24 Captain Zar'un

It's been a slow month for grain. One or two, that's to be expected, and easily accounted for, but four in a row, especially as Winter was approaching, that was when I started to grow concerned. There was only so much I could allocate food from our stockpiles and enact rationing before things started getting out of hand.

I had soldiers to keep in line, factory owners to keep from emigrating, workers to keep from striking, families to keep from launching an exodus, and slums to keep from attempting to stage another food uprising. I couldn't have a repeat of the events from 5 years ago. Not if I wanted to keep this sinking ship from going under. Not if I wanted to keep my mandate over this small slice of the Earth Kingdom.

However, if Shama was a source to be trusted, and, of course, he was, then the situation of Taisho was heading in a direction I would have much preferred it wasn't.

"At current rationing, we only have enough food to get us through to Winter, and that's not including it."

I saw then why it was that Shama, the Taisho garrison logistician, had decided to drag me out to our food stores rather than deliver the grim news without a visual aid to back him up lest I not believe him. But even if it was that I couldn't make heads or tails of what was in front of me, much less have his same foresight of just how unfeasible it was to distribute what I saw to a population of over ten thousand, I had to take Shama's words at face value, fatalistic as they were.

"How the hell did it get like this?" I asked, looking over shelves that, when I'd been here in the past, had been filled to the brim, the fear of another food riot the furthest thing from my mind. Those had been good years. The caravans came in frequently, they sold to us and made a bargain off the leftovers with the slum rats, and we built our stockpile. 5 years like that, undisturbed. Until now…

"With the growing infrequency of caravans coming in, it was bound to happen."

"What the hell is with that anyway?" I asked, turning to Shama as though he had some explanation I was unaware of, some way to explain why, for five years, with minimal discrepancy, caravans would come in at a constant rate, and the flow of food would be unimpaired, until now, when the last one had come in a month ago, with only a fraction of the normal load. We'd purchased it all, of course, damning the slums to narry a portion of it. They hadn't risen up yet, but if the growing violence on the streets was any indication, then it was only a matter of time until they became desperate enough to try their lot turning their torches and pitchforks on us. A death by one of our arrows was quick and painless whereas slowly starving to death was quite the opposite.

"I couldn't tell you, sir."

"Bad Summer for crops? There a drought I don't know about?"

"None that I've heard of."

"Pirates on shipping lanes? Raiders intercepting caravans?"

I was talking to myself more than I was to Shama, but he responded anyway. I didn't mind it. It was better than my own words echoing back at me, reminding me just how truly fucked we were.

"I really don't know, sir."

Damnit.

I sighed. I knew what had to be done. More rationing. Troops, residents, and slumdogs. All would see the consequences, but it was better than war in the streets, better than wondering what would kill us first: starvation, or our own human shield.

"So what do you suggest?" I asked anyway.

"I can't promise that rationing any further will make much of a difference at this rate. If I cut current rations down to two thirds-"

"Two thirds of the normal?"

"Two thirds of what we're currently at, which is half the normal."

Fuck.

He continued. "Even then, that'd only get us another month until our stocks ran dry."

"And this is on the assumption no more supplies come in?" I asked desperately, hoping perhaps we might still have a saving grace in the form of resumed shipping.

"This is on the assumption they persist at the current rate, and realistically…"

"They'll only come in less frequently."

As they did every Winter. Not even a full month earned. But what other choice is there? Time is time.

I can leave, I considered. Nothing is keeping me from gathering my men, the Fire Nation citizens here, and calling it quits. Then what? A return to the Fire Nation as a failure? Prosecution for my blatant waste of Fire Nation resources on a failed endeavor, the failure of which would likely include an Earth Kingdom recapture of the city? No, there was everything that was keeping me from walking away, namely that there was nothing to walk back to save for a likely prison cell, or worse, a reassignment to the front. My family name would likely earn me the position of an officer, but on the front all the same. It'd only be a matter of time before an earthbender's shard pierced my brain or I got buried alive in my trench in the dead of night.

