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Fai has lost count of how many times he’s read the letter in his hands. Except it’s not really a letter, is it? It’s orders .
Logically, he knew this had to happen eventually. They didn’t send him through basic training just to leave him sitting at home through the rest of the war. There’s a constant need for fresh young firebenders to fuel the war machine, and Fai fits the bill.
He thought he’d lucked out, getting conscripted for the navy instead of the army. The army means front lines. It means boots on the ground, and that’s just where earthbenders are strongest. Fai has no desire to take a bolder to the head while trying to claim some patch of dirt for the Fire Lord.
So he was glad, at first, to get signed up with the navy instead. Sure being on a ship in the middle of the ocean would be as far out of his element as possible. And despite the fire navy mostly controlling the seas, battles with Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe ships still happen. Not to mention the constant threat of falling overboard and drowning, or the ship getting attacked by giant serpents, or getting attacked by giant serpents and then drowning.
...Alright, so maybe “glad” was the wrong word.
But as dangerous as ships are, they’re still much, much safer than being on the front lines. The Fire Nation has (somewhat ironically) managed to take control of the seas. They’ve effectively crushed the Southern Water Tribe, the Northern Water Tribe mostly stays turtleducked behind their ice walls, and the Earth Kingdom has never exactly had a strong naval presence. There are skirmishes here and there, but nowadays most of the fighting is on land. Risk of drowning aside, being on a ship is almost always safer than being a soldier in the Earth Kingdom.
Almost always.
(Is inkbending a thing? Because he would trade his heirloom shamisen for the ability to change what’s on this piece of paper.)
“What’s got you all panicky?” Sayumi asks as she walks into his room. Without knocking. Again . Because she is completely incapable of respecting Fai’s space.
Not that it matters anymore, because the room won’t be his for very much longer.
“I got my posting,” he says. He scans the page yet again, silently begging the words to stop saying what they do.
They stubbornly refuse to change.
“...And?” she prompts.
“And they’re putting me on the Pariah .”
Sayumi gives him the look she reserves for when he’s being particularly dense. “...That cannot be it’s actual name.”
“Well...no. But everyone calls it that. Because it always gets the worst assignments, half the crew is disgraced, and everyone who sets foot on board spends the rest of their lives plagued by bad luck. It’s the worst ship in the entire Fire Navy. And I’ve just been assigned to it.”
His first ship. Fai’s very first ship , and it’s already destroyed his career before he’s started.
Sayumi rolls her eyes, clearly not understanding the very dire straits he is in.
“It’s a boat , Fai. Maybe a bit less glamorous than the ones you were hoping to get on, but still just a boat.”
“You’re forgetting the part where it’s cursed . A bunch of people who have served on it died .”
“...You do know we’re at war , right? People die on every ship. I guarantee you there’s not gonna be anything special about this one. You’ll go, you’ll serve out your boring assignment for two years or whatever, and then they’ll put you somewhere new. Just don’t fall overboard and you’ll be fine.”
Fai shakes his head. “The posting is listed as ‘ indefinite’ .”
“...Oh.” Sayumi is quiet for a long moment. Then, “Does that mean I get your room?”
____
Yuka hates bureaucracy.
She’s not alone in this, she knows. No one has ever declared an undying love for standing in line for two hours so that they could be handed a set of papers, get sent to wait in a different line for another hour and a half, get those papers stamped, and then go wait in another line for a further three hours , all so that some clerk with more hair than brains could glance at those papers and declare that they were for an entirely different office.
“I was told to come to you.” Yuka fights to keep her voice calm. Pissing off this clerk will just force her to start this whole spirits-damned cycle over again.
“Can’t imagine why,” the clerk says. “I only handle army recruits.”
“I am an army recruit.” Unless, of course, she gets immediately discharged for committing a murder in a municipal building.
Justifiable murder.
“You sure about that?”
The clerk pushes the papers back toward Yuka and taps one of the lines. Yuka glances down, and then feels her blood run cold.
Navy.
She’s been assigned to the navy .
