Zek

It was easy to forget that there was somebody else in the tank when Kai hardly spoke a word during the drive. It was enough to give us the chance to sneak glances at each other, but there was always that foreign presence behind us that kept us distant from actual true comfort. Ka'lira and I were far from experts on the terrain of the area around us, and thus had to rely on Kai's occasional comments as he read the map behind us, but his comments didn't go far beyond, "Right", "Straight", "Turn at that tree", "take that path."

There was no hard time at all for Ka'lira and me to tell that Kai would have rather been anywhere but here. He wanted this over with as quickly as possible. I was just glad it wasn't Jet. I had no doubt he would be better at combination, but it had been that little shit who'd, as Luke told us later, was the one assigned to get information out of Ka'lira. And who, with his nerve, even tried flirting with her afterwards. With my-. Shit. What is she? And what was that kiss the other day? I still hadn't had the time to talk with her about it. Simply put, we haven't exactly had much time for ourselves at all. We'd moved from the Patriot to that forest base under such short notice, there hadn't been time to just sit down with her and ask what the deal was. For a split second, when Boss brought up this job of ours, I'd had a surge of hope that said it would be the chance, but then there just had to be a catch, and now I felt like I was holding my breath when I should just be using this time to actually just feel comfortable sitting next to her. I sighed to myself and took my mind off of it. Maybe at some point during this job, we'd find the chance to just talk for at least just a few minutes. Or was Kai supposed to be our babysitter? Was that why he was here? To make sure we didn't run off with the supplies if we even found them.

I focused on the trail head. It felt nice to be back in Shanzi again. Made me all the more glad I'd gone back for her. When I'd done it, it was more to honor Hizo's memory. But the more we found ourselves using it, the more confident I could feel in what had been by rash decision as, whether I had intended so or not, it has been more than helpful for us in recent months. The trail felt near endless, the tress reaching to the skies, their multiple layers of brush clouding the forest floor in an all-encompassing darkness that made night indistinguishable from day. I wondered if I looked up, I'd chance the sight of a Separatist archer here or there, scanning the forest floor, watching for activity, ready to end any life that they suspected of being a threat.

I'd been familiar with groups like this before. When I was a kid in Yu Dao, there'd been a period of resistance, not launched out of Yu Dao, but more external, from some outlying towns that had been less benefitted by the Fire Nation's economy and, as far as they saw it, had only lost, and not gained such as how the colonies had. They called themselves patriots, but in reality, they were no more than bandits. But banditry, when provoked, can become resistance, and resistance, when provoked, can easily become terrorism. I was 5 when the city hall was bombed, killing the mayor, his wife, and 7 other states people. When Morishita came to power, he promised to end the threat, and he did. A protracted guerilla war began, and I was 11 when they finally found their leader and killed him. I remember the wave of propaganda that filled the colonies when that occurred. Books, orations, and retellings of how the Yuyan archers. The Ember Island players had even visited after the event and had a whole play about the operation. Of the tragedy of the terror attack in Act 1 and the summoning of the Yuyan Archers, the squad drama and the demoralization of the Yuyan archers in Act 2 as they struggled to hunt their quarry, and the return of their fervor, and eventual victory in Act 3, killing the monster whose name I always remembered, Ken'lai. Call it indoctrination, propaganda, but the people I travelled with now, it was hard not to associate them with this image of the "bogeyman" I'd formed since the earliest days of my childhood.

"Stop here," Kai's voice behind me said as I took Shanzi to a stop, snapping out of my inner train of thoughts. "The beach is a small bit past this point."

"How far?"

"I don't know? Like, 5 minutes?"

"Should've said something sooner," I said, unbuckling myself from my seat as Ka'lira followed suit, not wanting to antagonize him, but at the very least wanting to educate him. This tank can be heard from over half a klick away."

"What the fuck is a 'klick'?"

"A kilometer?"

"What the fuck is a 'kilometer'?"

It was sometimes hard to remember different nations used different measurement system. Being a colonial, I used both. The Fire Nation's system, and the Earth Kingdom's as well. But it was important to remember sometimes, and somewhat reassuring too, that I simply knew more than these Separatists did. "Don't worry about it."

"You think they heard us?" Ka'lira asked as she followed me out of the tank back onto dry ground."

"Hope not. If we're lucky, they'll have tanks too."

"Why the fuck would that make us lucky?" Kai asked.

I looked at him in disbelief. How stupid is this guy? "So…they think that tank was one of theirs, and not think that tank was somebody who's not supposed to be here."