A cold shiver ran down my spine, no shortage of stories from the front having reached my ears over the years. No, I couldn't leave. "Do it," I said through a sigh as quickly as I could before I could reconsider and allow fatalism to determine it wasn't worth it. It was. This city, it was my chance, and I couldn't let it go, especially when letting it go meant something far worse for me on the horizon.

Shama nodded, not daring to ask if I was certain, likely aware of just how on the fence I was about the situation as a whole. Damn it all for even getting this far. I should've acted when first the caravans stopped coming in. Should have known a mid Fall delay would only spell more ill for Winter. I could have bought us another month. Half of one at the very least.

There was no point thinking about it now, of course, and it was some small peace of mind to put the storeroom behind us and lock it up again. I wondered if the guards who flanked either side of its doorway were aware of just how little they were actually guarding, if they'd overheard those talking within of ways in which to make their lives more miserable for the sake of the collective.

None of it felt right. I imagined it wasn't supposed to, but still, as I navigated my way through the military district of the inner city back to the Taisho tower, it continued to plague my mind just what other possibilities there were.

What if I go all in? Starve out the slums? It'd mean war once again, but what of it? We could act first this time, gain the upper hand, eliminate the Rats and Hornets, anybody else who may try to organize action…

I stopped myself in the middle of that thought. It wouldn't work. I knew that much at least. They would flee underground, and not only in the literal sense. They'd be impossible to find, impossible to act on, and impossible to defend ourselves against when the time came.

We needed one another to survive in this damned city, but only one of us was smart enough to know that. Them, on the other hand, just like last time, they wouldn't restrain themselves until they had what they wanted. We've sealed off the tunnels, were aware of the limited access points, could easily shut the gates and man the walls, but they would find a way, eventually. And even if they didn't, it would just turn the other way around. It was them who surrounded us, them who would cut us off, them who would starve us out.

There was no winning this war.

All the more reason to ensure it never begins.

I was thankful that the military district was cordoned off from the rest of the inner city. It saved me the hassle from protesting families who believed that, on account of their position in the city relative to those in the slums, they weren't affected by food shortages, so blissfully unaware of the fact that food shortages were a universal concept rather than a class-based one.

For this city, at least. Then there were such cities as Ba Sing Se, able to weather the storm of Chin's continent-wide conquest and siege for years without ever facing food shortages. I had no doubt that a significant part of the story was fiction, but the fact that Ba Sing Se had held remained sealed in history. What sacrifices they'd made I shuddered to think about, even more so when considering that truth that this damned war would only end when those walls fell for the first, and hopefully, last time in history.

Separated though we were, I could still hear the shouts of protestors and petitioners from beyond the fence that marked the divide between my world and theirs, in similar states of affluence, at least relative to the mutual "other," but only one whose job it was to keep things that way.

If only I had a better way of ensuring everybody was doing whatever possible to do that, however. I could only order my lieutenants to run their platoons through drills and exercises so many times before the men realized there was nothing better for them to do. Normally, I could have them running routine patrols around the walls in anticipation of frequent caravan visits, but with them having been ground to a near stop, I could scarcely justify that. Already in the last month, I'd twice had to deploy the garrison to act as military police for their own comrades, and then proceed to deploy even more soldiers to police the initial team sent that'd ended up joining the drunks. A brawl I could deal with. It was good for morale. Better than having them take potshots at the slumdogs at least.

At the very least, I was greeted with what seemed to be proper behavior befitting soldiers of the Fire Nation as I made my way to my office at the peak of the Taisho spire. The lieutenants kept their men in line for the most part. They cared about their jobs, hell, they better have, they were career officers who made double the pay of their subordinates for only a fraction of the work because they'd had the benefit of attending a military academy back on the Isles. One such lieutenant by the name of Zaisum, eager to take advantage of Zarrow's situation with the traitor Gyani, however he could, intercepted me when least he should have done so, when the last thing I wanted was to talk to anybody.

"Captain?" he asked, saluting. "A word please."

