Chapter Text
‘No, really, General, there is no need. I don’t need a babysitter.’
‘Ambassador, nobody doubts your capability to defend yourself. It’s just… it’s unorthodox, that’s all. Protocol demands—’
‘Oh, yes, protocol demands it. Well, my protocol demands that I travel alone. For, err, reasons.’
The general didn’t seem particularly convinced and Sokka had to bite back a groan. Being an ambassador was so no fun. Oh, the negotiations and all that were alright, and the dinners were extraordinary, but nowadays, he couldn’t even set foot outside his bedroom without being shadowed by escorts and bodyguards.
‘Here’s the thing’, he tried a different approach. ‘These documents are top-secret, and it is of the utmost importance that they are delivered to the Fire Lord, right?’
That much was true.
‘I’ve already told you that an airship would draw too much attention. Don’t you think leaving Ba Sing Se with a company of soldiers would be even more obvious? Next thing I know, I’d be fighting renegades left and right!’
At that, the man finally relented.
‘Very well, Ambassador. But be careful! The way to Omashu is long and anything could happen to you out there.’
Sokka sighed in relief and bowed as was customary. ‘Don’t worry, General Kung. The bandit who can best me has yet to be born.’
After bidding his goodbyes to the council members and the King’s diplomatic corps, he allowed the Palace Guard to escort him to the outer wall. He had buried his official robes deep inside his bundle and donned more common clothes, his ponytail tucked away under a headband. Other than spare clothes and snacks, the most precious cargo on him was the small wooden box he had received from General How: the documents that he was to bring to Zuko.
When they reached the last stop, his guards waited for everyone else to leave the carriage before making way for Sokka. He returned the corporal’s salute and finally stepped out of the city.
Military. So formal. He reminisced about the various bureaucratic absurdities he had had to endure on this visit alone while he trekked down the road. He was sure Kuei wouldn’t have minded to just skip the pomp, but even he couldn’t afford alienating the city’s nobles, and so, they had both had to suffer through the traditional reception for foreign diplomats. The only one who had enjoyed himself had been Bosco, Sokka thought.
Unlike during his first visit, he didn’t have to cross the Serpent’s Pass this time. The royal clerks had provided him with a ticket for the ferry across Full Moon Bay, and once across, it wouldn’t be more than two weeks to Omashu, where King Bumi would put him on a boat to Caldera.
Easy. A little vacation from the stressful life of a royal diplomat.
What could go wrong?
Two days later, Sokka was ready to eat his own words. His clothes were torn, his ostrich horse had run away, and he was busy fighting off a dozen bandits at once.
No thank you, I’ll take the scenic route, he had said. It’ll attract less attention than an airship, and I can take a ferry from Omashu. And how’d that turn out?
After crossing the bay, he had purchased the horse from a merchant at the ferry station and left for Omashu. He had travelled past a handful of small villages and then entered the forest that covered most of the coastline. Cutting through the Si Wong Desert would have been shorter, but Sokka hadn’t felt like running into sandbenders (or out of water) again, so he had settled for the forest. Inside which he had almost immediately been ambushed and chased off the road and far into the woods, trying to shake off his pursuers before finally facing them.
Which led to his current predicament.
One of the bandits threw a dagger at Sokka, and he hurried to take cover behind a large tree when the blade was followed by two arrows. Stupid bandits in this stupid, Tui-forsaken Earth Kingdom backwater forest. He jumped out from behind the trunk and hurled his boomerang at one of the robbers, who tumbled into another one as he was hit. A quick dive took Sokka out of the archers’ way and he used the momentum to jump the next bandit, holding up as a shield while disarming the first archer and kicking his hostage at the second one to send both flying.
La and Tui knew this wasn’t what he’d had in mind when thinking about a vacation.
After a few more well-placed stabs and swings, the surviving bandits ran off—or, in three cases, limped off—and Sokka let them go. Either way, the damage was done: with no means of transportation, there was no way he would reach Omashu any time soon.
‘Next time, I’m taking the airship’, he vowed. The tree he made the promise to didn’t look particularly impressed.
His belongings lay scattered across the clearing. Sokka didn’t care much about his torn-up robes, and the loss of the spare underwear he’d packed was negligible, but he felt a weight drop off his chest when he saw the small box that held his objective unharmed and still sealed. After tying what remained of his best kimono into something resembling a pouch, he stuffed what of his luggage could be salvaged into it and headed deeper into the forest.
‘Just my luck’, he lamented. A passing frog squirrel croaked at him.
‘Why does this always happen to me?’ He continued. ‘Sokka, solve this border dispute. Sokka, negotiate this trade agreement. Sokka, deliver this message that might get you robbed in the middle of nowhere.’
The animal didn’t grace him with an answer.
