many dropped flower petals.

Chapter Text

She takes the road more often than not these days.

The South Sea Byway is not very populated this time of year, the frosty breath of wind and drifts of snow carried from the South Pole scaring all but the most resolute of Northern travelers back towards the temperate forests and warm jungles around the equator. The fields of rice and stands of fruit trees gave way a long time ago, first to wheat and barley, then to cabbages and roots and now all that stretches on either side of the road are vast fields of grazing and the mining camps scattered around the bases of mountains like spider-ants scuttling about their colony.

Koala-sheep and elephant-antelope watch her passing with vague interest, looking up from their grazing with big liquid eyes before returning to their forage, with a grunt or a flick of an ear. Settlements are getting fewer and farther in between, and despite the ever-increasing chill in the air, she’s forced to camp more often than not. Now when she wakes in the morning, the top of her tent is dusted with a soft coating of midnight snow.

For almost a week she rides without seeing another living soul, save the milling livestock and the wandering tracks of wildlife in the fresh powder. Sea eagles call from their cliffs, squirrel-foxes stalk penguin-quail on their nests and a fine sea mist rolls in over the still green landscape in a salt scented fog.

Early one morning Ursa wakes to a rustling in the evergreen forest she’s camped in for the night to see a herd of saber skunk-deer browsing on the fallen pine cones and tender tips of the branches. The fawns that tag along at their mother's sides are nearly full-grown, baby spots faded and coalesced into the bright white stripes they will carry into adulthood, the little bucks shoving each other around with tiny button horns.

Zuko would love this.

The thought comes to her unbidden, and the force of the grief behind it slams into her chest like a charging rhino. The half-choked sob that escapes her startles the animals and they flee, tails flagging, leaping over the fallen brush.

One of the does waits for a heartbeat longer than the others, her buck fawn fidgeting at her side, until another fawn, a little doe, bursts out of the foliage where she had presumably been hidden from sight and the entire little family kicks up their heels and vanishes together into the rustling pines.

Ursa stares after their retreating forms long after they have vanished from her sight.

She sees the famous Komodo Rhinos before she ever sees Komodo Isle.

She’s seen them before of course but never like this. The colossal beasts are always heavily armored in black and gold over their thick gray hides, on parade for the Fire Lord or being loaded into the bellies of battleships to go serve as heavy cavalry at the front.

She’s certainly never seen a calf, or a yearling or even a milking cow, but she is startled from her sleep on a bright winter morning to see a truly enormous baby rhino peering at her with interest through the slats in the fence.

After she suppressed the scream of terror that fought to escape her mouth, (staring point-blank up at an unexpected Komodo rhino tended to do that to a person, even if said rhino was, in fact, a giant infant sporting an impressively thick milk mustache.) and after her heart rate calmed down to the point where she could make out the individual beats, she offered the baby a shaky smile.

“Hello there.” She managed, holding out a hand for the calf to sniff.

“You startled me!”

The enormous baby makes a joyful honking noise, pushing its warm leathery nose into her palm and searching for treats with an oddly prehensile and pointed upper lip. Ursa giggles, despite herself.

A low noise, like a faraway fog horn, reaches her eardrums and the baby lifts it’s absurdly large round ears before turning on its heel and galloping back up the paddock. Ursa follows his path and there, on a rise, is a truly giant cow rhino, another calf tucked against her side, lifting a huge horned head to issue another call to her wayward offspring. The calf almost skids into her, half-tripping over its own oversized feet and clipping its sibling, who honks in indignation and lowers its oversized head in mock challenge, which the calf accepts eagerly, butting the others head and lashing its tail in faux threat.

The cow, apparently satisfied by just having both her babies within her eye line, lowers her head and resumes cropping the lush green forage underneath their feet, making quiet, contented grunting sounds as the calves clash clumsily about her. One by one, more calves and cows emerge out of the early morning mist, odd lumps in the landscape shifting and standing up either to graze or nurse in the light of the morning sun. A group of yearlings mill off to the sides, puffing their chests, stomping their feet, lashing their long, whiplike tails and clashing with each other until someone takes it too far, at which point the formerly macho young bull goes running, honking all the while, back to the safety of his mother. That does make Ursa laugh, remembering her grandmother's exasperation at her grandson's antics.

“Be they fish or fowl or man or beast, nothing is a proud or as fragile as a young buck caught between maturity and childhood!” Oba-Kaede had told her one morning as Ursa’s boy cousins wrestled in the courtyard, alternating between adolescent arrogance and warbling, voice-cracked complaints of cheating.

“And the average husband too!” Aunt Hebe snarked and sent the whole lot of them into waves of shrieking laughter.

Ursa sits, watching the herd graze until Kenta grows restless and starts digging up the roots of the tree shes tethered him to in search of tubers and grubs and Ursa takes him back on the road to prevent him from getting the bright idea to wallow in his newly created bath.

She continues to watch the mothers and their calves, twisting back in the saddle to steal just one more glimpse until the entire herd disappears beyond a bank of evergreens and slides out of view.

Komodo Isle is connected to the mainland by a series of stone bridges that criss-cross from rocky outcrop to rocky outcrop, each one wide enough for a platoon of Komodo riders to cross shoulder to shoulder, not surprising considering the Islands main export is armor and rhinos for the ever gaping maw of the Fire Nation military.

The island itself is almost swallowed under a metal shell of shipyards, dry docks, warehouses, factories, and livestock pens. Smokestacks belch dark plumes of ash and embers in eye-stinging clouds blown inland by the persistent sea winds, and somewhere underneath the squat steel towers scattered about the coastline to mark their places, great undersea turbines turn to power the growling machines and ever hastening production lines.

The streets are packed with dirty people, soot and smoke clinging to their sweat-soaked bodies and sunk deep in their clothes. Most of the lower classes on the Northside of the island work in the factories, as smiths, welders and manual labor. The occasional electrician or runner ducks in and out of the crowd, the electricians marked by their shaded goggles and thick rubber gloves, the runners by their youth and black and gold armbands that distinguish them by the military unit or factory they serve under.

Despite the muck and smoke, however, there is a general air of merriment and good humor. Komodo is a military town, with military purpose and military comforts, but also a great deal of high paying jobs and a large population of well-paid laborers and soldiers more than willing to spend their hard-won copper and silver on providing good food, good drink, and good company. Heavily muscled men and women laugh and shove each other like overgrown schoolchildren, and in the fading light of dusk, the street is lit brightly with the warm light of lanterns that hung from the eaves of the many inns and izakaya that populate every street, who’s many ceilings ring with the sounds of song, laughter, and a great many people talking while also consuming large quantities of alcohol.

Ursa chooses one at random, an old but homey wooden structure with a profusion of blue and white banners and a very old, very fat, lion dog lying on a threadbare cushion in the entryway and wagging his curled tail at every visitor that comes through the door.

“Hey, Toshi. Big crowd tonight?” a passing laborer asks the little animal, reaching down to ruffle the fawn-colored ears. Toshi wags his little tail harder and gives the man a soft little yap of pleasure. The man laughs and slips the little dog a piece of blood sausage, which Toshi takes carefully in a nearly toothless mouth.

The interior is hot and crowded, the patinated wooden floors were worn smooth and bronze fixtures kept bright by hundreds of years of people passing in and out of its doors. The tables are crowded with people and the walkways between the tatami mats crowded with discarded boots and geta. A huge mural of a leaping koi fish takes up the majority of one wall and a set of brightly painted doors right behind the bar proudly displays two others, one black, one white, circling each other in the middle of a snowy pond. A young woman, her thick, wavy black hair pulled up in a bun that was falling into her odd grey-green eyes, approached Ursa, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Hello. You’ll be needin’ a room I imagine?”

Her southern accent was thick and harsh, but there was a slight undertone of something deeper and more musical than Ursa couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“Yes, please. And a stable for my buffalo-boar as well.”

The woman nodded, leaning around Ursa and peering out the open window at the hitching post where she had tied Kenta.

“We can do that. Tatsuo!”

A boy, no older than twelve whose golden brown complexion and round greenish eyes were so similar to the young woman that they could only be related, looked up from where he had been loading dirty dishware onto a tray, presumably to be taken back to the kitchen, with an expression of annoyance.

“What?!”

“Take this lady’s buffalo-boar back to the stables!”

“Kinda busy!” The boy yells back, indicating the carefully balanced tray of crockery as emphatically as he could without the whole thing crashing to the floor.

The woman's face scrunched in annoyance. “I didn't mean right now stupid! Take the buffalo-boar to the stable AFTER !”

“Take it yourself!” The boy shouts back, and an incident of bloody fratricide is only avoided by a young man in the uniform of an electrician getting up from his table with a placating smile at them both.

“I’ll do it Tsubaki. Least I can do for claiming a prime spot every week!”

The young woman flushes a pretty shade of pink at the young man’s smile. The boys face wrinkles in disgust and he pulls an exaggerated gagging face. The so-named Tsubaki shoots her little brother a dirty look before turning back to the young man, eyes shyly averted and fiddling with the hem of her apron.

“Are- are you sure Taka? It’s very nice of you, obviously! But really, Tatsuo really should do it-”

“HEY!” the boy shouts, affronted, but the two teenagers pay him no mind whatsoever.

“It’s no trouble Tsubaki. I’m happy to do it.”

The flush darkens, and now there is a matching pink stain spreading on the so-named Taka’s face.

Ursa coughs.

Pointedly.

As cute as this is, she’s been in the saddle since 6 this morning and is really looking forward to sleeping in an actual bed, for once.

The two teens start, both blushing deeply and ripping their eyes away from each other's faces. Tsubaki recovers first.

“So, uh, just the one room then?”

Her room at the Dragon Koi Inn , as Ursa learned the establishment is called, is cramped but cozy.

The small futon is draped in a pile of lambswool blankets and thick winter furs. The carved soapstone oil lamp on the small writing table casts a cheerful, warm orange glow. The walls are whitewashed and a small ink painting of a dragon koi hangs on the wall beside the door. The small window above the writing desk looks out over the modest courtyard garden, complete with what else; but a large stone pond with a school of dragon koi swimming in it. Their metallic scales and long, flowing tails sparkle in the chilly morning light.

Apparently, all the koi in the pond are all descended from only four fish, two gifted from South Sea traders and two either stolen from or gifted to the inn by Đào Mai Ly, the infamous female warlord of the Thousand State period. The South Sea traders had donated the blue and white fish, Đào Mai Ly the black, red, and gold ones.

All this Ursa learns from Tamiko, The Dragon Koi’s proprietor, the current matriarch, and mother of an extensive brood that includes not only Tsubaki and Tatsuo but SIX more children, all sons, ranging from full-grown and employed as a mechanic on the front (Thinnakorn) to a little less than five years old. (Tae-Hee) Her family has run the Dragon Koi Inn since the before the unification of the islands and she was the sixth matriarch in a row to be the sole proprietor.

“Great-great-great grandma Sango was married five times. First one drowned at sea, the second one ran off and got himself killed suppressing the Plum Blossom Revolt, the third one was caught messing around with a nobleman's daughter and got beheaded for it, fourth one was trampled by a rampaging hippo-bull and the fifth one just dropped dead in the middle of the wedding feast. After that, Great-Granny Sango decided to cut her losses and skip the whole marriage thing. I figure all those funerals were cutting into her bottom line. No woman of ours has gotten married since then.”

“But… you have children!” Ursa had exclaimed, feeling confused and more than a little out of her depth.

Tamiko had fixed her with a look .

“Now Hanako. I know you're old enough to know you don’t need a marriage to make babies happen.”

She had flashed Ursa a saucy grin and then proceeded to laugh uproariously as Ursa blushed and tried to hide her burning face in her breakfast.

Tamiko is a GIANT of a woman, taller than most of the men Ursa has ever met, with golden-brown skin and round, turquoise eyes that she has apparently passed to all of her children. Her arms are as thick Ursa’s waist and her very generous… endowments are barely hidden by a man's happi coat belted loosely over a light blue kimono and a pair of embroidered hakama trousers.

She’s also a lovely conversationalist and absolute fount of wisdom and charm, once you got past the unconventional dress and the shock of her large, boisterous personality. Which probably explains all the children. And the large number of lovesick men and women who seem all too eager to challenge her to tests of strength or skill, or simply moon over her figure from afar.

Ursa’s seen her flatten three huge rhino drovers in an impromptu wrestling contest and reduce five other patrons into quivering puddles of desire with just a smile or gentle touch on the arm.

And it’s not even noon yet.

“How much you want to bet your gonna have another little brother soon Tsubaki?” Ursa hears one of the younger waitresses tease. Tsubaki just rolls her eyes.

“Please. That’s not even a bet, that's an inevitability. If you want to make it interesting, at least bet on who’s going to be the father!”

“Three copper on that Minsu guy from the mainland!” One of the other waitresses chimed in, slapping the announced capital on the bar with a flourish.

“Five on Renjaan!”

“Eight on Yugoro!”

Ursa watched with a mix of dismay and morbid interest as the pile of copper and silver grew in size and a slate was pulled out from somewhere to record the bets, names, and money involved in each. Even Tomiko’s own children get involved, Tsubaki and three of her brothers slapping down five silver each on a man named Kojiro, a willowly gentleman with ink smears on his fingers and a hefty book that he keeps jotting notes in. Some of the other betters moan about cheating on the siblings part, but an older gentleman who apparently runs the kitchen shuts down any protest.

“Besides, if ya feel so bad about ya bet, ya can always slap down some more coin and make a new one.” the chef reasons.

It’s surreal. It gets even more so when Tomiko marches up to the bar to order everyone back to work only to wait until the coast is clear and make a bet on herself.

“Now THAT is cheating Ms. Tomiko.” the old man says, leaning on the bartop and raising an eyebrow in mock disapproval.

“Oh, what do you care Aki? Your the spirits damned bookie, you make money no matter what happens.”

“Not if people find out I’m letting you cook the books.”

“Alright, alright, you stingy old rhino. Put me down for Lạc Phúc and Kojiro as well as Guanyu. Not like I’ve decided one way or another yet anyway.”

“Now that I can do. Usual bet?”

Tomiko just smiles, reaching into her cleavage, pulling out a small silk purse and tossing it on the bartop.”

“Usual bet.”

“Excellent. Have a good day Miko-chan.”

“That’s Miko- san to you, you old tigerdillo!” Tamiko yells over her shoulder, but she laughing as she does it.

Ursa just stares into her soup.

She’s definitely not in the Caldera anymore.

Chapter Text

“The colonies?”

The old sailor raised a bushy grey eyebrow incredulously.

“Yes. Preferably to Dragons Point but anywhere along the Northeast coast would be fine.” Ursa replied, fiddling with Kenta’s reins uncertainly. The buffalo-boar nudges her side with his great tusked snout, his thick, warm furred side a reassuring weight leaning gently into her left side, shielding her from the worst of the chill.

The grey sailor appraises Kenta’s massive, thickly muscled form.

“Him too?”

“Yes,” Ursa says, grasping the reins firmly and reaching up to sink her hand into the bristly hide on the buffalo-boar’s shoulder.

She’s been grappling for three days now on whether to leave her loyal, if ornery, companion behind. There are many logical reasons to; He’s huge, requires a not-insignificant amount of upkeep, would be expensive to transport overseas and if anyone ever connects him to the Caldera pen she bought him from, there is a very real chance she could be discovered, but Ursa is sick of abandoning people, and her heart aches to imagine leaving the grumpy animal to his fate in some crowded stock pen.

Besides, she doubts that the colonies will be far enough to escape the Crown’s wrath. Better to keep the animal she’s already accustomed to rather than spending precious days seeking out and haggling over some new mount with her dwindling currency.

The man frowns and sucks on his teeth a bit.

“You sure? It’ll be hard enough finding passage for yourself as it is.”

“I’m sure,” Ursa says firmly, curling her hand into the tiger-striped fur and reaching up to scratch behind a nicked ear. Kenta grunts happily, leaning into the touch like an overgrown lapdog.

The sailor nods with a resigned sort of face, reaching up to pull restlessly at the slate-gray whiskers above his lip and sighs heavily.

“I’ll ask around for you Ms, but you sure picked a hel… a heck of a time to start looking for passage. Pretty much everyone is scrambling to get into the dry dock before the southern storms hit and those casting out have precious little space to spare. Unless you want to try and book passage on an Ironclad-”

“No!” The words come out a little too loud and a little too fast, but the old man just winces and nods in sympathetic understanding.

“-Of which I completely understand the hesitation for a lady of your caliber and… situation.” He said, delicately alluding to her apparently unattached and unaccompanied status with more tact then she had seen from some high ranking government officials,

“You are going to have few if any, options. I’ll ask around, but if I’m being honest your best bet is probably to wait for spring. Everything picks up around then, what with all the government contracts and army folk around doing business. Ms. Tomiko’s is a lovely place to spend the winter, and I’m sure the two of you could work out some sort of payment plan until you can get back to your brother’s place.”

Ursa’s grip on the reins became white-knuckle tight and she fought to suppress the fear roiling in her stomach.

“But you’ll try?”

The man winced a bit but managed a sympathetic smile.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“I did try and warn ya’, honey,” Tomiko said, giving her an apologetic look and sliding a cup of warm rice wine across the countertop. Ursa took it in numb hands and downed it in one go. Tomiko winced and refilled it.

“Koga wasn’t wrong though honey. You’re welcome to stay as long as ya’ want. We can figure something out. I could get free babysitting out of it if nothing else!”

She chuckled at her own weak half-joke, but Ursa was not in the mood to have her spirits lifted.

If only I WAS Hanako, the widow whose only worry is about her funds running out before she can secure passage back home ; Ursa mused, throwing back the cup full of wine and gesturing mutely for another.

Her problems are so much simpler …

Tomiko frowned as she refilled Ursa’s cup.

“This is the last one Hanako, then I’m cutting ya’ off. I know ya’ a grown woman, but you just threw back two cups of Komodos best like it was nothing, and I don’t need ya’ getting the bright idea to take a swim in the Koi pond.”

Despite her melancholy, Ursa barks out a laugh.

“Oh Agni, that’s happened? ”

Tomiko grimaces, but Ursa can tell she’s fighting a smile underneath it all.

“Oh, honey, ya’ have NO idea. Credit where credit is due though, I wouldn’t mind seeing you in your skivvies as much as I did seeing that old bastard, Chiba.”

Tomiko gives an exaggerated shudder.

“I do NOT recommend it. Wrinkles and saggy old man skin. Everywhere. I’m pretty sure poor Thảo is scarred for life. He’s the one that had to pull him out.”

Thảo is a quiet, self-effacing boy of sixteen, the exact opposite of his twin sister Tsubaki. Ursa winces in sympathy. The poor thing must have been mortified.

Tomiko nods, wiping down the bar top with a damp rag.

“Indeed. Tell ya what, you finish your drink, scoot ya’ cute little rear to the bathhouse and bed and tomorrow morning we can start working out some long term plans for you and that great big lug stinking up my stable. Sound good?”

Ursa tries to smile, but it comes out as more of a grimace. No, it does not sound good . 

For anyone else, absolutely. Tomiko, her staff and her brood have been more than accommodating this past couple of days. In normal circumstances, like, perhaps, if her cover story were true, The Dragon Koi would be a lovely place to pass the winter months. But she can’t .

Every day, her chance of discovery increases. Every hour, more rumors will escape the high walls of the Calderas Inner City and leak out to the general population. Every minute is another chance for some clever soldier or shopkeeper to put two and two together and discover they had recently had a conversation with a runaway Fire Lady. Every second is another chance that Ozai or one of his cronies will give up on subtlety in favor of efficiency and start posting out notices and offering rewards for her arrest.

She doubts she would get a single day in court. Too many witnesses, too many chances for her to spill the beans about the REAL story behind her father-in-law’s demise. Even if the courtiers and nobility don’t believe her, (or pretend not to, in any case.) others will always wonder and wondering is a dangerous thing for a new ruler.

No. She’d have a horrible accident of some kind, some fall or bandit attack or what have you. Oh, they’ll do all the appropriate things, extoll her virtues to the common folk all the while subtly hinting she was a deeply disturbed woman, and send condolence gifts to her family and hold a massive public funeral where Ozai will stand by solemnly looking appropriately bereaved and her children… Oh, Agni her children…

“...nako. Hanako!”

Tomiko’s voice jolts Ursa out of her self induced spiral and she frantically blinks away the terrified tears that have gathered at the inner corners of her eyes. Tomiko’s green-gray are aglow with worry, brows drawing together as she studies Ursa’s face. Ursa swallows down her panic and manages a mask of faux-disappointment and resignation.

“I’m terribly sorry Tomiko-san, I was lost in thought. What was it that you were saying?”

The brows creese tighter. Tomiko continues to study Ursa’s face, and Ursa fights the urge to squirm under her inspection.

“...I was just saying that I think a nice, long soak could do ya’ good, Hanako. There’s a lovely place down the street that I go to whenever I need some peace and quiet. Private rooms an’ everything. My treat. No, no I won’t hear any protest.” Tomiko said as Ursa began to voice her objections.

“The girls there know me so you just tell ‘em Tomiko sent ya’. Ask for the Willow Room. They’ll take good care of ya’.”

“Tomiko-” Ursa tried again, but Tomiko only waved her away.

“No excuses! Ya’ had a long, hard day and you deserve to be pampered a little. Just a little gift, one woman to another. I’ll not drop it till ya’ go.”

Ursa stared at Tomiko’s unflinching expression and stolid, uncompromising posture and gave up.

“...Thank you, Tomiko-san.”

The woman’s hard expression dropped, replaced by her usual, slightly flirtatious jovialness.

“Oh, it’s no problem hun!”

And, with a wink that spoke volumes, she smiled and said; “Besides. A gorgeous lady like you can call me Tomiko- chan .”

Ursa had to admit she felt slightly better about everything as she luxuriated in the steaming hot water. 

Sinking herself in up to her chin and gazing up at the bare swaying boughs of the weeping willows above her, she felt almost relaxed .

Apparently, the Willow Room was actually code for a luxury spa package at the Haibīsukasu Bathhouse that Tomiko had directed her toward. Ursa had spent a delightful few hours being massaged, groomed and having her nails done for the first time in nearly five months before being wrapped in a towel and gently shepherded into a private washroom where she could thoroughly bathe herself before stepping out for a soak in the outdoor onsen.

Trailing her newly manicured hand through the milky water lazily, Ursa’s eyes slid shut as she stretched like a catopus in a patch of sunlight. The cold winter air-kissed her exposed face and the wind blew scattered snowflakes down from the branches of the trees to dissolve in the warm air coming up from the spring.

Above her, the southern constellations twinkled, and as she picked out the half-forgotten shapes of them she felt as though she was greeting old friends after a long time apart...

“Come on! We’re gonna be late!”

“Stop running Vidya!” Mrs. Young-Hee calls out. Her pregnant belly juts out from underneath the skirt of her hanbok and she has one hand firmly planted in the small of her back as she walks. Sampaguita sticks close to her mother's side, holding her free hand firmly in her own in case her mother should lose her balance. Mother is fussing about her too.

“Honestly Young-Hee, you should have let me call you a palanquin, you shouldn't be walking in your condition!”

Mrs. Young-Hee waves Mother away, rolling her eyes fondly. 

“I swear Rina, sometimes you’re worse than my mother! I’ll be fine! It’s not a long walk and besides Taka would probably never let my feet touch the ground until the little one is born if he had his way. Allow me my precious few moments of freedom.”

“Come ON slowpokes! I can see the ship!” Vidya whines, running backwards to yell better and barely avoiding colliding with a butcher stall.

“Watch where you're going!” Mrs. Young-Hee yells after her, and Sampaguita darts away from her side to apologize to the poor sales clerk her twin almost ran over.

Ursa stifles her giggles and hitches up her the bottom of her new kimono to run after Vidya, giving a quick wave of acknowledgment to Mother’s warnings of caution.

“Finally! What took you so long?” Vidya asked, tapping her boot on the cobblestones.

“They’re almost here! Come on, I found a good spot for us to watch!”

With that, Vidya began to clamber up a retaining wall and up toward the roof of some building or other. Ursa followed much more slowly. 

She was in a kimono after all, and she didn’t want to get it dirty, not before Papa and Tadahisa had a chance to see it.

“Come ON Ursa! Your gonna miss it!” 

With one last heave, Ursa pulled herself onto the sun-warmed tiles of the roof. Vidya was standing on the very edge of the roof, scanning the blue horizon for the first sign of approaching ships.

“Where are they?” Ursa asked, squinting at the place where her friend was pointing.

“Right there! Don’t you see the smoke?”

Ursa nodded, but she didn’t really. Vidya had the eyes of a messenger hawk.

There was a sound of huffing and puffing from below and then Sampaguita levered herself over the lip of the roof, cheeks bright pink with exertion.

“Took you long enough Gee!” Vidya told her, eyes never leaving the horizon.

“Don’t... call me... Gee…” Sampaguita panted, shuffling on her rear over the tiles before flopping onto her back in exhaustion.

“Get me… up… when you can… actually... see… Papa’s... ship…” she said, throwing her arm across her eyes to block out the mid-morning sun.

Ursa flopped down beside her, reaching her hand out to squeeze Sampaguitas tightly.

“What do you think your daddy will bring you guys?”

Vidya made a face. “Probably some dumb porcelain or something. Mama is always telling him she wants a new set.”

“I hope he brings me some new hair accessories,” Samagutia said, sighing wistfully, tugging at her bangs.

“I’m tired of having to use Vejja’s hand-me-downs.”

“Well, I hope he brings back something cool! Like an enemy sword or a trained platypus bear!” Vidya crowed. Sampaguita rolled her eyes at that.

“What about you Ursa? Your Father’s been in the capitol right? What do you think he got for you?”

Ursa opens her mouth to respond, but she's cut off by Vidya’s triumphant yell.

“There! Right there! I see them! It’s the Ruyjin! And it’s got the whole Torashi division behind it!”

Ursa and Sampaguita scrambled to the edge of the roof and peered eagerly out at the line of the horizon. Sure enough, the great bulk of the Torashi flagship had just crested the horizon, the tiny spot of orange and black that served as it’s banner flapping it the faraway breeze. And behind it trailed row after row of ironclads.

Sampaguita squealed. Vidya whooped. And Ursa smiled so wide her cheeks hurt.

Father’s home!

“Mrs. Hanako? Please follow me.”

The attendant, a petite young woman in a flower-patterned pink kimono, led Ursa through down the hall from the baths and outdoors into a well-groomed roji garden. The skeletal trees loomed large in the lantern light, the little evergreen shrubs and still verdant moss sparkling under a light dusting of new snow. The attendant bowed, gesturing with one hand to the freshly swept stepstone path.

“ Just follow the path to the tea-house. Please enjoy your time Mrs. Hanako.”

The Tea House?

Peering into the gloom, Ursa could indeed see a small wooden structure sitting amongst a swaying stand of bamboo. The onsen had a designated tea house? Was this part of the Willow Room package?

Ursa turned to ask the attendant, but the young woman had melted back into the candlelit glow of the bathhouse, leaving Ursa standing, quite alone, on the rapidly chilling porch.

Her eyes flicked back from the candlelit interior, to the lantern illuminated path and back again. Was it a trap?

It had the mechanics of one, perhaps. A secluded location, a dark night… would it be wise to flee now, while she was still apparently unsupervised? She would have to leave her dear Kenta behind and it would be dangerous to try and stow-away on a ship, but she could manage well enough…

Ursa sighed, forcing her muscles to relax. It didn’t feel like a trap, and despite some of the ill-advised decisions she had made as a younger woman, her gut feeling had yet to steer her wrong. Besides, Ursa considered herself a good judge of character, nowadays at least, and neither the attendants nor Tomiko had given her any cause for worry.

Besides, if it was a trap, there had been several times over the past couple of hours when she had been much more vulnerable. Naked in a hot spring, for example.

Stepping on to the path, Ursa began to walk toward the warm interior glow of the little building. She was relatively assured in her safety. And if she happened to be wrong… She fingered the elaborately decorated fire lily hairpin in her new updo, fiddling with the little bone cap that kept the wickedly sharp steel point safely tucked away and allowed herself a grim smile.

If she happened to be wrong, they would not find her defenseless.

The tea room was, so far, innocuous.

Ursa had washed her hands in the little outdoor basin before crawling through the low little door that led to the interior before taking off her shoes and changing into her socks, as was customary before seating herself on the little cushion that had been provided for her.

In the center of the room was the usual sunken hearth, it’s charcoal fire already lit to stave off the chill and little iron kettle bubbling away cheerfully. Similarly, in the little tokonoma alcove across from her, the usual calligraphy and floral arrangement sat innocently, illuminated in the yellow glow of the lanterns.

The tiny, bright white anemone blossoms nestled into a turquoise colored vase and the scroll with its character “Freedom” done in impeccable brush strokes were not out of the ordinary, even if that particular calligraphy was an unconventional choice for a tea ceremony.

Her thoughts were cut short as the host’s door slid open, revealing an immaculate middle-aged woman in a soft brown kimono who bowed in greeting. Ursa bowed back and received a soft smile in return before the woman closed the door and she rose to walk to the mizuya to begin the ceremony.

One by one the items appeared;

The sweets, to combat the bitterness of the matcha.

The cold water container.

The ladle carefully placed off to the side with another bow.

The tea bowl, whisk, and teaspoon, placed together and then reverentially separated.

Finally, the tea container placed off to the other side.

The host drew herself upright and grasped the red silk cloth she would use to cleanse the utensils out of her obi, ritually folding it into a rectangle before using it to carefully clean all the utensils in turn.

She gently picked up and saluted with the water ladle as if in prayer before using the cleaning cloth to grasp the top of the kettle, carefully setting the iron lid on its own prepared ceramic plate.

 Using the ladle, she carefully withdrew a single scoop of water and set it off to the side of the as yet untouched tea bowl. Carefully picking up the ladle once more, she poured the hot water into the bowl and set the ladle on top of the kettle to rest.

She then picked up the whisk and proceeded to clean it once again in the hot water, swirling it in the bowl before lifting it out to inspect before she dumped the now cooled water in the cold water container and drying the bowl with the cloth.