“But that’s not…” Safe , she thinks. The navy isn’t safe. Not for someone like her.
The clerk hears a different ending to her words. “Somebody higher up must’ve put in for the transfer. I can check the records if you’d like?”
Yuka shakes her head. There’s no point; this has Father written all over it.
Well, no love lost there.
“Is there--Can I appeal, or something?”
There has to be an appeals process. Yuka cannot serve in the navy. Whatever sick joke Father is playing, Yuka won’t go along with it. She’s been working toward a career in the army for as long as she can remember. Her plans are not going to unravel because of some stupid paperwork.
But she sees the look the clerk is giving her, and Yuka’s heart sinks.
“It’s a war, hon. You go where you’re needed.” She glances at the papers again, and grimaces. “Otherwise they’d never get anyone to crew that damn ship.”
Yuka takes another look at her papers (the papers she should have read when they were given to her, damn it) and now that she’s looking for it she quickly finds the name of the ship she’s been assigned.
“ Enforcing the Way in Agni’s Name ?” Spirits, as if she needed another reason to hate the navy. That name is a crime .
“I guess you wouldn’t know, if you were planning for the army,” the clerk says. “But I work the lines for navy recruits sometimes, and I hear lots of talk.. Lots of rumors. I shouldn’t really say this, but…” she glances around as if checking for eavesdroppers, then pitches her voice low. “They say it’s cursed . Something about the ghost of the very first captain steering every other crew toward disaster. The ship spent five years in drydock because no one was willing to captain it. They all said they’d rather serve time for desertion. They said that--”
But the clerk is cut off by a gruff voice from behind Yuka. “Hey, chat on your own time! Some of us are in a hurry!”
Yuka is suddenly reminded of where she is, and how many people are waiting behind her with dwindling patience. She snatches her papers off the desk and hurries away before someone takes their own justifiable rage out on her.
She doesn’t stop hurrying until she’s made it home.
Hinata says something snide when Yuka comes through the door. Yuka brushes past, too angry to offer an insult in return. She goes to her room, grabs the pillow off her bed, and screams into it.
Father doesn’t love her.
Yuka’s always known that. Reciprocated it, even. She may be his oldest (and, at least on paper, his heir) but there’s never been anything but animosity between them. It hovers over their family like an ever-present storm cloud, casting a shadow on everything they do.
But this goes beyond just disliking Yuka. This is tossing her into an active volcano.
(No, this is worse. This is tossing her into the ocean .)
There’s no way Yuka will survive this.
A stone settles itself in her stomach as she concedes that this is probably the entire point.
___
Tsui is delighted .
Their last three postings were boring . Oh sure, there was combat, but it was the annoying kind of combat--firebenders with trebuchets raining Agni’s fury on the enemy from a safe distance while the ship drifted lazily out of range of the inferior enemy. No real danger, no testing of the ship’s abilities. Nothing forcing them to go faster, to push the limits, to really see what a Fire Nation cruiser was capable of. Just safe and predictable and boring .
But this? This is different .
Enforcing the Way in Agni’s Name is a cursed ship, according to every sailor in the Fire Nation and several captured war prisoners.
Which is ridiculous, of course. She’s merely a ship--though hopefully one with more character than Deceiving the Spirits to Cross the Sea had been. But still just a floating hunk of metal.
(Soon to be Tsui’s floating hunk of metal.)
But that ridiculous sailors’ fear means no one ever wants to look at her too closely. No one wants this ship as part of their fleet. No ranking officer ever dares to set foot on her deck for an inspection. No one goes near Enforcing the Way if they don’t have to.
Which means no one is going to care that Tsui’s improvements violate every regulation that’s ever been written down.
Tsui begins gathering up years of notes and schematics, humming as they work. So many designs that can finally be tested. A lifetime of theory that can now be realized.
Some things will not go according to plan, of course. There are always things that break when the plan makes contact with reality. Often explosively, in Tsui’s experience.
That’s what makes it fun.
