Chapter Text
The teenage boy groaned awake. The sun was sending iron spikes through his head, so he squeezed his eyes shut and covered them with a hand. There was something wrong with his face, bumps and ridges where there shouldn't be any.
"Are you okay?" The voice was high pitched and too loud. He blinked his eyes open, careful to shade them this time.
"'m fine," he muttered automatically. Everything jerked and he bit back a curse. His stomach, he was quite sure, wasn't where it was supposed to be; it was leaping up into his throat and then dropping somewhere under the--wagon?
"Can you sit up?" At least the voice was quieter this time.
Whether or not he could sit up was irrelevant. He wasn't going to, not until the world stopped lurching around him. A small hand rested on his forehead, blissfully cool, and he sighed as the headache receded from right behind his eyes. That is, until something jabbed right into the back of his skull. "Dung!"
"Sorry, sorry. That bump looks really bad."
"Then why did you poke it?" he snarled.
The wagon jerked to a stop, and that was it. He lunged past the other person--some little kid he didn't recognize--to vomit over the side of the cart. Nothing came up but a bit of bile.
"You've been throwing up for ages," the kid said.
Head injuries and vomiting, he knew something about that, but it flitted out of reach when he tried to concentrate.
"Well?" That was the wagon driver. The man pointed to a small tent in a field of much larger tents and structures made of stone and earth. "That's the recruiting station."
"Recruiting?" the teenager wondered aloud, but he slid off the back of the wagon. He kept his feet, even though the ground wouldn't stop rocking. He'd dealt with worse than this when… he couldn't think of a specific time, but he was sure he had. He set off towards the tent.
The little kid clung to his hand. There were clean tracks down his dirt-covered face, and his eyes were red. He wanted to say something comforting, but what were you supposed to say? He squeezed the kid's hand, and the kid seemed to take strength from that, straightening up and wiping his nose on his sleeve, adding fresh snot to the innumerable stains.
The teenager ducked through the doorflap into the tent. A thin man dressed in green and brown robes of middling quality was bent over a ledger and didn't look up when they came in. "Name?"
The kid handed the thin man a piece of crumpled paper. "Lee, 16, mother's occupation: farmer, father's occupation: farmer," he read slowly, using his brush to write in the ledger. "Is that accurate?" After a pause, the man looked up for the first time. "Wait. You're sixteen?"
The kid half-hid behind the teenager, but after a moment he nodded.
"Right. Sure." The thin man shook his head, turned to look at the teenager and winced. The man was staring at the side of his face, the one with the weird ridges.
"What's your name?"
"Um." Huh. He wasn't entirely sure. That seemed wrong somehow, but he couldn't think through his headache.
"Do you have your enlistment form or not?" He blinked at the thin man. The kid pushed across another piece of paper. "Li."
The teenager looked at the kid. The kid was looking back up at him.
"Li," the thin man repeated, "That is your name, isn't it? Or do you pronounce the characters differently?" He held up the paper.
The teenager stared at the paper in front of him. The brush strokes were messy, but he could read the name, and it could be pronounced Li. "Uh, yeah?" He scanned down the page. The birth year was specified as the second year of Kuei's reign, which meant… he wasn't sure what that meant.
The thin man pulled the paper back, impatient. "Sixteen years old, mother's occupation…" The man hesitated for a moment, then continued, "prostitute. Father's occupation: unknown." The thin man looked at him again, this time directly in the eyes. "I see. Is this form accurate?"
The teenager said, "I don't know." The thin man glared. "I really don't know, okay, if you'd just let me see the paper again… Li? That's my name?"
The thin man stared at him, then at the kid, then back to him. "Right. I think it's time to consult the captain."
-----
Captain Wu was having a good day. The supplies that had arrived this morning meant they once again had chicken-pig eggs; General Fong's idiotic marching orders had been countermanded by General How; and he'd assigned that bureaucrat that was clearly only in camp to spy for the Dai Li to the recruitment tent.
Unfortunately, the man hadn't stayed there. "Secretary Chung-Hee, I assigned you--"
"Certainly, sir, but there are some… irregularities with the new recruits," the thin man interrupted.
The captain was prepared to give him a dressing down for, say, desertion of his post and interrupting a superior officer, but the recruits followed the spy into his tent and he saw the problem.
"May I introduce you to the hundred-thirty-first's newest recruits: Lee, sixteen , and this young man who may or may not be Li; he seems uncertain." Chung-Hee handed over two enlistment forms, straightened to his not-very-impressive full height and said, "I will resume my assigned post now." He left a pause long enough to be insulting before adding, "Sir."
The child, who could not have been much older than twelve, promptly hid behind the older boy. The teenager--who might have been a short sixteen and had the worst mark of fire the captain had ever seen on a living person--scowled. Captain Wu, following some instinct passed down from his forebears who had survived raising teenagers, pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the incoming headache. "What's your name?"