Navigation proved easy enough: seeing as it was afternoon, all he had to do was follow the sun to the south-east. More than once, he got stuck in bushes or stepped into a puddle, and by the time he found the road, he had both wet feet and scratches on his… everything, really.
The road.
It snaked through the forest, a well-trodden path clearly shaped more by travelling feet than by hands. One way, it went north-east, back to where Sokka had just come from; the other way pointed south-west, more or less the way he was going. Judging by the tracks or lack thereof, no carts came through here, but where there was a road, there were bound to be people somewhere. And where there were people, there would be houses, a bed, a hot meal, and maybe someone who could help him get to Omashu.
That was reason enough.
The war had left its imprint on this region too, he noticed. Even now, five years later, it was still written all over the landscape, in the abandoned villages and destroyed towns. Or, in this case, the huge clearing he walked past; small saplings sprouting where mighty trees had once stood, and scorched earth around the stumps of trees uprooted by blasts of fire. An area the size of several houses had been burned to the ground, and Sokka shuddered to imagine the kind of violence that could have caused this.
Best not to dwell on it. Alone with his thoughts wasn’t his favourite state, and contemplating potential massacres any hypothetical Fire Nation troops might or might not have committed in these woods would only worsen his mood.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to walk too far. The sun had barely finished half of its descent when the trees gave way to a large meadow, in the middle of which stood a village. Unlike most Earth Kingdom villages Sokka had been to, this one was surrounded by a stockade, and a large watchtower reached for the sky from within it. Through the open gates, Sokka could see bustling activity; a market, an unfinished house, the likes.
‘Who approaches the gates?’
The guard’s voice interrupted Sokka’s staring, and he hurried to assume a more dignified stance.
‘My name is Sokka. I come from Ba Sing Se with’, belatedly he realised that advertising his mission might not be the best idea, ‘I mean, I come from Ba Sing Se. My ostrich horse left me in the woods and I have to get to Omashu.’
‘Omashu, huh?’ The guard—not a soldier, Sokka noticed, more like a farmer with a sword—eyed him. ‘That’s a long way from here, stranger.’
‘I know, believe me’, Sokka sighed. ‘I have important business there, but for now, I’d settle for something to eat and a place to sleep. Anywhere a weary traveller like myself could turn in around here?’
The man shrugged. ‘The tailor’s widow sometimes rents out her room to merchants. Green house near the market, ask for Kema.’
‘Thanks, private! I mean, sergeant. I mean—I will do that. Thank you.’
He turned towards the gate when the guard’s strong hand helt him back.
‘Not so fast, stranger. I’ll have to look inside your bag. There’s robbers in these woods, you can’t be too careful.’
Didn’t Sokka know it. He handed over his makeshift pouch, and the guard raised an eyebrow at the torn fabric as he untied it.
‘Those are some mighty fine garbs you have in here, good sir. Where did you say you came from?’
The unspoken implication—was Sokka a member of Ba Sing Se’s high society?—didn’t need an answer. The clothes of the diplomatic corps were nothing like those the commoners of the Lower or even the Middle Ring wore. Sokka waited for his bag back when the man’s fingers found the wooden box. Clearly, he was about to admonish Sokka for not informing him about it when he noticed the seal, and his eyes went wide. He hurried to place all of Sokka’s belongings back in the makeshift bag and handed it back to him.
‘Everything in order, your Earthiness. Bless you and welcome to Biasaju. Please enjoy your stay.’
Kuei’s insignia tended to have that effect on people.
Sokka awkwardly cleared his throat and patted the guard on the shoulder. ‘Thank you and good work, soldier. Carry, uh, carry on.’
Finding the tailor’s widow was easy enough. Just outside the market square, a tall house stood, with an aging coat of green paint and the sign of a tailor’s store over the door. No full minute after knocking, the door was opened by a short woman looking to be easily the age of Sokka’s grandmother, and after a silver coin changed hands, she showed him to a small room on the first floor.
‘Toilet is outside. For two copper, you can have dinner.’ She looked him over. ‘Where did you say you were from?’
‘Ba Sing Se, ma’am.’ When that didn’t seem to satisfy her, he added ‘The Zui-Hao district.’
‘Huh’, she grumbled. ‘Never been there. Do you eat fish?’
‘What? I mean, of course I eat fish! I was born to eat fish! I’ve eaten fish wh—’
‘Good. Dinner is in two hours. Come downstairs to get it before it’s cold.’
What a charming lady, Sokka thought. But two hours later, when he was eating a not-half-bad tuna eel stew in the privacy of his (admittedly small) room, he decided that all things considered, the day could have turned out much worse.
Tomorrow, he would see about arranging transportation to Omashu, and perhaps he would get his little vacation after all.
Stew first, duty second.