I was inclined to tell the kid immediately to fuck off, but on the offchance that he had something useful for me, I turned him away, and he then would be able to whisper into the ears of one of his parents' drinking buddies that Taisho fell because I refused to listen, I gave him my attention.

"At ease, lieutenant. Permission granted."

I didn't stop for him, however, figuring a non issue could be settled before reaching my office where I could turn him away, and if it was something of importance, well, then I'd rather be sitting at my desk for it.

"Thank you, sir," he responded, joining me at my side as I walked, escaping the hallway into the stairwell, his voice echoing across the compact steel walls, inescapable. "I wanted to speak to you about the actions of Lieutenant Zarrow, sir."

Of course you fucking do. I, of course, said nothing of that sort, allowing him to continue.

"I've noticed him taking unexpected leave on numerous occasions, sending men out into the slums' outskirts."

So doing the job I've sent him to do.

"Go on," I urged him to continue, figuring I deserved some semblance of entertainment wherever I could get it, even if it came at the expense of another. In the case of Zaiusm, however, I was willing to tolerate it.

"Well, the whole issue was the Lee Shuni, I mean, Gyorno, or-"

"Gyani."

"Gyani, right. It was that he was colluding with gangs, right? I was just wondering if, it was possible that Zarrow was guilty of the same thing?"

If anything, it proved Zarrow was guilty of doing precisely what I'd instructed him to do.

I wondered how it was going, the task I'd assigned to him. Combined with Shyu's crusade within the inner district and Zarrow's investigation without, I wanted to think some semblance of progress had been achieved. But, then I had to face reality, and accept the very likely possibility of it all being a dead end. That's why I'd assigned it to another anyway. Perhaps it was Zaisum I should have given the responsibility, let him embark on the wild goose chase.

Zaisum had noticed my silence, prompting him to ask, as though I wasn't simply ignoring him "Sir?"

I cleared my throat. We'd reached my floor, and nothing of what Zaisum had told me warranted me allowing him to my door even. "Thank you, Zaisum. I'll look into it."

"I can launch an investigation if you want."

"No." We were at my door. "That won't be necessary. Instruct your men to fortify the military district on regular shifts."

"Yes sir," he saluted. "Are we…expecting something, sir?"

Aside from a potential impending food riot?

"No. You have your orders."

He saluted once more before departing with a final "Yes sir."

Finally.

It was a relief as any to be rid of him, ushered into my office by Zhorou, who I instructed to wait outside my office. On a normal day, I'd have had him remove my armor for me, but frankly, right now, the last thing I needed was any more human interaction than was absolutely necessary. They'd done nothing for me so far anyway as it was, being to debrief the MPs on last night's brawl, come to terms with our food situation, and have my ear talked off by an overeager lieutenant.

Not that I could blame the boy, of course. We'd graduated from the same academy, albeit as part of different classes. I was a career officer as much as he was, except that I'd already been given my big break–this slice of heaven known as Taisho. He, well, he was still looking for his opportunity, be it a promotion, a territorial mandate, anything to justify his being here. It made me thankful for those such as Zarrow, however, who in spite of his shortcomings and failures such as the matter with Gyani, did not allow their aspirations to cloud their judgment. They tempered their expectations, understood when it was the right time to look up, and when the time came to fly low.

Such proof of this came in the form of a report already atop my desk, filed by the selfsame Zarrow, who seemed, thankfully, perfectly knowledgeable of what justified meeting with me in person, and what could be accomplished just as well if not better with parchment and ink.

The weekly report of slum activities was not too dissimilar from past reports. Information on what Gyani had been seeking remained slim to none, the reports on gang activities much the same being a tense truce, continued collections, but, most interestingly, a key incident that stuck out to me–the death of six kids associated with a smaller gang known as the "fireflies" at the hands of the Hornets. It was not a gang I'd heard of before, these "fireflies." New power rising, aspiring newcomers put down in their infancy, or simply a struggle for resources? The details presented pointed towards the latter. It was neither good news nor bad. Food was becoming scarce in the slums, as was it everywhere. At the very least, it was proof of one thing, that the bargain I'd struck hadn't been for nothing. The Hornets had diverted their attention away from us, away from the few caravans that came in whenever they did, and now found new enemies for them to release their fury on.