The teenager looked down at the child, then back at the captain. "Li?" he guessed.
"You're not sure."
"Not… not really, no." The young man brought a hand up to his forehead as if it pained him, but became distracted by feeling the scar.
"...Are you drunk?" A few recruits had found their courage at the bottom of too many cups of rice wine, but none of them had forgotten their names or brought a child with them when enlisting.
"I'm fine," the young man said. He was slowly listing to the side like a junk taking on water.
Captain Wu stood and pushed the first form across his desk. "Is this the form you submitted?"
"I guess?" The teenager bent down to read it.
The child took advantage of the moment to touch a spot on the back of the older boy's head.
"Aaaugh, dragon's dung, will you stop that?"
Ah, it was a head wound. An extremely bad one, if the teenager literally didn't know his own name. He did remember how to curse, though, in a too-interesting way. Captain Wu picked up his lamp and came around the desk. "I need to check your pupils." The teenager's eyes were lighter than he was expecting, less muddy brown or emerald and more--
The teenager flinched away from the lamp--the lamp held up to his horribly burned face--and Captain Wu mentally kicked himself. "Right. Sorry. Can you face the tent flap?"
One of older boy's pupils was reacting normally--the one on his burned side, and it had to be a miracle that he still had that eye--but the other pupil was blown. That wasn't the only alarming thing: he had a crocolion's golden eyes.
They were the eyes of a severely concussed crocolion, and Wu wasn't sure if that was more or less threatening. " Your parents are farmers," he said, evenly.
"I guess?"
The child picked up the recruitment form for Lee and hugged it to his chest; he pushed the other towards the teen.
The teen squinted at the paper. "Ah. No, my mother was--" He scowled, defensive. "She wasn't a farmer."
The captain took the form and realized it was the other one, the one for Li. This one made much more sense. Between the gold of his eyes and his pale skin, Captain Wu would lay odds that his mother had been part Fire Nation in addition to the unknown father; the oldest profession was one of the few open to those with mixed nationality. That explained the kid's cursing, as well, if she'd tried to raise him with some connection to his heritage.
The teenager--Li, apparently--was staring after the form as if it contained all the answers in the universe. For someone who needed a refresher course on their own name, maybe it did.
"You need a healer." At least the infirmary had plenty of experience with head trauma; even the non-bender young men in this camp were determined to prove their heads were harder than rocks. "Follow the road to the right until you reach the infirmary. It's the one with the blue banners."
Li nodded and immediately clapped a hand over his mouth in an effort to avoid vomiting. It was less than reassuring. The younger child took his hand and tugged him out of the tent.
Captain Wu tried pinching the bridge of his nose again, but this was one headache he wasn't going to be able to avoid. He was going to have to open a Shu-damned investigation into the recruiting practices of whichever backwater town had sent these two. Bad enough they'd apparently bludgeoned a teenager half to death and claimed the recruitment bonus for him. Who in Oma's name thought sending a twelve-year-old to fight in the war was a good idea?
-----
Lee went to the infirmary with the older boy. It was a long, low stone building decorated with blue glowing-wave banners. The young woman in apprentice robes stared at the teenager's burn in fascination. "Sit down. I'll get Healer Sun-Hi."
They sat down on one of the cots. There were dozens of them, and Lee tried not to imagine them all filled with wounded soldiers. He gulped back tears. He hadn't been such a crybaby yesterday, but that was before his brother was captured, before his father left for enemy territory, before he'd been sent to join the army, and before he'd spent hours praying to Oma and Shu that the teenager who'd defended him wouldn't die. It had been a very long day.
A woman with gray hair pulled back into a severe bun came out of the back, drying her hands on her healer's robes. "There's nothing I can do about a burn that old," she said. "I doubt even a waterbender could help."
The older boy touched the burned side of his face and looked confused. He'd been looking confused a lot since Gow hit him with that rock, and it was all Lee's fault. He didn't even know the older boy's real name.
"Well? Stand up, and--what's wrong with you?" she asked, annoyed, when he swayed towards her.
Lee had to say something. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that those bullies couldn't come after him again, now he was in an army camp. It couldn't get worse. He hoped. "His head."
"What? Don't mumble."
"He hurt his head."
Healer Sun-Hi walked around the cot and growled something about Shu-damned earthbender exercises and rock-headed young men. She called for her apprentice Nayo to bring hot water and bandages. "How long ago did this happen?"
"...Seven hours?" Lee guessed. The fight had happened at noon, and the sun was just starting to set now.
The lines of concern on the healer's face deepened. "Did he lose consciousness?"
Nod.
"How long?"
It had felt like forever, but had probably only been "Two hours? Then he started throwing up."
Her expression became even grimmer. "Has he seemed disoriented? Did he forget where he was or seem confused over recent events?"
Nod. "Um. He doesn't remember his name."
She raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "This isn't a spirit-story. People don't just hit their heads and forget their past. I don't know what you hope to gain by lying--"
"I'm not lying!" the teenager yelled. He flinched at his own volume and continued quieter, "I forgot for a bit, but I remember now. My name is Li."
Except it wasn't, that's just what Gow had written on the form while the teenager was too unconscious to correct him.
The healer did not look amused. "If you do have a concussion, you'll need to spend the night for observation." The healer told Lee, "It's getting dark. You, runner, go home."
He wished he could. "I can't. I--I enlisted."
Sun-Hi snorted. "Sixteen is the minimum age."
Lee wanted to tell the truth and go home. Except Gow and the others were at home, and it was his fault the older boy had gotten hurt. He couldn't leave him here. "I'm sixteen."
The healer paused in scooping some sort of salve out of a jar to give him a sardonic look. "I'm sure being a soldier sounds exciting, but the war is too dangerous for a child."
Lee bit his lip and blinked quickly to hold back tears. He knew it was dangerous. Big brother Sensu had been captured by the Fire Nation. Was probably going to be killed by the Fire Nation unless Dad found him quickly. He didn't want to be here--
"What war?" the teenager asked.
-----
The healer, her apprentice and the boy turned to stare at Li. Was this about his face again? The healer had said he had an old burn--was he ugly or something?
"You don't remember the war with the Fire Nation?" the apprentice healer asked, voice high with disbelief. "The one that's been going on for a hundred years ?"
"Um…"
-----
Captain Wu accepted the tea Healer Sun-Hi offered him. He knew what to expect, so he kept a pleasant expression on his face while sipping at it. The healer brewed her tea the same way she made her herbal medicines: steeped for maximum potency.
The captain looked over at the sleeping boys. Someone had pushed their cots together.
"If his brain doesn't swell too much overnight, he'll probably survive. We'll know by morning." Healer Sun-Hi didn't sound particularly invested, but then she never did. There were healers who cared deeply for each of their patients, who fought like hell to give them another week, another day, even another hour of breath. Sun-Hi's predecessor, Healer Chele, had been one of them.
Sun-Hi was not.
"Does he really not know his name?"
Sun-Hi shrugged one shoulder. "He claims to have forgotten the war and the nations, as well. I'm not certain if he's faking. Retrograde amnesia is extremely rare, but it is possible, especially in cases like this where the patient received additional concussions before the first one could heal."
Captain Wu frowned. "He's had multiple head wounds in the last few weeks?"
"Weeks, or months. Malnutrition slows down the healing of fractures." Wu frowned. He'd noticed how refugee-thin the older boy had been. "The younger boy is much healthier, at least."
Wu would lay odds that Li had been taking the brunt of the hunger and physical abuse to spare the younger boy. The kid was probably his little brother, in spirit if not in blood.
"You can't actually believe the little one is sixteen," Sun-Hi said in a tone that suggested she'd heard stupider ten times today. The last time Wu had needed to speak to her was in the wake of Specialist Zixin using reindeer honey and ostrich-horse feathers in an extremely non-regulation manner, so he didn't doubt that she had.
"No more than I believe the older one volunteered. I've already sent someone to investigate. We'll find whoever is taking advantage of refugees; with Oma's luck, we'll even find some living relatives for them."
"In the meantime, you want them in the army?" Sun-Hi snorted. "Do we even have uniforms small enough?"
"I'm not putting them on the front lines, if that's what you mean, and it's certainly safer in the barracks than on the road. How long do you think it's been since they had food, shelter and medical care?" Captain Wu looked over at the healer's charges. Little Lee had squirmed halfway onto the other cot to hide his face in the older boy's shirt. Li was holding on to him in his sleep like someone who had lost everything else in his world.
"There's not much the best medical care can do if his brain swells too much. I'll make an assessment in the morning of how much permanent damage is done."
"I'll be by again in the morning, then," Wu said, missing Healer Chele with a dull ache like the one in his left knee on cold mornings. Sun-Hi might be an excellent battlefield medic, but that didn't make her much of a healer.
-----
Sun-Hi watched the last of the grains slip through her sand clock and considered not waking the boy. He'd looked exhausted, and they would both appreciate full night's sleep for once. It wasn't as if she would try trepanning even if his brain was swelling, no matter how curious her apprentice Nayo was; better for the boy to die in his sleep than in agony from infection after having holes cut in his skull. Still, monitoring concussions was something that had been drilled into her when she was an apprentice herself, so she rose with a sigh.
The boy was muttering in his sleep and holding himself rigid. Some sort of nightmare?
He reacted to the hand shaking his shoulder with the speed of a cobra-crane; he grabbed and yanked, dumping her on her ass. The other hand went to his belt. Things might have ended quite gruesomely for Healer Sun-Hi if there had been a knife there, but there wasn't, so the boy just blinked at his empty hand.