She then moved the matcha container and teaspoon next to the bowl, scooping out a carefully measured amount into the bowl and tapping to loosen the stubborn grains.

She then picked up the ladle once more, dipping it into the hot water and then pouring it into the waiting bowl.

She whisked it smooth and presented it, design first to Ursa, who then rotated it 180 degrees so that the pattern was directly opposite her before lifting it to her mouth to drink.

The bitter, herbal liquid was soothing, and Ursa offered the hostess a small smile before gently setting the bowl down to nibble on one of the prepared sweets. She continued in this manner, sipping and nibbling slowly until every drop of tea and every morsel of food was consumed before passing back her bowl.

The hostess bowed in acknowledgment before she set about cleaning once more.

Once again the water was poured into the bowl, then the whisk stirred, the water dumped and dried from the tools. The hostess passed Ursa each cleaned item for inspection, which she did so with great respect, turning them over carefully in her hand before handing them back.

When she had finished inspecting the tea bowl, however, the hostess carefully pushed it back into her hands with a gentle but firm pressure that brooked no argument before setting about tidying the rest of the tea things.

 After all was cleaned and put away, the hostess bowed once before she padded back toward the door from whence she had come and opened it. She shuffled to the other side, turning and bowing once more as she exited. As she did so, she said, softly;

  “The lost, sweet flower.

Blown on the capricious wind.

Seeks purple sails.”

The door closed behind her.

Ursa sat in silence for a moment. Then she carefully turned the tea bowl to study the design on its side.

There, picked out in gold and orange glaze, was a picture of a leaping koi.

Chapter Text

The Southside of Komodo Isle is so dissimilar to the North as to be almost a completely different city.

For one thing, it’s green . Ancient gnarled pines buffeted so constantly by the Antarctic winds coming off the sea that their branches only grow on one side, sheltering thick, plush carpets of moss and ferns; great, lichen-covered stones looming out of the greenery like icebergs on the polar sea.

Secondly, there is no smoke. The Antarctic wind that warps the pines and stings Ursa’s cheeks keeps all the embers and twisting columns of greasy black belching out of the Northside’s smokestacks far away from the South’s wind-raked greenery.

And, Thirdly, it’s CLEAN, almost unnaturally so. The freezing sleet and booming thunderstorms of the South Sea chase the winds like hunting dogs harassing their quarry, and each one that passes over strips the streets and buildings so free of grime they near shine in the weak winter sunlight, from the grandest merchant’s compound to a lowly Fisherman’s hut. Ursa walks amongst them, Kenta treading through the narrow streets unhappily behind her.

The southern docks are a much different beast from its northern counterpart. It’s much older for one, weather-worn wooden docks crisscrossing with odd old shops and grand trade houses jutting out over the water. There is hardly any military presence either, save for a trio of decrepit looking watchtowers and one, slightly newer and more impressive one, perched on rocky outcrops like absurd wading birds.

Also, Ursa notes, quite a large portion of it is underground.

Well, that’s not strictly true. The Southern Dock ward has nestled itself into a network of sea caves tucked away under Komodo Isle, the mouths of which open on to an icy reef and then, the untamed sea. Toucan puffins swoop lazily above the surface of the water, koalaotters congregate around the piers, waiting to snatch a flopping fish or an unattended clam, dolphin-pirana frolic in the wake of passing ships and high above it all a great colony of woolly fox-bats huddle together sound asleep, the gentle undulation of the great mass of curly ivory fur the only sign they aren’t a part of the geography.

The lanterns are already lit, no doubt a normal occurrence in a semi-subterranean port and the light glitters off the fractured ice that laps at the hulls of the ships along with the freezing tide.

And by Agni, the ships!

Ships of every shape and size packed so tightly together it’s a minor miracle they aren’t on top of one another. Light little fishing skiffs and fat, deep bellied cogs, sleek dragon racers and ostentatious, ponderous yachts rub elbows so much they occasionally trade paint.

Ursa lets out a deep breath, squishing down the little niggling fear in her belly as she stares out at the rows upon rows of floating watercraft. It will be fine. All she has to do is find the purple sails.

Simple.

It is not, in point of fact, simple.

Ursa is sweaty, exhausted and has been cursing a blue streak under her breath for about an hour now. She resists the urge to stomp her feet like Azula when she doesn’t get her way. Why in the freezing depths of HELL would anywhere need this many Agni-damned ships?!

She has looked at sails. Oh, so many sails. Square sails, triangular sails, thin sails, fat sails, two, four, six, eight sails, which is approximately four more sails than any rational person could ever need . She’s seen white sails, grey sails, red sails, and orange sails.

Three hours she’s been at this and she has yet to see even a single scrap of indigo sailcloth.

That’s it. She’s done . She’ll go back to the inn, have a long soak and then ask Tomiko what the HELL that damn haiku means, concealing their movements be damned.

“Pardon me Ms. I couldn’t help but overhear your… delightful little self-directed conversation. Are you looking for something? I would be more than happy to assist you…”

Ursa grits her teeth in a silent snarl. She’s hungry, tired and sweaty, and something about the ingratiating, patronizing tone reminds her starkly of some of the condescending women and lecherous men that infect the upper echelons of nobility like a virulent disease.

She whips around, already preparing a thorough tongue lashing, but her tongue freezes in her mouth.

There’s no reason why she should do so, really. The man leaning on the lamppost behind her is not particularly intimidating. He’s skinny, more boney than wiry, dressed in worn but well-made winter clothing. He’s not much taller than Ursa with a sharp, thin face that some might describe as handsome. He’s excavating under his fingernails with a short dull blade, but that’s more rude than threatening and, while scruffy, he doesn’t have the unkempt appearance of some vagabond on the fringes of society.

But years as Fire Lady have honed Ursa’s instincts and people reading skills to a razor’s edge and something about the wide gap-toothed smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes looks a little too much like the sharp-toothed grins under those golden-eyed logs way back in the swamp and something in Ursa whispers;

Shark-o-dile.

She turns on her heel and begins to walk back towards where she left Kenta.

Her stomach plummets as she hears his footsteps start to follow her.

“Hey, where are you going?”

Ursa locks her jaw and increases her speed a little.

He keeps pace.

“What’s it you're looking for? You were using some mighty foul language for such a pretty lady…”

“It is none of your concern.” Ursa grits out, wishing she knew of a discreet way to pull her deadly hairpin out of her bun.

“Try me. I might surprise you.”

“It is nothing you can help me with.” Ursa tries again.

“I beg to differ! I’m Toh, Tohyon of Komodo Isle, if we’re being formal. And you are?”

“Leaving.”

The reassuring bulk of Kenta loomed ahead, right where she had left him. The buffalo-boar wuffled in greeting before turning black button eyes on the so-named Toh and snorting in agitation. Kenta didn’t like most men at the best of times but combined with the tenseness pouring off Ursa’s form, Toh’s approach caused him to jig and stamp in place. Ursa ran a reassuring hand over his shoulder, murmuring words of praise as she unhitched him.

“That’s a fine animal. Mighty fine. Does he have a name?”

“Kenta.” Ursa clipped, hoisting herself up in the saddle and gathering the reins up in her hands.

“Now, Tohyon, was it? I’m very sorry but I do not require your services and I am leaving now, so if you could be so kind as to step out of our way…”

Kenta snorted and opened his mouth slightly to display his wickedly sharp canine teeth.

“Wait, wait, just a moment.” Tohyon reached for Kentas bridle, only to narrowly escape getting his fingers bitten off before settling for standing in front of Ursa’s exit.

“Look, Ms…”; He paused, waiting for Ursa to give him her name. She locked her jaw. He sighed slightly but continued;

“Ms... It appears we got off on the wrong foot. I am, as I said, Tohyon of Komodo Isle, and I know just about everybody and everything here in the Southern Docks. Now, you, by the looks of it, have spent a frustrating day trying to locate something. Something important. Now I am, as I said, well acquainted with the area, and it would be a shame to leave empty-handed after such a stressful day when there is a possibility I could know of what you seek. You wouldn’t even have to come down off your… beast. What do you have to lose?”

Plenty , Ursa’s inner voice hissed, but still, her grip on the reins slacked somewhat. If there was a chance, minuscule though it might be, didn’t she owe it to herself to at least exhaust every option? Besides, it was true. She wouldn’t even have to climb down from Kenta’s saddle.

Straightening her spine and looking Tohyon directly in the eyes, she said, in her most confident and imperious voice;

“I am looking for the captain of the ship with purple sails. If you cannot help me, I WILL be on my way.”

Tohyon blinked. Then his face split into an almost manic smile and he doubled over, laughing.

Ursa steamed .

“If you find my request so humorous, sir , I will take my leave.” She said, gathering up Kenta’s reins once more in preparation to ride away, but Tohyon held up a hand, still wheezing.

“Wha- wait... “ He half gasped, still giggling.

He drew himself up slowly, still fighting spurts of laughter and smiled placatingly at Ursa.

“It is not your request, nor your manner I find humorous Ms, rather the sheer irony of this whole debacle and how easily I could have been avoided if I had minded my manners and been more clear with my words.”

He grinned, wide and sharp, like the octocat who got the cream.

“You say you are looking for the captain of the ship with purple sails? Well, my dear, you are, in point of fact, looking for me.”

The ship’s sails are more maroon than purple. Tohyon shakes his head in sympathetically at her pointed question.

“I’m afraid it’s not quite as literal as that. Perhaps the line was referring to this?” He says tapping the painted name of the ship with his fingernail.

The Purple Primrose .

Ursa is torn between feeling suspicious and foolish. Of course, it could have been referring to a name, rather than the actual hue of the sails, but Tomiko and the women at the Haibīsukasu were as straight-forward as they could afford to be while also taking steps to hide their own tracks, and hers as well.

She clutches Kenta’s reins tightly, taking comfort in the warm, solid bulk of him at her side. He snorts and shifts his weight on the creaking planks of the boardwalk, agitation not abated.

Tohyon smiles his too-wide smile and gestures up the gangplank with an expansive gesture.

“Now, Mrs. Hanako was it? If you could just come aboard please and we can discuss the issue of your transport in my office.”

Tohyon may have Tomiko’s trust (apparently), but he has yet to gain Ursa’s. She holds her ground as solidly as her mount.

“I see no reason why we could not discuss it here on the dock.”

The smile dims a little, before coming back a little strained.

“Under normal circumstances yes. But I very much doubt a respectable lady like yourself would like to be identified talking shop with a…”

He looks to the left and right quickly before leaning towards her and saying in a conspiratorial whisper;

“A known smuggler…”

Ursa rears back as if she has been struck, and then her anger is back with a vengeance.

“You… You two-copper, rotten, cheating-!”

“Keep it down!” Tohyon hisses, eyes darting anxiously up and down the deserted stretch of docks before fixing her with an intense, burnt-orange stare.

“Yes, I’m a smuggler, but I thank you to get off your bloody high ostrich horse about it! In case you haven’t noticed, Mrs. Hanako you don’t have any other options here! All the so-called legitimate options are in the dock for the season, and if you were the sort of lady who could book passage on a military vessel you wouldn’t be down here slumming it in the South Port! I am one of the precious few captains in the world with enough skill, guts, and Agni-damned luck to brave winter storms in the South Polar Sea. So you can either take your nose out of the air and follow me on deck to talk this through like civilized people or I could quite happily sail off and leave you here to whatever ministrations your dear husband has in store for you and not lose a wink of sleep over it!”

Ursa felt herself go pale. Tohyon’s face split in another predatory grin.

“Ahh… got it in one, did I?”

Ursa is sure she’s trembling like a dry leaf in a strong breeze but she still manages to level an absolutely poisonous stare at this… FRAUD. The awful man has the audacity to laugh.

“Oh don’t look so cross dear, It’s not like it was hard to suss out. A well off lady with a courtly accent, dark clothing, a pressing need to get out of town and an equally pressing need NOT to use government ships? What else could it be then some run-away noblewoman?”

The grin grows into an awful leer and he leans so close she can smell the cloves he’s been chewing on his breath.

“Who is he, I wonder? Some fat old industrialist? A Captain perhaps? My goodness, could he even be an advisor to the Fire Lord?”

She tries , she really, really does, but her muscles twitch involuntarily at the words “Fire Lord.”

The grin grows wider.

“ THAT high up eh? Wonder if I could guess a name… I try to keep up to date on the political seesaw in the Caldera. Call it professional interest...”

“We can discuss the particulars of the arrangement once we are aboard.” Ursa manages between tightly gritted teeth.

For a moment she’s terrified he’ll keep pushing before the feral grin relaxes and suddenly the veneer of “gentleman” passed over him once more.

“Of course, how rude of me. Right, this way Mrs. Hanako.” He says, gesturing to the gangplank once more.

She glances back at the rows of cheerfully bobbing lanterns behind her, calling her back to safety. She could run. She could run right now! But, like Tohyon says, where could she go? She’s on one island, in a country full of islands, surrounded on all sides by an inescapable ocean. And her husband’s goons could catch her any day now.

Sick to her stomach, her heart in her mouth, Ursa steps on to the gangplank and begins to walk.

“So, Mrs. Hanako. Do we have a deal?”

Ursa stands over the small desk Tohyon’s crew had dragged out onto the deck, (Despite everything, she had categorically refused to go below decks.) staring down at the ink-stained contract they have managed to write up after two-hours of haggling.

It’s too expensive. Ursa knows it, Tohyon knows it, Spirits, even KENTA knows it!

But she also knows she has no other choices, and so does Tohyon.

It’s this or nothing.

“Why do you need collateral ? Are my life savings not enough for you?” Ursa snarls, glaring at Tohyon’s shark-o-dile smile and wishing she could smash every one of those pearly white teeth.

The wide smile stays fixed and the little weasel-snake spreads his arms magnanimously.

“To make sure you don’t duck out on the rest of our deal, of course! It would hardly be fair if you were to, say, wait until we were in sight of the shoreline, steal a lifeboat and strike out on your own now, would it?”

Ursa keeps her face carefully neutral as her stomach sinks into her shoes. How did he know !?

The smile was absolutely gleeful .

“Come now dear, don’t pout! Just hand over your little trinket and we can be on our way!”

Stone-faced, Ursa reached up to the thin gold chain with the fire lily pendant around her throat, unclasped it and dropped it imperiously into the horrible man's waiting hand. 

The eyes narrowed.

“I said collateral missy, not some cheap little trinket.”

“That trinket is worth more than your whole woodworm infested ship!” Ursa growled back.

The claw-like fingers folded around the pendant and smoothly slid it into a pocket.

“Oh, I have no doubt its expensive dear. In fact, I will be taking it as a down payment on your stay with us. But it’s not anything you value . Not like, say, that ivory bangle you keep trying to hide in your sleeve…”

It took every ounce of Ursa’s willpower not to clamp her hand protectively around her left wrist.

“It’s barely worth anything. NOTHING, next to the price you’re extracting from me.”

Tohyon shrugged.

“Maybe so. But it means the world to you, and that’s precisely why I want it as my collateral. Now come on, hand it over.”

Ursa ground her teeth so hard they creaked under the strain. And then, slowly, ever so slowly, she raised her right hand to her left wrist and pulled the bangle off.

It was almost austere, compared to the rest of her jewelry, a band of carved ivory nestled into a dark wooden backing. It was old, some of the lacquer on the wood had come off in chips and dulled its sheen, and the ivory had a hairline crack in it that had been mended with a minuscule bit of silver that had tarnished over the years. But the long-tailed, lovingly carved dragon koi in the ivory’s off-white circlet was still as beautiful as ever, though some of the sharper details had been lost from many lifetimes of women rubbing the tiny, scalloped scales.

Ursa, listen to me, it is very important. No matter where you go, or what you grow to be, NEVER forget who you are…

Tohyon plucked it out of her hand, turning it this way and that so that the last of the fading sunlight stained the carved fish a soft peach.

“Nice. Very nice. An antique too, I’d wager. I’d ask you if it was for sale but that would defeat the point.”

He set the bangle carefully on his side of the flimsy table. Ursa’s eyes never left its surface.

“Excellent, excellent. This will do nicely. So, my dear Mrs. Hanako, I will ask once more…”

He pulled the paper towards him and signed it with a distinct flourish, before pushing the paper, the brush and the inkwell back towards her.

“Do we have a deal?”

Ursa’s stomach feels like lead, as she picks up the brush. She glances over the contract once more, as though that would make the ridiculous demands somehow become reasonable. The sun blots itself out and a hush falls over the boat as she reaches to dip it in the inkwell.

Wait.

Ursa’s sluggish brain, weighed down by fury and resignation, finally kicks itself back into gear. The deck did, in fact, become dark very, very quickly. And Tohyon did just become incredibly silent, his breath coming quickly, not in anticipation but…

Fear.

Ursa turns around.

A sleek, single-masted ship has just pulled up to the side of the Primrose . She’s twice the size and far more proud, like a tigerdillo stalking up beside a plodding hippo-cow. Its sides are shellacked a shining black and from the prow, a fiercely snarling ravorine meets the world toothy beak first. And high above it all, rustling gently in the breeze, are fine, purple sails.

“Tohyon. I should have known.” A voice spits from the deck, their face half-hidden in the gloom of the cavern as sailors bustle around it, calling out orders and preparing the great vessel for docking.

“What poor, unfortunate soul are you trying to swindle out of house and home this evening?”

“None of your concern Teuila! This fine lady approached me for help!” Tohyon called back smoothly, but from the corner of her eye, Ursa can see his hands shaking slightly.

“Somehow I doubt that. Excuse me, Madam, but are you from the Dragon Koi Inn ?”

Ursa can feel a wide, disbelieving smile crawling onto her face.

“Indeed I am, Captain!” Ursa calls out, for it can only be the Captain of that fine vessel that put such fear of the gods into Tohyon, the slimy, lying slug!

“I figured. Hold on just one moment. And back up, please.”

Ursa does so slowly, and then much faster as the figure climbs up onto the rail, springs up and LEAPS down from their vessel to the Purple Primrose .

They land, without a stumble, graceful as a cat and bring themselves up tall. It’s a woman, a little shorter than Ursa, skin tanned mahogany brown and bright, icy blue eye fixed on Tohyon like a predator on its prey.

“You…” The woman snarls, lifting up the bone club in her left hand and gesturing at Tohyon.

“You and I will have words. ”

She then turns to Ursa.

“Terribly sorry about that. You are Ms. Hanako, correct?” Her voice is deep and rich and the musical lilt that underscores the speech of all the residents of Komodo Isle is a full symphony in hers.

“Indeed. And you are?”

The woman grins and, to Ursa’s surprise, bows low at the waist.

“Teuila of Broken Point, Captain of the Ravens Breath, finest clipper north of the South Pole, smuggler extraordinaire, and your hostess for the foreseeable future.”

“Charmed.” Ursa grins back.

Chapter Text

It all went rather smoothly, after that.

Teuila had ushered both Ursa and Kenta aboard The Ravens Breath gracefully, before proceeding to go back down to the Primrose in order to extract, rather painfully from the sounds of it, the Fire Lily Pendant Tohyon had tried to hide in his pocket. (Ursa had snatched back her ivory bracelet almost as soon as Teuila hit the Primrose’s deck.)

After retrieving the necklace and ensuring both of her new guests were settled in; Ursa in a cramped but extravagantly furnished cabin and Kenta down in the hull with the ship’s spider-goats and flock of komodo chickens, Teuila had dispatched a runner to The Dragon Koi with orders to gather the rest of Ursa’s belongings and inform Tomiko that her guest had reached her intended target with, as Teuila put it; “As little bull-boar shit as possible, considering the existence of fucking Toh the Trickster and very vague instructions.”

The runner had returned triumphant with Ursa’s belongings, a carefully packed lunch of rib-sticking roast duck and dumplings and a hastily sealed letter from Tomiko apologizing profusely to Ursa for the trouble while also managing to call the so monikered “Toh the Trickster,” every truly foul name under the sun and a few Ursa was pretty sure Tomiko had made up on the spot. It ended with good wishes and a request that Ursa writes someday if she was feeling safe and settled enough to do so.

Ursa felt moved to reply and handed one of the sailors going out to gather extra supplies and do a mail run her missive, in which she detailed her gratitude and assured Tomiko that her instructions were actually incredibly straight-forward and the fault had arisen from Ursa not trusting her instincts and clarifying with Tomiko beforehand. The man promised the note would be posted into the nearest mailbox for delivery, as The Ravens Breath was scheduled to cast off tonight and the Captain had insisted they put as much distance between the ship and The Dragon Koi Inn as possible for this particular journey.

The implication of; “so nobody can prove we helped you escape,” did not need to be spoken.

It all happened extraordinarily quickly. After months of ducking away from soldiers and painfully slow progress through jungles and swamps, open plains and dusty roads, it was only a matter of hours before The Ravens Breath resupplied and set sail. Ursa opted to watch it all from the safety of her porthole as sails unfurled, anchors lifted and orders were shouted into the cold, starry night as the clipper glided out of the safety of the port and its protective reef and into the open sea beyond.

She would have been eager to go up on deck and watch the rocky Isle of Komodo disappear behind The Raven’s sleek stern, but the fear and stress and relief of the past few months caught up with her all at once and she barely managed to kick off her boots before she fell into her fur covered bunk and into a deep, dreamless slumber.

She awoke to a knock on her door. Squinting blearily at the midday sun pouring in through the glass of her uncovered porthole, (Agni above had she slept that long ?!) Ursa slowly pulled herself up into a sitting position. (Approximately. The low ceiling of the bunk made sitting upright somewhat difficult.)

“Yes?” She asked, bringing up a hand to hide her yawn.

There was no response. Had they not heard her?

“Yes, hello?” She tried a bit louder.

More silence. Not an intimidating, dangerous silence mind you. More like the polite, slightly awkward one of two people who are not quite sure how to proceed with this interaction, judging by the quiet shuffling of feet outside the door.

“You can come in?” Ursa tried.

That seemed to be the magic phrase, as there was a soft, near inaudible sigh of relief before the door swung open to reveal… a little boy.

He was about six or seven years old, with thick black hair pulled back in a ponytail, light brown skin, and those odd blue-green eyes that had seemed rather common in Komodo. He was also looking intently at his little, fur-lined boots and fidgeting with the cuff of his oversized shirt.

Ursa’s heart melted. Carefully, cautiously, like she was approaching a spooked antelope-hare, she lifted herself out of her bunk before going to crouch by the nervous little boy.

“Hello. My name is Hanako. What’s yours?”

The little boy didn’t reply, but he lifted his face slightly to offer her a small, shy smile and a small hand to grasp the cuff of her sleeve. He tugged it, gently, turning his face out towards the open cabin door. Ursa followed his gaze.

“Do you want me to come with you?” she asked.

Another small smile, another, slightly firmer, tug on her sleeve.

Well. He might have been short on words, but he managed to communicate quite effectively anyway.

Ursa stood up, careful not to pull her sleeve out of the grip of the small fingers.

“Alright then, young sir. Lead the way.”

The smile he flashed this time was bright and unfettered.

The boy led her, unsurprisingly, up onto the deck. Ursa squints and shades her eyes with her free hand as she steps out into the bright sunshine, the chill breeze blowing across the surface of it making her glad she went to sleep in her outerwear last night.

The boy appears not to notice the chill, tugging her across the rolling deck to a bright white pile of… fur? Feathers? Dropped to one side of the captain’s quarters like a pile of old coats. Only as they get closer the pile stirs and extends a long, graceful white neck from where it had been tucked under a huge wing and honks exposing a horribly barbed thin pink tongue and beak full of razor-sharp teeth and the little boy has let go of Ursa’s sleeve and is running toward it and Ursa would scream but it’s never a good idea to startle large apex predators.

But rather then some bloody horror scene she was expecting, when the boy charges into the animal’s chest and almost disappears in the mass of snowy white feather-fur, the animal shuts its nightmarish beak and a low, growling cackle issues up from its throat, not unlike the sound made by a broody komodo chicken on her nest and lowers its head to nuzzle the fluffy ponytail on the boys head, causing him to giggle.

It is at this point that Ursa notices the huge beast has a beautifully embroidered black and white collar nestled at the base of its long neck. 

The cabin door opens and Teuila steps out. She takes a moment to smile fondly at the little boy and the apex predator cuddling just outside her doorframe before turning towards Ursa and giving her a wide, mischievous smile.

“Welcome back to the land of the living Ms. Hanako! I see you’ve met my son. Ignore Dango, he’s a real sweetie pie once he gets to know you! Please, please, come in!”

Teuila’s personal quarters are quite spacious. Or would be, if not for the scattered toys and the truly enormous dog bed that “Dango” settles into, still using his absurdly sharp beak to groom Jate, the silent little boy’s, hair. Jate, for his part, grabs a stuffed rhino from the ground and crawls into the dog bed with Dango, leaning against his thickly furred and feathered side as the adults move to sit in their respective chairs.

“I’m sure you will want an update on what’s been happening since we cast off,” Teuila says, attempting to sit down to her chair only to wince and pull a little wooden tigerdillo out from underneath her, setting it carefully onto the desk.

“We’ve been setting off directly into the Southern Ocean, making good time away from Komodo. My navigator and I decided against a stop in one of the South Sea outposts so we won’t be docking until we reach the eastern edge of the old Southern Air Temple Islands at least. Speaking of which, I got you these…” Teuila said, pulling out a bulky, oilcloth wrapped parcel and sliding it over the desk to Ursa.

“Winter clothes. Koala-wool underthings, tiger-seal boots, caribou-leopard fur coat, odds and ends like that. You’ve done well so far, but nothing can truly prepare you for weather in the Southern Ocean in midwinter. Trust me, these here are just to make sure you don’t freeze to death.” Teuila said cheerfully, patting the parcel.

Ursa took it gratefully. Teuila nodded and continued;

“We’re not taking a direct route to the colonies, partially to evade any possible tail that might be following you, but mostly because my crew and I have various other obligations and contracts to fulfill up and down the Eastern Coast.”

She fixed Ursa with a critical eye.

“The less you know about those the better. It is for this reason that I will heavily discourage you from poking around the cargo hold unless it is to visit your buffalo-boar. I would request you be accompanied when you go down there, but you are a grown woman and Tomiko vouched for you and I trust her judgment. As such, I will be relying on the honor system between us going forward. You don’t screw me, I don’t screw you. Seem fair?”

Ursa nodded her assent. Teuila smiled.

“Good. Meals are a bit informal around here, but Kwang-Min usually has something hot up and ready at 6 am, Noon and 6 pm respectively. You’re welcome to eat in your room but you also have an open invitation to eat with me and Jute, should you desire. The crew won’t mind if you eat with them either, but they can be a bit more… crass then a lady such as yourself might be accustomed to. They’re all harmless, but if you would appreciate a less… intense dining experience, you are more than welcome up here, as I said. Spirits know I myself could use a break from them once in a while…”

Jate, hair apparently groomed to Dango’s satisfaction, crawled up into Teuila’s lap and settled back against her chest. She kissed the top of his head and brushed some of the ivory fur-down off his pants.

“We’ll drop you off at Fēngfān Zhīchéng. You are welcome to get off earlier if you feel you must, but I have a contact there that can manufacture you some immigration papers and other such things, which will be useful for the next leg of your journey. The closer to the front, the more paranoid everyone gets. Understandable, really, but it’s a real pain in the ass if you don’t mind me saying so. Any questions?”

“No, I believe you covered it all,” Ursa replied, pulling open the oilskin package and fingering the soft, spotted fur coat that had been used to wrap the smaller items.

“Thank you, Captain Teuila.”

Teuila nodded and kissed the top of her son’s head once more.

“Welcome to several weeks travel on the Southern Sea. It’s going to get a bit strange.”

It did, indeed, get strange. Like when Dango dove off the side of the ship and came back up with bloodstained feathers and a full-grown turtle seal clenched in his beak, or when green, heatless flames began dancing on the mast late one night.

“Spirit flames.” The helmsman had told Ursa in a whisper before he pricked his thumb and let a few drops of blood splatter on the deck and over the rail into the ocean below.

“Better safe than sorry.”

There were other, less disturbing things too. Dolphin-piranha and flying dolphin-fish, chased The Ravens wake like playful lion-dogs. Toucan-puffins and albatross-eagles cruised the skies above and in the open ocean beyond, pods of orca-wolves chased silvery schools of fish and giant walrus-whales breached, coming down in huge sprays of icy cold water. At night, the stars swirled like fireflies on a great inky field and between them and the horizon the southern lights danced, great green ribbons of dancing light interspersed with bands of bright blue, yellow and pink.

Every one of Teuila’s crew seemed to know a different story about them.

Saghani, the helmsmen, told Ursa they were the spirits of the dearly departed dancing and playing ball with the daughters of the Moon.

Pira, the quartermaster said her mother had always told her that it was the fire breath of the Rain Dragon Gods swirling through the firmament.

Hitomi, the ship’s doctor, told a humorous story of a trickster cat-fox who lit his nine tails on fire by accident and the sparks that flew into the sky to laugh at his foolishness. 

The cook, Kwang-Min told a tale of a great and noble wedding procession and Teuila, when Ursa had asked, had smiled sadly and told her of celestial warrior women who swooped down from the sky and carried off departed soldiers off to a grand jade palace full of food and drink, singing and dancing.

She fingered her hairpin as she did so, an elaborately carved one much like those young men would give to their beloveds to propose. Ursa still had the one Ozai had given her at the bottom of her bag, wrapped carefully in velvet so it wouldn’t get scuffed.

She thought back to the small shrine she had spotted in Teuila’s cabin with the little painted ivory miniature of a smiling young man in a soldier’s uniform, whose golden eyes were so much like Jate’s green-blue ones, and gave the younger woman’s shoulder a sympathetic squeeze.

But other than that, it was incredibly, mind-numbingly boring .

That is until it wasn’t.

“I don’t like that sky…” Nasamiituuq, the navigator, said one morning at breakfast. While Teuila didn’t dine with the whole crew, (Jate got agitated with all the noise and crosstalk.) she made it a policy to invite one or two of them up to dine with her, from the lowliest ships boy or girl to her first mate Jae-Wook on a rotating daily schedule.