He could notice the snarkiness in my voice and demonstrated so with the screwed look on his face. Good. Somebody had to. But I remembered Boss's orders. "Play nice." I sighed. As hard as it was, our lives currently depending on not pissing off the people who had knives to out throats. "So where's this cave supposed to be," I asked.

"I'll show you when we get there."

Ka'lira was the one to speak up now when she proposed, "It might be smarter to scout around here first before we walk straight on the beach. Make sure we're not parked somewhere obvious, and that we at least have a clear way to the beach before we step out and reveal ourselves." I smiled at her, one she returned as I couldn't help but feel a sense of both pride and attraction at the comment she'd made.

"She has a point," I said, now hoping that this scouting would involve splitting into two groups, with clear emphasis on who I'd be with.

Kai sighed, "Fine. You two do your scouting or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Then come back to me, tell me what you found, and let's get this over with."

"What will you be doing?" Ka'lira asked.

Kai gave her a look of partial disgust as he said, "Hey. You two are the ones who want to wander around the woods counting bucketheads. I'll be here doing my thing until you dipshits come back."

I smirked. Works for me. Ka'lira had the same look on her face, but we still did have to find something. "Mind telling us in which direction the cave is?"

"North."

"Thanks. That narrows it down."

He sighed, "Just take the damn map and go."

And so we left, working our way closer to the beach, slowly and surely, until finally we were out of Kai's earshot, or so we supposed. We both doubted he cared enough to be listening. This was just a chore for him. If he could sit back and get a few minutes to himself, he'd take it, just as he was doing at this moment. "That was a lot easier than expected," Ka'lira said. "I was expecting more of a fight."

"Seems like his potential doesn't go far beyond doing what Kiu says."

"Can't say I've been very impressed by them so far. They got the jump on us easy enough, but I'm surprised they've been giving your Fire Nation guys this hard a time."

"I'd hardly call them my guys anymore. I left that behind."

"Zek." There was still something that felt new to having somebody like her say my name. It was one thing to have a commander, a fellow soldier, a friend call your name, but there was a different feeling when somebody you…somebody you felt more about called your name. You knew then that it meant more than an order, a warning, or something else. It was a plea of sorts.

"It's better if I try not to think of them that way anymore. I left my nation, my country, my family. And now I'm working with the people who kill them for sport."

"We don't know that."

"Maybe not, but I have my feelings that I'm not far from wrong."

"I guess when it's something you're fighting so hard over, it's easy to let your passion get in the way of your humanity."

I thought back now to that same damn horrible day. The same damn horrible person I was, and her face, no matter how many times I tried to cast it aside, how it always came back to me. And I looked at Ka'lira now, who was looking at me, realizing I hadn't made a response for a few seconds. "You alright? She asked.

"Yeah just. Thinking about what you said. How about you? You were born in the Earth Kingdom. Do you feel that passion too?"

"What? For who? Some King that sits on a throne in a temple within a city, within a wall, within another wall, pretending the rest of us don't exist? No, not particularly."

"So not your king, but your country?"

"My country?" She scoffed. "What you claim to be my country is a continent that takes up almost a third of the known world. You really think we share some common identity like you do on your island, or in your colonies? Where I was born, our country was the farmland, and the town we traded with from time to time. It was the merchant who bought our produce, the priest who held mass every week, and the other 150 or so people who lived in our small town. Then my "country" sent soldiers to draft our men and boys to draft them. They tried to take my brother, my father said, 'no', they beat him until he was out cold, and still took my little brother. They told me I could stay on my farm to rot away or go with them too. I was only 13. I didn't know what they meant. I just thought it meant I could be with my little brother. And-" She stopped, both in speech, and in her movement. "I'm sorry."

"Why would you be sorry?"

"You don't need to hear about this."

"Hey. Come on," I said, now facing her and kneeling down as she sat on a log to just to a moment to herself. "You don't need to apologize. It's. It's a lot to handle. The things they did to you, it's, you don't need to talk about it right now if you don't want to."

"I was so stupid," she said, nearing tears. "I thought I would be able to stay with my brother, take care of him, but I couldn't even take care of myself."

"You didn't know what was going to happen. You did what you thought was right to take care of your family."

"But that's not the only reason I went!" she called out, really crying now. "A part of me just wanted to leave home. I never even said goodbye to my dad. I left him for the people that had just beat him bloody, all because I wanted to leave home, see the world, and because I fucking thought one of the soldiers was cute!" She had completely broken down. "And I just told myself, tried to convince myself that it was because I wanted to take care of my family, but it wasn't!"