___
Shika does not mind prison as much as she’s probably supposed to. Sure the cot isn’t the most comfortable thing she’s ever slept on, the food is only edible in the absolute strictest sense, and she can’t stretch her arms out without hitting walls on either side, but none of that is terribly unusual for someone used to life aboard a Fire Navy ship.
What is unusual is being able to stretch her arms out without hitting other people .
So sure, maybe they’d chucked her into a tiny hole where she was probably going to be left to rot, but it’s her tiny hole, and if she’d known being suspected of treason was all it took to get some damn legroom she would’ve tried it years ago.
Which means Shika’s feelings are rather mixed when her cell door is opened between mealtimes and she is handed a clean uniform and orders to report for duty immediately.
“I thought the Pariah was being decommissioned?” she asks after glancing at the paperwork.
The answer is a blank stare.
...Right, guard. Not a sailor. This woman probably hadn’t heard all the stories about how the Pariah was definitely cursed, how the ship had lost its last four captains in horrific accidents, how every time it went into battle the result was always a friendly fire incident that left a member of its own fleet dead in the water. Luring the Moose Lion off its Mountain Lair had actually been sunk after the Pariah managed to sheer it’s rudder off, leaving it unable to avoid an incoming attack.
When the Pariah managed to lose a skirmish against an iceberg near the Southern Water Tribe, the entire Navy collectively agreed that leaving the boat in drydock until the end of time was probably the safest option for everyone.
And now the boat is back in the water, and Shika has to be on it in about half an hour.
Or, well, she could stay in this nice cell with the food delivery service and the no-bunkmates-snoring-every-time-she-tries-to-sleep, but…nah.
Shika nods to the guard as she leaves the cell, papers and bundled uniform in hand. The guard does not nod back.
At least this assignment should be interesting .
____
“Do you have to go, Papa?”
Enlai stops packing to look down at Namiko. The sight of her looking at him with pleading eyes, her stuffed platypus bear clutched in her tiny arms, is enough to make his heart break.
He drops to a knee and pulls her into a hug. “You know I’d stay if I could. But I’ve got a very important mission to go do for the Fire Nation.”
“What kind of mission?”
“Well I can’t tell you that , silly. It’s a secret.” He taps her on the nose with a finger, and is rewarded with a giggle. Enlai does his best to memorize the sound.
“Will you be back soon?”
Enlai pauses. He looks over Namiko’s head to where Ine stands in the doorway. The pained expression on her face mirroring his own feelings. They had spent half the night agonizing over how to explain the situation to Namiko.
“Indefinite,” the papers said. How do you explain that to an eight-year-old?
“I don’t know,” he says honestly, turning his gaze back to Namiko’s pouting face. “I might be gone a long time.”
Namiko’s brow furrows in deep thought. “So I won’t see you until my birthday?”
The certainty of her belief that her father couldn’t possibly miss her birthday is almost enough to make Enlai consider desertion.
He shakes his head slowly. “We have a long way to go, and your birthday is very soon. I don’t think we’ll be back in time.”
The Furrow in her brow grows deeper. “But it’s my birthday,” she says. “You always take me to see the puppet shows on my birthday.”
Enlai tries and fails to find the words that might explain this to his daughter. He again looks up at his wife, silently begging for rescue.
“I have an idea,” Ine says. “Why don’t you go draw Papa a nice family picture that he can take with him on the boat? That way he’ll have something to look at when he misses us.”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Enlai agrees.
Namiko’s eyes widen. “I can use my new brushes!” And just like that she’s running off, leaving Enlai to wish he could distract himself half as easily.
He pulls himself up to his feet. Ine moves to stand beside him, wrapping an arm around his waist.
“She’ll understand in time,” Ine says.
“I doubt it. She’s never going to forgive me for missing that damn puppet show.”
She laughs. “We’ll write to you about it. And you can write to us about all your adventures in the Earth Kingdom, or wherever it is you’re going.”
Enlai nods. “As often as I can. I promise. Even if I have to tie the letters to the back of a damn flying fishopotomus to get them here.”
