Jadoh

Jianghezhen, lifeless when we had first entered it, had now sprang into action as, akin to ants within a hive, riled by their queen, set to action, wheeling our catapults from deep within the castles, pulling them up to the top of the cliff edge with pulley-systems, distributing ammunition to the gunners, coordinated by Gordez who was managing the spacing and distribution of the fortress's 7 catapults. Meanwhile, I was making myself useful in hauling artillery shells up to where the cannon was located, overlooking the northern shore.

There was no beachhead for the Earth Kingdom troops to land. If they truly were intent on taking Jianghezhen from the sea, they'd essentially have to ram the mountain head on to get close enough, scaling the mountain by hand. Probably not that tough for earth benders. We had accumulated nearly 150 shells by the gun. The firebender in charge of manning the gun was firing blanks into the sea, clearing the gun of any dangerous residue, prepping it for the real fight ahead.

Off in the distance, I could see the ammunition of the catapults being test-fired to check for distance as landmarks were set: small buoys with location markers reading the distance in meters and their matching angles for the catapults at which to be fired. The same treatment, sadly, could not be provided for the artillery gun as there was no constant unit for how far the shell would travel. All was dependent on the firebender manning the gun and their ability to send the shell flying. Another reason the nations were beginning to switch to non-bender weaponry. No more arbitrary measurements.

The furthest we got the catapult to fire was 300 meters, and such was where the final buoy was set up. Below us, The Patriot was being held by the castle, moored in and held tight as pulleys were used to bring Shanzi up to ground level. What I would do to give her a spin. The closest thing we'd ever had to a vehicle in my village was an ostrich-horse-drawn carriage that we'd found in the middle of the woods. The town didn't have the proper feed for it. We suggested letting it run free, but the man who'd found it refused to part with the beast. It died of starvation a week after. I think I even remember crying when it died. I must've been what? Eight? Who could remember?

And to think just over a month ago, I would've been the same kid, stuck in the same place, without a future, just like everybody else, treated like a kid, like a coward because everyone else my age had gone off to the war. And I was still being treated that way. As though it was easy for me to leave everything behind. Though maybe it had been. What was left for me there? My father was dead, and everyone back home hated my guts. Did I just make the only choice there was?

I snapped out of it when two soldiers pushed past me, rolling a barrel of blasting jelly between them up to the catapults. I continued walking down the hall, searching for something else to do. I wasn't going to give them any more excuses to view me as lazy, as worthless. I was pulling my weight. I'd made some mistakes, yes, some really dumb ones, but I paid my due. I intended on making sure they saw that. Boiling oil was being deployed above the murder holes, staring straight down the cliffside, ready for any earthbenders stupid and eager enough to make the climb. Maybe I'd kill myself a few earthbenders today. Hell, maybe the captain himself. That would change their tune.

I walked up to the ground level, it was a whole new world up here. Shanzi was being refueled and check-out, her engine given a few revs to bring her to life. Despite the noise of the clatter of the world around me as it prepared for war, a comparative silence still weighed over all of us, the calm before the storm. The catapults were loaded, pulled back for 300 meters, ready to fire.

Our band was gathered together, arming and armoring with equipment they'd brought up from The Patriot. I found a good-looking crossbow sitting on top of Shanzi and went to reach for it before Zek beat me to it, handing the crossbow to Ka'lira who was unarmored as nothing fit her. She was to stay in the castle and pick off the earthbenders from a distance. At least I'm not the most useless one here. But beat only by a girl. Not much of an accomplishment. "You even know how to use that? I murmured as I reached for a subpar sword from a rack of them.

I ignored the look Zek gave me. I wasn't sure if she was too stupid, or too innocent to understand the insult behind what I said. "I've been practicing a bit these past few days. It's not too hard. Point and shoot. It's heavy, but easy enough to keep steady."

"Oh is it now?" I asked. Shooting a target is one thing, but heads are small. And if you aren't going to go for the head, you may as well shoot that thing into the ocean for all they care."

She smiled. Was she really this stupid? "Which one is your helmet?" she asked, referring to the hood of Shanzi where our helmets were lined up, Luke's the only one with the face mask, another thing I envied of his, alongside the ability to bend fire to his will. With anybody else, I would've said any other helmet, but frankly, there was no risk involved in telling her which was mine. In fact, she had a higher chance of hitting mine if she wasn't aiming for it.