"You're in the Ba Sing Se army camp," she said, as monotone as she could while seething with anger--entirely directed at herself. She should have recognized the signs of night terrors before he nearly stabbed her. "It is the eighteenth year of His Majesty Kuei's reign. You're in the infirmary with a head wound. You are safe here."
She repeated the mantra again while he looked around the infirmary and down at the younger boy who was--against all odds--still asleep. His eyes held more awareness when they met hers again. "I'm sorry." His voice was as hoarse as someone suffering from smoke inhalation.
He released her, so she stood and poured some water from the pitcher next to his bed into a cup. "Drink this first."
He took a swallow and paused in surprise. "This isn't tea."
"Three gongs just struck. Did you really expect me to make you tea?"
"Uh, no. This is good. Sorry." He finished his water. Normally, she would ask about year and location, but she'd just told him that. Twice. Besides, there were bigger problems than a bit of disorientation. "Do you remember your name?"
"Li," he answered confidently.
Sun-Hi hadn't made a point of remembering it, so she assumed that was correct. More importantly, "Do you remember which side you're fighting for?"
"Earth Kingdom, fighting off the invading Fire Nation."
"Two for two. Go back to sleep; I'll be waking you up soon enough to ask those same questions again."
"Why?" He lay back, at least, and his eyelids were drooping.
"Because I'm the healer, and you're the patient. So sleep. Do you need more water?"
"'m fine, Uncle," he muttered and was asleep before Sun-Hi could ask what he'd meant by that.
-----
Li was bored. He'd been lying on this stupid cot for days, and every time he got up to do anything other than use the latrine, the old battle-ax of a healer glared at him. The little kid in the cot next to his--also named Lee, apparently, and wasn't that going to be confusing--got small and quiet whenever Li asked him questions, and all Li seemed to have were questions.
The only one who would talk to him was Nayo, the healer's apprentice, and she laughed at him. Worse, she thought it was funny to lie to the amnesiac. Li was concussed; he wasn't stupid.
The man who entered the infirmary was broad-shouldered and had black hair shot through with gray tied back in a neat queue. The laugh lines around his eyes were offset by the worried crease between his brows. He looked vaguely familiar; Li didn't think this was the first time he'd stopped by the building to talk to the healer.
Li stiffened when the man finished speaking to the healer and came right over to his cot. His bearing spoke of a lifetime of military service. "I'm Captain Wu. I'm in charge of the 35th Light Infantry Unit. Healer Sun-Hi tells me you've been sneaking out."
Li felt a small hand tighten in his shirt at the tone of disapproval and bristled. "I feel fine. There's no reason for us to be here."
"How much do you remember?"
"Enough."
"Really. Who gave you that head wound?"
The little kid hid his face. Li glared at the captain.
"Maybe that's too recent. How about, where were you born? Do you have relatives? How do you know Little Lee?" The man sighed. "You nearly died a couple of days ago."
"I'm fine now. I can work. I can fight."
The man's eyes turned evaluating. "I can't deny that you're a fighter, but you need time to recover." He was looking for something in Li, and Li wasn't sure if he found it. The captain conceded, "It doesn't have to be here. Would you prefer to bunk in the barracks?"
Li nodded, waiting for the trap. Nothing good ever came without strings.
"Come with me, then. I'll introduce you to Sergeant Bingwen. I'm sure he'll be more than happy to add you to the duty rotation."
-----
Specialist Zixen looked up from the tile game he was winning against Private Yanlin when the sergeant entered the barracks. Sergeant Bingwen was followed by a teenager who was either enlistment age--barely--or had lied on his form. Half of his face had been burned off and there was a bandage around his head. He looked more like a war casualty than a new recruit.
One of the camp's runners--the kids who lived in the town and ran errands in exchange for meals and the occasional copper coin--trailed after him. Predictably, Min perked up. The guy had five little siblings at home and actually missed them. It was baffling to Zixen. When he was five years old, he had traded his little sister for a spider-hound puppy, and he still resented that his parents had made him get her back again.
"Hey kid," Min said, "What's that behind your ear?" He reached out a hand to mime finding a coin in the kid's hair.
The kid actually squeaked and tripped over his own feet trying to get away. Zixen had never seen Min fail to win over a kid; they could usually tell he was a big sloth-bear softie. Then the war casualty got in Min's face, yelling, "Don't you touch him!"
"Woah, hey, let's take a step back," Zixen said, grabbing Min's shirt and dragging him back. (He still held his hand of tiles in the other hand; he had his priorities, and Yanlin had wagered an entire week of laundry duty.)
The new guy was younger. He was a full hand shorter than Min. He was injured and probably blind in his left eye. For all of that, Zixen wouldn't wager half a copper against him if the new guy thought he had to fight.
"Li!" Bingwen snapped. Li didn't look away from his opponent.