Ine, one of the gunners, put down her chopsticks and peered out the windows before sucking on her teeth; “Nope, that doesn’t look good at all.”

Frowning, Ursa peered out the window herself. It seemed the same as ever, an open expanse of dark blue water studded with the occasional iceberg and a vibrant red-orange sunrise, blazing off the crests of the waves. In fact, the sky seemed unusually calm and blue this morning, with nary a cloud in sight. But the three women in the cabin with her were grim-faced, as though they saw some great deluge building in the distance. Teuila worried her bottom lip with her teeth.

“Has anyone seen any seabirds this morning?” she asked.

Nasamiituuq shook her head.

“Not since last night captain, and they were all headed towards the old Air Islands or high up into the air column.”

“Monkey-feathers,” Teuila swore under her breath, leaning back and pinching the bridge of her nose. Even Jate had stopped playing with his toys, looking between his mother and the sky beyond the windows with a worried expression on his chubby-cheeked face.

Ine looked nervous.

“Should… should we follow them, Captain?” she asked.

“Nasa?” Teuila asked her navigator, still not looking up.

Nasamiituuq shook her head grimly. 

“Not a good idea Captain. Even if we could make it to the outer islands, which I doubt, we’d most likely end up being tossed against the reef or battered by the rocks and icebergs. We have a better chance out here, trying to ride it out, then turning further south and trying to find a place to weigh anchor in time.”

Teuila sighed heavily; “Okay. Alright. Tell Jea-Wook to hunker us down for a battle and Saghani that it’s most likely going to be a long, sleepless night. Try to make sure everyone gets a few solid winks today, we’ll need all hands on deck for this one most likely. Secure everything in the hold, bring the livestock as far above the waterline as you dare and be prepared to evacuate should everything go pineapple-shaped. Dismissed.”

The two women nodded and stood, picking up their half-finished breakfast and walking out the cabin door, which closed behind them with a quiet click.

For a few moments, the remaining occupants sat in absolute silence.

“Ms. Hanako?”

Ursa looked up from her bowl of pho, suddenly no longer hungry.

“Yes?”

Teuila tossed a small oilskin bag across the table. Ursa barely managed to catch it before it hit the ground.

“Take this to your cabin, and pack only what you can’t live without. Precious mementos, practical clothing, etcetera. If we go down, there won’t be time to grab everything. Then, come back up here. My cabin is the highest above the waterline and thus will take the longest to sink.”

Teuila stood and walked over to a large, heavy sea-chest and began to rummage around inside. “Stay in here until you hear three raps on the door. That will indicate it is now safe to return to your chambers. If we start to sink well… let’s just say we won’t bother with knocking.”

Teuila withdrew another oilskin bag, identical to the one she had given Ursa, and another ivory miniature, this one of a younger, lavishly dressed Teuila holding a new baby that could only be an infant Jate. The ivory was chipped and a bit worn, as though someone had been handling it a lot and often had to stuff it into a pocket or bag in a hurry. Teuila ran her fingers across the surface gently, before stuffing an outfit and a few other seemingly random pieces of jewelry and knick-knacks into it before crossing to the altar and picking up the miniature of the young, smiling man, the one who could only be Jate’s father.

 Jate himself had crossed to his mother, arms full of clothing, some carefully chosen toys and the blue and red blanket woven with stylized orca-wolves that usually covered his and Teuila’s bed.

His mother smiled, leaning down to kiss his head and help him pack the assorted items into the bag, wrapping the miniature carefully in a bit of fox-fur for safekeeping and placing it within the blanket before sealing the bag shut.

Then, bag in hand, she picked up her son and whistled for Dango, who picked his great bulk up off his bed to stand next to his mistress.

Carefully, reverentially, she crossed to Ursa, staring at her intensely. Shifting Jate to her other arm, she reached out and grasped Dangos collar gently.

“My past,” she said, hoisting the oilskin bag.

“My soul,” she continued, running a thumb through Dango’s fether-fur.

“My heart.” She ended, dipping her head down to nuzzle Jate’s black curls.

She locked eyes with Ursa again, and those blue eyes seemed to peer into the very depths of her soul.

“I’m entrusting you with all of them, Hanako of the Magma Isles. Pray my judgment is not in error.”

And suddenly under that ice-blue stare, being given another woman’s entire life to protect, Ursa could not find it in her to lie anymore.

“It’s Ursa.” She choked out.

“Ursa of Koi Island... and the Caldera.”

The bright blue eyes sharpened and began to study her all over again. Ursa felt like her skin had been scraped off her body and left her bare for all to see.

“All the better, then.” Tomiko replied.

The storm roared.

It beat against the windows and howled across the deck. Thunder broke the sky in half and lightning streaked across the jagged pieces like tongues of fire. The heavy rain had turned from sleet to hail and back again, icy spheres the size of a gold coin thumping on to the deck and denting the wood. The sea tossed the ship like a stray toy, the mountains of water crashing across the deck and soaking the frantically scuttling sailors through their sealskins. The whole world was a black, swirling, churning mess of salt and cold and noise.

In Teuila’s cabin, Ursa, Dango, and Jate hunkered down on the bed in the dark. The lamps had all been blown out as soon as the lookout had spotted the first curling mountains of the storm sweeping across the sea ahead of them, Agni only knew they couldn’t afford to fight a fire below decks while they fought the storm above. The stark white light of the lightning through the windows illuminated in bursts a world in frozen pantomime.

Jate’s face, stern, and blank clutching his stuffed Komodo-rhino in a white-knuckled grip.

Dango’s black eyes shone like stars as he peered out at the chaos stricken sea, body curled protectively around the two humans on the bed.

Ursa’s own, terrified face, eyes blown wide and face gaunt leered at her from the mounted mirror across the way.

The Ravens Breath creaked ominously. Jate began to hum under his breath.

It was a simple little song, a nursery rhyme Ursa used to sing to her children to get them to sleep and one that Ursa’s own mother had sung to her so many years ago. Jate drummed his fingers on his rhino in beat with the song and began to rock back and forth slowly. He had stuffed a pair of muffs over his ears when the thunder had begun and his little eyes were shut tight in concentration.

There was an awful, low ripping sound, like a sail getting torn to shreds. Jate’s tempo faltered and his breathing became more labored.

Ursa raised her voice and began to sing.

“Foxy went a-courtin’ and he did ride mmhmm…

 Foxy went a-courtin’ and he did ride mmhmm…

 Foxy went a-courtin’ and he did ride,

 Sword and flame all by his side,

 Foxy went a-courtin’ and he did ride mmhmm…”

Jate stared at her, spellbound, before picking up the tune again and humming along, unclenching one hand from around the stuffed rhino and sinking it into Dango’s ivory side.

Ursa continued to sing until there was no more song left to sing and then, with nothing else to do, started on another. Jate listened for a moment, staring at her intently before he picked up the tune and mimicked it back to her in almost perfect time. And after that one ended, they started another one, and when that one ended, they started another and then another, on and on, into the dark, stormy night.

Three short, exhausted knocks came shortly after two am. The storm had died down to a hard, steady rain and Jate had long since fallen asleep, head on Ursa’s lap, one small hand still gipping Dango’s feather-fur.

Both Ursa and Dango looked up as the door swung open and an utterly exhausted Teuila half-stepped, half-fell through the door. She closed the door tightly behind her, before turning to blink at Ursa like an exhausted owl-cat.

“We rode it out.” She said, crossing to a locked cabinet bolted into the wall and withdrawing a heavy iron key. There was the sound of a lock clicking open and a clinking, sloshing sound, like that of a bunch of bottles knocking together. Sighing heavily, Teuila picked one up and peered at it in the dark before shrugging and rummaging around to retrieve two shallow clay cups before crossing and placing them on the desk. She peered at Ursa through the gloom.

“I don’t know what the hell this is, but it’s late, I’m too keyed up to sleep and I hate drinking alone. Join me?”

Ursa stood, tucked a pillow under Jate’s head and joined Teuila at the desk.

Teuila rummaged around in her pockets in search of spark rocks, and after checking the ceiling lamp hadn’t been damaged in the storm, lit it.

“Hope you like rum.” She said, peering at the scuffed label and the grinning bald Earth Kingdom monk displayed prominently on it before pouring a generous slug into each of their cups.

Teuila downed hers in one gulp and poured another.

“From the Foggy Swamp region, if I’m not mistaken. Damn good sugar mills and rum distilleries around there. Damn good.”

Ursa sniffs her cup delicately and takes a sip. It’s stronger than she’s used to and sickly sweet, but she manages to swallow it without coughing and it gives her a wonderfully warm feeling down in her belly. The second sip is much better.

“So… You’re the Fire Lady…” Teuila says, taking another pull of her rum.

“Ex-Fire Princess ,” Ursa replies, swirling the dark liquid in her cup. There’s no reason to lie. She doubts she could anyway, not after practically admitting it to the woman.

Teuila barks out a laugh, short and sharp. “Umm… no. Pretty sure you became Fire Lady as soon as old man Azulon croaked. And far as I know, that’s a lifetime appointment there your highness .”

“You can lose the title,” Ursa says placidly. She’s floating on a sea of adrenaline and alcohol and she fundamentally couldn't care less anymore.

“Divorce, for one, treason, for another.”

Teuila snorts, taking another sip of rum.

“Something tells me you and Princey-poo didn’t decide to shake hands and start over. Oh, I’m sorry, Esteemed Fire Lord Ozai, First of His Name .”

“Princey-poo is fine. That Bastard is also acceptable.” Ursa says finishing her rum.

“Wow. I mean, I’m sure he deserved it, but wow . What the hell did he do?”

“Blackmailed me into murdering his own father for him. Not that it was much of a hardship, really. I hated that old salamander and he hated me.”

“The fucker .” Teuila nodded, reaching over and pouring Ursa a new glass.

“Kaouthai’s parents weren’t too fond of me either. Bone-spitting, half-breed Water trash, I believe his father called me.”

“Kaouthai was your husband?” Ursa asked. Teuila’s face softened.

“My husband, my best friend, my greatest love. Well. Besides that little bundle of joy curled up on the bed.” she said, glancing over at the still sleeping form of Jate.

She pulled the ivory miniature out of the oilskin bag and slid it across to Ursa. The young man smiled up at Ursa, eyes soft and happy, perhaps never guessing the fate that would befall him. Teuila held up the other miniature, the one with her and a baby Jate brushed across the surface.

“We got it done as a set before he left. He was a doctor, you see. Wanted to save the poor souls getting themselves crushed into a paste or blown to bits on the front. I begged him not to go. ‘There’s plenty of work here!’ I said. ‘You just got your own practice up and going.’ I said. ‘Don’t you want to see your son grow up!’ That one was hitting below the belt, I’ll admit it. But it didn’t change his mind. That was Kaouthai, stubborn to a fault. Once he got something into his head you couldn’t remove it with a prybar.”

Teuila stared at the miniature in her hand for a long time. The rain drummed against the windows, streaking the glass like fallen tears.

“He died about 5 months into his second deployment. Got caught in the crossfire between a cadre of elite earthbenders and a heavy cavalry assault. All they sent me was this, our old letters, and his last paycheck. His parents wouldn’t even let me come to the funeral.”

Teuila sniffled, reaching up to wipe at her eyes.

“After that, well… His hagfish of a father took the practice away from me and I figured I shouldn’t stick around to see what else he’d try and take.” Once again, the eyes darted over to the sleeping little boy.

 “My old man taught me how to sail and some people are greedy enough to overlook that the face they’re handing the coin over to has blue eyes so-”

Teuila grinned savagely and spread out her arms to encompass the finery, the ship and the world in general.

“Here I am. They can turn up their noses at me all they like but next time they want some fancy porcelain for a big dinner party or a fine, thick tiger-seal coat to swan around in, guess who they’re going to come crawling too?”

Smiling, Ursa simply held up her cup of rum in a toast.

“Cheers to that.”

The air smelled like smoke and oil and burning flesh and she was running.

From what and to where she couldn’t say, all she knew was that she had to get there or get away, or both . Her legs ache . How long has she been running?

The air smells like smoke and oil and burning flesh and she is running

Someone’s laughing, long and hard but it doesn’t sound right. There’s an edge to it, some tone or pitch that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up on end. Man? Woman? Something else entirely? Something is wrong and she can’t. Run. Fast enough!

The air is filled with wrong laughter and the smells of smoke and oil and burning flesh and she is running.

Pillars the color of congealed blood flash past her in a long endless row. The carvings on them blur at the speed of her movement, but something deep in her soul tells her that that is a good thing.

There are carved pillars the color of congealed blood, the air is filled with wrong laughter and the smell of smoke and oil and burned flesh and she is running.

Ursa opens her mouth to scream, but all that comes out is a garbled squawk and a rush of warm wetness. She swipes at her mouth with her hand and it comes back crimson and sticky. Her mouth hurts.

Someone has cut out her tongue, there are carved pillars the color of congealed blood, the air is filled with wrong laughter and the smell of smoke and oil and burned flesh and she is running.

“Mommy!”

Ursa stumbles and almost falls. That’s Azula’s voice!

“Mommy!” Her little girl’s voice is high and desperate, shrill with fear and horror.

Ursa runs past another set of pillars and suddenly she’s in the Phoenix wing and it is on fire .

Her home is on fire, someone has cut out her tongue, there are carved pillars the color of congealed blood, the air is filled with the sound of wrong laughter and collapsing timbers and the smell of smoke and oil and burned flesh and her daughter needs her!

The embers of the blaze singe her throat and sting her eyes even as the blood continues to drip down out of her mouth and leave ruby red drops that sizzle in the heat of the flames. She holds the sleeve of her dress to her nose and charges into the blaze. The heat sears her skin and white-hot coals fall down from the ceiling and set fire to her clothes and hair. She presses on. Her children... Where are her children?!

Her home is on fire, SHE is on fire, someone has cut out her tongue, there are carved pillars the color of congealed blood, the air is filled with the sound of wrong laughter and burning wood and the smell of smoke and oil and burned flesh and SHE CAN’T FIND HER CHILDREN!

“MOMMY!”

And all of a sudden Azula stands before her, small and scared in a sooty nightdress with angry red burns on her hands but otherwise unharmed despite the all-consuming flames around them. Her golden eyes are full of tears as she grasps the hem of Ursa’s burning skirt and TUGS with all of her strength.

“Mommy, mommy, HELP! It’s Zuzu, he’s… he’s trapped and his room is on fire and FATHER WON’T LET HIM OUT! Mommy, please..!”

Ursa is already running, scooping up her daughter tight to her body as she runs, trying to use her body to shield Azula from the worst of the flames and smoke. The blood dripping from her mouth lands on her daughter’s white nightgown, suffusing it a dirty scarlet under the soot. Zuko! She has to find Zuko!

Her daughter’s nightgown is stained with her blood, her home is on fire, she is on fire, someone has cut out her tongue, there are carved pillars the color of congealed blood, the air is filled with the sound of wrong laughter and burning wood and the smell of smoke and oil and burned flesh and her SON is trapped in his room by her husband and she is running.

Her son’s room is a blaze of bright blue flames when she skids in the door, Azula still tucked tight to her burning body. Her son is in his bed, pressed against the headboard as a circle of fire begins to lick up the side of his bed. Ursa rushes towards him, but the circle of flame leaps high, burning her outstretched hand near black and singeing Azula, who screams in pain.

“Mother!” Zuko cries, reaching out for her, only to be driven back by the flames devouring his bed. Ursa’s heart thunders. What to do, What to do?! She needs to save her son, but if she does so, Azula will get hurt again and she could lose both of them.

“Pathetic. Honestly, Ursa, this is what you get for coddling them. Let Zuko find his own way out. Azula did after all, and those who cannot help themselves have no place here.”

Ursa whips around. Ozai stands behind her, in front of a large floor to ceiling mirror in the middle of the burning debris, staring at his trapped son in the dissociated way an examiner watches a particularly uninspiring student. Flames curl up and down his form like a waterfall in reverse, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

Ursa opens her mouth to scream at him, but all that causes is another gush of warm blood to push past her lips and splash onto Azula’s nightdress. Ozai just looks at her disdainfully.

“Really, my love, do stop doing that. You’re getting blood all over the floor.”

Azula is frozen in her arms, her eyes squeezed tight, drops of Ursa’s blood dribbling down her cheek and drying in her hair. Zuko screams.

Ursa whips around to see that her son’s shirt has caught on fire. Ursa doesn’t even think.

Dropping Azula on the clearest patch of floor she can find, Ursa rushes towards the bed and reaches through the flames. The pain is nearly unbearable, her tears of agony sizzle and boil away to nothing on her cheeks, but then she’s through and the circle of flames has died down and she reaches out to hold her child…

Only for him to scream and jerk away from her. Too panicked to process this, she grabs his arm to try and drag him away only to be hit once more with the smell of burning flesh and another howl of pain. Letting go of him, she instead tries to put out the fire licking up the corner of his shirt only for it to grow larger and larger the more she tries to smother it.

Ozai clicks his tongue, his voice resigned and fond all at once.

“Oh my love, when will you learn? You try, so, so hard to help, but in the end, all you do is make things worse.”

No! Ursa screams at him, and the blood that falls out of her mouth sizzles on the flaming bedsheets.

Ozai chuckles. 

“Of course you do, how could you not? I mean, just look at yourself, Ursa.”

She doesn’t want to, but some horrible, uncontrollable urge makes her turn and face the hanging mirror.

She barely even looks human . Her skin is burnt black and falling off in bloody patches, her clothes are smoldering tatters, her hair is a nest of white-hot flames. She is fire and destruction and death and ugliness and her son screams as she sets him ablaze.

Ozai shakes his head, sighing as he lifts Azula up into his arms and looking at the both of them with thinly veiled contempt.

“What a pair you to make. The wannabe and the failure. Is this what you wanted Ursa? Is this your revenge? Making our son just. Like. You?”

Zuko’s skin is blistering and blackening, his body beginning to crumble in her hands like tissue paper. She wants to do something, ANYTHING , to save her little boy but the more she touches him the more he burns. She’s sobbing and wailing, but the tears evaporate in her eyes before they can even be shed.

Ozai shakes his head and steps through the mirror. Azula gazes over his broad shoulder back at them, eyes stretched wide in fear.

“Say goodbye to your Mother and Brother, Azula. There’s no hope for them.” Her husband sighs and the worst part, the worst part , is that she can almost detect genuine regret in his voice.

Ursa screams again, but now all that comes out is a flame-like the breath of a dragon. Inside the mirror, Azula lifts up a small, pale hand and waves.

“Goodbye, Mother. Goodbye, Zuzu. I’m sorry you were such failures.”

And then they’re both gone, and Ursa is alone in a burning world with the remains of her child crumbling to dust in her hands.

A scream tears out of Ursa’s throat and she jerks upright, cracking her head into Teuila’s jaw and causing the other woman to stumble back.

“Mother of-! Monkey-feathers…” Teuila finishes lamely, working her jaw and running her tongue around her teeth to check if they are all still there.

“What in the hel- HECK is wrong with you this morning?!”

Ursa blinks, hard, before closing her eyes and clutching her head between her hands. It aches , and not just because Teuila has an unusually hard jaw. Memories of last night come swirling back, the storm and the drinking and the truth-telling… judging by the crick in her spine and the fact that Dango is staring at her from point-blank range with his black button eyes, Ursa never made it back to her cabin last night and fell asleep in her chair.

Ursa groans, and it comes from the depths of her soul.

“Nothing…” She tells Teuila.

“Nothing. It was just a nightmare.”

Chapter Text

“We’re going to have to stop for repairs.” Shila, the carpenter, says at dinner that night, leaning down to blow the shavings off the little platypus-bear he’s carving.

Jate bounces next to him, eyes shining, already watching the little toy animal with a warm and nurturing air. Dango yawns widely and goes back to worrying the bloodied skull of an orca-wolf pup he’d caught that morning, stripping the flesh off the bone with his barbed tongue, accompanied by a sound like rough sandpaper on wet stone and happy goose noises.

“How bad is it?” Teuila asks, spearing a piece of that very same orca-wolf, cooked rather than raw, as Dango eats it, on to her knife and popping it into her mouth.

Shila shrugs his burly shoulders. His eyes are only a few shades darker than Teuila’s.

“Bad enough that we shouldn’t wait to get to the mainland, good enough to make good time to the nearest island with decent timber. I wouldn’t mind some more trained hands either, but the closest inhabited island is Kyoshi and even if we could limp that far they’re-”

“Prickly.” Sialuk says, taking a swig of her salted-butter tea. She’s Shila’s apprentice and his eldest daughter. With her amber eyes and propensity for firebending, she takes after her mother.

“Militant exclusionists was what I was actually going to say Rain Drop, but yes, if you want to be diplomatic about it. Prickly .”

Teuila chews, brow wrinkled in thought, before swallowing and motioning for everyone else to move the dinner dishes out of the way. She rummages in a drawer and withdraws a much stained and much-folded piece of paper which she sets on the desk with a thump.

“Okay. Alright. Now, where did we stop off last time?” She asks, unfolding it on the desktop. Ursa peers at it.

It’s a map of the Southern Air Islands, probably one of the most accurate that’s been made in the past one-hundred years. It’s all marked from a sailor's perspective, of course, mostly coastline with reefs, tide lines, safe harbors, and coves marked out in painstaking detail, but there’s also a rough estimate of where the Air Temple must be, as well as rivers and lakes for freshwater collection and…

Ursa squints and leans closer…

Markings and notes on ruined settlements.

“Yeah, most of its ruined buildings nowadays, but it never hurts to check. You might find something the treasure hunters haven’t picked clean yet. Besides the Temple itself, of course, but no one’s been up there since the 103 Lion-vultures raided it. And most of them died trying to get back down, once the comet had passed.”

Ursa looked up, startled. Sialuk jerked her chin back toward the notes on the abandoned settlements.

“Not that there was much to find there, to begin with. Mostly farming villages and most of the people fled to up to the temple with whatever they could carry. Didn’t do them much good in the end, but some antique collectors go nuts for genuine air nomad hand axes or whatever if they’re in good condition. Besides, as I said, soldiers and fortune hunters mostly picked them clean in the aftermath of the battle. But, who knows. After that storm, I’m feeling lucky.”

Ursa’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. Yes, the Air Nomads were the enemy, and yes, they had been preparing to launch a surprise attack on the Fire Nation in an effort to claim some of the islands for themselves, but… Robbing the graves of anyone , let alone civilian farmers who most likely had little, if any, say in Temple leadership left a sour taste in her mouth.

Sialuk noticed her expression and her eyes narrowed.

“Oi, stop looking so prim and proper about it. You think all your pretty jewelry and shit came from people who get an hour-long lunch break and holidays off?”

“Rain Drop!” Her father says, half-scandalized but Sialuk presses on undeterred;

“Besides, we don’t rob actual graves . We’re not monsters. Besides, I just told you there was practically nobody in there anyway and Spirits know they don’t need it wherever they are anyway. All we do is clean up what they left behind. That’s it .”

The silence that follows is oppressive and heavy. Then, Teuila clears his throat and jabs at an island with a large forest and safe cove but few other markings.

“Might as well stretch our legs while we’re at it, right? Anyone up for a bit of an adventure?”

The island’s official name, according to the maps her governess worked from, at least, is A2-56 or “Hawks Eye”, but, much like the many and varied stories of the southern lights, the island seems to have as many names as there are people on the ship.

The blue and green-eyed crew call it The Bleeding Forest. Those from the Southern Fire Islands call it Last Refuge, and those from the colonies call it The Weeping Ground. Ursa shivers and resolves to continue calling it Hawks Eye.

The cove is chilly but protected. They crew spill out gratefully onto the white sand of the beach, stretching and playing like overgrown puppies, at least until the First Mates ear-piercing whistle brings them all back to heel.

“Alright, listen up!” Jae-Wook yells. He’s the oldest person by far on Teuila’s ship, pushing 70, a severe pillar of a man with silver-grey hair and a voice permanently raspy from a lifetime of shouting across ship decks or within the bellies of ironclads. He still wears his service medals on a worn red silk sash across his much more practical sealskin coat. She wants to ask him how in the world he became a smuggler in what should be his well-deserved retirement from the Navy, but it’s far too personal an ask.

“The Captain has requested I divide you into three teams. Team One will be lead by Apprentice Carpenter Sialik-” 

The young woman raises her hand in greeting;

“Who will be leading most of you to go identity and fell timber for repairs. Team two, led by myself and Carpenter Shila-”

Shila folds his arms and nods in acknowledgment;

“Will be staying here with The Ravens Breath to bail, repair and calculate our losses. Finally, the Third team will be a small, exploratory mission led by the captain herself-”

Teuila didn’t stand, just smoothed Jate’s hair and gazed out at them all with icy blue eyes;

“To reconnoiter the island. Now it’s doubtful that they will find anything of particular note, so any person who complains about their assignment or “favoritism” is more than willing to take it up with me or the captain herself.”

Ursa had never heard so many grumbling mouths snap shut so quickly.

“Any questions? No? Good. Form two orderly lines and Quartermaster Pira and I will give you your assignments. Dismissed!”

Teuila stood, lifting Jate onto her hip and walked down the gangplank, Dango trailing her like a massive ivory bodyguard. Jate’s face broke into a smile when he saw Ursa and his hands flapped in excitement. Ursa smiled and waved back to him as the little family maneuvered their way across the cold sand to the log were Ursa sat, watching the proceedings.

“So, what do you think? Want to go try and find some hundred-year-old ruins?” Teuila asked, lowering herself on to the water smoothed log with Ursa.

“Are you sure I wouldn’t be in the way?” Ursa asked, reaching out her arms and taking Jate from Teuila. Dango leaned down to nibble at her bun and she shooed him away. Teuila stretched languidly in the weak winter sunshine, spine popping in places as she did so.

“Hmm? Oh, course not. Spirit’s know it beats waiting around here for a week or two. Besides, that buffalo-boar of yours looks like he could carry a whole lot if we discover the location of the lost temple treasure or something.”

“Oh, so I’m just Kenta’s accessory now am I?” Ursa laughs.

Teuila grins her troublemaking grin.

“Pretty much. So, you in, or out?”

Ursa looks at the swarms of busy sailors marching off to make themselves useful cutting timber or pumping out the lower decks. She sees Kenta being led down the gangplank and how he can barely contain his excitement of being on solid ground again. She sees the sailors pulling box after waterlogged box out of the hold and onto the beach to be cracked open and inspected and hears the metallic rattle as one of them drops their end of one and is promptly chewed out by the first mate.

The less you know about that, the better.

“Sounds like an adventure,” Ursa says.

Kenta is positively ecstatic to be crashing through a forest again. Even Ursa has to admit she’s having fun, even if the snow and long shadows of the pine trees make it more than a bit cold. Teuila was right. Nothing prepares you for winter in the South Polar Ocean. And they’re all going to be camping out here tonight.

Nevertheless, it’s a lovely day. The sun is high and bright, birds are calling from on high and one of the midshipmen has started singing an old marching song to keep their energy up.

“There once was a troop,

 Of Komodo Dragoons,

 Who came marchin’ over the valley oh…

 And the Captain fell in love,

 With a fair and haughty lass,

 And her name it was called Pretty Moon-He oh!”

Ursa and the rest lifted their voices for the chorus and from his perch atop Kenta’s back, Jate clapped like an opera-goer for his favorite primadonna, wide grin obscured by the great layers of furs and wool his mother had wrapped him in before they set out.

“Having fun?” Teuila asked after they had finished the marching song and the crew started in on another one Ursa wasn’t familiar with.

“Indeed!” Ursa replied cheeks flush with exertion and merriment. The mountainous, rocky terrain and tall pine forests reminded her of running out the back door of the family compound with her sisters and cousins and playing make-believe in the wet, grey-green moss-covered forests on the sea cliffs behind the house. So did the good-natured ribbing and laughter.

“If this was Koi, Midshipmen Ji would have challenged Gunnery officer Kafu to a cliff diving contest by now.” Ursa laughed.

Teuila quirked an eyebrow up in amusement. “Remind me not to stay too long on the Island of Koi, if we ever dock there. That sounds like the kind of reckless fun my crew would enjoy far too much…”

Ursa giggles, nodding her head.

“We also have a drink made out of fermented mare’s milk that’s usually consumed directly after, while the adrenaline and the cold are still making you feel light-headed.”

Teuila’s eyebrow raised even further into her hairline.

“Are you sure you didn’t take a nip of it before we headed out? You seem awful… chipper.”

Ursa laughs again.

“Maybe? I don’t know, it’s just… this is the lightest I’ve felt in ages. This place… it’s so, so wild! So free! And it reminds me of home, I think.”

“Good memories?”

“Yes! You know I always wanted to take Azula and Zu-”

And just like that, the joy is gone, replaced with a lead ball of regret wedged in her belly.

“I- I always wanted to take them. To Koi, I mean. But it was never… It was never the right time and I was so busy and after a while, my sisters and cousins stopped asking me to come over and after that… Ember Island is magical, of course, and we have so many wonderful memories there but it’s not… It was Ozai’s… It wasn’t…”

“It wasn’t your home…” Teuila replies.

“Where is my most beautiful wife?!” Rear Admiral Takanobu’s voice booms out across the crowded dock. He’s a huge beast of a man, nearly broad as he is tall, with a deeply tanned face and laughing storm grey eyes.

“I’m your only wife, you ridiculous hippo-cow!” Mrs. Young-Hee shouts back at him, but she’s smiling even wider than he is when he scoops her up and spins her around as though she weighs nothing. The huge man kisses her tenderly then drops to his knees to kiss the swollen expanse of her belly, cooing ridiculous things to it which causes his wife to swat him upside the head.

“Honestly Takanobu, get a hold of yourself! In front of all these people!” Mrs. Young-Hee scolds. Admiral Takanobu just grins at her from his place on his knees.

“Yes, my plum-blossom,” he says before raising himself to his full, towering height and affecting an air of counterfeited confusion.