Better them than us.

It was the only good news of the day, and only even considered "good news" by a gratuitous stretch of logic, but still, it was enough for me to justify digging my smoking pipe out from my desk. Empty as it was, I dug through as well for my pouch of tobacco, finding it easily enough, proceeding to load the bowl.

I was still equipped in my full vestige of cumbersome armor, but it mattered little to me now as the only thing I sought was the comfort of a brief moment to myself.

I didn't bother testing the draw of it, figuring that it had served me well enough for the years I'd served as overseer of this city to suddenly fail now, and lit a match. I waited a few seconds for the sulfur to burn off, the pipe hanging limp in my mouth, before igniting its contents.

The first puff was always the greatest. The foreign sensation of it entering one's lungs, the flavor at its most powerful. I only wish it hadn't been interrupted by an intrusive knock on my door that nearly caused the pipe to fall from between my lips.

"What?!" I called out, louder than I'd intended.

A quivering voice on the other end, Zhorou's, no doubt afraid of reprisal from the sound of my voice, shakingly spoke, "It's High Sage Shyu, sir."

Damnit. What does he want now?

"Send him in!" I called out, followed nearly immediately by the door opening as I endeavored to quickly stifle the open flame of my pipe.

"I do hope I'm not intruding," the older man inquired as he entered my office, the door shutting behind him. I was no stranger to the look he bore on his face, rendered quite curious by the lit apparatus in my hand, a luxury available only to those with the particular means of affording it, no doubt including him, but he struck me as a man with different ways of spending his money, such as frivolous inquisitions across the world such as that which he was on now in my city.

"Not at all," I answered as I reluctantly put out the flame of my pipe before standing to bow, bidding for him to sit shortly after, which he promptly did.

In the last couple of weeks, I'd become aware of what he'd meant by his cryptic 'all in good time' comment. Since then, he'd taken more than an active role in Lieutenant Zarrow's assignments, ever-curious on the status of interrogations, investigations, and slum wide expeditions. Naturally, he'd only done it with my authority, but such was a mere formality. The High Sage of the Fire Nation, there was no denying him even if it would have liked to for fear of being branded a heretic. So, of course, my only recourse had been to allow him to do as he pleased. The reactions were mixed, some of the isle-born soldiers of the garrison welcoming his eminence's presence, while others, namely of Earthen descent, viewed his being here with much suspicion and hesitation.

None were strangers to Fire Lord Azulon's policies of fervent Fire Imperialism, seen most consequently by his policy of near total genocide of Water Tribal populations, namely in the South. Some suspected it was likely driven by a belief that the Avatar had already been reincarnated into the Water Tribes. With the Northern Tribe, by benefit of its natural fortifications, hunter killer fleet, and environmental edge, nearly impenetrable, and the continental tribes concealed within impassable terrain, that left the South as his only target. Those of Earthen descent had been spared from the same degree of radical elimination on account of them, by virtue of conquest and colonialism, making up nearly half of the Fire Nation's total population.

"So, you wanted to speak?" I asked in a desperate effort to get this over with before the tobacco in the pipe went bad.

"That I did," the kindly man responded in a fashion that was agonizing, so pleasant and seemingly unaware of the sway he held over me, much more, the entire Fire Nation. "I would like to express my gratitude to you, for having enabled me to conduct my inquiries within this city of yours. Your hospitality has been unprecedented, and is ever an indication of why it is so important that we not lose the values and traditions that bind our Nation."

Is this it? A departure? Albeit a lengthy one?

I smiled, wanting to believe I already knew where this was going. "The pleasure was mine to have you here. I cannot pretend to possess the same wisdom as the Sages, but I would like to think that your visit here has provided what you sought."

"In part. My efforts here are slow, but I am beginning to think it may be bearing fruit."