Min rocked back and held his hands out to the side. "I didn't mean to--I was just going to give him a copper piece. Sorry, kid, didn't mean to scare you."
The kid got up and tugged on Li's hand as if to call him to heel. "Li, stop it, I'm fine." He told Min, "It's okay. You just startled me."
Li stepped back so that his scowl could include everyone.
Min tried again, this time from a safe distance. "Hey, kid, what's your name?"
"I'm, um, Little Lee."
-----
Sergeant Bingwen was concerned. Captain Wu had given him the basics: obviously false enlistment papers, amnesia, an open investigation and a severe head wound. What was really concerning him, though, was Little Lee's acceptance of his nickname. Bingwen's kids were around the same age and hated any implication they weren't full grown adults.
"Private Min, Specialist Zixen, Private Yanlin, these are our new--" not recruits, he didn't want the child and the teenager with a thick bandage around his head to think they were actually soldiers, "--bunkmates. Please answer their questions, show them where to go, and-- Li, what in Koh's lair are you doing?"
Li was looking at a map. A tactical map of the area around Fort Shin, with markings indicating the best information on enemy positions, which he must have swiped right off of Bingwen's desk. "Give me that, it's classified." He wondered for a moment if the young man was a spy, either Fire Nation or Dai Li, but if so he was the world's worst. He wasn't even trying to hide what he was doing.
"I thought we were in the Earth Kingdom," he said, "So why are these towns marked with a flame symbol?"
"Fort Shin is in Xao province," Bingwen said, snatching back the map. Li just cocked his head. Right, amnesia. "It's a Fire Nation colony."
"The Fire Nation has colonies?"
Yanlin snorted. "Aren't you from one?"
"I--why do you think that?"
"Because you're a coal--" Yanlin stopped himself. Bingwen pinned him with a glare anyway. "You, uh, look like you have some Fire blood. Not that I have a problem with that! So, um, where are you from?"
Li shrugged.
Little Lee said, "He's having some memory problems, but Healer Sun-Hi says it'll start to come back to him. Maybe."
Zixen snorted. "What, you forget your own name too?"
"Yes," the teen said.
Zixen… didn't have a retort for that.
Sergeant Bingwen asked, "So, what do you remember?"
"My name is Li, I was born in the second year of His Majesty… um."
"Kuei," Little Lee prompted, like he was helping an actor who forgot their lines.
"The second year of His Majesty Kuei's reign, and I just enlisted in the Earth Army. This camp is three hundred kilometers south of the walled city of Ba Sing Se, in the Earth Kingdom, and we are fighting off an invasion by the Fire Nation." His confident recitation stumbled. "Which has lasted a hundred years?"
"The invasion happened afterwards, but the Fire Nation killed all the Air Nomads a hundred years ago," Little Lee explained.
"Air Nomads ?"
"Yeah, they did it to break the Avatar cycle," Yanlin put in.
"What's an Avatar?"
Sergeant Bingwen shook his head. "These days? A daydream for those who do not wish to face reality."
Yanlin bristled. "Sir, the Avatar really has returned, and he's immensely powerful. My cousin serves under General Fong, and he said the Avatar destroyed half the fort all on his own."
"Which would be more impressive if it were a Fire Nation fort, instead of one of ours. I am not going to let a child fight the war for me."
It would have been more convincing if the group didn't include Min (a private who had just turned eighteen), Li (a badly-wounded teenager who may or may not be old enough to enlist), and Little Lee (a kid who definitely wasn't). Oma's name, he felt old.
-----
Secretary Chung-Hee could be a patient man, but not under these circumstances. He'd been on a mission at the Ba Sing Se army camp (placed far enough from the actual city to avoid giving the populace any inconvenient ideas). The mission had been to liaise with military intelligence, not to go on a weeks-long tour of dust villages.
It wouldn't have taken nearly this long if not for his dear tour guide Mukai. The wagon driver couldn't remember where he had picked up the boys, had not filled out the required paperwork, and had even lost the receipt for the recruitment bonus he had given out. (The recruitment bonus Mukai absolutely should not have given out for a small child and a half-dead young man.)
Chung-Hee missed Ba Sing Se, where everyone understood the vital importance of paperwork and not pissing off the bureaucrats.
"What's this one called?" Chung Hee asked as the wagon came to a stop at a small grouping of buildings that shouldn't dare to call itself a town, but probably did based solely on the existence of a general store.
Mukai shrugged, either not knowing or not caring. Probably both.
Secretary Chung-Hee took up his papers and prepared to ask yet more dull village folk if they were missing any children. There was a gaunt, dusty woman who had just stepped out of the only store, so he headed in her direction.
She ran past Chung-Hee and bellowed, "YOU! Bring my son back, you mudsucker!"
Mukai took one look at her face and shook the reins, shouting for his Gemstock bulls to "Go, go!"