“Now… I’ve greeted my plum-blossom... I’ve greeted our little plum… now all that’s left are my-”

“Daddy!”

Vidya and Sampagutia burst out of the crowd as one, and the Admiral smiles and drops to his knees once more, arms outstretched to catch them both.

“-Beautiful little princesses!” he laughs, catching one girl in each arm and spinning them around like their mother before them.

Ursa giggles at the scene and Mother cracks a smile too before going back to scanning the rivers of departing soldiers, tradesmen and courtiers disgorging from the line of ironclads on the dock.

“Honestly Mother you should know better than to try and scold Father about propriety after we’ve been away for so long. He barely listens to you when he’s been at home five months or more!” A man’s voice chuckles, and Ursa jerks upright, a blush suffusing her face.

And there, looking positively regal in his military uniform stands Tadahisa, smiling bright enough to outshine the Sun Dragon Agni himself. Ursa feels her stomach collapse into goo.

“YOU were supposed to keep him in line, my little turtle-seal.” His mother scolds, standing on her tiptoes to give him a peck on the cheek, which he accepts gracefully, not like the dumb boys in the market who act like their to important and manly to let their mothers kiss their cheeks.

Tadahisa laughs, and Ursa’s knees wobble.

“Mother, if you were unable to cow him in twenty-three years of marriage, what was I, your humble son, supposed to accomplish?”

Mrs. Young-Hee scowls harshly; “Not letting him run straight into firefights, for ONE!”

“Oh plum-blossom, really, must we fight about this now ? I just got home…” The Admiral whines.

“And your arrival was not aided at all by your bull-headed insistence of taking all the most dangerous missions for yourself!” His wife scolds, but she drops the subject. For now, at least.

The Admiral smiles gratefully at his wife, before looking up and spotting her and Mother.

“Lady Rina! Is that you? And is that… it can’t be… little Lady Ursa?!”

Ursa giggles again and curtsies just like her governess taught her.

“Welcome home, Rear Admiral Takanobu.” 

And, blushing and much quieter this time;

“Welcome home, Lieutenant Tadahisa.”

“Hello, Taka, Tadahisa. It’s been too long. Have either of you seen my husband?” Mother asks, inclining her head with a friendly smile.

The Admiral and Tadahisa bow back to them before the Admiral speaks once more.

“Last time I saw him Jinzuk he was still in his cabin, puzzling over some new decree or other. Knowing him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t even know we’ve docked already!” The Admiral laughs, setting Vidya and Sampagutia down, finally.

Mother nods in understanding and something in her demeanor loosens and lightens as she smiles.

“That’s my husband... Taka, I don’t suppose it would be too much trouble for you to-”

The Admiral holds up a hand, grinning.

“Say no more, Lady Rina. OI! SUTTIRAT!”

A woman with a weather-worn face, a severe black and grey bun, and the markings of a Captain pinned to her red silk sash looks up from the clipboard she’s reading.

“Yes, Admiral?”

“Send somebody to find Lord Jinzuk and get him out here, please. His wife and eldest daughter are waiting for him!”

The woman nods, saluting.

“Yes, Admiral.” She says, before calling over some milling sailors and sending the youngest of them running back into the belly of the ship.

Nodding to Captain Suttirat, the Admiral turns back to his small family and grins mischievously.

“Alright, who wants presents?”

  Vidya and Sampagutia cheer as one and even Mrs. Young-Hee’s ears perk up a little, even as she scoffs that her husband is spoiling their girls rotten. The Admiral only laughs and winks at his wife.

“Oh don’t fret my plum-blossom, what the harm of a man bringing his daughters a few gifts after a long campaign away from home? Besides, I doubt you’ll be complaining much when you see what I brought you anyway. Tada, son, bring your mother and sisters their gifts, will you?”

Tadahisa grins and does what he is bid. Shortly afterward four-foot soldiers arrive pulling and pushing a handcart containing two large wooden boxes. The twin’s squeal and crowd around it as their father waves the soldiers away and opens the first box, withdrawing a bolt after bolt of beautifully dyed mulberry silk.

“Ran down a trading ship outside of Goaling.” The Admiral explains, smiling as Sampagutia squeals and begins holding the fabric up against herself, already imagining the lovely dresses the family tailor could make for her. Vidya rolls her eyes but perks up a bit as the Admiral pulls out a bundle of luxury furs that had been stuffed down at the bottom and drapes the largest, a midnight black wolverine leopard skin, over her head.

“They just about pissed themselves when they saw us coming up over the horizon! Tried to toss the cargo, but the idiots forgot boxes float . We captured their boat and scooped up all the boxes they tried to deny us. But this …”

The Admiral broke open another box and lifted out a beautifully embossed and filagreed porcelain serving platter.

“ This I got when we ambushed a supply line at the mouth of the Yellow River.”

Gold gleamed against the delicate glazed pottery. Mrs. Young-Hee was positively entranced by it. She took it almost unbelievingly from her husband’s hands before gazing up at him, at a loss for words. Her husband smiled and leaned down to kiss her open mouth.

“An entire set plum-blossom. Actually, that’s what made me take it in the first place. All the designs are based on plum-blossoms and plum trees. These might as well have been made for you Young-Hee.”

Cupping his wife’s face gently, the admiral straightened, grinning like a naughty child.

“Though, I have to admit, as impressive as all of this is, the next bit is by far my favorite.”

There was the clatter of nails and the sounds of neighing and whinnies and out of the belly of the ship, Tadahisa reappeared, leading not one, not two, but six ostrich horses down the gangplank, the loveliest of which was a snorting, trilling pure white Cockerel, peering out at the world over his pink and ivory beak with calculating amber eyes.

Vidya whooped, Sampaguita cooed, and Mrs. Young-Hee turned to her still grinning husband with a look of complete consternation.

“Takanobu…” She warned, but the Admiral just laughed.

“I have it all sorted my love. Besides, look at them ! How could I pass an opportunity like that up?”

“You couldn’t, or I would have wondered what dark spirit had possessed you while I wasn’t looking, my friend.” A voice called out, and Ursa abandoned all sense of decorum and propriety in favor of racing across the crowded dock, for there, blinking in the sunshine, ink stains all down his traveling cloak, was Father.

 “Stepping stones!” a voice calls out from within the trees. Ursa watches as a young sailor burst out of the woods in front of the company, face shining with excitement.

“Stepping stones, Captain! And I couldn’t be sure, but I think I saw some mile markers buried under the snow and leaf litter!”

Teuila nods in acknowledgment, before turning to Ursa and gracing her with a nearly feral grin.

“Looks like we’re not just going to be going for a pleasant nature hike. Let’s get up in front. Nothing busts through one-hundred years of overgrowth quite like a buffalo-boar!”

Ursa can barely nod in agreement before she is suddenly being dragged through the forest by the enthusiastic treasure-hunting smuggler and her equally eager crew. Kenta, Jate and Dango are almost as excited; Dango honking over the noise of the whooping sailors, Kenta snorting happily as he roots up half-buried paving stones and fells small saplings and Jate giggling and clapping his hands from atop the great animals back.

It takes them an hour or two, but eventually, one of the older sailors discovers a relatively well-preserved mile marker, turned over on its side under a profusion of dead foliage and muddy slush, which points them to a chalk cliffside and a truly ancient rope bridge that spans the oceanic gulf below them to a smaller, less forested, island.

Teuila turns to her crew.

“Alright, what crazy son-of-a-sea serpent is going to get in the harness and try to cross that thing?”

Hands shoot up so quickly Ursa’s pretty sure a few people hit each other in the face by accident. In the end, the two lightest crewmembers strap in to an absurdly complex pair of steel and leather harnesses and wait impatiently for a bowman to shoot an arrow attached to a rope into one of the trees on the other side of the gulf before tying the loose end to the biggest tree they can find, clipping the carabiners to the line and walking out onto the bridge and open air.

They test each step, bouncing on the knots and yanking on the handrails. The yellowed bridge sways gently with their movements but holds firm and strong.

“Airbenders,” Teuila says shaking her head in amazement.

“For people who didn’t put much value into material goods, they sure knew how to build a bridge. The worst part? It’s all grass . Every single little bit. They wove the things! Used to lead their livestock over them too. And any trade goods they had. Huge silver and gold ingots, like it was nothing! Not like there’s any of that left anymore, but hey, we might get lucky.”

By that point, the two light sailors had crossed the bridge and, after ensuring that the arrow end of the rope was secure, flashed a thumbs up from the other side, twin grins slivers of ivory in the distance. Teuila returned it and turned back to Ursa.

“Now, most of my crew have done this enough that they don’t feel the need for a harness, but I’ve got a couple more in Dangos pack if you’re not up to it today. It gets a bit… windy out there.”

Ursa fixed the other woman with a flat look and held out her hand expectantly. Teuila just laughed.

“Yeah, I figured.”

Crossing the bridge was terrifying and exhilarating all at once. Even safely strapped into the harness, the bridge sways and pitches like a ship at sea.

“Don’t look down.” Pramoj, the woman who straps her in advises, and after the first time she glanced down at the yellowed (grass!) ropes and witnessed the churning, icy ocean below, Ursa keeps her eyes fixed unblinkingly on the horizon.

“Relax… I won’t let you fall.” Teuila soothes, but even her relaxed composure isn’t enough for Ursa to release her white-knuckled grip on the handrails, nor is the excitement of Jate, who was out of Kenta’s saddle and running across almost the moment it was declared safe to use.

It is beautiful, Ursa must admit. The cold, bright blue sky with large puffs of gently drifting clouds, the snow sparkling in the sun like gem dust across the landscape, and the ocean that stretches out to the horizon dyed a deep, cerulean hue.

She is also absolutely sure it will be even more beautiful once her feet are safely on solid ground once again.

Jate waits impatiently for them on the other side, jumping in place, first on one foot, then the other and back again, Dango (Kenta had categorically refused to cross and was safely on the other side, being minded by some very disappointed teenaged sailors.) tucked against him, protecting from the worst of the winter chill off the sea with his great furred and feathered bulk.

He huffed impatiently as Ursa was undone from her harness, cheeks puffing up like those of a squirrel-toad with a mouthful of chestnuts before he grabbed on to her and his mother’s sleeves and practically dragged them down away from the cliff to an overgrown footpath cutting through the sparse trees. It had the look of being recently cleared, and the sounds of shouting and the hacking of machetes came from up the path as the earlier sailors cleared away the brush.

“Is he always like this when you find something?” Ursa whispered over the little curly head.

Teuila laughed quietly and whispered back; “Worse, usually. He gets it from me.”

Dango honked in agreement.

Just then a shout came from up the path.

“There! I can see a weathervane! It’s the shrine!”

If someone had asked Ursa to describe an Air Nomad settlement before this moment, she would, admittedly, been at a loss. 

There would have been mountains, most certainly, and mist and not much in the way of flat ground. She’d have pictured golden roofs and great iron bells and giant stables for the monstrous Air Bison and their armaments and maybe a barracks of some sort, and a well-marked training ground with the scorch-marks and wind-gouges of a long past battle.

She wouldn’t have pictured plain, whitewashed walls with the remnants of bright murals still clinging to their interiors, or an abandoned bag of glass marbles scattered across the street and kicked into the cracks by great metals boots or dropped in a hurry. She certainly wouldn’t have pictured wash tubs knocked over by a near overflowing well, or a little girls dress tucked into a half-rotted chest, tossed in carelessly, as young children were want to do, or sandals kicked off in the interior of door frames as if the occupants had just stepped out of them. 

She certainly wouldn’t have expected a table, set for dinner, the food and drink inside the iron pots, cracked bowls and corroded tin cups long since evaporated, rotted, or eaten by roving animals.

Teuila saw her staring and sighed, running a hand through her mussed hair.

“Yeah, that’s… That’s the kinda stuff that can kinda curdle in your belly. But, well… not like their going to come back for it. But… yeah. It’s hard to see sometimes.”

“They- they were just people .” Ursa hears herself say.

Teuila sighed again, setting a gentle hand on her shoulder and steering Ursa away.

“Come on. I have something that might cheer you up a bit.”

The shrine isn’t much. It clearly was tossed for anything even remotely of value back when the soldiers first came, down to pulling the iron candle holders down for scrap and ripping away at the wall carvings with axes and knives to pry out any little speck of gold or precious stone that might have been inlaid in them. But some things were too big, or too much of a hassle to move.

The back mural is one of those things. The mosaic on it still displayed an elegant, if filthy from years of abandonment, the image of swirling clouds and a beautifully smiling Airbender woman sitting on an enormous white lotus flower, flanked on either side by a procession of spirits and fantastical beasts in multicolored glazed tile.

The shrine itself, under its still strong roof, is equally immovable, carved out of a single block of granite that looks as though it was hewn out of a single, massive boulder, with divots carved into it for worshipers to deposit water or light fires to burn incense. This is not surprising to Ursa. 

What is surprising is the fact that it had been freshly washed, there was a small fire burning in one of these divots, and the shelves had been filled with small, but carefully chosen offerings of food, dried flowers, and various other trinkets.

Taking out a small vial of scented oil, Teuila smears a bit of it on a little stone carving of a woman and her baby, no larger than Ursa’s thumb, before rubbing the back of her neck almost sheepishly.

“It’s… It’s kinda become a tradition, I guess. It started as a way to keep angry ghosts off our back and then it just kinda… well, you can see. It seemed like the right thing to do really. Spirits know there’s none of them left to clean it off and pay their respects.”

Teuila sighed, picking up some of the dried flowers and crumbling it into the impromptu brasier. The scent of jasmine fills the air.

“Everyone usually leaves a little something. It can be… good. It helps you get your head on straight after, you know… All of that.”

She squeezed Ursa’s shoulder, gently.

“Sometimes… Sometimes it’s just nice to pray. And remember.”

She gave Ursa’s shoulder another gentle squeeze and then, tactfully, leaves her alone.

Ursa watches the dancing light of the fire, transfixed.

There’s something beautiful and very, very sad about the warmth of the fire lighting the interior of this long-forgotten place, whose people have long since died and knowing that after the ship pulls away from these shores this whole place will once again be cold and empty.

Lonely.

The word rises to the top of Ursa’s mind like some great sea-creature from its cold, dark home. This whole place is completely, heartbreakingly lonely . The wind slackens, the bridge stills, the buildings seem to hold their breath as if waiting in expectation of occupants who will never come back.

Ursa feels wetness on her face and reaches up to discover she is crying. There is a snuffling sound, and a tug on her sleeve and when Ursa turns around, she is face to face with the concerned face and soft black eyes of both Jate and Dango, respectively. The little boy is worrying at his lower lip with his teeth and looking up at her with concern.

Ursa wipes at her eyes and schools her features into a welcoming smile.

“Yes, Jate? What’s wrong?”

The boy simply tugs on her sleeve once more and when she lowers her hand to his level, he pushes a small drawstring bag into her open hand and folds her fingers around it. Puzzled, Ursa unknots the drawstring and tips the contents out into her open palm.

Out falls the little wooden-platypus bear, sanded and polished since the last time she had seen it, the same one Jate had been so eagerly anticipating the completion of. Her heart melts.

“For me?” 

He nods solemnly, reaching out to take her free hand in his small one, patting it as if to say; “It’s going to be alright.”

Her heart melts again, and she leans down to kiss him on the forehead. He makes a contented noise and smiles one of those blinding smiles up at her.

“Thank you Jate. This really helped. I think… Yes, I think I’m going to be alright now.”

The little boy scuffs his shoe sheepishly before squeezing her hand once more and running off. Dango lingers long enough to lean heavily into her side, in the way big animals do when they are trying to comfort you, before making a distracted chuffing sound and loping off to follow his boy.

Ursa stares into the brazier for a very long time, turning the little toy over and over in her hands. Then, carefully tucking the toy into a secure pocket in her dress, Ursa lifts her hands up to her neck.

When Teuila finally calls them all away and the last straggling crewmember has crossed back over the bridge, the Fire Lily necklace that had sat above her heart for almost thirteen years is nothing but a pool of molten metal in the heart of the flower perfumed flames.

Chapter Text

The next few weeks pass entirely uneventfully.

It grows steadily warmer as The Ravens Breath begins to skirt the edge of the Earth Kingdoms Southern Coast, the bow of the ship turned steadily Northward, back toward the equator. The first day Ursa finds her fur coat to warm to wear, she spends the whole day basking in the sunshine like a content owl-cat, much to the amusement of the crew and the consternation of anyone trying to get things other than steering done on the quarter deck.

“You’re enjoying the sunlight I take it?” Saghani laughs good-naturedly, gently nudging her awake with the toe of his boot for the second time that morning.

Ursa can only nod sleepily, bringing her hand up to cover a yawn.

About two days after that, the nocturnal port visits begin.

Ursa awakes in the dead of night to the sounds of shuffling and the grumbling of unfamiliar voices down in the cargo hold. She freezes like a kangaroo-mouse in its den, barely breathing until she hears Teuila’s voice cut over the discontented noise like a warm knife through tofu.

“Don’t like it? That’s fine, I bet I can find five other people willing to take it off my hands for twice the price. That’s what we’ve got, and that’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”

More grumbling, but it is accompanied by the jingle of many coins and somebody, begrudgingly, handing them over.

The less you know, the better , Ursa thinks and turns to go back to sleep.

These nocturnal visits to the hold grow so commonplace that Ursa doesn’t even stir at them anymore. Well, except for one night, when she wakes to the twanging of arrow strings and the sounds of muffled cursing on deck, accompanied by the frantic motions of The Raven’s Breath undocking in a hurry .

“Fucking little milli-rat snitch!” Teuila curses, once they are safely out in open water once more.

“He better pray I don’t see him again, or his miserable skin will be up there with the gods-damned flag!

“Hold still for Tui’s sake!” Hitomi growls and there is the sound of a waterskin uncorking and an unearthly blue glow shining dully through the porthole.

(The next morning, Teuila, Ine, Sialuk and a few others are nursing reddened scars, nasty bruises and bandaged limbs or ribcages that definitely weren’t present last night at dinner. Ursa doesn’t ask.)

The lookout spots the lighthouse of Fēngfān Zhīchéng one morning during breakfast, his shrill two-fingered whistle cutting through the cheerful babble inside Teuila’s cabin.

It’s Saghani and Young-Ja’s turn in the rotation and all the adults are greatly enjoying teasing the blushing teenager about his new beau, Young-Ja near bent in half over his porridge in embarrassment. Ursa thinks she sees him whisper a heartfelt prayer of thanks to the spirits when the signal pulls their collective attention away from him. Jate pats him on the knee encouragingly and goes back to try and braid Dango’s feather fur, tongue stuck out in intense concentration. The Polar Bear-Goose just yawns and flops over onto his side.

Teuila grins widely, grabbing Ursa’s arm and pulling her up.

“Come on, up, up! It’s not every day you get to see the City of Sails for the first time! And you! You are telling me all about this mystery boy of yours when I get back!”

Young-Ja moans and goes back to trying to drown himself in his porridge, but Teuila just laughs and drags Ursa up onto the deck, Saghani following close behind.

At first, all Ursa can do is squint at the glare of the sunlight reflected off the waves, but when she does see it, she gasps at the sight.

Ships. The whole city is built on the bones of old ships. They rest where they were anchored, some miraculously still buoyant, others half sunk in brackish water and covered with algae and barnacles and sea stars and other ocean creatures. The whole place was raised above the waves on stilts, most looking like they had been harvested from the masts, keels, and the hulls of the dead ships. A few seemingly well-maintained figureheads sat on top of the posts, around the entrances of buildings or just freestanding like the art pieces they were.

Seamingly every ship that had ever been made was somewhere in the bustling port, either cruising above the waterline or sunk and scavenged for its parts. There were small skiffs and sailboats cruising all around them, some collecting clams, sea urchins, and rock oysters that had affixed themselves to the sunken bones of the drowned ships, some casting nets into the shallow water and pulling up squirming sholes of small silvery fish, and still others swarming around half-destroyed ships, pulling up boards and carefully collecting the iron nails.

Ursa spotted a trio of women farther out into the deeper water, two of them naked save for a loincloth and belt with only a pouch and a small knife, hefting large rocks in their hands and jumping into the water, disappearing beneath the waves for minutes at a time before emerging again, gasping but triumphant, lifting the pouches high in their hands.

“Pearl divers.” Chi-Hun, one of the lookouts says when he catches her staring at the scene.

“Only place that has bigger pearls then here are the Northern Islands in the Fire Nation, and they almost never leave the country anymore, despite our best efforts.”

The Ravens Breath looks like some great sea creature beaching itself amongst scuttling sand crabs as it draws into the harbor, the little boats and their cargo fleeing out of its path before turning around and following behind like the dolphin-fish that chased their wake since the beginning. They call out greetings and wave frantically, and receive warm greetings in return from the crew. It occurs to Ursa that this is the first port they’ve landed in since Komodo Isle where The Raven has sailed to under the light of the sun, rather than under cover of night.

There’s an actual crowd waiting for them on the mismatched docks, watching eagerly as the sails are furled, the anchor dropped and the gangplank lowered. Teuila descends first, Dango close on her heels like a savage honor guard. On the docks, Ursa watches an elderly, clearly Water Tribe man with greying cropped hair and ropes of wiry muscles displayed prominently under his sleeveless tunic, push his way out of the crowd and stand in front of them, arms folded and expression grim as Teuila walks to stand in front of him.

There is a moment of tense silence.

“You have some nerve…” The old man growls, thick brows furrowing, face twisting into a scowl.

“Five months. Five months I’ve been waiting! Do you have any idea-!”

His rant is cut short when Teuila abandons her serious demeanor in favor of throwing her arms around him and squeezing hard.

“I missed you too Uncle. Don’t blow a blood vessel, it’s bad for your heart.”

“ YOU and that spirits damned ship are bad for my heart.” The old man grumbles, but he still returns the hug fiercely.

Teuila snorts, before pulling back and inspecting him critically.

“Uncle, you look pale. Have you been eating enough?”

The man’s face contorts into fond exasperation; “I’ve been eating fine girl. I’m not so feeble that I can’t take care of myself!”

Teuila’s blue eyes narrow. “Have you been taking the tea the doctor gave you? And cutting down on your meat?”

“That tea tastes like shit…” The old man grumbles before glimpsing Teulia’s expression and grumbling; “I’ve been taking it, I’ve been taking it… Nearly bought out Wuying’s entire supply of honey to choke it down but I’ve been taking it…”

Her eyes narrow further.

“And the meat?”

“So, where’s that great-nephew of mine?!” Teuila’s uncle says, clearly changing the subject, and is only saved from his niece’s wrath by Jate, who barrels down the gangplank like a little arrow and nearly takes out the old man’s knees. A wide, wrinkly grin splits the man’s face and he scoops the madly giggling Jate up into the air, tossing him high and catching him again.

“Ah, there he is! How’s my little Trickster these days?”

Jate just grins hugely and flaps his hands in excitement. His great-uncle nods in understanding.

“That good huh? Well, it’s nice to see you too, you crazy polar-dog puppy you.”

Dango honks in consternation but is quickly settled when the old man reaches up to scratch behind the small, round ears.

“You too, you damn bloody abomination against decency. Why the hell the spirits saw fit to combine a goose and a bear I’ll never understand. No wonder the Northerners are so batshit crazy. They’ve got flocks of you outside those damn fancy walls of theirs!”

Dangos only response is a contented, rumbling clucking. Teuila’s uncle just rolls his eyes and hefts his grandnephew higher on his hip, turning to his niece with a smile.

“We can argue about everything later. You’re home. It’s time to celebrate!”

Ursa has a sneaking suspicion, as the crowd cheers, that she’s in for a long night.

She’s right. Ursa thought Ember Island knew how to party, but they have nothing on The City of Sails.

A veritable seafood banquet is laid out on groaning driftwood tables in the courtyard of Anuun’s (Teuila’s uncles) house, a great bonfire is lit and surrounded by laughing, inebriated dancers who don masks or paint their faces to play pranks and set fireworks out over the water or simply mingle in the crush of bodies.

Ursa watches it all in awe from her seat at the high table. Of all the things she anticipated happening on her arrival to the Colonies, a hero’s welcome wasn’t one of them.

Well, honestly, It’s more for The Raven’s Breath, but even that is surprising in itself for a self-proclaimed smugglers ship. Jae-Wook, his usual stiff and differential demeanor toward her softened by the copious amount of ice-plum wine Anuun plied him with as the night wore on, smiles distantly at her confused expression.

“Pirates.” He tells her, eyes half-lidded and watching the wine swirl in his cup.

‘I’m sorry?”

“Pirates. This whole place. It used to be a pirate hideout back in the day. Plenty of people have tried to domesticate it, but it never really quite worked out, probably because parts of the city can literally sail away but mostly because the people here don’t give a donkey-dillos ass about outside authority if you’ll pardon my language, my lady. They elect their leaders like the Water Tribes, run their military with the efficiency of a Fire Nation regiment, have enough trading clout to impress even Earth Kingdom nobility and have enough flexibility to be able and pack up and move down the coast, should the need arise. Not that they’ve done that in decades though. Most of the time any nation that tries to do more than just stick a flag on the ground, collect some reasonable taxes and call it good wakes up one night to find the city gone out to sea and dagger stuck in their backs. Even the Royal Navy gives this place a pass, so long as the taxes keep coming. Admirals like nice things too, and they like living even more than that.”

Watching the raucous, crowing mix of people, Ursa can believe it. Anyone who tried to yoke that mob without their approval would have a riot on their hands in short order.

“And Anuun… He’s-”

“One of the council members here. One of the big three actually, representing the Water Tribe population. If it’s got something to do with the sea, he’s the man you talk to. And he’s crazy about his family.”

Ursa watches as Anuun joke and laughs with Teuila, Jate leaning sleepily into his side, tossing scraps off his plate to Dango, who snaps them out of midair, and holding hands his wife Kukrit under the table. She’s a plump, vivacious woman with an easy smile and an infectious laugh that kisses her husband’s cheek fondly when she thinks no-one is looking.

Ursa’s heart aches to look at them.

“He’s a lucky man…” She says, softly.

Ursa is awakened the next morning to a hangover and a godsend in the form of Kukrit, who has prepared a wonderfully hearty breakfast of scallion pancakes, wrapped around a piece of crispy dough and topped with a fried egg, chopped pickles, more scallions, coriander and a spicy sauce so hot it rivaled the Fire Nation's best, along with a large, steaming cup of Pu’erh tea.

Jate was already up, happily stuffing his face as his great-aunt cooed and piled more food high on his plate, along with a warm bowl of fresh soybean milk. Teuila stumbled out a half-hour later, holding her head and refused to speak until she had downed at least three cups of Pu’erh and attacked her breakfast with the sort of ferocity Ursa would normally associate with Dango ripping chunks out of a tiger seal.

Only then, nursing another cup of tea in her hand, did she turn and address Ursa.

“My contact should be coming into town today.” She informed her, wincing and taking a large swig from her cup.

“We’ll go meet her at about 1-” She winced again and took another large gulp.

“Make that 2 in the afternoon. Don’t worry about payment, she owes me a favor.” Teuila said, voice taking on a distinctly menacing timber. It was at that point Kukrit snorted, eyes never leaving the strips of dough deep-frying in her large wok.

“Is this favor about the kitten or your old doll?”

“She bribed Taro into liking her more than me!” Teuila snapped before wincing and pressing a hand against her temple.

Kukrit laughed and at Ursa’s confused expression, explained; “Uila-darlings ‘contact’ is Kalama.”

“My sister.” Teuila groaned.

The boat ride inland is quite pleasant. Teuila grumbles about the price but grudgingly pays the gondolier for both her and Ursa’s tickets. (She skirts having to pay for Jate’s ticket by having him sit in her lap for the entire journey. Ursa is discovering the Teuila can be a bit of a penny pincher.)

The man accepts his payment and steers them out of the dock and up a winding maze of swamps and river deltas. Jewel-colored butterflies dart in and out of the swaying reeds, fat green catfish the size of the boat swim lazily alongside them, cranes call to each other and fox-antelope lift their heads to watch them row past. The air is thick with the scent of warm water and greenery.

They pass by various smaller villages as they wind inland, the reed houses and their rounded roofs built right up to the waterline and seeming to float on islands of solid ground. Children chase each other on sandy banks, women with brightly colored headscarves talk and laugh as they wash their clothes, babies on their hips and naked toddlers splashing in the warm shallows, the old men playing Pai Sho and gossiping on someone’s porch, the younger ones cruising by on in small boats loaded with fish, birds, small animals or fresh-cut reeds, dogs happily facing the wind of their motion as their masters row.

It’s a scene that wouldn’t be out of place in any of the islands in the Fire Nation, save for the profusion of green clothing, and the fact that some of the children lift balls of mud out of the water to fling at their playmate’s shirts with bending, rather than their hands.

Teuila taps her shoulder and directs her attention to a larger structure, a long, almost cylindrical building set on the highest point it possibly could be in this world of water and reeds. Two carved wooden statues flank the entrance, one of a pale woman in green and white robes and a golden headscarf much like those worn by the local women, the other of an oni-like creature with a crown in his wild white hair and a mischievous, tusked grin. Even from this distance, Ursa can hear the sounds of voices raised in prayer and smell the musky, floral scent of incense wafting out the wide-open doors.

“The Sanctuary of the Storm Lovers,” Teuila says, answering Ursa unspoken question.

“We’re meeting my sister there.”

There is some kind of ritual in session when they finish climbing up the small hill that hosts the Sanctuary of the Storm Lovers. Men dressed much like the monstrous figure outside the temple, complete with faux tusks, indigo body paint, and wild black wigs that drape down almost to the smalls of their backs, pound drums, clatter bells and beat gongs as they leap and cavort madly in front of a large copper brazier, the firelight making their shadows huge as they flicker and sway on the plain reed walls. Outside the circle of dancing men, women dressed much like the pale lady sway back and forth slowly, eyes closed, faces serene and almost trance-like, their gentle, undulating motions juxtaposed by the men’s frantic dance.

Teuila tugs Ursa’s entranced form off to one side, Jate trailing them slowly, almost as transfixed as Ursa is. Some of the temple goers turn at the sudden intrusion, before shrugging and turning back to the production before them.