"Third on the right," I said. I lowered myself to sit on the grass as I watched the show about to ensue as she struggled to take aim and fire, but before my ass had even touched the ground, the air shook with the spring of her crossbow and the clang of metal-on-metal in the distance. My head immediately turned to the source of the noise to find one helmet in the line-up missing, only to find it lying in the grass 10 meters away, covered in mud and guck. I lifted it to clear away the dirt as Zek laughed in the distance, only to see the sun shining through the helmet at the most awkward of angles, coming through a hole in the rear where the sun now shone through. "What the fuck!?" I yelled at that bitch who had just ruined my helmet. Zek was laughing even louder now as Ka'lira just stood by, a stupid smile on her fucking face. "You bitch!" I moved to knock her on her ass. Zek's smile was gone now and he moved to try to get in between me and her until Boss moved in between the two of us before I could bust Zek's ass.

"Zek, Ka'lira, get some more ammunition for the artillery," he said, trying to get them away from me before I did something I wouldn't regret.

"He busted my fucking helmet!" I yelled. The incident was now garnering the attention of the rest of the garrison around us, some of whom were laughing, some just standing aside in bemused humor. I realized just how whiny I had made myself to sound the moment the words came out, But I was done with the rest of the assholes in this company, even Ka'lira, who was newer than me, thinking I was just some useless kid. They treated Luke with more respect than me. And I was fucking older than him!

"The hell is going on?" Yilie shouted moving past the ring his men had made around me, directing the question towards Boss. "What is this?"

"It's nothing. Just an equipment malfunction."

"Damnit. Get what you need from the armor and keep your men in line while I do the same with mine." He turned to those under his direct command now, saying "You heard what I said. Get back to work, damnit!"

The soldiers busted back into motion, no longer distracted by what they considered to be a "scene."

"What do you think you're doing?"

"They're treating me like a fucking kid!"

"Because you're acting like one. You're threatening to kill them because they damaged your favorite helmet."

"It's not about the helmet! They don't respect me!"

"They don't respect you because you're practically begging them to respect you. You want them to respect you, then earn it."

"I'm trying!"

"That's the problem! You're not trying to earn their respect. You're trying to prove yourself to be better than them. How do you expect them to respect someone who's constantly trying to prove themselves better than them at every turn?"

I didn't have time to answer before he spoke again, not like I even had an answer to that.

"You want them to respect you, then first thing's first, stop thinking it's all about you. We don't exist for you to become a new man. We're not a steppingstone for you to show the world who you are. You chose this life for your own reasons, I get that. Be it because you had no other choice, or because you wanted to prove yourself, I don't care, but you have to realize what this is about. It's not about you gaining glory because you'll get none here. You can stick around for your own reasons, but so long as you're here, you're one of us, above and below none of us, not even me. You want to become one of us, then stop believing you're not." He said nothing for a while, until speaking to say, "I'll get you a new helmet."

And on that note, he left me to my own mind as the sun set behind the cliff, behind the sea, ending the day without a single shot fired. So as sleep evaded me in the castle's dark catacombs, hundreds of feet below ground level, alongside the rest of the garrison and my own comrades, I started to think. Yet no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't agree with what he had said. I couldn't agree that only by abandoning the notion that I had to do certain things to pull my weight, could I actually be worth something. That's what it meant, to have the push to try harder, to do more, or was it that it was my push that was wrong? Why was I even doing this? Why did I join? Who was I trying to prove myself to? To Boss? To Zek, Luke, Ka'lira, Gordez? To my dead father? To my village? WHO? To myself? What was I even proving? I turned to the bunk to my right, where Zek was sleeping. Ka'lira was nowhere in sight, sleeping in a room away from the men at Zek's own request. I turned to my other side to see Luke, dead as a brick, his chest hardly even rising nor sinking. On every side of me were men just the same as me, so why did I believe I was so different? On the day I had tried to run away from home, to enlist just as every last friend of mine in that town had, my father told me that on the field, there was no such thing as ability, no such thing as strength, as intelligence, but only luck. And that all men were just as lucky as unlucky. We were all the same out there, all as likely to die as one another. We were all the same then, so why did I still feel as though I didn't belong? Because they all had their reasons, and the sad thing was, I don't think I even had a reason. For the last month, I'd been trying to find it. I'd tried using it as a way to prove my village, my father wrong. I tried using it as a way to see the world. I tried using it as a way to fit in with a group, to find glory, but none of these had stuck. There was some purpose to the choice I made, but Raava forgive me, I had no idea wat it was. With any luck, maybe I'd find it tomorrow.

That next morning, we woke to a sky thick with fog, and I knew that today would be the day. It would either be the day I found that purpose, or the day I wouldn't have to worry about purpose any longer.