17 Zar'un

The thin paper sat on the desk between me and Gaz-di. I got it by messenger hawk this morning and for the first time in a while, I had realized just how unprepared I was.

"They're going to be here early." I said, both initiating the conversation and ceasing the awkward silence that had persisted between us for the last 2 minutes.

"The 15th?"

"Yes. Read it yourself if you don't believe me."

I had read through it over 10 times before I called a meeting with Gaz-di. Now I had not only every detail, but every word from the message in my head.

"Journey to take less time than expected. Currents have favored us as well as the motherland's ingenuity. We expect to have arrived before months end. We recommend completing the training of all current recruits as quickly as possible. We have extended the age of recruitment now to those of 10 years or more. Complete their training as well. Attached are material they will need for infantry and armored deployment. We have reviewed the list of students and assigned the roles as followed:

Zanrick Sotsanu-Infantry Gotso Mir'ak-Armored Gan Hidu-Armored

Zog'ing Mikasu-Armored Danev-Infantry Zanag Sotsanu-Armored

Ziring Zurang-Infantry Zosro Tozarro-Armored Gonenh Zanik-Armored

Dazni Gezanuk-Infantry Oran Tozarro-Armored Gyatsan Zom'aik-Infantry

Gozdan Gyanzik-Armored Zorim Goran-Armored Gi Gu-Armored

Zihe Zutarro-Infantry Aden-Infantry Luke-Armored

We recommend you begin training of the attached material immediately. The attack on Ba-Sing-Se can only be accomplished with our aid. For the Fire Nation. For Fire Lord Azulon."

It scared me half to death to see the name of the 10 and 11-year olds on that list. It took me reading over 9 more times to confirm it.

"I believe you."

"Good."

"So what role do I play?"

I motioned to the list of material that had come with the letter. I had skimmed that less than the letter. Figured It wasn't my duty to focus on that aspect. I remember reading "field manuals" for the newest model of our tanks. They event sent a sample with them out of the kindness of our heart in case we lacked any of our own. And of course, we did. We weren't exactly a motor pool, Citadel. It would be a pain gathering an entire class around a single desk to read through it, but I'd leave that up to the teachers.

"Teach them what's on that list according to the other list of our students."

It always comes down to fucking lists.

He grabbed the lists from where they sat on the desk and read through them, the students first, then the material, shaking his head the whole time until he finished and looked up to where I sat.

"I don't have half the stuff on this list."

I grabbed the sample and slid it to where he sat. "That's all we're getting from the 15th. I recommend you make due with whatever else you have because either way, those kids are being deployed by mid-February. You decide whether they die in the first 10 minutes or the first 10 hours.

"So you're giving up on them?"

"Of course I'm not. I would have them live 10 lifetimes if I could. And that's what you and your teachers are going to do. Make them live as long as possible. Maybe it will only buy them minutes or hours, but either way, that's time you bought them."

"If I may ask, I saw Zihe's name on the list. He's still recovering from the burns. He can't even see out of his right eye."

I sighed. "Gaz-di, we're putting 10-year olds on the field and you're worried about him? I think he's the least of our concerns. I recommend you update your teachers and get them ready for the new material."

He stood up from my desk and bowed. "Yes sir." He said before promptly leaving. As he opened the door, I noticed Lieutenant Zarrow waiting outside and motioned him in through the cracks of the door. He noticed and pushed the doors open once more before they could close from the principal that had just left.

The last time I had seen him, I had gotten another scrap of his Gyani's damn journal. "Trust nobody." Like he was trying to remind himself not to trust the Fire Nation. What an asshole. The fact Zarrow was now standing here again didn't get me excited. I would get the first word here, not him.

"Zarrow. I didn't make you lieutenant to give me bad news. Tell me this isn't bad news."

"I'm afraid it is." He didn't bother sitting, but rather placed the slip of paper directly in front of me, folded as though he wanted nobody else to find it. I didn't blame him. We were the only two who knew about what Gyani had left behind. I started unfolding it while he said "An engineer found it in the pipeworks yesterday morning, scrunched up on the floor. It was unfolded when we found it."

I read it:

Trust Raava.

Watch out for Vaatu.

I sighed. I had thought this was over, but more and more kept popping up out of nowhere?

"So it's another page from the journal then."

"I thought so too sir, but I. I noticed something. I gave it to our scribe to make sure and he confirmed my suspicions. This was written recently. Just a little over a month ago."

What?! I heard my chair scrape back before I had even known I stood up. "How!?"

"The ink. The scribe could tell you better, but it was less dried. I don't remember how he put it, but-"

"No, idiot! I mean 'how' as in we already decapitated the man who wrote them! So is there a headless corpse writing messages in my city, did we kill the wrong man, or are there more like him, damnit?!"

"I don't know, sir. I j-"

"You are the commander of this garrison. Find how."

He gulped, and I just realized then I was holding him by the cloth of his uniform. I let go and he stumbled backwards. He saluted, too frightened to mutter a word, and left."

"He would start with the room again. It was right back to step one. I had been following ghosts before. Now I was following something all too alive. I wasn't sure which was worse."