“What is going-” Ursa manages to get out before, she is summarily glared at and hushed by some of the surrounding patrons. Teuila just shrugs apologetically at Ursa’s confused look and mouths; “I’ll tell you later,” before turning back toward the front of the temple. With no other avenue of discovery available to her, Ursa resolves to watch closely, in hopes to try and understand what on earth is going on.

The men, she surmises, are some sort of representations of storm demons, or chaos, or both. They brandish painted white spears carved to look like lightning bolts and shake sheets of copper and bang their drums to simulate thunder. The women are the swamp, swaying and flowing like the water, and as the men’s dance increases to a frenzy, they begin to thrash and bow like reeds in a high wind. 

Suddenly, in a huge clap of thunder, the white-haired Oni appears among the dancers. His bright white fanged grin is manic and terrifying, his skin is painted a deep eggplant purple, his thick hair covering almost his entire torso and the only clothes he deigns to wear are a black loincloth and a tigerdillo-skin tied about his waist. He brandishes a great club above his head with a roar, and everyone, the storm demons, the swamp women and the worshipers shrink back in fright.

The first to unfreeze are the storm demons, kneeling to bow at the Oni’s feet. He looks at them contemptuously, before nodding in recognition and gesturing imperiously for them to rise.

Then he begins to dance.

It starts out slow. He shifts his feet into a wide, solid stance, like the earthbending scrolls she’s seen in the palace library and shifts heavily from foot to foot, squatting into a crouch and bringing each foot high before planting it again with a thud that reverberates in the silent room.

 Then the drums start up again. At first, they only punctuate the sound of his footfalls, but as he picks up the pace and begins to dance in earnest, the drums pick up a thumping beat that Ursa swears she can feel in her chest. Then the demons link hands around him and begin to dance. Their footfalls come heavily as they circle, more subdued but somehow more powerful when they all step and leap in time with one another. The demons stomp and kick and turn as one as the white-haired Oni dances in the center of it all, leaping higher and stomping stronger than any one of them, his horrible manic grin growing wider as the tempo of the dance increases

The swamp women begin to thrash violently, rolling their bodies and issuing silent screams to the heavens in time with the demons dance, bowing and bending nearly in half, barely able to stand upright. Just as Ursa is sure they will fall to the manic pace set by the dancers, the clear, piping sound of a bamboo flute cuts through the cacophony of drums and silences them.

The whole room stills.

Then the flute comes back, along with the rich, stately sound of a guzheng, and the worshipers turn as one body to look out the door of the temple.

And there, haloed by the light of the midday sun, is the pale woman. Her dress and its large, draping sleeves are so long she has to wear high clogs to stop them from dragging on the ground and two attendants hoist her beautifully embroidered train out behind her. Her golden headscarf is secured with a jade pin in the shape of a lion-turtle, and she holds her head high and proud, both the mirror and the antithesis of the white-haired Oni in front of the fire. The flutes and the strings of the guzheng begin a stately march and, with delicately and determined purpose, the pale woman steps into the temple.

Her progress is unhurried, each step corresponding to a certain note in the song, high wooden sole rising and falling with a soft click on the wooden floor. The fabric of her train flowed out behind her like ripples in a still pond and as she walked steadily up the aisle of the temple, Ursa was suddenly reminded of a bride on her wedding day, right down to the beatific smile and the hands folded demurely into her long sleeves.

The swamp women greeted her, kneeling and raising their hands in supplication, kissing the hem of her gown. She greeted them warmly, laying a gentle hand on their brows or tracing a protective sutra on their outstretched hands before proceeding closer to the central brazier. The storm demons slink away from her like kicked alley-pumas, gnashing their teeth and growling but unwilling to challenge her. Even the white-haired Oni recoiled, but his stubbornness and pride won out and he stood tall, defiant and cautious as the pale woman walked toward him, club clutched in a white-knuckled grip in front of him.

For a beat, the two simply stared at each other.

The pale woman shrugged off her outer gown, handing it to her attendants, revealing a much more maneuverable green blouse and a pair of baggy black trousers that resembled the kind Ursa used to wear when she had practiced archery before her marriage. The pale woman crouched into a fighting stance, hands outstretched in preparation, green eyes steely.

The Oni growled and hefted his club and his crouch looked less like a fighter’s first stance and more like a predator stalking his prey. The two of them began to circle the brasier slowly, one step and the time, never taking their eyes off one another.

Then, with a snarl, the Oni lept. Ursa audibly gasped, but the Pale Woman had apparently been expecting this.

She sidestepped the lunge effortlessly, hands and lips moving as she recited some sort chant, causing the Oni to recoil and roar in frustration before he leaped once more.

Again and again he attacked, and again and again, the Pale Woman evaded him and held him back with her chanting and sutras.

The noises that came from the Oni were truly feral now, but he was tiring. His lunges were slower, the swipes of his club and claws heavier and more off-balance, and he was panting hard, fanged mouth open and tongue lolling like an overheated dog. He attacked, once, twice, thrice, but his legs failed him after the third try and he crumpled into a ball on the floor, panting and twitching but unable to rise. Only then did the Pale Woman lift herself from her defensive stance and, reaching into her sleeve, withdraw a golden circlet from a pocket of her trousers and approach her downed foe.

The Oni growled as she neared him, but he was too weak to swat her away as she knelt before him and slipped the circlet around his horns and tangled mass of white hair to settle it on his brow. Then, unexpectedly, she smiled at him, reaching out a soft hand to cup his cheek and gazing into his eyes as a woman would at her lover. The Oni stiffed but then, ever so slowly, melted into her touch, leaning his cheek against her hand and bringing up a huge horribly clawed hand to cup her soft, small one.

The pale woman’s smile bloomed like a hibiscus after a hard rain and kissed him.

The brasiers flickered out.

There was a moment of absolute stillness before fire flicked into life once more, now with the Oni and the Pale Lady standing hand in hand, looking outward at the congregation. Then cheering started. The worshipers whooped and clapped and stamped their feet, stretching their arms out to the pair and imploring the “Storm King” and “The Lady of the Swamp” for blessings ranging from a good hunt and a troubleless whelping of a beloved dog to a blessing for a son’s safe return from war and pleas for true love and good fortune.

Ursa stared in awe.

“Pretty incredible right? They do this twice a year, once at New Years and once on the anniversary of the battle. I always try to be in town for both. It’s a pretty small temple, all things considered, but the production value is unrivaled. I’ve been trying to get the head priestess to tell me how she can make the flames snuff out and light up again sans bending, but she won’t budge! Sacred knowledge my foot…”

Started, Ursa turned away from the costumed pair and their throng of worshipers to behold a short, buxom woman with light brown skin and mane of loose, wavy black hair.

“I’m sorry, have we met?” Ursa asked her more than a little confused.

The woman bright blue eyes widened and her mouth formed a perfect ‘O’ of shock before she hastily bowed and stuck her hand out to shake in the Water Tribe manner.

“How terribly rude of me! Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Kalama of Broken Point, Sister to Captain Teuila of The Ravens Breath . And I do hope you’re the woman my sister told me about, or else this will be rather awkward for both of us!”

Chapter Text

Watching the two sisters talk quietly together on the steps of the temple, Ursa was frankly shocked she hadn’t seen the resemblance earlier. There were some differences, obviously; Kalama was short and plump where Teuila was tall and lean, Kalama’s large round eyes were a shade of deep cerulean vs. Teuila’s thinner, icy hued ones.

But standing next to each other, the round faces, full lips and thick waves of black hair were nigh on indistinguishable. Kalama even shared Teuila’s habit of massaging the inside of her left palm with her right thumb when nervous or thinking. They were both doing a lot of that.

“What are they talking about?” Ursa said, mostly to herself.

Jate, who had been playing with a little wooden version of Dango looked up, first to his mother and aunt and then to Ursa, before shrugging in the exaggerated manner he always did, as if to say; “Search me.” and returning to making the polar-bear goose gallop across the expanse of weathered wood.

“Well, Ms. Hanako, I believe we’ve come to a conclusion!”

Ursa looked up to see a brightly smiling Kalama walking towards her, Teuila sauntering along behind her.

Kalama reached out, clasping Ursa’s hands in her own and said;

“You simply must come to my show tonight Ms. Hanako!”

Ursa blinked, a bit nonplussed, but years of courtly manners and etiquette swooped into her rescue.

“I would be simply delighted, Ms. Kalama. What performance are we to go see?”

“ Love Amongst Dragons. A bit old fashioned, I know but-”

“I would be delighted to!” Ursa chimed in, this time not having to counterfeit anything in her demeanor.

Love Amongst Dragons had been her favorite play since she was a little girl. She had liked it so much that even after her marriage began to disintegrate she had insisted on going to see it every year, even if the Ember Island Players’ depiction left much to be desired. She had chalked it up to one of the many things that would be lost to her as a consequence of poisoning her father-in-law. To hear that there was a show here in the Earth Kingdom of all places… Her stomach gave a happy little flip inside her at the thought of it.

Kalama beamed at her.

“Excellent! I’ll see you and Teuila at the Cherry Blossom Amphitheater a bit after sunset then, shall I?”

The amphitheater is already bustling when Ursa and Teuila arrive, Ursa in a formal, dark green kimono with matching golden obi borrowed from Kukrit and Teuila fidgeting uncomfortably in a red and grey hanbok she dug out from somewhere on the Ravens Breath .

“Do you know where our seats are?” Ursa asked, peering out at the lantern-lit stage and the rapidly filling seats.

“Knowing my sister, they’re right up front and smack in the center,” Teuila grumbled, reaching back to the low braided bun her aunt had knotted it into and patting her betrothal hairpin distractedly as if to ensure it hadn’t all fallen out in the ten-minute walk from the family house. Ursa herself had styled her own locks in a traditional Fire Nation style for the occasion, digging out the little pot of pomade from the bottom of her newly purchased trunk along with the plum-blossom decorated hairpin her father had given her on her sixteenth birthday. (Ozai’s pin had stayed buried underneath some quilts in its little velvet bag)

“That’s very kind of her,” Ursa said, trying valiantly to contain her excitement in the face of Teuila’s indifference.

“Something like that…” The blue-eyed woman grumbled and went off to collect their tickets.

They were indeed front and center. Dead center and front row to be exact. Ursa had to bite her lip to keep from squealing like a schoolgirl as she settled in and peered eagerly at the beautifully painted wooden set, with it’s soaring marble pillars and paper mache statuary.

Teuila flopped down moodily and crossed her arms, looking for all the world like Azula whenever she had been dragged to the theater.

Ursa smothered a giggle at the action.

Teuila narrowed her eyes at her, but just as she opened her mouth to demand an explanation, the lanterns dimmed, the hawkers stopped their calling and a hush fell over the crowd. There was a short, sharp whistle from overhead, and a soft, yellow spotlight fell across the stage, illuminating an older gentleman seated on a small stool, a guzheng placed in front of him, dressed plainly in the brown and green robes of a traveler. He plucked out a few notes on his instrument, cleared his throat, and began.

“Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…”

...In a great fiery volcano on the edge of the western sea, there lived a dragon. The dragon lived in an opulent palace filled to the brim with the most beautiful objects in all the world. He dined on the finest foods, slept on the softest silks and furs, and flew every morning in his gorgeous celestial garden filled with the rarest and beautiful flowers that ever there was. He had droves of servants and piles of jewels and whatever he did not possess, he could send out his celestial army to find it and they would bring it to him in short order, for he was the Dragon Emperor, son of the Sun God and whatever he desired, he could have. But, he was never satisfied…

“Soothsayer! SOOTHSAYER! Where is that sniveling old monkey-plop!?” Roared the Dragon Emperor. His servants cowered as he stormed past them, bowing so low their foreheads touched the ground underneath them.

“SOOTHSAYER!!!”

The Dragon Emperors roar echoed through the high, opulent halls of his palace. Getting no answer in return, the Dragon Emperor whipped around to his trailing attendants, causing them to nearly jump out of their skins as he pointed to one at random.

“You! Find the soothsayer and bring him to me, quickly, or I’ll have your hide skinned and hung on the wall!”

The poor young woman he pointed to near jibbered in fear but did as she was bid. When she returned a few moments later, trailing an ancient and hobbling soothsayer, the Dragon Emperor growled at her menacingly.

“You… how the hell is such a simple order so hard to understand! I said quickly , you broccoli-eared buffoon! Give me one good reason I shouldn’t burn you to a crisp right here and now!”

The young servant was near weeping in fear, but the old soothsayer gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and stepped protectively in front of her.

“The fault is mine, oh radiant one. I am old, and her progress was slowed by the burdens of age placed upon me.”

The Dragon Emperor huffed out a wisp of flame and smoke, but waved his hand dismissively.

“Fine. Leave us, all of you! But you! Better be quicker about it next time, or I’ll smoke your skin and use it as a throw rug!”

The young woman bowed, stuttering apologies and thanks and then fled out of the room with the rest of her compatriots. The large doors to the throne room slammed shut with a boom.

Snorting smoke, the Dragon Emperor turned on his heel and stalked to his throne, the soothsayer hobbling slowly behind him. Throwing himself upon the golden chair, the Emperor turned to glare balefully at the soothsayer, who was leaning heavily on his staff for support.

“You have lied to me, old man,” he growled.

The soothsayer sighed heavily and straightened himself slowly.

“No my lord, I have not.”

“You must have! Something is missing from my palace and you refuse to tell me what it is! Is it a jewel?”

The soothsayer sighed. “No my lord.”

“A tapestry?”

“No, my lord.”

“A rare flowering plant then. Or an exotic animal maybe?”

“No, my lord.”

“A book full of the knowledge of the ancients? A holy artifact of some obscure god?” A note of desperation had entered the Dragon Emperor’s voice.

The soothsayer sighed heavily.

“No my lord. You have everything in your palace that you could possibly want.”

“THEN WHY DO I FEEL SOMETHING IS MISSING!!!”

Distractedly brushing off the sparks and ash that had landed on his robes, the soothsayer sighed and said; “The thing you are missing, my lord is not something money can buy.”

“That’s foolish. EVERYTHING has a price.”

“This does not.”

“Then I will steal it then. It would look better in my collection anyway.”

“It cannot be stolen either. It can only be given freely and without condition.”

“Your lying. Making it up! You tell me of one being as wealthy and powerful as I am that has this elusive thing you say cannot be stolen, bought or sold.

“Oh, many things have it, my lord, and some are too poor to afford a bowl of hot rice for their evening meal. But if you want to see someone of equal standing as you that holds it in his grasp, you need to look no further than the Storm King, in his great ivory palace underneath the Western Lake in the Earth Kingdoms. He is holding a ball two nights hence, in honor of the harvest moon. Go to the ball and see for yourself the wonder he possesses.”

“Hmph! I will! And when I have found out that it's just as useless as everything else that oaf has, I’ll fly back here and burn you to a cinder!”

And with a flap of his great scaled wings, he was out of his chair and flying across the Western Sea to the Storm King's Palace. The soothsayer simply shook his head sadly, gazing off at something in the distance.

“No my lord. You will not.”

The Dragon Emperor flew as fast as his great wings could carry him, over the Western ocean, over the great green swath of the Earth Kingdom and finally, into the center of the Great West Lake. He landed at the castle steps just as the party was beginning to get into full swing…

The ivory palace was bathed in cool, silvery moonlight. It danced through the water, painting the bright white pillars with rippling sheets of green and blue light. Gossamer silk wall hangings and courtiers skirts and tunics billowed in the current and spirits of all sorts mingled together, floating from the dancefloor to the refreshment table and back again, laughing and gossiping happily together.

Suddenly, there were the sounds of far away shouting, then a thud, then a loud crash of a pair of doors being thrown off their hinges and in strowed the Dragon Emperor, fuming so hot the water around him steamed and boiled. The party guests gasped and ran for cover.

The Dragon Emperor glared balefully around him, eyes narrowing as he scanned the gathered spirits. Then opening his great maw, he bellowed; “Where is the Storm King?!”

“Right here, your majesty. And I’ll thank you not to shout in my halls. You're frightening my guests” A voice drawled. Sarcasm and veiled disdain dripped off every syllable.

The Dragon Emperor whipped around, and there in the center of the room was the Storm King. His wild white mane had been trimmed and combed, his horns polished and his claws filed and the golden circlet was still perched upon his brow. The only real difference, besides his improved grooming, was his clothing. While the tigerskin was still tied firmly around his waist, he was actually wearing some now, a pair of loose black pants and a matching shirt that made him look rather like-

“ The Blue Spirit?!?!” Ursa gasped and was promptly shushed by one of her fellow theater-goers.

The Dragon Emperor looked the Storm King (Blue Spirit?!?) up and down before snorting derisively.

“Well, it’s clearly not your dress I should aspire for. You look like you stole those off a farm laborer!”

The Storm King’s claws twitched, but he kept the rest of himself perfectly in check.

“I find simple laborers clothes just as suitable to me as any kings robes. More so even, considering the wear and tear I put them through when I ride with my Thunder army.”

The Dragon Emperor snorted again, looking him up and down once more.

“Yes… I suppose they would…” He said, smugly. Once again the claws twitched, and once again, the Storm King kept his face a mask of politeness.

“Yes, well… Not all of us have the privilege of sitting around all-day eating on our golden throne, like some plump paradise-peacock my Lord.” The Storm King said, smiling and coating the insult in sticky honey sweetness.

A few brave spirits tittered at the barb. The Dragon King flushed, unsure if he had been insulted, yet unable to retaliate in the face of the King’s unfailing politeness and manners.

“Yes well… perhaps one day you shall have even a quarter of as much wealth and prestige as I have gained.” The Dragon Emperor stumbled out.

The Storm King smiled wider at that.

“Perhaps… Now my Lord, please enjoy the party. The harvest moon comes only once a year, you know…”

And with that, the Storm King bowed and swept back into the swell of the party, and was quickly absorbed by eager guests vying for his attention. The Dragon Emperor was left standing alone in the center of the dance floor, furious and suddenly very, very small.

Finally, he huffed and, spinning on his heel, stormed deeper into the palace.

The Dragon Emperor stormed from room to room in the Storm King's underwater palace, watching in contempt as the guests laughed and chatted together merrily, searching high and low for the thing he did not possess, and every time coming up short. Finally, in frustration, he stormed in past the protesting guards and into the Storm Castle’s inner sanctum and stumbled upon a beautiful and verdant garden…

The Dragon Emperor stomped into the fine garden, fuming. He gazed up at jeweled trees, fragrant flowers, and the exquisitely carved fountain, eyes narrowing in suspicion as he searched for the precious thing he did not even know the name of. Growling to himself, he began to ransack the garden, prying up paving stones and pulling up clumps of delicate water violets and crocuses as he searched for his prize.

“What are you doing?”

The Dragon Emperor started at the sudden voice and whipped around to see the Pale Lady standing under the shade of a jeweled peach tree. Her clothing was much the same as it had been when she had fought the Storm King, if more elaborate, but her hair was now uncovered and intricately braided and styled in the way of a married noblewoman, rather than the maidens style she had worn during the battle.

The Dragon blanched a bit before the heat of his anger and pomposity returned and he sneered at the woman.

“And what is it to you, water nymph?”

The Pale Lady’s eyes narrowed, but like the Storm King before her, she held her temper.

“Well, Sir , a woman has a right to know why a stranger is destroying her garden in the middle of the night like some ill-bred footpad.” She said drawing herself up to her full height and raising her chin imperiously.

“Ill-bred-?! I am the Dragon Emperor ! Ruler of the Western Ocean, King of the Smoking Islands, Son of the Celestial Sun himself, the most powerful being in existence! How dare you question me?!”

“How dare you trample all over my Panda Lilles?!” The Pale Lady shot back, eyes full of fire as she marched up to the furious dragon and thrust her finger in his face before she dropped to her knees and began speaking softly and encouragingly to the smashed flowers.

“It’s alright my darlings, it’s alright. This great brute’s head is too full of hot gas to notice anything as beautiful as your petals…”

“Bah! Beautiful? They are not even a patch on the flowers in MY garden!” The Dragon growled.

“I have a collection of only the rarest and most beautiful plants in all the world! These common weeds are not even worth the soil you grow them in!”

“Shows what you know about flowers.” The Pale Lady scoffed, as the black and white speckled lilies perked up under her gentle caress.

“And even if they were as common as blown dandelion seeds it would make no matter to me, for they were given to me by the one who loves me dearest in all the world, as I love him.”

“Oh? And what poor, wretched fool is that?”

“My husband of course. He made me this garden for a wedding present.”

There was a short silence. The Dragon Emperor glared incredulously at the back of the Pale Woman’s head.

“Woman. Who did you say your husband was?”

The Pale Woman scoffed at this, still tending to her flowers.

“I would have thought it would be obvious, even to a simpleton like you. The Storm King, of course. This is his castle after all.”

“The Blue Spirit is her HUSBAND?!”

“Shush!”

“Honestly Hanako, even I know it’s rude to talk during a play…”

The Dragon Emperor stood, shocked and mouth gaped open at the Pale Woman. She, for her part, paid him no mind as she continued to minister to her garden.

“It’s you?! ”

“What in the world are you talking about?” She snapped, spinning around to glare at him.

“And why are you gawping at me like a landed trout?!”

The Dragon Emperor shut his mouth and shook his head, like an elephant-mandril trying to dislodge a bothersome fly.

“Of course… It’s so obvious now… The one thing that brute has that I do not possess…”

“What the hell are you mumbling about now? ” The Pale Lady snapped, standing up from her flower bed and planting her hands on her hips.

The Dragon Emperor snapped out of his contemplation and drew himself up, high and haughty once again.

“Be my wife.”

“I BEG your pardon?!” The Pale Woman blanched at the suggestion (order?) and she turned pale under her already pale makeup, from rage or shock it was unclear.

The Dragon Emperor growled, and when he spoke again it was slow and deliberate, as though speaking to a child.

“Be. My. Wife. Are your ears broken or are you just dumb?!”

“ What’s wrong with you girl?!” The voice from behind the wall of flames shouted.

“Are you deaf or just stupid? You and your ilk already disgrace me and my line by your continued existence and by bewitching my idiot son to chase you! I’ll not have you be mute as well!”

“No!” The Pale Lady was indignant, whatever shock she might have had falling away into pure righteous anger.

The Dragon Emperor growled in annoyance, and, plunging a clawed hand into the pocket of his robe, withdrew a large handful of gold and rubies which he thrust at the Pale Lady. She stared at it in bewilderment.

The Dragon Emperor growled again.

“Not enough for you? Fine.”

From his other pocket, he produced a great handful of pearls and silver dropping it at the Pale Ladies feet. Her eyes grew huge and round, but she did not say a word.

The Dragon Emperor roared in frustration, and hand plunging into the silken pouch he wore on his belt, withdrew a beautiful filigree crown, dripping with sapphires and opals and diamonds.

“That is all yours and more when you become my wife.” he snarled, dropping the fine crown to the ground with a metallic clatter.

“Are… are you trying to buy me?!” The Pale Lady asked, outraged.

The Dragon Lord blinked, nonplussed.

“Yes. So you’ll be my wife.”

The Pale Lady’s mouth opened and closed, incandescent rage twisting her features.

“Why you… you… MISERABLE OVERBLOWN SALAMANDER! I’M NOT FOR SALE!!”

The Dragon reared back as if he had been struck before his own rage overtook him and he roared back; “FOOLISH WOMAN! EVERYTHING HAS A PRICE, INCLUDING YOU!”

“NO, I DON’T! AND EVEN IF I DID IT WOULD BE MORE THAN YOUR MISERABLE HIDE COULD EVER AFFORD!!!”

“PAH! AND I SUPPOSE YOUR MISERABLE ONI HUSBAND COULD?!”

“ HE DIDN’T TRY TO BUY ME LIKE I WAS A MOO-SWINE AT MARKET! HE IS TEN, NO, A HUNDRED TIMES THE MAN YOU ARE!”

The two stare at each other, panting with exertion, glaring hard enough to melt steel. Finally, the Dragon Emperor straightens, smoothing back his hair and snarling;

“Fine. FINE. I see that you are not something that can be bought.”

“ Obviously …” The Pale Lady huffs, scowling but dropping her defensive stance.

“But, my Lady, there is something I have learned in my many years of being a miserable, overblown salamander , as you put it…”

She scoffed.

“And what is that, oh miserable one?”

“That the things in life that cannot be bought…”

And all of a sudden he lunged at her, teeth bared in savage triumph, claws outstretched.

“ Can be Stolen!!!”

The Pale Lady screamed and tried to flee, but the Dragon was too fast for her. He lifted her bodily, throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, just as The Storm King and two of the castle guards burst into the garden.

“My Lady!”

The terror in the Storm King’s voice was heart-wrenching as he stared helplessly as the Dragon Emperor lept into the sky, The Pale Lady still firmly in his grasp.

“My Love!” The Pale Lady sobbed in return, reaching out desperately for her husband’s clawed hand even as she was dragged away from their home and his arms.

And with one great leap, they were gone.

The Storm King stared up after them, before bending to retrieve on of the smashed lilies and clenching it tight to his heart. There was a spell of heartbroken silence.

“My King…” One of the soldiers whispered.

“What do we do..?”

The Storm King was silent for a beat. Then he rose to his feet, face twisted into a grotesque snarl of rage, bruised flower petals still cupped tenderly in an indigo hand.

“Sound the drums of war and rouse my riders. We’re going dragon hunting this night. And if that scoundrel has harmed one hair on her head…”

The Storm King’s smile was hideous and frightening as he grasped at the hunting knife in his belt.

“I’ll have his miserable hide for a new pair of boots!”

The Dragon Emperor flew as fast as his wings could carry him, over mountains and valleys and lakes and rivers and out over the Western Ocean The Lady of the Swamp still clutched in his claws. He was giddy and confident, for nothing and no one could catch him in flight. But he had forgotten, no matter how fast you run, or how great your stamina, NO ONE can outrun a storm…

The Dragon Emperor laughed as he flew, folding the clouds around his great bulk to hide from any watchful eyes .

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you…” The Pale Lady (The Lady of the Swamp?) warned, her face sour as an unripe persimmon and glaring at her captor with burning eyes.

“And why not? I have outflown the mountains, the rivers, the valleys, and the lakes. I am above the Western Sea, in my domain, and once you’re safely inside my palace walls, there’s nothing your inferior brute of a husband can do about it!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, my lord…” The Lady of the Swamp said as the Dragon Emperor enveloped himself in a thick bank of clouds.

“Oh? And why is that?” The Dragon Emperor scoffed.

The Lady of the Swamps smile was almost as sinister as her husband’s.

“Because you have forgotten, my lord. Wherever the clouds go, the storm surely follows…”

And suddenly, the darkened clouds were full of the boom of thunder and war drums and the whooping and taunting of soldiers as the surrounding clouds sprouted grinning storm demons wielding arrows and spears and whips and from behind them the snorting, braying, and growling cavalry of the Thunder Army closing in, their four-eyed, eight-legged, fang-toothed, flesh-eating demon horses, the men on their backs laughing like flock of mad hyena-parrots and grinning as they trampled the clouds like unlucky souls under the electric-blue, lightning-sparking hooves of their mounts.

And, riding proudly out in front of them all, his coat of storms rippling in the wind, his pitch-black stallion snorting and screaming underneath him, its red eyes burning and it’s fanged mouth already wetted with fresh blood and gore, sat the Storm King, his club on his shoulder and his face twisted in a savage, bloodthirsty smile.

Outnumbered and suddenly terrified the Dragon Emperor dove. The Storm King and his demonic army followed in a deadly wave, whooping and cheering and blowing hunting horns like it was all some great game.

“Call them off!” The Dragon Emperor screamed, barely dodging out of the way as thousands of lightning arrows and barbed spears fell upon the place where he had just been.

The Lady of the Swamp’s smile was grimly pleased.

“Oh, I could never my Lord. You don’t know how well my husband’s warriors love a good hunt…”

Snarling, the Dragon Emperor clenched her tighter in his fist and put on speed, but it was too late. He was in the belly of the storm now, and the storm was their domain. The scouts and horseback archers and dark, shadowy hunting hounds harried his headlong flight, bursting out of the freezing, lightning illuminated fog and dissolved back into it like ghosts whenever the great drake tried to lash out with his teeth and claws or melting flame. 

And all the while the hunt chased him, laughing and taunting and howling with savage glee, gaining ground steadily, swinging around wide and flanking him, their murderous-mounts screaming in savage joy at the possibility of a feast. One by one blows landed. A lightning arrow on his hip here, a nip on his tail there, the broad side of a heavy stone striking into his shoulder, causing him to howl in pain and drop a few feet in the air. And all the while the Storm King rode, utterly silent save for the savage wind stirred up by his storm coat tearing through his clothes and hair, his manic grin only growing wider and more malicious as his stallion snorted and gained speed, eight hooves shooting eight bolts of forked lightning across the raging sky like the tongues of serpents.

“Call them off! CALL THEM OFF FOOLISH WOMAN! If I die those beasts will not hesitate to kill you too!”

The Lady of the Swamps smile was almost as terrifying as her husband’s.

“Oh, they could never. Those men and their animals could no more harm me then they could strike my husband. Those warriors that seem so fierce and so wild? I have bandaged their wounds and soothed their troubled hearts. Those hounds that harry you? I fed them the scraps off my plate every evening at dinner and they lay at my feet as I sew. Those fine horses that run you down? They carry me, gentle as koala-lambs and push their great fanged muzzles into my pockets for peaches and other treats. Oh no, my Lord, the only one who will die at their hands is you...”

The Dragon Emperor roared his fury and snarled. “FINE! But if I am to die, then you will join me! ”

And he plunged. Faster and faster her dove, wings folded tight to his back, careening like a fallen star out of the sky down to the thrashing, roiling waves below and-!

He was lifted up in a great updraft of air halting his descent, and all at once, he was face to face with the Storm King. He was no longer smiling.

“Let her go whelp. ” The Storm King said softly, his voice filled with the growl of faraway thunder, club clenched tight in white-knuckled fingers.