"Mukai, don't you dare--" was as far as Chung-Hee got before realizing it was too late; from this distance all he could do would be to damage the cart or maim the animals, and neither would get him back to the army camp any faster.
The woman had not reached the same conclusion and ran after the cart, screaming expletives at the fleeing driver.
Chung-Hee went into the store and purchased a cup of tea. The beverage was dreadful, but sipping it killed time until the woman returned, tears in her eyes and still cursing three generations of Mukai's family.
"Good afternoon, ma'am. I am Secretary Chung-Hee."
The woman looked him up and down, doubtless suspicious of his city accent and the fact that not a mote of dust dirtied his uniform. "What do you want?"
"I am here on behalf of the Earth Army, investigating some irregularities in recruitment. I do believe we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement."
"...What does that mean?"
"It means I know where your son Lee is, ma'am."
The joy that lit her face made her look a decade younger.
-----
Day one of Li's strict bedrest started with Li going missing. When the unit dragged themselves out of bed at six gongs for breakfast and training, he wasn't in his bed. Little Lee, in the next bed, was still dead asleep.
Li wandered into the barracks two hours later, in different civilian clothing, hair wet from a shower and munching on a red-bean bun.
"You're supposed to be on bed rest," Sergeant Bingwen said. "Where were you?"
"I was looking around the camp."
"Where did you get new clothing?"
"There was a storage depot next to the quartermaster's office."
"You went to the quartermaster's office? That's on the other end of the camp."
Zixen focused on the more important question. "Where did you get the sweet bun?"
Li sealed his lips with the last of the sticky concoction.
-----
"You should take me with you, next time you go around camp," Min said. "To prevent any misunderstandings."
There was a weight to Min's words, as if he was trying to say something completely different from what he was actually saying. Li hated when people wouldn't just say what they meant. "Why?"
"It doesn't have to be me. Any of the guys or the sergeant would work too. Just until people recognize you, or you're issued your uniform. It's safer."
Li had seen an eight-year-old running errands, but apparently the amnesiac needed a special escort. "I can take care of myself," he growled.
-----
There were plenty of words for Li, running the gamut from mild slight to inflammatory.
Mixed heritage. Fire-blooded. War child. Colony brat. Coal kid. Half-breed.
Ashmaker's bastard.
Min had heard them all. Li must have as well, but thanks to his memory loss, he would get to hear them all again for the first time.
-----
"You look lost."
Li scowled. He was not lost. Just because he had head trauma didn't mean he was stupid or forgetful. His memory was fine, other than some gaps. "I don't need help."
"But it's late, and you're headed in the wrong direction," the soldier said. He smiled. He had a different style uniform than Sergeant Bingwen's unit. Li didn't recognize it.
"No, I'm not! I know where I'm going."
Second and third soldiers had approached from his bad side, trying to sneak, but he heard them and spun around to try to keep them all in view. They were all wearing the unfamiliar uniforms.
"Where you're going is with us," the spokesperson said, smile still big and friendly. "Ashmakers and their spawn belong in the Pit." His stance shifted.
Ah, Li thought as the ground liquefied beneath his feet. That must be an earthbender's uniform.
The ground was against him, so Li took to the air, leaping clear of the quicksand. Another earthbender tackled him from the side, and he should have been able to throw the man, except the body blow jostled his head. Everything dissolved into a bright spike of pain.
He clenched his jaw, brought one arm up to protect his head and jabbed an open hand into his opponent's face, breaking the nose. They slammed into the ground together.
Li managed to suck in one breath before the earth swallowed him.
-----
The second day of Li's strict bedrest ended with him going missing, but for a different reason.
-----
"You couldn't have sent me a message last night?" Sergeant Bingwen asked, hanging onto his temper by his fingernails.
"We only discovered him at the shift change. We didn't have anyone guarding the jail; there aren't supposed to be any prisoners."
"That was hours ago. Why didn't you release him?"
The guard's smile was oily. "Release a possible Fire Nation spy to wander around camp, just because he knows a few officers' names? We had to be certain he was telling the truth. You understand."
Sergeant Bingwen indulged in a brief fantasy of wringing the man's neck like a chicken-pig's. He wasn't certain what his expression did, but the other man's smile died.
"Sergeant Fe Li. What I understand that you're holding one of my charges, a sixteen-year-old boy with a brain injury who was released from the infirmary two days ago. Now, will you release him, or would you prefer to verify with Healer Sun-Hi?" He made a point of checking the sand clock. "Before you answer, you should know you'd be interrupting her tea break. I believe that last person who did that was prescribed enemas every day for a month."
The man folded like a bad hand of tiles.
-----
Well, this was familiar. Li was sitting on the same cot as last time, with Little Lee curled up next to him. Captain Wu asked, "How is he?"