I didn't know what else to do but to reach forward, starting with a hand on her shoulder until it became a hug as her head fell on my shoulders, her tears absorbing into the cloth, but it didn't bother me. Right now, I just wanted to help her feel better. I just wanted her to feel like she could say these things for me. Maybe it was partly selfish, but I just knew that I didn't want to go anywhere right now. I just wanted to be there for her. "You were young. You couldn't have known."

"But I should have! That doesn't excuse me from being an idiot! That doesn't make me any less guilty for leaving my dad behind! I don't even know if he's still alive! I never even said 'goodbye'! What kind of fucking daughter am I, Zek!? I went away with a bunch of people I didn't even know because I believed them when they said I'd see the world. And for 3 years, I did whatever they told me to. I…I even liked it at first, because I felt special. Like I was wanted, desired. How could I have been such a fucking idiot?! And I'm still a damn idiot!"

"No. Come on, Ka'lira. You're not."

"I AM!" she cried. "Because I believe that I care about you when I'm the last person in the world who would no anything about caring. I never even learned what happened to my fucking brother, Zek! And now I'm telling myself that I care about you, when all that means is that I'm going to ruin you too."

There was a mix of emotions in what she said. In part, almost a sick relief that she said she cared about me, an emotion I felt shameful to have amidst all else she had said, about how broken down she was in this moment, so I held on to her tighter, and said, "The past doesn't mean that the future will be the same."

"So I'm just supposed to ignore the past and pretend that it didn't happen?! What kind of fucking logic is that?!"

"I'm not asking you to forget the past, but to learn from it. That's why the past exists. So the future can be different. But never being able to forgive yourself for the things that you did wrong won't help you."

"So how am I supposed to learn if there's no punishment for what I've done?! I'm still here?! If I don't punish myself, then who the hell will?!"

I shook my head, holding hers down to my shoulder where he tears where soaking through to my skin beneath. "How can you say you haven't been punished? You paid for your mistake for 3 damn years. Is that not enough? You barely escaped, but you did."

"Maybe I shouldn't have," she said, no longer yelling, but quiet, defeated.

"Everyone deserves a second chance, Ka'lira. You don't have to pay for the mistakes you made for the rest of your life for it to be considered 'even.'"

She didn't respond to that for a while, hopefully knowing deep down that I was right. And so we sat there for a few hours as I moved to the log next to her and her head shifted to my other shoulder, her tears beginning to dry up as she said, "I don't want to hurt you the same way I hurt everybody else who cared about me."

"You're not going to hurt me, Ka'li."

She chuckled, a sad chuckle, but still something. "Ka'li?"

"Don't like it?"

She chuckled again. "No, I do. It's nice. But Zek, I don't want to tear you down."

"You won't."

"You don't know that."

"No, but I have faith."

"How do you still have faith in a world like this?"

She couldn't see as her face was planted against my shoulders, but upon that question, my head turned to the top of her head, her hair brushing against my face, and I knew why. "Sometimes, there's just something that brings it back."

She looked up at me with a small smile, and I expected her to say something about how nice that was, until she rolled her eyes and said, "Really? You're going to get that fucking cheesy."

"I thought it would sound nice," I defended myself with.

"Then her smile grew, and she actually chuckled, and her chuckle turned into a laugh. "Is this what I'm gonna have to expect from you in the future?"

"I'm giving you a chance to walk away now, if you want."

She smiled, turning her face to meet mine, saying, "I'll take my chances. And Zek. Thanks. For hearing me out."

It was just an instinctual reaction that came over me, but I pulled her close and kissed her forehead, then saying, "We all makes mistakes. I'm no exception. You don't have to thank me. I'm always happy to hear you out."

She hugged me again, her chin resting on my shoulder when she said, "Kai's probably wonder what's taking us so long."

"I have my doubts that a guy like him has any idea how long scouting is supposed to take."

She chuckled. "Then again. Neither do I, but it might be for the best we get going. After a few more minutes of course."

And so, for a few more minutes, we just sat there, in each other's arms, not letting anything in the world take us away from that moment. But some things can't last forever, and so, eventually, we found ourselves moving again, along the beachside, scanning the map. We'd seen no Fire Nation troops thus far, and that was always a positive, then, we actually found it, the cave he was talking about, hidden, and completely unmolested, no Fire Nation troops nearby.

"You think it's a trap?" Ka'lira asked while we watched the cave from the forest edge, peering outside so as to not give ourselves away.

"I don't think so. That's not the Fire Nation's style."

"Think they already found what they wanted then?"

"I mean. I'd imagine not. If they found what they wanted, there'd been hundreds of troops here looking for a trail or any evidence of the guerillas. Or they found what they wanted and decided to take the money and run."

"I thought this was food and medicine."

"Figure of speech."