The Dragon Emperor blanched, but he was proud and pride made him foolish. He glared right back at the enraged spirit.

“ No. ”

The horses roared, the hunting hounds bayed and the soldiers spat insults and threats at the scarlet drake, hoisting their weapons higher. The Storm King stayed them all with a wave of his hand. When he turned back to the Dragon Emperor, his eyes glowed with electricity.

“You cannot hope to escape my army alive whelp . Let her go before I call on my men and their beasts to tear you to shreds…”

“And when you do, I’ll slit her pretty throat!” The Dragon Emperor growled, the tip of his dagger-sharp talon drawn against the Lady’s throat. Despite the danger, she held her head high and proud, like the Queen she was.

The Storm King’s face twisted in anger once more, but there was something within it now. An undercurrent of cold, cutting fear as his eyes locked on the talon against his wife’s throat.

“You foolish kit! If you kill her, you’ll die for sure and certain!”

The smile that crossed the Dragon Emperors’ face was as smug as it was feral.

“True… But I will die knowing I denied you of the prize you so greatly wanted, just as you denied me of mine!”

The Storm King’s eyes shut tight, face crumpled in indecision and despair. When he opened them again, his body sagged with defeat.

“A prize. That’s what you want?”

The Dragon Emperor snorted.

“Of course. Prizes are the only things worth anything in this world.”

“What if I gave you a larger prize, a thing of incomparable value, in exchange for her life?”

The Dragon snorted in derision.

“You? A jumped-up warlord, having something of greater value than your wife? Even though she is barely passable enough to be considered a worthy prize!”

“You presume to think YOU are a worthy match for my son? Please. Your nothing but a country bumpkin, a daughter of traitors and nobodies. They can dress you up in fine silks, paint your face and peacock-swan you around all they like, but it will not disguise what you really are...”

“You are, NOTHING, no less than nothing. You are a traitor and of inferior blood, from a long line of traitors and half-blooded savages, and you will NEVER have a place here!”

The Storm King ground his teeth.

“I may be only a jumped up warlord…” He gritted out.

“But my wife’s value is immeasurable and made ten so by my love for her. And yet, I still have one item that is worth more than even her radiance…”

“Oh? And what is that?” The Dragon mocked. The Ladies eyes suddenly went wide with fear;

“No Husband, don’t tell him! Do not give up your most powerful possession for my life!”

“Quiet woman!” The Dragon Emperor roared, pressing his talon into her throat and causing her to wince in pain. The Dragon then turned back to the silently fuming Storm King, a savage grin spreading.

“Well… If even your little wife considers this object more valuable than her continued existence, color me intrigued. You will take me to this prize at once. Without your army. If I see or smell hide nor hair of them, your wife dies. If this prize is as valuable as you say it is, I will take it, unmolested, and then and only then , will your wife be returned to you. Do we have a bargain?”

The Storm King’s jaw clenched, his muscles flexing underneath his clothes. Then he sighed, long and hard.

“...We do…”

And so, with the bargain struck, the Storm King called off his army and led the Dragon Emperor deep into the Great Banyan-Grove Swamp where his wife’s family lived and to a cave system buried under the roots of the Ancient Banyan Grove Tree, the mother of all the swamp.

Down and down they went, into the damp, darkened gloom, the proud dragon never suspecting that his prisoners where leading him to his fate…

Water dripped from the ceiling overhead. Stalactites and stalagmites joined into great solid pillars, glowing with the unearthly light of the bioluminescent mushrooms that clung to their craggy surfaces and the jelly-bugs floating lazily through the air. The sound of pale, blind cave crickets and mole-frogs echoed, calling to each other throughout the winding, damp corridors. From out of the gloom, a flicker of torch-light appeared, accompanied by the sounds of grumbling.

“Are we there YET ?!” The Dragon Emperor growled.

“Patience, my lord, we’re nearly there…” The voice of the Storm King replied, emerging from behind a muddy pillar. The Dragon Emperor followed, still grumbling, his talon still pressed against the Lady of the Swamps throat.

“You have been saying that for the past hour! If you’re lying to me-!”

“I’m not lying to you whelp. We’re here.”

It was a small cave, lit by the floating spirit lights of the jelly-bugs and by the soft, unearthly blue glow of the great pool of still water that encompassed almost all the floor space. It rippled gently against its banks, color undulating from pale blue to cerulean to nearly purple and back again.

The Dragon Emperor looked and it and snorted.

“ This is your greater prize. Some underground spring? I can’t tell if you don’t care for your wife, or if you’re just stupid…”

“This spring was a wedding gift from my beloved’s mother, given to us on the day of our marriage.” The Storm King says, kneeling down and running his fingers across the surface of the water.”

The Dragon Emperors’ eyebrows rose in recognition.

“Her mother… Do you mean... the human Sorceress Baozhai; Maker of a thousand holy treasures?!”

“The very same.” The Storm King replied, standing and flicking the water off his fingers.

The Dragon Emperors’ eyes shone with greed, and he raced to the edge of the pool.

“What does it do?” He whispered, gazing covetously at his reflection in the magical water.

“Grants you the power to change your fate.” The Storm King answered.

“Well? Do we have a deal? Will you give my wife back to me, unharmed?”

The Dragon King practically threw the Lady at her royal husband and began eagerly divulging himself of his fine robes and jewelry.

“We do. This spring is now mine, and if you even think about trying to cheat me, well…”

The Dragon Emperor, having now stripped down to his loincloth and eased into the water, smiled confidently; “Just remember who now has the power to change his fate.”

The Storm King bowed low, but when he rose, his fanged smile was wide and satisfied.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, My Lord.” He purred.

But the Dragon Lord was too distracted by his newfound fortune to heed the warning in the Storm King’s voice. He dived and splashed happily, coating himself and cupping his hands to drink the magical essence. Then he stopped. Stared. Stumbled. He began to blink hard.

“What is wrong my lord? Are you feeling… unwell? ” The Lady of the Swamp asked, the innocence of her tone belying her mischievous grin.

The Dragon Emperor snorted in derision. “Of course not, woman! It is only a passing…”

He stumbled again, falling against the side of the pool and sinking down in the water. His eyes widened in recognition, and he turned to glare at the grinning couple.

“You… you lying weasel-snakes! What did you do to me!?”

“Nothing you didn’t do to yourself, my Lord.” The Storm King gloated.

The Dragon King growled but when he opened his mouth to roar fire at them nothing came out. When he looked down at the water again it was turning a sickly yellow, the water leaching his divine strength and power from him. He stumbled and scrabbled at the edge of the pool, trying to pull himself out, but his arms and legs were too weak.

“I’ll...KILL...you…” he rasped.

And then everything went black.

When he awoke, he was above ground once more. Screacher-birds screamed, cicada moths sang, catgators bellowed. He was naked, save for his loincloth, and his claws and horns were gone as if they had never existed.

“Ah. Good, you’re awake. I hoped you would. Never much liked killing a man in cold blood, but I doubt my wife would feel the same way, especially after the stunt you pulled. Be glad she agreed with my plan instead. If it were up to her you’d be food for the hyena-parrots by now…”

The Dragon Emperor shot to his feet or at least tried to. He fell over and face planted in the mud twice, as his body struggled to adjust to his suddenly absurdly weak frame.

“Whoa, careful now. Don’t want to sprain an ankle before you’ve even begun. You’ve got a long walk before you can find some help.” The Storm King said, stepping out from under the shade of the canopy. His grin was bright and mischievous.

The man that was the Dragon Emperor growled; “You mangy cur! What have you done to me?!”

The Storm King’s grin grew wider if that was possible.

“Like I said back in the cave, nothing you didn’t do to yourself. You wanted the power to change your fate, didn’t you? Well, you got it!”

“This isn’t what I wanted! Change me back this instant!” The dragon-turned-man yowled at the white-haired spirit.

The jovial grin dropped from the Storm King’s face.

“No. Even if I could, I wouldn’t do it, not for your spoiled, selfish behind. Your first mistake was assuming you could tell the magic of the spring to do what you want.”

He dropped from the tree branch he was standing on and was suddenly right up in the Dragon-Emperors face.

“No…” He whispered.

“Your first mistake was thinking you could take my WIFE, the one thing I love the most in this world, the breath in my lungs, the heart in my chest and escape unscathed. And then you threaten her life ?!”

The Storm King shook his head, teeth bearing in a savage snarl;

“No. No that wouldn’t do at all. So I figure this is Karma. You try to take the most important thing to me, I take away the most important things from you.”

The Storm King stalked around the dragon-tuned-man, looking for all the world like a predator closing in for the kill.

“No wealth, no power, no connections… You don’t even have your big claws and tough scales to protect you anymore. You are nothing but a man.”

The dragon-tuned-man paled. 

“Change me back!” he roared, but now a quaver of fear had entered his voice. The Storm King shook his head; “Weren’t you listening? Even if I wanted to, I can’t. Not till you learn your lesson…”

“What lesson!” The Dragon Emperor wailed, eyes wide with fear.

The Storm King just smiled and jumped back up into the branches of the trees. 

“If you don’t know, I can’t help you. And don’t get any bright ideas about trying to find the spring again. Even if you could, which I doubt, another dip in that water will drain you until your nothing but a dried-up husk.” He said, conversationally. He paused again.

“Oh, silly me, I forgot the most important part. You’ll need a new name to go with your new form!”

“A name?! What good is a name when I’m like this?! I’m NOTHING!!! ” The Dragon Emperor roared.

The Storm King shrugged.

“Well, if you insist…”

He pointed down at the nearly naked man at the base of his tree.

“I name you Nothing. Whenever anything, man, woman, child or spirit asks or demands your name from you, you must answer ‘Nothing’ for Nothing you are. Now, Nothing… What is your name?”

The man now known as Nothing clenched his jaw. His face twisted in savage anger, his mouth moved wordlessly, his eyes screwed shut. But in the end, the yoke of the Storm King’s curse was too much to overcome.

“...Nothing… I am… Nothing…”

The Storm King’s grin was viciously triumphant.

“As I suspected. Now run along, Nothing. It’s getting dark, and you don’t want to be in this swamp when night falls…”

And then, he was gone.

The man known as Nothing, who had once been The Dragon Emperor, crashed through the swamp blindly for three days and three nights, exhausted, hungry and incandescently furious. As his stomach grumbled and the vines and thorns lashed at his soft, exposed skin, he murmured foul curses and plotted his revenge against the Storm King and his Lady of the Swamp. But it was all for nothing. After all, he was only a soft, weak man, lost in these twisting paths of water and greenery and he did not know how to escape or even feed himself. But, on the dawn of the fourth day, he stumbled, exhausted and starving, onto the banks of the great green Tisuri River and for the first time, encountered other men. Two fishermen, floating in their canoe on the banks of the great, green Tisuri River…

It was a peaceful day on the muddy riverbank. Warm sunlight, dappled and colored green by the great canopy of leaves above then, fell on the great, green swell of the Tisuri River.

Floating in the water, tethered to the root of a large banyan tree, sat a carved wooden canoe, and within it, two men fished. They were naked from neck to waist, pale bodies painted with brown mud, and huge, absurd bright green leaf hats perched upon their heads their only nods to clothing besides some leg and arm wraps and dark green loincloths. Beside the canoe, an enormous catgator snoozed, his barbells twitching as he dreamed.

Off to one side, the sounds of aggravated growling and crashing foliage grew steadily louder before the man known as Nothing burst out of the trees, his scream of frustration cut off by a coughing fit as his parched throat seized on him. He was muddy, bug-bitten and ragged, his long black hair knotted and full of leaves and other refuse.

The catgator opened one large golden eye to glare at him with disgust. One of the fishermen sighed quietly and turned to look at Nothing.

“I’d thank you not to shout friend. You’ll scare the fish.”

“I’m not your friend, you peasant! How dare you speak to me in such a way! If I were at my full strength I would burn you alive for your insolence!”

“Whatever you say, man.” The other fisherman said, not even deigning to remove his eyes from his bobbing lure.

“Yall lost or what?”

“I AM NOT LOST!!!” Nothing roared, shaking the leaves on the trees and causing roosting birds to scatter into the air.

“What’d I say ‘bout shouting?” The first fishermen sighed, shaking his head.

“Now you’ve gone and scared off all the fish…”

Growling, the man known as Nothing turned on his heel and stomped back into the swamp.

Silence reigned. The catgator closed his eye and huffed, settling more comfortably into the river muck. The men in the canoe continued to fish.

The sounds of ripping foliage and cursing returned and Nothing reappeared on the river bank, a bit more disheveled and a bit further away. He paused, glaring incredulously around him.

“The candy cap mushrooms.” The first fisherman supplied helpfully.

“They always grow on the north side of the trees.”

Nothing growled and stomped back into the greenery.

“Or was it the south side…” The first fisherman pondered.

The second fisherman snorted, “Neither Huo. Your thinking of stinkhorns.”

“Really? I thought those only came up where a skunk-bear does its business?”

“No no no, those are the badger-stripe mushrooms.”

“Really? Could have sworn those were stinkhorns…”

The pair lapsed into silence once again. About twenty-seconds later, Nothing burst out of the greenery again, nearly avoiding face-planting in the soft river mud and covered in green slime and algae. Huo cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Hey, sorry, my bad! Zan tells me it’s actually the stinkhorn mushrooms that grow on the north side-”

Zan whispered something in his companion’s ear.

“What, really? Okay.”

Huo cupped his hands around his mouth again.

“Sorry, sorry, the south side. The stinkhorns grow on the south side of the trees. My bad!”

Nothing snarled and stomped back into the trees. More silence.

“Come to think of it, wasn’t it moss that grew on the south side of trees?”

“Zan, we live in a swamp. Moss grows everywhere ,”

“Well, by that logic, so do mushrooms, stinkhorn or otherwise.”

There was a moment of contemplative silence.

“Well, slather me in honey, dump me in feathers and call me a monkeys uncle...”

There was a thump, and a crash and Nothing fell out of the trees and face-first into the mud on the banks of the great, green Tisuri River.

Zan sighed heavily.

“Go ahead. Help him out. Not like we’ll get any decent fishing done until we do.”

The fisherman scooped Nothing up off the great green banks of the Tisuri River . They poured cool water down his parched throat and gave him strips of smoked deer-duck to eat and regain his strength and took him to their village wise woman to be healed. But Nothings complete lack of gratitude and foul temper meant as soon as he was well enough to walk again, the villagers of the Foggy Swamp rowed him out of their hidden Banyan grove with some dried meat, a water-pouch, and a knapsack full of camping supplies and set him on the nearest road out of their swamp…

“Y'all come back soon you hear?” Huo yelled at Nothing’s retreating back, silently wishing the foul-tempered man would not take his offer seriously. He needn’t have worried.

“Like I’d ever return to such a fowl, stinking mud pit as this!” Nothing shouted, now dressed in foggy swamp tribe hand-me-downs and stomping down the road like an enraged hippo-badger.

“Sure, sure,” Zan replied.

“Watch out for bandits! They’re mighty thick on the ground ‘round here…”

Nothing only growled and stomped away.

Autumn was beginning to give way to winter but in the wet, sticky lowlands outside the Banyan swamp the sun still beat down hot overhead over rough, rocky terrain. Nothing’s pale skin burned, then peeled, then darkened to a deep brown as the weeks passed by. His soft feet cracked and bleed and hardened into thick calluses. His long black hair grew so matted and tangled with muck and foliage he had no choice by to shave it close to his head with a hunting knife. By the time he stumbled into the coastal village of Dantou, exhausted and emaciated, but still proud and haughty as ever, he was a shell of his former self.

“I demand you take me across the Western Ocean!” He shouted at a ship’s captain, supervising the unloading of his cargo.

“With what money?” The captain shouted back.

“I demand you give me money, so I can sail across the Western Ocean!” He shouted at the banker.

“With what collateral?” The banker said.

“I demand you give me collateral, so I can get a loan, so I may sail across the Western Ocean!” He yelled at the Trade clerk.

“With what favor?” The trade clerk replied.

“Favor?! There is no favor . You will give me collateral or I will strike you down in flames!” Nothing growled, shaking his fist menacingly at the clerk.

The clerk scowled at the presumptuous man in front of him, who had the short hair of a criminal, and the manner of an enraged scorpion-wasp.

“Oh? And tell me, sir. Who are you to order me around?”

The man’s jaw worked. He bit his tongue and tried to choke the words back but they rose, just as they were bid.

“...Nothing... I am Nothing, and I demand you give me collateral…”

“Well, at least your self-aware,” the clerk scoffed, tiding his desk. He sighed.

“You have nothing to offer and nothing I want. So tell me, rude nothing man. Why should I help you?”

Nothing paused and blinked, struck dumb by the man’s question. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. The clerk sighed again.

“Listen. If you want to earn money so badly, I could use a messenger to deliver small packages between here and Gwadong. It’s a long, hard journey, fraught with peril, and if I did not pity your sorry state I would have not even offered that to you, for you are rude and pompous and cruel, despite your poverty and shame. But it is a job, and it will pay, and after all, who knows? Perhaps you will be fast enough at it for me to give you another job, and another, and perhaps one day if all goes well, you can save up and buy your own passage back over the western ocean, no loan required.”

The clerk slid a small, square package across the counter. Nothing scoffed in disbelief.

“You expect me to be your errand boy ?!”

The clerk only shrugged and turned back to his ledger.

“That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”

Nothing stared at the package for a long time. Then, growling, he snatched it up and stomped towards the open door. The clerk smiled.

“Wonderful. Just drop it off at the trade house in Gwadong. They can handle it from there.”

All he received in reply was an aggravated growl, which he took as confirmation.

It was indeed a long, dangerous journey to Gwadong. The road cut through great green forests and wide dry plains and then up, high, high up into The Tiger Tooth Mountains. On and on Nothing walked, his lips chapped with cold and feet torn by sharp stones, the package clutched tight to his chest, determined to deliver it to Gwadong and earn his coin to go home and find his way out of this weak and useless body. However, fate had other plans…

Nothing stumbled through the fresh snow that had accumulated on the twisting mountain path, teeth chattering together, bare feet leaving bloody footprints in the snow behind him. He had acquired a straw cape to shield his body, his blue hands pulling it close around him, but it did little against the mountain chill.

But, despite his frost flushed face and the rattling cough that shook his gaunt frame, the package remained safe and dry, clutched against his chest and hidden under his arm and the shade of his wide, raggedy conical hat. He paused next to a large bolder, breathing hard, leaning on the rough stone for support as another cough shook his skinny frame. Growling weakly and glancing up at the sky, he scowled at what he saw in it.

“Another… damn… snowstorm! It’s… like… it’s on… a damn… schedule!” He wheezed, starting another coughing fit.

“Got… to find… shelter…” He gasped, and dazedly stumbled into a nearby cave, hidden behind a pile of large boulders.

He dropped to his hands and knees once inside, crawling as far back as he could manage before wedging himself into a secluded corner and pulling his straw coat tight around him and curling up to sleep.

Outside, the gentle fall of snowflakes became a blizzard.

The wind howled . It lashed the cold stone of the mountainside and whipped ice crystals across the landscape like thrown knives. Inside the small cave, Nothing shivered and pulled the straw cloak tight around himself in his sleep, hunkering down small and giving a raspy sigh as the cave shielded him from the raging elements in the near-total darkness.

Outside, the flickering light of a sputtering torch came into view, accompanied by foul curses as a filthy, rough-looking man stumbled through the snow, hunkered down deep in his coat, eyes squinted against the snow. He felt blindly with a mittened hand along the cliff-face before he nearly fell headfirst into the mouth of the cave. The man sagged in relief.

“Thank all the gods…” And then, yelling over his shoulder;

“Du, Su, Fu! I found a cave! Bring the loot, we’ll spend the night here!” He said, before charging into the comparative warmth of the cave. Nothing started awake as the man stomped off his snowy boots and groaned happily as he unwound his long scarf from around his nose and mouth. A large, deadly looking knife hung off his belt.

Three more men stumbled into the cave, equally ragged and equally armed. They tugged behind them a large chest on a sled.

“Good work Hu!” One of them said once they were safely inside.

“I thought for sure we were all goners when the storm hit!”

“And it would be a damn shame too…” another one said, sitting down heavily on the stone floor and pulling out a dirty cloth to swipe at the sweat on his brow.

“‘Specially after we just robbed that fat pig of a tax collector…”

The third one snickered gleefully. “Did you see his face?! He just about pissed himself when I dropped out of the rocks onto his palenque!”

“Oh please, you were about as intimidating as a goat-puppy! Did you see his face when my arrow pinned his stupid little hat to that tree!

“ Both of you are morons! He only got scared when I slit his guard open like a watermelon!”

“Your all wrong! He near shit himself when I-”

“ENOUGH!! Cease your useless prattling before I cut out all your entrails and leave them for the lion-vultures!” A huge voice boomed.

A shadow encompassed the mouth of the cave, giant, dark as pitch and quietly menacing, causing Nothing to shrink back into the dark and Du, Su, Fu, and Hu to jibber and quake in their boots.

“Yes, Boss! Sorry Boss!” They all yelped in unison, shrinking back from the massive form in the doorway.

The giant looked around, the shadows hiding his sneer of disgust. 

“Why have none of you morons built a damn fire?! I’m freezing my ass off!”

The bandits jumped up, nearly knocking their heads together in their haste to obey.

“Yes, Boss! Sorry Boss!” They echoed again, before scrambling to collect the materials and means to light a fire.

The giant huffed in exasperation, crossing over to the chest and sitting down heavily in front of it, pulling it onto his lap.

There was the unmistakable clink of a lot of coinage. Nothing, who had been trying to wedge himself even deeper into the cave, froze at the sound.

There was the sound of spark rocks striking together, then the wumph of catching tinder, and the cave was filled with flickering orange light.

“Fire’s all set for you Boss!” one of the bandits called, taking a pointed step away from the newly lit blaze.

The giant snorted and when he turned around to face the firelight, Nothing blanched in shock.

The bandit leader was an enormous red oni, with four putrid green eyes, a greasy black mustache set above a mouth bristling with crooked yellow fangs, a broken pair of blue antlers and a huge bulging gut that flopped out the front of his undone tunic and over the belt of his bloodstained trousers. He picked a piece of rotten flesh out of his terrible teeth and flicked it into the fire, where it spat and sizzled. 

“Mmm. ‘Suppose I should let you live. For now.” He conceded and reached out a huge hand to warm it in front of the blaze, keeping the other firmly on the truely enormous war-ax at his hip.

The other bandits sighed in relief, shuffling as close to the blaze as they dared, reaching out their much smaller palms to the warmth of the fire. No one spoke for a few moments.

“Umm… Boss?” One of the bandits, the one known as Hu, who seemed to be the brains of the outfit, quavered.

The Oni, who had his eyes closed in relaxation, opened the two left ones to glare at Hu.

“... WHAT , you sniveling sack of skunk-stink?”

Hu gulped and shook under the stare but pressed on doggedly.

“I… I mean, WE, the boys and I, I mean… we were wondering if you could maybe… Show us the loot? I mean, it’d be nice to see the cash we busted our tails for…”

The Oni’s lips lifted in a dreadful snarl. 

“What, so you nothings could slit my throat and steal it from right under my nose?!”

Hu quailed back, whimpering, “No, NO Boss! We’re all completely loyal- I’m completely loyal to you! It was just a suggestion that’s all, boss, but if you don’t want to we don’t have too!”

The Oni glared at the four bandits for a long tense moment. Then he chuckled darkly.

“Hmph… Like any of you weaklings would stand a chance against me anyway… I suppose you can see it… But if you touch it with those grimy mitts of yours, I’ll cut out your livers and eat them fried with salt and pepper while you watch!”

All four bandits nodded emphatically in understanding. Snorting again, the Oni wedged his long, raggedy fingernails under the lid and lifted. The firelight glowed like sunlight and moonbeams as it sparkled and bounced against a king’s ransom in gold and silver ingots. The Bandit King Oni plucked one delicately between thumb and forefinger, turning it back and forth in the firelight. The bandits openly gaped.

“We… we got all that from one job?” One whispered, as if half-asleep.

“Am… am I dreaming?” another one breathed.

“If this is a dream Fu, I’m never waking up again.” the third one said.

Hu looked about to weep with joy.

“Boss… how…?”

“All the taxes from the rich bastards up in Taku…” The Bandit King snorted, placing the gold ingot back carefully and shutting the lid once more.

“Traders, all of them, and rich as kings. Richer, maybe. Or, they were, till we slaughtered their tax collecter.” The Oni said, snorting in amusement.

“We’re rich…” One of the bandits breathed.

‘No.’ Nothing thought.

‘I’m rich, as soon as you fools lie down and fall asleep…’

The storm had slackened, and the fire had long since died down to embers. The bandits snored, loud and deep in the quiet of the cave, drooling on makeshift pillows and shuffling restlessly in their sleeping sacks. And, out from the gloom in the back of the cave, Nothing crept, quiet as a pygmy panther, bare, bandaged feet making no sound on the stone floor, straw coat pinned tight so it wouldn’t rustle.

He stepped gingerly around the sleeping bandits, weaving in between the prone bodies and messy limbs. He accidentally kicked one of their helmets, causing it to scrape against the rough floor and froze still as a statue as the bandit nearest to him groaned and turned in his sleep, before settling back into his blankets. Once he was certain the man was back in dreamland, Nothing snuck past the sleeping Oni and to the chest. Hardly breathing, he lifted the lid.

The gold and silver winked back at him and a wide, feral smile slid across his face. He was rich again! He had a purpose again! And once he was back in his grand palace and his sages had found a way to put him back into his rightful body, he would fly to that horrible ivory palace and burn it to cinders, with everyone inside!

He was so caught up with greed and revenge, he was blind to everything else, even the Oni’s putrid green eyes opening to see an emaciated little rat of a man crouching over his prize.

The great clawed hand shot out like an arrow from an archers bow and slammed around Nothing’s throat, choking the breath out of him with a frightened squawk, sending the riches spilling across the floor like shards from a shattered pane of glass.

“YOU!” The Oni roared, lifting Nothing up by the throat until his feet barely brushed the ground.

“I THOUGHT I SMELLED SOMETHING FOUL, BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS THOSE IDIOTS PISSING THEMSELVES WITH FEAR! NOW I SEE IT WAS JUST A SKINNY LITTLE RAT WHO THOUGHT HE COULD STEAL FROM TENG RUOGANG!!!”

Nothing gasped, clawing at the hand around his throat as he struggled to breathe, but the Oni was too strong.

“WELL SAY YOUR PRAYERS LITTLE RAT, BECAUSE IT’S THE LAST MISTAKE YOUR SORRY HIDE WILL EVER MAKE!” The oni roared and stomped out of the cave, his bleary and sleepy underlings staggering out behind him.

Teng Ruogang stormed to the edge of the cliff face, hoisting Nothing high in the air over the sheer, inky black drop.

“ANY LAST WORDS, LITTLE RAT?!”

A wordless gasp for air was all Nothing could manage. The Oni’s smile was malevolent.

“That’s what they all say…” he said, and let go.

Nothing plummeted into the darkness below, screaming long and terrified before even that grew too far away to hear. The Oni then whirled on his men.

“Serch the damn cave! If there’s any more of those sneaky little rats inside it, I’ll kill them and then your sorry hides!”

The bandits did as they were bid. After a few moments, they came back.

“Nothing!”

“Nothing here either!”

“Looks like he was all alone Boss!”

The Oni then turned to the final bandit.

“Hu! Report!”

“No more rats, boss, but I did find this!” Hu gasped and thrust out the oilcloth wrapped package towards the Oni. The giant creature took it and ripped open the string fastening with his claws. He pulled out the stack of paper within and began to read it. A slow, awful grin spread across his face.

“Good… Very good…”

“What is it, boss? It just looks like a bunch of paper!” One of the bandits said.

“Oh, there’s plenty in here the right people would pay a pretty penny for…” The Oni purred.

He looked up suddenly.

“Refresh my memory Hu, what was the name of that one warlord who’s trying to overthrow the Earth King? You know, the one trying to build a supposedly unstoppable army?”

In a snowy, sun-warmed mountain valley, a herd of rabbit-sheep and curly horn goat-marmots grazed. Their bells tinkled and clanked as they moved and their babies bounced around them like cricket-moths, bleating and butting heads in the early morning light. Their shepherd lay on a rock, crook at his side, hat pulled over his face to shield it from the sunlight. His bighorn sheepdog was curled up beside him watching the flock with slotted blue eyes.

One of the goat-marmot pups had wandered a little farther afield than the others and was industrially digging in a soft snowbank, piled high under a cliff after the last night’s snow. Apparently finding what he was looking for, he seized on a piece of dead, brown grass and tugged. When that failed, he chittered in annoyance and restarted digging, pausing occasionally to try and tug the dry grass free, but it was stuck firm.

Spotting the lone baby, the sheepdog stood up, and after yawning hugely, ambled over to nudge the wayward pup back towards the safety of the flock. But halfway to him, the dog paused and sniffed the air. Then he began to run.

Shoving the irate pup out of the way, despite his protests, the sheepdog began to dig furiously into the snowbank and began revealing more and more of what was underneath. Dead grass, yes, but also a straw cloak, a conical hat, a few bloody bandages and…

The dog began to bark furiously. The shepherd shot upright, groping for his staff, ready to fend off any threat to his flock, only to discover his loyal canine barking at a snowbank. He groaned.

“Song, please stop barking… I’m sure the frost vole you found was very interesting, but-”

The shepherd leaned around his furiously barking companion and paled.

“Go, Song, go! Go get the doctor! Hurry!”

The dog spun around and sprinted down the steep mountainside, hopping nimbly from cliff to cliff. The shepherd fell on to his knees, digging into the snow furiously, and extracting a limp hand.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s going to be fine, we’ll get you out don’t worry-” he babbled to the unconscious figure and then raising his voice, screamed;

“Somebody HELP!!!”

The curtain fell. The crowd applauded happily and then stretched and shifted in their seats, standing up to stretch and chatter amongst themselves as they made their way out to the food carts for intermission.