_____
Rùfen can’t help laughing as she reads the paper ordering her to report to the Enforcing the Way in Agni’s Name . It might as well be called the Good Luck Coming Back This Time, Corporal .
She’s starting to wonder if members of the top brass don’t have a betting pool going for which impossible suicide mission will finally be the one to take her out. If they do, someone should let her in on it. She could win enough money for a kick-ass funeral.There would be two dozen fox-doves released into the air over the crowd of mourners who would be paid to show up, because you can’t release two dozen fox-doves and not also have a crowd of mourners.
And maybe a unit of firebenders to do, like, a cool display while the band plays in the background? Something involving backflips. She’ll work out the details later.
First she needs to go find a bar that serves scorpion-viper wine, because with the way those orders are written she suspects it might be a long time before she’s back in the Fire Nation, and do they even have scorpion-vipers in the Earth Kingdom?
Assuming she’s going to the Earth Kingdom. There is still an entire Northern Water Tribe that needs conquering. And, Rùfen supposes, a Southern Tribe as well, but they haven’t exactly been at the top of the Fire Nation’s Threat List lately. Having all of your benders either killed or abducted by raiding parties has a funny way of taking the fight out of a nation.
Just one more reason not to rely on bending any more than necessary.
Caldera City’s status as both the capital of the Fire Nation and its largest naval base means that it is ridiculously easy to find an open bar at basically any time of day. Rùfen is soon enjoying a glass of scorpion-viper wine that definitely isn’t worth the tourist-trap pricing.
The one they serve at her funeral will be better, she decides.
_____
Koji watches the koi with fascination. He’s come to this pond at least twice a week in the months since arriving at Caldera City, and so far every visit has been as entrancing as the last.
He kneels at the edge of the pond and begins rifling through his satchel. By the time he’s got the bento box out a small crowd of fish has gathered. Hanako is at the front, tracing impatient circles among the lilies.
“You’re so impatient,” Koji chides. But he takes some of the vegetables from his lunch and tosses them at the water, triggering a small feeding frenzy with Hanako at the center.
He’s going to miss it here.
Of course, he’d said the same thing about the Colonies when he’d found out he would have to report to the mainland. And while he did miss home, he’s glad he came here. Caldera City is truly the jewel of the Fire Nation, with everything from the grand Palace to the smallest shrine standing as shining testament to that fact. Even this small garden, tucked into an out-of-the-way spot behind a row of shops, more than rivals the large central garden that houses the spirit shrines at Xiapi.
So Koji is resigned to missing Caldera City once he ships out tomorrow, but he’s also excited at the prospect of getting to see someplace new. Getting to explore the world is half the reason he signed on for the Fire Navy in the first place. He wonders if it’s too much to hope that they might go near Kyoshi Island. He’s always wanted to see an elephant koi up close.
...Then again, if he goes there aboard the Pariah there’s a decent chance they’d run into an angry sea serpent instead.Or a secret Earth Kingdom weapon designed to cripple Fire Navy ships.
“Why the hell are they putting me on that boat?” he asks Hanako.
The fish doesn’t answer, of course, but Koji wishes someone would tell him. Sure he’s colony-born, and that means just about everyone else gets preference over him. He can understand why he’s not serving on a prestigious ship like the Golden Wings Brushing Against the Clouds . But the Pariah isn’t the kind of posting you get because you drew the short straw. It’s a sentencing .
And Koji doesn’t even know what his crime was.
____
“Takemi, we’ve been over this,” Jian says as he sorts through his supplies. “If you want to impress pretty girls by juggling knives, first you need to actually learn how to juggle. ”
Takemi tries to say something in protest, but cuts off with a sharp hiss when Jian begins cleaning the wound. “Fuck, that stings .”
“You should’ve thought about that before you decided to toss knives around while barefoot.”
Jian wants to be surprised. He really does. He wants to think that Takemi is unusually bad at decision making and self preservation, and that having to use his talents as a combat medic to patch up the result of what was almost certainly a drunken bet is an aberration.