"Ah. Well, one way to find out?"

"I suppose so."

So we left the edge of the forest, trailing along the beach, scanning its vast stretch to look for even the slightest sign of Fire Nation activity. None. No way this is that easy. This has to be the wrong cave.

And we reached the cave. It was half submerged, perfect for a small skiff with supplies to sneak in. We entered. It was dark, but the cave didn't go deep. Just far enough to shroud the rock outcropping in shadow, and atop it, 3 duffle bags, and within them when we scanned the contents, food, and medicine. We'd found it. "I mean," Ka'lira said. "I know we're just scouts, but fuck it. Let's go."

"I'm of the same mind," I said. "Before we risk the Fire Nation missing this cave."

And when we left the cave, we realized what it was that had drawn the Fire Nation away. A plume of smoke due south, conflict, Kai?

"You think that's him?" Ka'lira asked, her thoughts matching mine.

"I hope not, but I wouldn't put it past him. Let's go."

It was hard enough for Ka'lira to run with a duffle bag full of supplies around her shoulder, and much harder for me to do the same but with double the load. It was impossible to run at a full sprint, and just as hard to go at a steady job, but eventually, we were there, Shanzi right where it should have been, but Kai nowhere near.

"Where is he?" Ka'lira asked.

"Load the bags," I ordered, my nerves making my voice come out harsher than I would have liked. "Get in the tank and be ready to drive off. I'm going to look for him."

"For him? Is he worth it?"

"Fuck no, but if he gets out of this alive, as unlikely as that is, and tells Kiu that we left him, we're dead."

"That won't be necessary," a male voice, Kai, said from the woods. And he stumbled out, his arms around a Fire Nation soldier's neck. "Figured you two would go ahead and get the supplies, so I thought I'd give you a nice distraction. Turns out they did have tanks along this beach too, so they didn't notice us. Emphasis on 'did'. I told you I made a distraction."

We said nothing, but he noticed our eyes gazing at the soldier in his grasp, struggling for breath with Kai's arm around his neck. "Oh." Kai said. "Him? Just some glory hound who figured something wasn't right and went off to look for the firestarter while the rest put it out. Figured we'd question him a bit, get some useful information, and, well, we know what happens next."

"We're not going to do that," I said, letting my emotions get the better of my better judgment, of what Boss told me. "We don't torture."

"Who the fuck is 'we'. We've been doing this shit way before you strolled on in. They torture us for information, so we torture them. It's only fair."

"So we're just like them, then?" I asked, realizing I was begging at this point, not knowing the poor kid who was my same age in Kai's grip, only knowing that I've seen his same face of terror in so many other friends I've seen die during this war, realizing now that I didn't want to see yet another face add the collection in my mind that never stopped haunting me, never stopped haunting anybody who's seen war. "I thought we were supposed to be better."

Kai looked at me, then down at the soldier, and back at me again. "You know what?" he said. "You're right." He reached down with his right hand to his belt and I could only mouth the word, "Don't" before he plunged the blade into the kid's jugular vein, pulling it out, and letting the blood flow down the kid's uniform before letting his left arm come loose around the soldier's neck, letting him fall to the ground, still gagging, in a puddle of his own blood. "We are better." He said as he passed by me, ignoring the horror in my eyes, and the agape gaze on Ka'lira's face. What the hell did he just do?

"Oh you found the supplies!" He yelled in a sick joy after checking the trunk of the tank judging from the sound of it. "Good on you. Looks like we all win today!"

Ka'lira walked up next to me, her gaze equally fixed on the poor teenager's corpse ahead of us, just a stupid kid who wanted to solve the mystery of who set fire to his squad's tank. A stupid kid who was dead now, all because he wanted to serve his country. How the hell was I any different from him? And why was it that I survived all of that, just to find myself working with people who took those exact same lives? I felt Ka'lira's hand on my right shoulder, and I took hold of it with my left hand, as I looked back to see Kai settling down into the tank's passenger seat. "Oh so that's what it's like down here. It is way more comfortable."

I was wrong about what I'd said before. I understood what made these children so effective against the Fire Nation. They were raised by war. Who started that war? It didn't matter anymore. The importance of that had ended nearly 100 years ago. These children were born in fire and blood, and this was it's impact. They weren't like me nor Ka'lira, who grew up with families, away from conflict for the most part. They lost all of that long ago. And this was the result, and that's what made them so efficient. They didn't frighten, they didn't fear, they didn't flinch, they didn't feel. A soldier fights for his love of what's behind him. A killer fights for his hate of what's in front of him. And I was surrounded by killers, in the lion's den, the ground never ceasing to shake beneath my feet.