Teuila groaned and cracked her knuckles. “One hour down, three to go. I swear Kalama likes torturing me! At least you're having fun right?”

Ursa blinked, surprised by the question.

“Hmm? Oh, yes… They’re very good.”

Teuila peered at her face in concern.

“Hey, Hanako, are you okay? Is something wrong?”

Ursa shook her head, feeling as though she was in a daze.

“No, no, everything’s fine, it's just… different then I remembered, is all…”

Chapter Text

The crowd outside the amphitheater was lively, chatting and laughing with each other as they dined on skewers of spiced marsh-lamb, fried possum-chicken steaks, piping hot jianbing, fat, juicy dumplings either steamed or cooked in a giant wok, alongside small outdoor tables where whole grilled carp, bellies split open and pounded out flat, were served with onion, pickles, slices of citrus and rounds of warm flatbread.

Children darted through the adults legs, chasing each other with wooden play swords and clubs, whooping and calling like the members of the Storm King's deadly army, their faces sticky with syrup or honey from the sugar scented stalls hawking candied fruits, dragons beard, and flakey, nut and honey-filled pastries that Ursa didn’t know the name of, but left a dreadful mess of crumbs behind the children as they ate them.

“Well, at least there’s one good thing about these long-ass plays,” Teuila grumbled, handing over a few copper pieces to a light-skinned gentleman with jade green eyes and a dark blue turban wrapped around his head and receiving a huge fried possum-chicken steak in return.

She blew on it long and hard, but even so, the heat was still so intense she nearly had to chew with her mouth open. Nonetheless, a wide smile spread across her face.

“Mmmm… They don’t make them like this anywhere else… I think it’s the paprika. What’s your fancy? I’m buying.”

Ursa, who had no idea what paprika was and wasn’t keen to find out, pointed at the safest looking option she could find; a tiny stall near hidden behind the clouds of steam and great stacks of bamboo steamers.

Teuila rolled her eyes good-naturedly; “You city slickers and your pork. The marsh-lamb’s not going to jump up off the skewers and bite you!” But returned shortly afterward bearing a smaller bamboo steamer with eight dumplings, a pair of well-loved chopsticks and a ceramic spoon.

“I grabbed a table. Black vinegar and ginger slices are on the table and you gotta remember to return the utensils, but you can just throw those in the steamer when you’re done and they’ll come by to pick it up.”

The dumplings, as it turned out, were soup-dumplings, and Ursa nearly burned her tongue off when she absentmindedly popped the first one in her mouth without waiting for it to cool down first and then nearly choked when the flask Teuila quickly handed her to soothe the burn turned out to be full of Fire Whiskey.

“Sorry, sorry, I should have warned you!” Teuila said, mightily trying to hide her mirth at Ursa’s predicament and mostly failing.

Ursa glared at her and pointedly got up to order some cold soybean milk from another stall. After that debacle, dinner passed quite pleasantly. The dumplings were scrumptious and even the chicken-steak, when Teuila coaxed Ursa to have a bite or two in exchange for one of the dumplings, had a smokey, slightly fruity flavor under the usual mix of salt and spices that Ursa found quite enjoyable.

“Is it always like this?” Ursa asked, draining the last of her soybean milk and packing up the dirty utensils to be whisked away by one of the younger soup-dumpling vendors.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Nothing hawkers love more than a captive audience!” Teuila said, taking another swig from her flask.

“Oh, no, not that. I mean the play. Is the Dragon Emperor always that… antagonistic?”

“Well, yeah… Right now he’s kinda the antithesis of the whole point of the play… Why?”

“It’s just… It’s not what I… It’s just different, that’s all.”

Teuila’s eyes furrowed before raising again in understanding.

“Oh… Right. Rich girl from the Caldera. Makes sense…”

“Wha-?”

Teuila waved her hand;

“Don’t worry about it. The short version is that the story has a whole lot of differences depending on where you are and who the audience is, but I’ll let Kalama talk to you about all that. She totally geeks out about stuff like that and I don’t want to steal her thunder.”

Stretching her arms above her head, Teuila sighed and stood up.

“Welp. No putting it off any longer… Shall we?”

Ursa could only nod and follow the smuggler back to their seats, mind still swirling with questions as the lights dimmed and the play began anew...

When Nothing awoke, he was warm and dry and a gentle voice in the darkness was coaxing him to swallow a thin, nourishing broth. He managed to take a few spoonfuls before he fell back into an exhausted slumber. Many days passed in this way, with the gentle voice and hands waking him in darkness to coax him to eat and drink as little by little, he regained his strength, until one morning, the darkness was lifted, and he found himself squinting into the early morning light through the window of a small and cozy house…

In a beam of sunlight, under a pile of brightly colored wool blankets, a man stirred. Blinking in the light, he tried to ease himself into a sitting position, only to hiss softly in pain and bring a thickly bandaged hand to his side. Peeling off the blankets, he stared at the swarth of cream-colored bandages wrapped around his middle, then at the thickly bandaged hand, before lifting it to touch his equally bandaged head, gingerly.

“Oh good. You’re awake for true, this time. I wasn’t sure you’d make it…” A soft, feminine voice said.

Nothing blinked, hard, and the room swam into focus. The wooden floor was dark and well worn, the walls and pillars were painted in many bright, swirling patterns and colors. A large hearth was sunk into a stone base. The walls were stuffed full of bookshelves and racks of dried herbs and off in one corner a bed had been tucked, raised above ground level in its own specialized alcove. Something savory was boiling in a great iron pot on the hearth and intricately woven rugs and wall hangings took up every inch of available space they could.

And by the hearth, dropping off an armload of firewood and lifting the lid of the great pot with the edge of her colorful apron to check its progress, was a young woman.

“You had quite a nasty fall. By all rights, you should have died, but the fresh snow cushioned your fall; enough that you survived. After that, more snow buried you and you were able to stay warm enough to continue to live until Hanying could find you. Well, honestly, a hungry goat-marmot pup and Hanying’s sheepdog Song found you, but Hanying is the one who helped me carry you down the mountain.” The woman told Nothing, removing her fur hat and shaking out her long hair, which had been plaited into eight neat braids, before ladling some broth into a bowl and crossing the room to give it to him.

Nothing took it in numb fingers, gazing up at her dumbly. She cocked her head to the side and smiled at him teasingly.

“Well, go on then! You’re awake, I don’t need to feed you anymore do I?” she said, before turning back to the hearth and adding a few more logs to the fire.

Blinking, still apparently confused, Nothing stared down at the broth and begun to eat, bringing the warm bowl up to his lips and sipping slowly. Nodding in approval, the woman turned back to the fire.

They passed a few moments in silence, save for the crackling of the fire and the muffled sound of the wind outside.

“What-”

Nothing had to pause, his voice small and rough from disuse.

“What is your name?”

The woman gasped.

“Oh my! Silly me, I’ve forgotten my manners! My name is Jingyi Na, and I am the village doctor. And may I ask your name?”

Nothing flinched back from the question.

“You don’t want to know my name, Ms. Jingyi Na.” He said, with veiled frustration.

She willfully ignored his sour tone; “Oh don’t be silly! Of course, I want to know your name. After all, it’s not like I can call you NOTHING can I?”

Nothing lifted his head slowly, and for the first time, a look of twisted anguish contorted his fine features.

“Indeed you can Ms. Jingyi Na… Indeed you can…”

Bit by bit, Nothing healed. His darkened skin now boasted puckered pink scars from his fall, something that would have never had happened when he was the Dragon Emperor, but such was his lot in life now. Jingyi was growing worried about her patient. He ate little, spoke even less and even as his body healed he seemed to have no energy to do anything other than stare out the window and sleep. Nothing, the man from nowhere, had melancholia and seemed quite content to let himself waste away till he was naught but his namesake…

It was midmorning when Jingyi returned to her hut. Summer was beginning to spread its mantle across the highlands, and the herders were venturing higher into the mountains with their flocks. Summer was the time of many injuries and accidents for the doctor. Boys chasing wayward lambs fell down hillsides and sprained their ankles or broke their bones, cocksure young men got kicked in unfortunate places by an irritable rabbit-ram, women jammed or cut their fingers cooking, planting gardens, or digging for wild tubers and mushrooms, girls pierced their fingers with barbed fish hooks or got different body parts crushed when the family yak didn’t watch where it was stepping and trapped them between its great furry bulk and the wall of the milking parlor.

And then there was her other patient…

Jingyi sighed quietly to herself as she gazed helplessly at the mound of blankets in the corner.

Her mystery fall victim seemed to be losing the will to live even as his injuries healed and the warm summer sun brought the valley into vibrant bloom. He did not speak unless spoken to, and most of his answers were monosyllabic at best and grunts at worst. He only ate when her eyes were on him, and even then he left quite a bit of his meal untouched. Most of the time he slept or pretended to anyway, and when he was awake and not being forced to eat by her, he’d stare out the window, watching the clouds pass with a horribly wistful expression she recognized.

She had seen that expression in other patients before, that bone-deep pain and need to be anywhere else but the body they currently inhabited. Awful, tragic things could happen if they dwelled in that place too long. Jingyi was not going to let that happen to him, not on her watch.

“Good afternoon!” Jingyi said, as brightly as she could.

The blankets stirred, by no answering voice replied. Slightly disappointed, but undeterred, Jingyi pressed on.

“Mrs. Zhan gave me some fresh butter as part of the payment for splinting her husbands’ broken arm. I was thinking of making some tea out of it for dinner. How does that sound?”

The blankets stirred again and this time a small noise of acknowledgment issued from them. She was getting somewhere!

“I’m going to make us some lunch, and then afterward I’m going to go up into the upper meadows to collect some Crested Woodwax mushrooms before the herders move their flocks up and the marmots eat them all. I’d like to ask you to join me, I could carry a lot more back down the mountain if I had another person to help me.”

Silence.

“What do you need mushrooms for?”

The voice was rough with disuse and seemed utterly uninterested with the answer, but Jingyi smiled at her victory none the less.

“Crested Woodwax are excellent sources of anti-inflammatory and antibacterial compounds. I dry them and grind them up to make tinctures for arthritis, sprained ankles, and such. That or mix them with honey and herbs to make a salve to spread on wounds to prevent infection. I used quite a bit of my stock on you, actually!” She said cheerfully, hoping to appeal to his sense of honor and apparent hatred of owing anyone anything.

The blankets scoffed, but a figure rose out of them, his hair mussed and scowl firmly in place.

“ Fine . We will consider it a starting payment in my debt to you.”

Jingyi bit her tongue to hold back from pointing out that she was a doctor and thus only asked for compensation in the ways and when people could afford it and smiled brightly.

“Of course. Dumplings okay for lunch?”

The mountainside, Nothing could grudging admit, was beautiful. Not as beautiful as his grand palace and vast lands, or even the view of the mountains when he had flown above them in his true form, but beautiful nonetheless.

The rocky meadows reached searching leaves up to the golden eye of the summer sun, the tiny flowering grasses and herbs painting the swath of green with little pinpricks of white, yellow, indigo and scarlet. Green-shouldered buzz-birds darted between the blossoms, their little black faces dusted with particles of golden pollen, tiny grey-and-blue butterflies fluttered against the mountain breeze and trundling bumble-beetles walked sedately between each patch of flowers, their iridescent black and yellow striped shells standing out starkly against the grey rock.

Leaning heavily against a bolder on the steep mountainside, Nothing shielded his eyes with his hand and peered out at the horizon, obscured by the plunging, jagged lines of the mountain range, fading into the misty blue and soft white clouds as their peeks scraped the ceiling of the world. It was almost like flying, and his heart both rose and plunged in wistful joy and bitter regret.

How many times had he taken his own power for granted? This miraculous view for granted?

“Found some more!” Jingyi’s voice called happily and she appeared over a rise in the meadow, smiling brightly and clutching a dirty handful of fluted, waxy-looking, off-white mushrooms.

She deposited them in the woven basket at Nothings’ feet and wiped her sweaty brow.

“They were hiding under a rhododendron bush! I nearly had to fight off some wild wolf-spider mice for them. They were hoarding them down in their burrow! I left enough so that they could build up their stores again though, and there are a few hawthorns about to go into fruit and plenty of insects for them to eat in the meantime. Besides, I left them a chunk of meat as payment so they will be okay.”

Nothing wrinkled his brow in confusion.

“Why?”

Jingyi looked up from counting the mushrooms in the basket.

“Why what?”

“Why would you leave them some payment for the mushrooms? They are only dumb animals…”

Jingyi tilted her head to the side and thought about it for a second.

“It’s cruel to take all their hard work. They were the ones that found them first. Besides, they eat insects that can destroy some of the plants I depend upon to make medicines and they live in burrows with ice flex frogs or crocodile lizards, and their skin secretions and saliva contain compounds that have antibiotic and anticoagulant properties that I also use in medicine.”

She laughed slightly.

“That and they are far better at finding some of my most important roots and tubers then me. They’re like my little helpers, honestly! Besides, they are just as alive as you and me, even if they are only animals as you say. Plus, I think they’re cute!”

Nothings brow furrowed farther in incomprehension, but he said nothing more as Jingyi turned back to her count. Once done, she stood and stretched out her back, causing it to crack and pop in places.

“I think we’re almost done! Mind helping me check under the rest of the bushes over there? Sometimes two pairs of eyes are better than one!”

Nothing scoffed in apparent disbelief but followed her dutifully nonetheless. Jingyi ducked down into her scarf to hide her grin.

The trek down the mountain was much louder than the trek up to it, mostly because Nothing was loudly accusing Jingyi of sending him into the thorniest patch of hawthorns she could find. Jingyi argued that she had warned him beforehand not to go blundering off without her. Nothing was insulted at the assertion that he had ever blundered anywhere in his life. Jingyi pointed out the fact that she had to untangle him out of a patch of thorny vines and the numerous scratches he now bore on his face and hands as proof that he did, in fact, blunder a lot of places.

“I have never blundered anywhere until I met you! You literally pointed and said, check over there, I thought I saw some nice damp spots under those boulders !”

“I assumed you knew to avoid the huge tangle of hawthorn bushes just to the left of it!”

“Obviously not!”

“Then how is it my fault you don’t know how to identify things a four-year-old knows how to avoid?!”

“That’s… That’s… That’s not the point! You should have warned me about them!”

“How was I supposed to know you, a full-grown man, hadn’t already figured out in your many years of existence that thorns hurt !? Spirits, is that how you fell off the cliff? You didn’t understand gravity works?!”

“I UNDERSTAND HOW GRAVITY WORKS!!!” 

“Umm… am I interrupting?”

Nothing and Jingyi whirled to face the voice; Nothing with affronted rage, Jingyi with furious embarrassment at being caught arguing like a child with one of her patients. The petite boy who had addressed them took a hurried step back in the face of their fearsome expressions, hands raised in a placating gesture.

“Sorry, sorry! But Jaihao sent me to get you, Dr. Jingyi. Feng was being an idiot again and needs his leg checked out. He keeps claiming its broken, but Jaihao says he’s just being a big baby over a sprain, but he sent me down the mountain to get you anyway, only you weren’t at home so I had to run down to the village to look for you and Elder Bao said you had used up all your Crested Waxwood on some moron who walked off a cliff in a snowstorm-”

“ EXCUSE ME?!?!? ”

“And then he told me you probably went up onto Pikeman’s Peak because the herds haven’t been up there yet and-”

“Thank you Delan I will go check on them,” Jingyi broke in, cutting the boy off mid-ramble.

“They’re probably up on Naigar Rise yes? On the north side?”

The boy nodded vigorously; “I’m supposed to lead you back to them.”

The Doctor sighed and adjusted her basket on her shoulders.

“Alright then, lead me to him. Come on you, let’s go.”

Nothing bristled; “Why must I accompany you to find the idiot who can’t even tell if his leg is broken or not?”

Jingyi gave him a Look .

“Firstly, you are my patient, and thus my responsibility , so I’m not just going to let you wander off randomly. SECONDLY-” She had to raise her voice over Nothings protests that he was a fully grown dragon- HUMAN, HE MEANS HUMAN, that was fully capable of taking care of himself before Jingyi showed up.

“ Secondly , I don’t want you bumbling down another cliff-”

“I do not BUMBLE anywhere-!”

“-And messing up all my hard work! Thirdly , you don’t even know the way back to the village!”

“I-I-Wha- I’M NOT AN INFANT! I KNOW HOW TO FOLLOW A ROAD!!!”

“Really? And did we take the right fork or the left when we reached the statue of The Falling Lady?”

“...The left one…”

“Trick question. We kept straight and went across the rope bridge to the Saunigan Plateau, then climbed up the Sky Stairs to The Heaven-Reaching Rise.”

“Wha- But I- YOU-”

Ignoring her companion’s speechless mortification and fury, Jingyi turned back to Delan, trying and failing to hide a smug smile.

“Lead the way Delan!”

Feng had, in fact, been being an idiot.

That was Nothing’s diagnosis in any case.

Apparently, the fair-skinned young man had been attempting to leap a small gorge in pursuit of a wandering lamb that had lept the gap to gorge itself on the vigorous green growth. He had made the jump, obviously, but the tall splurge had hidden the burrows of a colony of long-eared pika-bats and he’d managed to land with one foot directly inside the entrance of one and proceed wrench his ankle when he fell forward onto his face trying to reclaim his balance.

Jaihao, a sturdily built, elderly man with an eyepatch covering his disturbingly flipped right eye, (The socket had been broken a long time ago, and while the eye had survived, it was pretty much useless.) seemed to agree with Nothing.

“Oh quit your howling! The doctor’s not going to appreciate you screaming in her ear the whole time.” He growled at the younger man, speech slightly muffled as it had to come around the bone pipe clenched in his teeth.

He pulled out a pouch of tobacco and a smaller clay pipe and offered both the items to Nothing. The former Dragon Emperor wrinkled his nose at the smell and turned away imperiously. Jaihao shrugged unconcernedly.

“Suit yourself.” He said and returned to puffing on his pipe.

Delan, who had grown bored of watching the doctor poke and prod at Feng’s leg, slid over to Nothing.

“Hey, what’s your name anyway?”

Nothing’s mouth twitched and contorted as he tried to choke down the necessary response, but as always, the curse was too strong.

“...Nothing…” He growled between gritted teeth.

The boy tipped his head to the side, thinking.

“That’s a dumb name.” He finally decided.

Nothing growled angrily.

“And DELAN is so much more superior?!”

“Better than Nothing .” The boy replied, completely unfazed by Nothing’s menace.

Nothing just snarled and lapsed into silence.

There was a wail of pain as Jingyi yanked Feng’s ankle back into place. Despite himself, Nothing winced at the sound. Jaihao just sighed, breathing out a cloud of grey smoke.

“Just a dislocation. I tried to tell him, but nooo… What do I know? I’ve only been up on this mountain for longer then he’s been alive…”

“All done!” Jingyi said, appearing behind the men and boy, Feng still whimpering pitifully in the background.

“I’ve wrapped his ankle so it doesn’t move, but I need help getting him back down to the village.”

Jaihao puffed his pipe; “You’ll want the youngins on that job. Gotta bad leg myself, and besides, somebody’s got to stay to watch the herd.” he said, gesturing with his pipe outward to the grazing animals.

Delan nodded in assent and began striding toward his downed companion, but Nothing balked at the suggestion.

“There is no way I am carrying that idiot down the mountain! He brought this upon himself, he should get down by himself!”

He quailed under Jingyi’s icy glare.

“Oh? Like you did?” she said, sharp and sweet, like a knife hiding in a cloud of dragon's beard candy.

Nothing balked, wavered, and gave up.

“At least I’m not the idiot who wrenched his ankle in a rodent den…” he grumbled.

“No, you’re the idiot who doesn’t understand how gravity works.”

“I DO SO KNOW HOW GRAVITY WORKS!!!”

“You were saying about gravity?”

“How was I supposed to know there was a drop off there! This place makes no Spirits-dammed sense!”

“You’re lucky it was only a few feet. You could have died if you’d pulled that stunt somewhere else! Now let me see your ribs.”

“My ribs are fine you stupid woman! Get off me!”

“Oh, I know you didn’t just call me STUPID! Get over here!”

“OW! Get off me boorish woman!”

“Not until I see your ribs! Now hold still idiot!”

“Dr. Nu! Dr. Nu are you in there? My grandmother has run out of her cough medicine and- Oh. Is this a bad time?”

Jingyi’s brows wrinkled in confusion before she grasped how the situation must look to an outsider, (A flushed, fully clothed woman perched triumphantly above a half-dressed man whose wrists she had pinned to the ground above his head.) and squeaking in embarrassment, lept off Nothing and shoved him into a nearby wall while she flushed the color of a Fire Lily at sunset.

“OW! What in the hells Woman?!”

Mrs. Lan!” Jingyi chirped with excessive brightness.

“Cough medicine, you say?! I’ll get right on it!” She said and leapt away from Nothing to busy herself various potions and herbs.

“Take your time dear!” Mrs. Lan called out before turning to smile cheerfully at Nothing, who recoiled in suspicion.

“My, aren’t you a strapping young man! No wonder Dr. Nu wants to keep you all to herself. All the young girls would eat you up! Why, if I were unmarried and twenty years younger…”

“Here you go!” Jingyi cried, forcing a little bottle of sticky looking purple liquid into the woman’s hand, just as Nothing was considering the horrifying implications of being eaten alive by the young women of the village as Jingyi ushered Mrs. Lan out the door.

“Take three times a day with hot tea at breakfast, lunch, and dinner and sweeten with honey or sugar to make it go down easier. Please come again!”

Mrs. Lan laughed merrily as the door shut in her face; “I’ll be sure to knock next time!”

For a moment there was absolute silence in the hut, one occupant silenced by mortification, the other by horror.

“Your women EAT PEOPLE?!?”

“Huh? Wha- NO! No, it’s just a figure of speech!”

“You could have fooled me! Damn it that would just be the icing on the cake wouldn’t it, being captured by cannibalistic, perverted voyeurs..!

“What the- PERVERTED?!?”

“YES! I MEAN, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, INSISTING I UNDRESS ALL THE TIME-!”

“I’m a DOCTOR! I’m seeing to your wounds!”

“So you say, but you keep on insisting even after I tell you I’m fine!”

“Because you’re a boar-headed, idiot MAN who wouldn’t know a snapped clavicle from an atlas!

“Wha- WHO DO YOU THINK YOU’RE CALLING AN IDIOT?!?”

“ YOU, YOU IDIOT! Honestly of all the ungrateful, stubborn, spoiled donkey’s arses, I have ever met you are by far the worst! Ugh, GET OUT!”

“WHA- How dare you! I’m-”

“A pain in my ass! If you want to go get yourself killed so badly, do it! See if I care!”

Nothing froze. For a breath he stood stalk still, emotions swirling across his face. Then he fell back into his usual resting state. Anger.

“FINE! I NEVER WANTED YOUR HELP ANYWAY STUPID WOMAN!” he yelled stomping toward the door and wrenching it open.

“FINE! WHO NEEDS AN UNGRATEFUL ARSE LIKE YOU ANYWAY!” She yelled back as he slammed the door.

Nothing stomped down the path, steaming with rage, but it only lasted a few minutes. No matter how hard he tried to retain the grip on his anger it slithered out of his grasp, replaced by the notion that he was once again, alone, powerless and utterly without a way home. His headlong flight slowed, then stopped, and he stood, panting in the middle of the road, eyes wide with realization and fear.

“Rough day, I take it, lad?” A voice said, and when Nothing looked up there was Jaihao, leaning against a stone marker, watching him.

“...Now it’s not much lad, but it will be a roof over your head until such time as you can get back up on your feet again…” Jaihao said as he led Nothing over to the little alcove.

He was right. The alcove was even smaller than the one at Jingyi’s had been, stuffed into a squashed corner away from the smokey central fire. It was covered in loose dog and cat fur, in fact, a grumpy looking pygmy puma glared up at him from the worn top quilt, giving Nothing such a look of disdain that, had he been in his true form, he would have torched the beast for its impudence.

Such as it was, however, he had to settle for shoving the haughty beast off the pillows and growling menacingly at it, which was about as effective as a bumble-bee bat growling at a platypus bear. The cat just gave him a look of disgust before lifting its tail high and sauntering off.

Jaihao had the audacity to laugh .

“Yep, that’s Minsoo. You’ll get used to her. She’s a real sweetheart really. My grandkids adore her. You get yourself settled in. We’ve got a big day tomorrow!”

“Big day?”

“Well, sure! You didn’t think I was letting you stay here for free did you?”

Life as a normal man was difficult for Nothing. Life as a farmhand was even harder…

“Put your back into it lad! We’ve still got to haul the rest of this hay up to the loft! It’s going to rain soon!”

“It’s a perfectly clear day old man!”

“Just so, and it’s going to start raining and ruin my harvest if we don’t hurry it up!”

Nothing never had to work for anything in his life. When he was hungry, he was fed. When he was tired, he would retire to his bedchamber and sleep. It never occurred to him how much work went into such luxuries…

“It has to cook for how long?! ”

“Oh, a day or two, give or take… but we have to smoke the bones first, or else it won’t taste as good. Here, chop the onions and tomatoes and mince the ginger for me, will you lad? I have a mighty hankering for some momo, and they’re great to snack on while the bones get the smoke on them…”

He had never been more tired in his life…

“Sleep well, lad! Tomorrow morning we’re up bright and early to help the boys move the flock up to The Giant’s Fist!”

“But why?!? We moved them up to Plyriden’s Hill three days ago!”

“Because, lad, the herd’s eaten up all the good growth on The Hill and need to move on to The Fist before they eat all the forage down to the nubbin, tear up the pasture and starve to death. And if the herd starves to death-”

“We starve to death…” Nothing groaned, in the exhausted, singsong tone of a man who has heard this particular snippet of knowledge many times over.

He sighed heavily. “I’ll be up in time.”

“Hmm. Goodnight lad…”

But bit by bit, it grew easier. The soreness in his muscles eased, his back ceased to ache unbearably after every day. He stopped burning the rice. His muscles filled out, his skinny frame strengthened, his temper evened, his pride relaxed, if only a little. Bit by bit, almost without knowing it, Nothing was becoming a man.

“...Jaihao?”

“Yes, lad?” Jaihao asked. The two were up on the neighbor’s roof, replacing the broken tiles in preparation for the winter ahead. Already, the snow had begun to swirl in the high mountains, forcing the herds and their minders down into the valleys to wait out the seasonal storms and avalanches. The village was suddenly alive with people and animals as neighbors and families drew close together to prepare for the ruthless mountain winter.

Jaihao followed his young friend’s pensive gaze and found young Dr. Jingyi, inoculating Soo-Ah’s new baby, Eun-Hee against smallpox, an extra precaution for when the snows started to blow.

The young woman cooed and made silly faces to calm the crying toddler after making the crucial pinprick and gave her a super sticky candied plum from the jar she had brought along just for this occasion before washing and disinfecting her instruments all over again while she made small talk with the child’s mother and waving forward her next patient, washing her hands once more in the stone basin.

“How do you… I mean, what do you…” Nothing trailed off, face twisting in an uncomfortable mix of shame, regret, and embarrassment.

Jaihao hid a knowing smile and went back to laying tile.

“In my experience lad, the best way to get back in a ladies’ favor is to apologize for being an arse and get her a nice gift. Flowers are traditional, but I’ve never seen anyone turn their nose up at some nice sweets either.”

“Wha-! I- I never said-!”

“You didn’t have to lad. I was young and dumb once too you know.”

Nothing flushed crimson and began to focus very intently on the roofing tiles. Jaihao smothered another laugh and gave the younger man a warm pat on the back.

“It will be alright lad. Just be sincere about it. The Doctor isn’t known for holding grudges, no matter how hard she tries. Now, pass me those nails, will you?”

Nothing was nervous.

It was an emotion he had no real experience in, and he didn’t like it one bit.

Rage, he knew well. Disgust certainly, pride most definitely. Exasperation, boredom, suspicion, all these things were safe, stable things that you could ground yourself in. Even fear, when he deigned to feel it, had its place. It kept you alive, kept you one your toes, kept you watchful, allowed you to live on and destroy those who tried to slip a knife between your ribs.

But nervousness made no sense! It wasn’t caution, or watchfulness or even adrenaline it just… was! It was like having a swarm of grasshopper-moths take up residence in your chest and bump randomly against your organs, jostling them and causing your chi to swirl like koi in a disturbed pond. It was almost like fear, but not quite. Fear had a purpose and a goal.

Nervousness just appeared , all by itself, standing in front of a red wooden door on a frost dusted porch, the small bunch of anemone blooms, poppy flowers, and juniper boughs tickling your nose, causing you to scrunch it back and forth in an effort not to sneeze, and the cold shiver that came up one’s spine when you realized you were nearly certain the milk fudge you had brought tucked under your arm had gotten squished.

Never had a door seemed such an insurmountable obstacle.

Nothing’s nerve, for the first time in his life, failed him.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this. What was he thinking, letting himself get talked into this by that meddling old man? He’d feed the candy to the village children and any leftovers to the dogs and give the flowers to Jaihao’s wife, Han-Bi as thanks for making the fudge for this ill-conceived venture and then he’d-

“Nothing?”

His (traitorous) heart leaped in his chest. Jingyi was there standing on the stepping stone path that led up to her house, her doctor’s bag in one hand, thick sheepskin robe drawn tight to her body and her huge square fox-fur hat pulled down over her ears to ward off the chill. She looked like some small alpine animal, snuggled down in its fur to keep warm. The fact she had her head cocked to the side like an inquisitive bighorn lamb-puppy did not help the image. Or Nothing’s suddenly racing heart.

He tried to speak but his tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth. Jingyi’s eyes narrowed at his silence.

“You’re not here to pick another fight, are you?” She asked, mouth turning downward in a frown; “I’ve had a really good day today and I don’t need you and your sour attitude ruining that for me.”

Nothing could only shake his head and marching down the stairs, thrusting the small box of candy and flowers into her hands before turning on his heel and near sprinting down the path. Then, apparently remembering something, he turned and looked directly at the young doctor.