Unfortunately, he knows better.
“Well I wasn’t gonna risk cuttin’ up my shoes ,” Takemi says. “Do you know what they do if your uniform fails inspection?”
“No, that would be terrible. Then we’d need to stitch up some leather instead of your foot.”
He spares a glance at Takemi’s face as he applies numbing herbs to the wound. Her face has gone pale, but her mouth is set in a determined line.
“They, uh, they said that might happen. Daiki, he told me he’s got cut like this a couple times, had to get sewn up. Said to go to you because you’re the best.”
Takemi keeps talking as Jian goes to work, her voice taking on the uneven cadence of someone trying desperately to distract themselves from their circumstance.
“He says lots of people think they should go to Shoji, ‘cause he’s faster? And if someone’s gonna be stabbing you with a needle, you want it done fast as possible, right? But Daiki says half the people Shoji patches up, they end up festering for weeks and then never heal up right.”
Jian has seen the results of Shoji’s handiwork. Injuries that should’ve healed easily end up a prolonged ordeal because the doctor refuses to accept that infection is not an inevitable result of every wound. And the man’s ego won’t let him accept that someone much younger than him might actually know what he’s talking about, despite Jian’s own patients being living proof.
“And Daiki says that sometimes it gets so bad, they have to take the whole limb off. There’s a guy in the 23rd who stepped on a nail, ended up losing his foot. I can’t lose my foot, Doc. That’s why I came to you. Everybody you treat, they heal up fine.”
Jian finishes the last suture and begins wrapping the foot in bandages.
“Well I don’t think you need to worry about losing your foot this time,” he says. “But you need to be more careful. You’re lucky I didn’t decide to leave early, or you’d be stuck with Shoji right now.”
“...Is it true they’re putting you on the Pariah ?”
Jian nods.
“That’s some bullshit,” Takemi says. “You’re too good for that.You’re too good to be here . You should be on the front lines or, or at the Palace, or something. Putting you on the Pariah is a waste.”
Jian stands, his work finishes. He shrugs. “They need doctors all over. It’s not a waste if I end up helping someone. Now let me write you down some instructions so you don’t make that injury worse.”
___
Jee is not sure which spirit he offended to get command of this boat. He’s had a little more than a week to ponder the question, and so far no answers have revealed themselves. Jee could spend his time pouring through memories of his years in the service, analyzing every interaction with a superior officer or a subordinate with ties to the nobility whom he might have slighted. But there’s little value in fretting over what’s already done. Someone decided Jee should be in command of the Enforcing the Way in Agni’s Name , and now he is.
Best to accept the situation he’s in and move forward.
So Jee doesn’t dwell on the bad luck that brought him here. He also refuses to dwell on the bad luck the ship is famous for. Sailors are a notoriously skittish bunch, and it would not do for the crew to see their captain giving credence to ghost stories and tales of woe. If he can be confident that this is just another boat on just another mission, then they might also believe it. And if they all believe it, maybe the spirits will let it be so.
He has a few days still before the last of his crew arrives and they set off on their mission, and he uses that time to familiarize himself with the ship. It’s an older style cruiser, one of the last from the early days of the war that’s still in use. Jee tries to think of it’s smaller size and reduced weaponry as making it more maneuverable instead of less defensible.
They shouldn’t see much combat anyway, based on the orders he was given. They’ll be “guarding” a section of coastline that nobody actually cares about, and which has just barely enough strategic value to make Jee’s orders hold up under scrutiny. It’s going to be a long and boring posting, but Jee can accept that. Long and boring means safe . It means no split-second decisions that tip the scales of life and death. It means no one gets thrown overboard by boulders, or drowns on a perfectly dry deck. It means the worst injuries are just the minor scrapes and burns that come from sailors trying to impress each other.
It will be boring, but Jee can work with boring. He can work with these orders.
A messenger hawk lands on the railing. The scroll it carries is closed with the Royal Seal.
Jee is the captain of a cursed ship.
His orders have changed.