Healer Sun-Hi shrugged. "Fine, aside from inhaling too much dust; he should breathe as much steam as possible in the next few hours to help him cough it up. At least his concussion isn't any worse. I have other patients, you know. I can't spend all my time patching up one sixteen-year-old." She turned back to her paperwork. Wu had started towards Li's cot when she added, "Why, just last night I had three earthbenders come in with scratches and bruises. One of them had a broken nose."
Wu forced his face into neutrality. "Interesting, that. I'll do what I can to keep this one out of your hair." He made his way over to his teenage problem. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine," Li growled, immediately undermining his point with a coughing fit.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
Li glared and kept his mouth shut. Much as he hated to admit it, Wu knew that was smart.
Besides, there wasn't a lot Li could say that the captain couldn't figure out himself. A few earthbenders had taken one look at Li and decided he didn't belong and needed to be taught a lesson. From the even coverage of dirt and the inhaled dust, they had almost certainly sunk him fully underground, a maneuver so dangerous it wasn't allowed in bender practice. Then he'd spent a long night and morning in an underground cell.
"Very well. Are you ready to go back to the barracks?" Li nodded. "Let's get you a shower and some clean clothing, then."
With some misgivings, Wu took Li to pick up a couple of uniforms. The captain hadn't wanted it to look as if Li was really in the army until the investigation was complete, but the boy needed whatever meager protection the uniform could provide. While Li took an over-long hot shower (which could be justified as following medical advice), Wu stopped by the nearest canteen for leftovers from lunch. The egg-drop soup was cold and half-congealed, but Li wolfed it down exactly like a sixteen-year-old who'd missed two meals.
Back at the barracks, Li sat iron-rod straight on his bed, refusing to lie down even though Private Yanlin was napping a few beds over. Little Lee was tucked into his side and they both kept watch like singing gophers. Little Lee was tucked into his left side--his burned side; did they even realize he was covering for the older boy's weaknesses?
Sergeant Bingwen was quietly furious with the situation. "There's nothing you can do about the attackers?"
Wu grimaced. "Nothing that wouldn't blow back on Li. He's only provisionally in the army at all, and you know how much leeway earthbenders get. Even if I pushed, the worst that their commander would agree to is a reprimand for hazing, which would paint a target on Li's back."
The sergeant growled.
"If it helps, Li broke one of their noses."
"That does help." The man held up two fingers a pinky's width apart. "A little."
-----
Min was being followed. He might not have noticed for quite a while, except that while Li was oddly talented at staying in his blind spots, Little Lee was not. "You two want to grab dinner with me?"
Li glared at his partner for getting them caught and braced himself. "You were right. Is that what you wanted to hear? Going out alone was a mistake."
Min sighed. "I wish I weren't."
"I didn't do anything!"
"Of course you didn't." Then, because Li seemed like he needed the reassurance, "You didn't do anything to deserve what happened to you. Some people are just assholes."
Min continued towards the canteen. Li walked beside him now, an odd combination of affronted pride and defensiveness. They went through Shuchong's food line. Min automatically flirted with the middle-aged woman while she served him, and she gave him an extra scoop of the possibly-chicken-pig meat and gravy. She snuck a couple of chewy candies to Little Lee. Li kept his head down, hiding his eyes. He got neither.
They ate. Little Lee soon declared himself full and passed the rest of his bowl to Li. The teenager ate his own portion and the remainder of Little Lee's down to the last grain of rice. He seemed to be trying to decide whether to give up his weirdly perfect table manners and lick the last of the gravy from the bowl.
"We can get more, you know."
Li scowled. "It wouldn't be fair to the others if I ate more than my share." It sounded like he was quoting someone.
"Did Shuchong say that? The woman who was serving us just now."
"The one who gave you extra meat? No."
"Then let's ask her. Nicely. She likes it when guys flirt with her."
Li seemed horrified. "Her? But she's old."
"She can't be older than forty."
"That is old! She's twice your age!"
"I'm not having sex with her, just flirting," Min clarified, lowering his voice in hopes that Li would do the same. "You know. Smiling at her, complimenting her."
"Why would she want that?" Li seemed to have a harder time grasping this than Little Lee, who was nodding along. Then again, kids were naturals at being cute when they wanted something.
"Just, when you hand her the bowl, give her a compliment. It's a bit of a game, I promise she isn't going to take you seriously."
Min took the lead. He wasn't particularly hungry any more, but if he didn't get in line he doubted Li would go alone. "Shuchong, my lovely blossom, your smile always brightens my day."
"Aren't you a charmer," she said, taking his bowl.
Min elbowed Li, who seemed frozen. "This is my friend Li, and he has something he wants to tell you as well."
Li straightened to his full height, pasted on a fake smile, and half-shouted, "Your thighs are very large, ma'am. You must be strong!"
Silence fell. Shuchong paused halfway to filling the bowl, dripping gravy. Min stared at Li. He'd said compliment, not… whatever in Koh's lair that had been. Had Li even met a woman before?