“M’ sorry.” the man known as Nothing mumbled, just loud enough for the young woman to hear and then turned and walked stiffly back down the path towards the village center.

Jingyi blinked in confusion, before lifting the gifts to her face. She sniffed delicately at the haphazard little bouquet, a bemused but happy smile passing across her face.

“Nothing!”

The man in question finched and resisted the urge to bolt as Jingyi stepped confidently up to the spot where he was stretching sheepskins for smoking.

She tipped her head to the side and studied him for a long moment.

“You’re not in the clear I’ll have you know. I expect a proper apology next time.”

Then, she smiled.

“The flowers were lovely, but I prefer candied hawthorns. Keep that in mind for next time will you?”

And then to Nothing’s total surprise, she kissed his cheek. It was just a little peck but he still froze like a pika-lemming under the watchful gaze of a hawk. And then she just… flounced away. HUMMING.

Nothing stood there dumbly, hand pressed to the spot she’d kissed him, as the other men whistled, cat-called and bemoaned the fact the lovely young doctor had shown her favor so blatantly. Jaihao just slapped him heartily on the back.

“Looks like you and I will be out hunting furs for a bride price come spring, eh lad?”

Nothing roared at all of them to shut up, but the effect was rather lessened by the intense scarlet flush that had overtaken his entire face.

Winter in the mountains was harsh and cold, but the warmth inside Jaihao’s family house was comforting if a bit crowded. Jaihao’s sons had all come down from the high peaks with their families and livestock and the once cavernous and empty house was full to bursting with people, animals, the smells of cooking and the laughter of young children.

Han-Bi was in her element as the family matriarch, presiding over her daughters-in-law during the household chores and cooing over her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, while Jaihao was content to simply sit back, puffing his pipe and let the younger men see to the outdoor chores of feeding the livestock and repairing things around the house.

Nothing was more or less swallowed into the bosom of family life, just another son or little brother or cousin or uncle to for the women to boss around, the men to tease and the children to climb all over or bring into their games of knucklebones and hide-and-seek.

The only time the family ventured outside the warmth of their wooden and mud-brick walls and the crowded barnyard was for visits and hunts. Periodically, the women of the house would rouse the slumbering menfolk extra-early with much cajoling, prodding, and occasionally by throwing a bucket of cold water on a particularly stubborn son or spouse, so that the family chores could be done ahead of schedule, thus freeing the rest of the day up for visits. The older men, unfairly, seemed exempt from this ritual, a privileged position only granted to them by the fact that their wives were the eldest women of the family, and thus, expected visitors to come to them rather than the other way around.

But Nothing, along with the young cousins, husbands, and unmarried sons were constantly roped into becoming pack mules for the younger women as they bundled up blankets, food, beading, embroidery, and other handicrafts to walk the neighboring house where the men would promptly be banished to some quiet corner somewhere while the women embraced, chatted and cooed over new babies and gossiped about many things while occasionally bursting out into raucous laughter that made the younger men blush and hunker down deeper into their coats.

Nothing especially was apparently a topic of great interest, and the number of times he had, unwisely, looked up from his cup of butter tea to see a group of young women looking at him with a calculating air only to burst into giggles when he caught their eyes was enough to make him despise the whole exercise.

The hunts were better. They happened on a regular schedule once a month, and cleverly, always seemed to coincide with when the women of the family would suddenly get inexplicably ornery. This activity even the older men participated in, and they were often the ones who decided the date and the location they would hunt, telling the younger men over fermented yak’s milk after they had all cleared out of the family room to get out from under the women’s feet.

The next morning the men would prod each other awake before the sun had even risen in the sky to bundle up, saddle the family’s small herd of takin-kiang, round up the various hunting dogs and begin the hike up into the high mountains.

“Hell of a view, isn’t it kid?” Ruogang, Jaihao’s second eldest son had asked on the first morning they had taken Nothing out with them, laughing at the younger man’s awed expression as the sun rose up from behind the far mountains, painting the sparkling snow a golden hue and creating tiny rainbows in the warm breath of the takin kiang and panting hunting dogs.

“Wait till you see the stars. There’s nothing else like it. Dad will probably talk your ear off about the constellations too.”

That first trip, they stuck close to home and hunted iridescent pheasants, sending the dogs into the thickets and alpine forests to scare up the barred brown females and rainbow-colored males and shooting them from the sky with bamboo arrows.

Nothing only managed to down three the whole weeklong hunt, two females and a large, heavy male, but the men had congratulated him none the less, clapping him on the back and marveling over his quarry when the dogs brought back a pheasant with his borrowed gold fletched arrows sticking out of its neck or breast. The male, in particular, was met with much celebration.

“It would have been better if you shot it in the head, but the neck we can work with. Come on. I’ll help you pluck it and after that, I’ll show you how to use the wing feathers to fletch your own arrows so you don’t have to borrow Grandfather’s.” Young Jaihao, one of Ruogang’s older grandsons said.

The women were happy to have fresh meat and when they saw the small bag of iridescent multi-colored feathers in Nothings hand they had practically lept in excitement, whisking it away and telling him teasingly that he would have to become a much better hunter if he wanted his cloak done before Jingyi was old and grey.

“I don’t understand!? What cloak? And what does the Doctor have to do with anything?!” The young man had practically wailed.

Dae-Jung, the most recently married man had just given him a cup of yak butter tea sympathetically; “The pheasant feather cloak for your wedding. It used to give me nightmares, trying to gather up enough birds to get it finished before the ceremony. I used to wake up in a sweat at night because I had a dream I had to walk into the temple in front of everyone with it only half-done . But you’ll be okay. The wedding preparations can’t get started until Jingyi’s done weaving her shahtoosh shawl and since she lives alone, you don’t have to worry about that until the vicuña-gazel migrate down from the peaks next fall.”

Dae-Jung’s brow wrinkled.

“Of course, since she has no male family members to hunt them for her, you’re going to have to do that too. But we’ll help you, so it’ll all be fine.”

Nothing’s protests that he and Jingyi had never even mentioned marriage in passing fell on deaf ears.

“Well, you should get on that then son!” Pyong-Chol said, his gurgling young daughter, Shui, sitting on his lap and slobbering all over his knuckles.

“She’ll get mighty offended if you don’t start getting serious about this, not after she so clearly marked you out!”

“Why does everyone think we’re engaged?”

Jingyi didn’t even look up from her bubbling brass brazier. She carefully added a spoonful more of powdered garlic and stirred it rapidly into the yellow-green liquid before replacing the lid.

“Well, you do spend an awful lot of time here…”

“I find your company tolerable. Besides, there are only so many times one can be dragged to be giggled over by random women before one searches for an expedient escape.” Nothing huffed.

He was propped up in his old bed nook, a book from Jingyi’s eclectic and stuffed library open on his knees as he read. A page turned with a papery rustle.

“...And the Oni was transformed into a handsome prince by true love’s kiss. Honestly Jingyi, you’re a woman of the healing arts. I shocked you give up so much precious shelf space to this romantic drivel!”

“I happen to like that ‘romantic drivel’ as you call it. Who doesn’t like a happy ending?”

“Happy endings are all well and good, but I have been around long enough to doubt their validity in real-life settings.” Nothing grumbled.

“You’re a pessimist.”

“I’m a realist . There’s a difference.”

“No, I’m the realist in this relationship. I have to deal with the line between life and death, sickness and health, growth and withering every day. If I’m not being realistic with my patients, I’m not doing my job right. But it's also important and realistic that I have hope most things will turn out alright in the end. If I lost myself thinking about every possible thing that could go wrong, even the most improbable, I wouldn’t be treating the person seeking my help, I would be treating someone completely different, and that wouldn’t be good for either of us. You trap a sparrow with a net, not a pitfall.”

She turned toward him, a mischievous little smile on her face.

“ You’re just a grumpy ol’ giant sloth-bear.”

“I am not!”

Jingyi just giggled.

“Snappy as one too…”

“Oi, say that to my face woman!”

She just laughed and bounced out the door, tugging on her hat and coat.

“I’ve got to go gather some more rosehips. Watch the brasier till I get back, okay? Take it off the direct heat once it starts to thicken.”

“Oi, you still didn’t answer my question! Why does everyone think we’re getting married?!”

Her laughter this time was loud and bright.

“If you can’t figure that out Mr. Sloth-Bear, then I don’t think anyone will be able to explain it to you!”

Nothing was beginning to realize the hunts all seemed to center around getting him prepared for his apparently upcoming nuptials. Oh, there were other reasons, obviously. Fresh meat for the dinner table, bones and hides, and other items from the carcasses that could be shaped, boiled, dried and tanned to create everything from thread to glue, leather and household items like needles, plates and cutlery. But every hunt seemed to have at least one large significant piece that was essential to bring to his supposed new life as a married man.

The wooly langurs? Their blue-grey fleece and soft, white leather were the base of his wedding robe. The wild yaks? Their horns were to be hollowed out into matching drinking cups and the shaggy black skin would serve as the mattress cover in his new home. The spotted long tailed chevrotain? The waxy substance in their scent glands would serve as the base for the perfume they would mix with pomade of mutton tallow and beeswax and used to style his hair on the fateful day and the tiny sharp teeth and lower jawbone would be made into beads and strung on a necklace. (One of many, apparently. The amount of jewelry that was involved was frankly overwhelming.)

Antelope hooves for rattles, bird ribs for needles, rusty-spotted fox fur for his hat and of course the many, many iridescent feathers for his cloak, not to mention the amount of embroidery, beading, dyeing and sewing that was involved in getting the regalia ready, not to mention the ceremonial tack, saddle and trappings for the takin-kiang he was apparently supposed to ride to her house.

“If we’re actually getting married, I would suggest eloping.” He told Jingyi one evening, as she smeared a soothing salve on to his back. (A dying pangolin-panda had managed to get off a good swipe at his unsuspecting back before the dogs finally brought it down.)

“What and make me suffer under the rumors that you’d had your way with me and had to get the ceremony over with quickly before my delicate condition became apparent to everyone? Perish the thought!” Jingyi gasped in mock outrage.

“Woman no matter what condition you are in, the day YOU are delicate is the day I eat my hat.”

“How rude! I am a delicate, fainting bluebell, I’ll have you know!”

“Meadow plant you might be, but it’s a spirit damned thistle patch, not any wilting little bluebell...”

“If you two are quite done flirting, can we take lover boy home now? Great-Grandmother wants him back before dark so she can adjust his wedding robe.”

“Shut it Qing!”

Slowly but surely, winter turned to spring. The days lengthened, the ground thawed and new life peaked itself out of the grey and snowy ground. In the low valleys, the rivers and streams swelled with meltwater, first only a trickle and then in a great icy rush so strong it could bowl a yak off its feet. In the pastures and barns, the herds dropped their newborns on to the still frosty ground, the wet infants steaming and shivering in the cold, before being licked clean by their softly chattering mothers or toweled off by the ever-attentive shepherds. The meadows were suddenly full of bouncing, bleating new life as lambs and pups kicked up their heels and darted around the swaying leaves of new growth under the watchful eye of mother, dog, and man. For the first time, Nothing knew of the fragility of new life…

“Why is your jacket bleating at me?” Jingyi asked.

Nothing blushed; “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re hearing things.”

Just to spite him, the jacket bleated again and wiggled as it shifted itself around.

“I’m clearly not . What on earth do you have-” The smile that spread across Jingyi’s face was almost manic.

“ Nothing. Do you have a baby rabbit-lamb under there?!”

The jacket bleated and a tiny mouth from inside the jacket seized upon Nothing’s scarf and began to try and eat it. Nothing sighed in defeat.

“It’s a marmot-goat kid, actually…” He said, sighing and opening his coat.

The little black and tan creature peered into the light, nose twitching and oversized ears turning as the little animal tried to suss out his surroundings. Jingyi could barely suppress her squeal of delight at its fat, fluffy cheeks.

“He was the smallest pup by quite a large margin, but well, Noe is Ai’s favorite goat and he clearly wanted to live, so I figured I’d just… help him out a little. Didn’t seem fair, leaving him all alone in a scary new world like that.” Nothing said quietly, reaching a hand down to scratch the delicate pups head.

The pup responded by trying to eat his knuckles, but the babies’ toothless gums didn’t do much other than make Nothing perplexed.

“Can you even eat solid food yet? What are you trying to accomplish?” he asked the baby, his tone soft and fond. The pup just bleated and reared up to try and nibble on his chin.

“Aww… who's a hungry baby? Do you want some yumyums?” Jingyi cooed.

Nothing looked at her in perplexed disgust.

“You will NOT talk to him like that.”

“I’ll talk to this sweetie gums however I want! Isn’t that right my fluffy little nugget-wugget?”

“Maa!”

“I’m surrounded by imbeciles, and only the infant has an excuse…”

“He’s a goat !”

“Who is still an impressionable infant and whose understanding of language cannot be stunted by your insistence of baby talking him!”

“Well, if you’re going to be like this when we have children, I'll have to reconsider the whole marriage thing. Come on puffy cheeks, Momma Jingyi will warm you up some milk!”

“What the- CHILDREN?! I thought we had clarified we weren't getting married!”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to live in sin with you sir! I’m a pious woman!”

“Wha- I- How?! WOMAN GET BACK HERE WE’RE NOT DONE TALKING YET-!”

On the other side of the village, Elder Kyu-Bong laid a tile on the Pai Sho board and took a sip of his yak-butter tea as the sounds of Nothing’s irritated and slightly panicked yelling echoed across the village.

“So. Winter wedding then?”

Jaihao leaned back, surveying the board. 

“Pencil us in for the mid-autumn festival.” He said and laid another piece on the board.

It was a beautiful, clear night up on the mountain. Nothing stared up at the swirling stars above him, his breath coming out in warm puffs as he huddled next to the roaring campfire. In the distance, the clinks of the bells and soft bleats of the herd drifted on the breeze as the animals shifted and turned in sleep. On his lap, the orphaned marmot-kid snoozed, nuzzled snugly into Nothing’s fur-lined robe. Somewhere in the dark, a goblin-owl called, an eerie cackle that sounded, uncomfortably, like the laughter of The Storm King’s Riders.

Nothing shivered and hunched forward over the sleeping marmot-kid in his lap, eyes darting to the clear sky above him.

“They do sound awfully scary don’t they?”

Nothing jumped but relaxed quickly as he recognized the voice.

“Is the constantly sneaking up on me an accident, or do you enjoy causing me heart attacks on a regular basis?”

“It’s a pleasant but unintentional side effect,” Jingyi says settling down next to him on the ground and stretching her chilled hands out to the flickering flames.

“You always look like a startled cat. It’s very cute.”

Nothing just snorted, and gently scooped up the sleeping kid to lay in Jingyi’s waiting arms. The little animal snuffled and nuzzled into her stole, badger striped face disappearing into the steel grey fur of the garment.

“Hello my little floofy-bottom...” she cooed to it. Her only answer was another snuffle and a sleepy flick of a tail.

“Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.” Nothing murmured, but he hid his smile in the high collar of his robe.

Jingyi just rolled her eyes, sitting down next to the quiet man and cuddling the marmot-kid close to her chest.

“If you’d bother to give him an actual name, I would stop giving him those ‘inane nicknames.’”

Nothing snorted. “No, you would not.”

“Okay, maybe not. But I would call him by his name, at least occasionally.”

“Doubtful.”

“I would!”

Nothing didn’t deign to respond to this obvious falsehood, instead opting to lean forward, chin in hand and stare into the dancing flames.

“I hadn’t done so, as I was under the impression he would be slaughtered come fall.”

“No!” Jingyi squeaking in distress, hands coming up to cover the sleeping kid’s ears.

“Don’t even joke about that!” she pleaded.

“It’s true. He isn’t big enough or strong enough to be considered for a breeding buck and he certainly can’t give milk or birth the next generation. From the outside, his only purpose is to provide meat and hide.”

“Nothing, how could you be so unfeeling! You practically raised him since birth! How could you even-!” Jingyi paused, brows drawn together in confusion.

“What do you mean, from the outside ?”

Nothing continued to stare fixedly into the flames, but now there was a slight flush on his face that hadn’t come from the chill in the mountain air.

“I was- Uhh… What I mean to say is-! Mmmm…” He sunk further down into his sheepskin robe, very pointedly not looking at Jingyi.

He took a deep breath and straightened himself up.

“I expressed my… reluctance to slaughter him to some of the other men and they… uh… they looked at me strangely and said… um… they said…”

Jingyi just stared at him, which did nothing for his apparent embarrassment and nerves.

“They said… they were assuming I was raising him up to be a bellwether…”

The stare did not abate. Nothing squirmed .

“They uh… they told me it was useful to have a few animals in every herd that was particularly friendly. That umm… liked you and sought out your company. It made the entire herd easier to care for… And… considering I would have to build my herd from scratch before we… married… a bottle baby would be a good place to start…”

The stare intensified . Nothing laughed, awkwardly.

“But of course, that’s never going to happen, so I was going to ask you to keep him if you could. He could keep your takin-kiang company!”

The silence was deafening. Nothing buried himself into his coat, radiating embarrassment from every pore.

“...Would it really be so awful…?”

Jingyi’s voice was soft and small in the chill air. She curled herself around the small sleeping kid, suddenly unnervingly tiny and delicate in the mountainous landscape.

“Would being my husband really be so repugnant as to be laughable?”

Her usually strong and confident manner wavered, voice slightly tremulous, timbre thick with unshed tears. She hugged the kid closer to her as if the sleepy warmth could thaw the wintery cold emptiness that had manifested in her chest at his words. 

Nothing looked at her alarmed; “...But… I thought… I mean you… I mean I was under the impression… You laughed too?!”

A sniffling sob issued from Jingyi; “You-you-you always seemed so… embarrassed when your family brought it up so-so I laughed along so you wouldn’t feel so pressured…”

“They’re not really my family…” Nothing murmured, but another sniffle issued from the hidden face and refocused his attention.

“But-but- I mean, it was insane! All the preparations and regalia and-and… God, we barely even know each other!”

“You-you’re favorite food is lamb momo. You like it with chili oil, the hotter the be-better. You don’t like big crowds but you’re always the first in line to hold a new baby. You scowl a lot but nine times out of ten you’re just thinking deeply about something. You like stories of heroes and dragons and you hate it when people dog-ear the pages. You’re scared of pika-pigeons because one of them chased you across the garden when you tried to collect her eggs and you once snared yourself in a trap you set for a marbled leopard. You adore the lambs and kids but you always get embarrassed when people ask you about it and-”

She paused to suck in a lungful of icy air;

“And when you look at the sky, you look so sad. Like you wish you could lift up into the air and never come back again…”

Nothing stared open-mouthed at Jingyi. She just scrunched herself up smaller and turned her face away from his thunderstruck stare.

“But… But I… how..?”

“It’s natural for a woman to pay attention to a man she likes!” Jingyi snapped defensively. The little marmot-kid woke with a startled bleat at her harsh voice and she soothed him, stroking his fur with nervous hands.

“I… I wanted t-to be a good future wife… After all, I chose you for myself and I r-really like you and-and I thought you liked me too…”

She trailed off with a sniffle. The resulting silence was deafening.

Jingyi swiped at her eyes and straightened, face carefully blank as she stood from the log, gently placing the confused kid on the ground. When she spoke, her voice was wooden.

“But I see I was mistaken. I apologize for forcing my affections on to you and for assuming that you wished to wed. I will make sure to inform the temple and your family that there has been a misunder-”

“Your favorite food is Chatamari. You like it with chilies, chopped onions, cheese and a fried egg on top. You have a sweet tooth a mile wide and though you say your favorite is candied hawthorns, it’s only your second favorite. Your real favorite is Jalebi but you can’t justify heating up a big batch of oil for just you, so you only have it on festival days and give yourself a stomach ache like a little kid-”

Nothings’ voice came fast and almost panicked, the words tripping over themselves in their haste to escape his mouth.

“When you’re thinking you cross your arms, purse your lips and tap your fingers on your sleeve. You prefer winter to summer because it’s easier to warm up then try to stay cool. You give all your animals ridiculous names that somehow still fit their personalities and you love your work because you love being able to see the change it brings about in people. You have two left feet but you sing like a nightingale and you love weaving and sewing because its a repetitive motion that lets you relax and make something beautiful out of nothing-”

Nothing drew in a breath of air, cheeks flushed a bright shade of scarlet, and continued, softer this time; “Your hair is the color of onyx and your eyes shine like a harvest moon when you smile and sometimes when I look at you it’s all I can do not to kiss you!”

Jingyi stared at him eyes blown wide. Nothing laughed bitterly and ran a hand through his short, disheveled hair.

 “...But I’m NOTHING and I have nothing and to top it all off I’m short-tempered and rude and-”

His rant was abruptly silenced by her mouth on his.

“Good night lad?” Jaihao said the next morning, raising an eyebrow at the younger man’s thoroughly mussed hair and blissful expression, as well as the brand new, lovingly embroidered bell collar on little Rong, the newly named marmot-kid, who minced behind his master quite happily, bawling for breakfast.

“Shut up old man.” Nothing growled, but the love-drunk grin he couldn’t quite hide rather ruined the effect.

Spring passed as springs do, and summer followed fast behind it. For Nothing, the man who was once a dragon, the days passed at once to quickly and not fast enough, in the way days do when you are deeply in love. His days were full of simple tasks and simple pleasures; leading the herds to new forage, telling stories around the fire, fishing in mountain streams, hunting small game, and, of course, sneaking off to a secluded spot somewhere to kiss his beloved fiance.

Of course, there were times when he missed his true form. The strength of his scales, the warmth of the fire in his belly, the speed and joy of flight. But what was there for it? He was human now and human he would stay. And it wasn’t a bad life he had now. He had a family, and a village and the beginnings of a herd of his own. And besides, for all the riches and power he had possessed in his former life, he had never had love.

He had never had his sweet Jingyi…

Nothing tried not to fidget as the women of the family, led by Han-Bi, pinned and sewed and fussed about his wedding robe. It was late summer, hot and blindingly bright upon the plateau. The monsoon rains that soaked the lower regions only occasionally fell on the flat roofs of the village people, but what did had sent the plants into a frenzy of growth.

Flowers had bloomed EVERYWHERE on the mountainside, and the shepherds often had to race their flocks for a chance to sample the tiny wild strawberries that now hung with tartly sweet scarlet berries. In the gardens, squash, yams, alliums, cabbage, potatoes, and leafy greens vied with each other for the strong summer sunlight while in the orchards further down the mountainside ripe peaches, pears and plums bowed their tree limbs with sun-warmed fruit and still green apples swelled in anticipation of fall. The whole world seemed to grow fat and lazy under the eye of the late summer sun.

“Aiyah! Stand up straight Shăguā, or you’ll have to ride stiff as a board to avoid poking the poor takin with pins on the way over!” Jamma, Dae-Jung’s wife snapped at him, waving a dangerously long and sharp straight pin under his nose. The newest baby, Min-Sun, giggled in delight at Nothing’s terrified face from his place on the floor and Jamma abandoned her tirade to coo delightedly at her baby boy.

Zexain laughed at Nothing’s fear, reaching up to pat his cheek sympathetically.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let her stick your eye out. Heaven knows Jingyi would be put out if we messed up that pretty face of yours.”

“And thank Kuni for that pretty face, because the gods know that's all he has going for him...” Eun-Soo replied with an exaggerated sigh, checking to make sure the hem was still pinned together.

“Oh Eun-Soo, that's not fair! I bet she’s fond of his assets too!” Tsomo crowed with a wicked gleam in her eye.

The women burst into cackling laughter as Nothing blushed a violent shade of pink and resisted the urge to curl up into a ball and die. Rong, now sporting a half-formed pair of black horns, watched with interest from the open door to the street, chewing his cud with his cheek bulged out like an old man with a piece of sweet gum resin. The bell on his collar tinkled in the breeze.

“Alright, alright. If you lovely young girls are quite done torturing the poor boy I have a need for him to saddle up a couple of takin-kiang for me. I’m heading down to the valley to trade some of our excesses and it's about time he learned to haggle for himself.” Jaihao said, pushing past the half-grown marmot wether in the doorway and grinning in a way that made Nothing one-hundred percent sure he had heard everything .

The women grumbled good-naturedly at the old man for interrupting their work, with a playful Han-Bin even chastising her husband for “Ruining their fun,” but acquiesced gracefully.

Nothing fled the interior of the house with far less grace, only pausing long enough to make sure nothing was actually pinned to him before fleeing out the door. The laughter followed him all the way down to the stables.

“Chin up lad. Only a few more months of this and then you’ll be married and they’ll move on to teasing somebody else.” Jaihao said, carefully inspecting the quality of a bolt of soft green silk before nodding and handing off the reins of the two freshly trained takin yearlings off to their new master, gesturing for Nothing to repack the silk back into the trunk with the others, along with the small canister of tea the takin foals new owner had given them in a gesture of goodwill.

“Maybe…” Nothing grumbled, hefting the chest and tucking it at the back of the stall, pausing to ruffle the ears of Jaihao’s enormous brindle bear-dog Kai, whose giant fanged jaws and thunderous bark was excellent at keeping any would-be thieves at bay.

The huge brown animal thumped its tail and rolled over for a belly rub.

“Jaihao…” Nothing asked quietly, brown fingers sinking deep into Kai’s thick white belly fluff as the big dog made a happy slobbery sound and stretched out his belly for better access.

“Do you think this is a good idea? Me marrying Jingyi?”

Jaihao paused in his unloading some bolts of heavy woolen fabric from another trunk.

“Having second thoughts lad?” He asked, not unkindly.

Nothings shook his head frantically; “NO! Yes? Maybe? I don’t know..? It’s not… look the thing is… it’s not her I’m having doubts about it’s-”

“You?” Jaihao supplied, understanding dawning with a mix of amusement, remembered awkwardness and grandfatherly sympathy.

Nothing didn’t reply, just hunched up miserably, suddenly very focused on detangling a burr caught in Kai’s chest ruff.

Jaihao sighed quietly and turned to face the younger man, taking a seat on one of the trunks.

“This isn’t about the girls teasing you while you were getting fitted for your robe was it?”

“No! Well, yes, maybe a little, but I was thinking about before they ever said that… It’s just… I’m not the best hunter and I’m hopeless at carving arrow shafts and once I tore that huge hole in that golden fox fur when we were tanning it and I’m terrified of pika-pigeons and I THINK I’m a good shepherd but I’ve never actually had my own flock before and what if I do something stupid and lose them all down a crevasse and we starve to death, and I have a temper to boot and I can’t tell a joke to save my life and… and… WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?!?!”

Tears were coming out of the old man’s eyes as he struggled to catch his breath.

“Sorry lad it’s just… who knew you were so self-aware?!” he said before bursting into another fit of laughter.

“AHHHGH! THIS is what I meant! Even you think I’m ridiculous!” The younger man wailed, hiding his face in Kai’s belly and receiving a big slobbery tongue in his ear for his trouble.

It took a few tries and many deep breaths for Jaihao to come back to himself, but when he did he got up off his crate and went to kneel beside the distraught young man, placing a comforting arm around his shoulder.

“Now, now lad, it’s alright. It’s all going to work out just fine, you’ll see.”

An incredulous moan of misery was his only reply.

“It WILL . You’re not alone lad. You’ll have the family and me to help you out, and everyone struggles when they do things for the first time. Besides, the wedding presents will take care of most of your household items for a while and it’ll give you time to improve at your hunting in the meantime. And animals are smart, on the whole. They won’t go walking off cliffs, unlike some people I know…”

Another groan, but this one was simply exasperated. Progress!

“As for the rest of it, the girl loves you lad, bad temper and all. Out of all the men in the world, it’s YOU she wants to marry.”

“But WHY?!”

“Why do people fall in love at all? Everyone has their own reasons and I think I can guess at a few of Jingyi’s but at the end of the day, the only person qualified to answer that question for you is the lady herself. The important question to ask is do you love her ?”

“Of course!!!” Nothing shot upright, face indignant.

Jaihao just smiled happily.

“Then that’s alright then. You love her, she loves you and you’re getting married. It won’t be all snow orchids and buzz birds, marriage is something you have to work on and gods know you’ll fight and sometimes you’ll question if this whole thing was a good idea, but I’m going to give you a bit of advice from an old man who’s been married for longer then you were a twinkle in your Fathers eye.”

Jaihao leaned forward, looking at Nothing directly in the eye.

“Marriage isn’t falling in love and all the rest coming after. It’s falling in love with the same person over and over again, sometimes multiple times in one day. It’s about being mad enough to spit nails but still knowing you would do almost anything for them to be happy. It’s holding them when they cry AND when they laugh. It’s about the little things, the everyday moments you don’t really pay attention to that really mean so, so much. Remember that lad, and you’ll be alright. Take it from an old man.”

He squeezed Nothings shoulder firmly, and stood up, stretching his back out with a series of clicking sounds.

“Now son, I thought I saw a gentleman selling a nice lacquerware jewelry box when we were haggling for rice. What say we go back there and get a nice wedding present for your bride to-”

Jaihao stopped mid-sentence, his sun-tanned complexion going deathly pale. Nothing was instantly on edge.

“What? What is it?”

Jaihao turned back to the younger man, face carefully blank.

“We have to go. Pack the stall lad, we’re leaving now .”

“What?! But what about-?”

“Don’t backtalk me, lad! Start packing up before they-!”

“Citizens of the Tiger Tooth Mountains and the Hereram Valley!” A voice boomed out.

Nothing turned to behold a huge man clad in highly decorated but dangerously functional armor. His huge, soot-black takin-kiang was similarly armored, and both of them were flanked at either side by a cohort of heavily armored men. They smiled like sharks. Each and every one of them was armed to the teeth.

“You are now under the protection of Zhao Guiying, Ruler of the Kingdom of Guay, Master of the Southern Mountains, Hero of the Bloody Field, Commander of the Celestial Army, True Emperor of the Earth Kingdoms. My compatriots and I are here to collect your contributions to the war effort!”

The decorated man looked them all over with cold, disinterested eyes, like a man looks down at a hill of ants before he crushes it beneath his boot.

“Participation is compulsory.”