Beginning to think? Spirits be damned.

He continued. "I have been working closely with your Lieutenant. Zarrow, I believe."

"That's correct," I answered, endeavoring to conceal my disappointment that the purpose of his visit was separate from what I'd hoped it was.

"I learned that the Air Nomad of ours, Gyani, took to the streets more often than not."

"Food came in more frequently. Was safer for our troops to get inside and out."

"So I've heard. Zarrow has shared with me his theories, and I believe he may be onto something in his belief that Gyani was attempting to protect somebody within the slums."

It'd been my working theory as well. Perhaps I should have shared it with Shyu sooner, spared him the trouble, but all matters relating to Gyani had been given to Zarrow. He was no longer my concern.

"You think a mistress," I asked. "A child?"

"I would presume a child, but I cannot be sure until I investigate further."

He seemed on the verge of speaking, but I interrupted him before he could, curious about a single, vital piece of information. "If I may ask," I started, catching his wandering eye. "What importance is it to you? Even if this Gyani was indeed the Avatar which, no offense, I doubt completely-"

"Oh, as do I. I know the impression that my initial eagerness may have given, but if the last few weeks have taught me anything, it was that the man you killed could not have been him."

Presumptuous. What, did he think we'd have been incapable of subduing and executing him if he was? On second thought, that was likely true. I doubted the Avatar would have so easily let himself be killed.

"Right," I hesitantly started again, unsure if the pause Shyu provided was for me to speak once again. "But what I wanted to ask was, if Gyani wasn't the Avatar, then why the curiosity of who he was looking after, if even anybody? Think he's got an airbender kid out there?"

"An airbender, or perhaps that whom we were seeking from the beginning."

"The Av- Come on. The only living people out there in the slums are disease-ridden whores, sad old men who can barely walk themselves across the street, and feral children who spawn from the mud for all I know. You mean to tell me one of them is the Avatar?!"

"We cannot discount anything."

I scoffed. I couldn't believe this. I would have taken a huff from my pipe had the fire not already gone out. "I hate to tell you, Shyu," I chuckled. "But if your Avatar's out there, they're probably already dead. Even if they're alive, you won't find them. I've been cooperative so far, but I have a limited garrison here. I'm not organizing a manhunt for somebody who likely doesn't even exist."

It was a long-winded appeal, but it had to be said. The man's position aside, there was only so much I could give, and surrendering my garrison for a goose chase, that was a line I wouldn't cross, even if it meant possible heresy in putting the Fire Nation's spiritual authority to question.

I was spared, however, by the earnest chuckle that rose from Shyu's mouth, brief, but at the very least, not seeming to veil ill will behind it. "I'm not asking you to, Captain. I'm here because I believe I have a solution to both of our problems. I understand your city hasn't received much needed food supplies for the last month now, and this is likely to continue. I need able bodies to search the slums. I have a letter prepared on the desk in the room you've been so kind to prepare for me. In it, I've requisitioned for a Fire Sage relief mission to be dispatched to Taisho. You and your slums will receive their supplies, and I will have all the people I need to find what I am looking for while still doing my job as our Nation's spiritual authority. All I ask you to do, as overseer of this city, is sign off on it."

And there it was, all of a sudden, a way out of this.

Beneath my desk, my pipe fell to the floor, as I was still processing what Shyu had just said to even notice.

And there it is. What am I going to say, 'no?'

Food, supplies, relief for the city. Just like that, an end to the protests, the unrest, the chance of war. I have my out. My city, my mandate, it's all still there.

And if the mission proves a failure?

Shyu was aware of the chance of that. He was here regardless, and making this offer with full understanding of that. As much as I hated to say it, his offer was a charity disguised as a trade, but I would accept the excuse. If he wanted his mission, he could have it. For all I cared, he could have whatever he wanted. A bastard child, a stray airbender, even the Avatar for all I knew. It mattered little to me. He could have what I want, because today, I had my second chance at keeping Taisho.

And I wasn't about to turn it down.