Shuchong threw her head back and howled with laughter, spilling half the ladle as she tried to get the laughter under control. Li looked like he was trying to decide whether it would be safer to flee or stay very still.
"Oma and Shu, I haven't heard something that awkward since my wife asked me out," Shuchong said, wiping tears from her eyes. "You are correct though, I am very strong. And you look half-starved." She ladled extra meat into his bowl, then grabbed a clean bowl from the stack and filled that one too. "Probably going through a growth spurt, am I right? Next meal, bring up two bowls from the start. Anyone gives you trouble, tell them Shuchong thinks you need fattening up." She handed Li the second bowl and a few of the candies she gave runners.
Li stared at her as if the idea of kindness was foreign to him. Min elbowed him. "Thank you!" he half-shouted. "Thank you, ma'am."
He tucked into his food as if afraid someone would take it away. When he was done, he said, "I don't understand. I didn't do anything."
"Sometimes we get things we don't earn. Some people are just kind."
Li looked at him as if Min were crazy. It looked like that was much harder to believe than people being assholes.
-----
"If you play this at the gambling place in town, the House always wins on cobra-crane eyes or spidersnake eyes," Zixen explained, "but the sergeant won't let me use that rule."
Li frowned. "So I just have to roll the dice?"
"Call high or low first, then roll."
They took turns. Little Lee had an early lucky streak. Min dipped into the red, then recovered. Yanlin, who always got too excited, kept betting all his winnings until he lost them all.
Li had an unbroken losing streak starting with the very first roll.
"Good thing we're only playing for half-copper stakes, right?" Zixen said, elbowing him.
"This game is rigged."
Zixen rolled his eyes. "Just be patient. No one can be that unlucky for long."
Li could.
Twenty minutes later, when Li was the equivalent of a full week's pay in the red, the rest stopped taking turns. They stopped making bets. It was just Li, calling "high" or "low" and rolling the opposite, over and over again.
"This is cheating!" Li yelled, jumping to his feet. "These dice aren't fair." He threw the bone dice across the barracks.
"I've seen people have better luck playing against earthbenders while using stone dice," Zixen pointed out. "You might be the unluckiest person I've ever met." Which possibly should have been obvious earlier, what with the horrible scar and amnesia.
"So, about what you owe," Zixen said, ready to write the whole debt off; the sergeant would not be pleased to hear he'd fleeced the new guy, even if he hadn't intended to do so.
"I'm not paying! I'm not even speaking to you until you admit you cheated." He stalked angrily out of the tent.
Min jumped up to follow him, except moments later the sprinkle of rain turned into a downpour so thick you could barely see through it. Li continued to stalk away, looking like a half-drowned pygmy puma kitten.
"Huh," Min said. "He really is unlucky."
Zixen went to find his dice. They'd landed on spidersnake eyes.
-----
On day three of Li's strict bedrest, Sergeant Bingwen hung out the runner flag. Within minutes, a little girl of about eight appeared in the door as if summoned. She saluted the sergeant with the wrong hand and chirped, "Where do you want your message delivered, sir?"
"Actually, I don't have a message. I have an assignment for you instead."
"An assignment? To do what?"
"Little Lee, could you come over here? I'd like you to show him how to be a runner."
The girl looked up at the older boy and pouted. "He'll slow me down."
"I will not!"
"I'm Xiao, and I'm the fastest of all! No one delivers messages faster than me."
The sergeant produced a silver coin for the girl. "For your trouble. Just let him be your shadow for two days."
She snatched the coin. "Okay, sure. Come on, let's race!"
Little Lee hesitated and looked back at Li, who gave him a little "shoo" motion. Little Lee asked the sergeant, "You'll look out for him?"
"I promise." Bingwen didn't point out that a twelve-year-old shouldn't have to look after a sixteen-year-old. Xiao shouldn't be the breadwinner of her family, either, but with her father missing and her pregnant mother on bedrest, she was.
"Come on," Xiao said, "we need to go! Around here, if you don't work, you don't eat!"
The sergeant dearly wished he were an airbender who could blow those words away from the one person who absolutely should not have heard them.
"What?" Li asked, frowning.
"That doesn't apply to you as a member of the army, Li," the sergeant said. "You're injured," the sergeant said. "Please, just take a break," the sergeant said.
At various points that day, Sergeant Bingwen found Li:
- Sweeping out other units' barracks
- Unloading supplies from wagons
- Scrubbing cookpots
- Doing laundry
- Cleaning weapons
- Mucking out the stables
He wasn't doing any of them correctly, but he seemed to think enough effort would make up for that.
Sergeant Bingwen was a realist. Bedrest was no longer an option, so he scrambled for something that resembled "light duties". At the very end of his rope and running late for patrol, he sent Li to the canteen.