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masterghandalf) wrote2024-01-23 11:24 pm
masterghandalf) wrote2024-01-23 11:24 pm
MG Reads Embers: Chapter Forty-Seven
Warning: This chapter contains discussion of genocide and sexual assault.
Chapter Forty-Seven
We open with an author note. A/N: A disturbing subject will be mentioned later in this chapter. It will not be described in detail, but one of the realities of war will come up. Nightwish's "I Wish I Had An Angel" would not be inappropriate background music. The chapter proper begins with Shirong and Saoluan watching Zuko sparring with Langxue, when they’re startled by Shidan sneaking up on them. Apparently, dragons enjoy startling creatures they consider to be possible prey – like humans. Shidan explains that Byakko will be sending aid to them, and it’s unlikely the Fire Lord will move against them, out of fear of what will happen if they lose control of their volcano. Shirong is more worried about who will be going to Byakko, and who will be going to Asagitatsu with them, and thinks it’s crazy that so many Fire Nationals don’t seem worried about living on a volcano – and that he’s crazy for going along with it. Out loud, he comments that he’s not heard of a lot of the things that the farmers are planning on planting. Shidan guesses they smuggled them in as flower seeds and explains a bit about what they are. Saoluan doesn’t get the big deal, as long as there’s food, but Shidan thinks food is good for morale. Shirong is more worried about the differences between earth and fire farming techniques and whether the spirits might be confused or offended. Saoluan doesn’t think it’s a big deal compared to the whole ocean wanting them dead and has a different worry – Makoto. She’s more than a thousand years old, and from the way people talk about her, she’s still out there. Dragons live a long time. That makes Saoluan wonder how Shidan’s people lost the way to Asagitatsu in the first place. Shidan explains that there was interference, from Koh and Wan Shi Tong. Kingami invented words to carry dragon’s tales, but dragons themselves keep their tales in their minds and pass them on mind-to-mind. With Wan Shi Tong’s help, Makoto destroyed or stole all written knowledge of Asagitatsu’s location; with Koh’s help, she bound lesser water spirits to her will and used them to kill off members of her clan. The rest died with Yangchen, when Asagitatsu blew, so there was no one left to tell other dragons that Makoto was anything but a lone, lucky survivor. Saoluan realizes Shidan was the one who figured out the truth; he explains that he was barely more than a hatchling when he put it together and no one else listened. He went after her himself, and barely survived with help from the mountain sages.
Shidan explains how the sages had come for the “ritual threatening,” to establish clan boundaries, and it was enough to subdue Shidan and take him to their home, where he stayed until Byakko’s lord came for him and learned his story. They also saved the last eggs and hatchlings of the clan. He thinks Shirotara’s spirit could have protected them from Makoto, if they had known what she was – but since she’d come pretending to be a friend, and they accepted her, it was powerless. Shidan knows it wasn’t his fault, and though Makoto killed most of their clan too, she didn’t get them all – mostly because she didn’t know how many hid in human form. At that time, they were too bound in their grief to pay any attention to the pirates, which led to Kyoshi’s vengeance, which led to the Fire Lord and war. Shirong is stunned to realize the scope of Koh’s plans against humanity, and Shidan explains how his clan and Asagitatsu’s were related, and after all her murders Byakko became Makoto’s enemies and though she could kill any of them one on one, together they drove her off – until she convinced Sozin to start killing dragons. Sozin did it for love; Shidan doesn’t know why Makoto is doing this, and he doesn’t care, though they can ask her if they meet. Still, they should kill her if they get the chance – Makoto is a dragon, and a firebender powerful enough to marry into the royal family, and with her human lover dead, she can assume other forms. Shirong at least thinks it’s simple – Makoto wants them dead, but so do lots of people. The human mess between Zuko, Ozai and the Earth King is more complicated. Shidan also explains that he slipped some other things into the story he shared with them – knowledge of how to “shape” a mate. Dragons, and dragon-children, aren’t very fertile – that the Wens have four children is remarkable. Yaoren had also sometimes used the power he shared with them. Yaoren often draw angry spirits – but those of dragon’s blood are often better able to withstand them, and Shidan senses some of that in Shirong. Dragon’s have an instinct to hoard, and Shidan is fighting against the urge to seize Shirong and all the refugees and carry them back to Byakko – but he knows Zuko needs them more and tells Shirong to stay true to earth. Zuko needs to be grounded; Shirong and Amaya can help with that. Saoluan, meanwhile, admits Shidan scares her – not the fact that he’s a dragon, but that he and Zuko never give up once they’ve started something, and she’s afraid that will end in conflict with the Avatar. Shidan agrees but thinks that to be otherwise would be to not be fire. Suddenly, Zuko and Langxue’s sparring goes awry and somehow whips up a snowstorm on deck, and everyone else decides to get away from it.
We cut to Aang, surprised as Sokka tells him he likes the irony of chasing Zuko for once. Hakoda thinks that ‘in pursuit of Suzuran’ has gotten them a lot of leeway so far, but sooner or later they’ll have to explain themselves to someone. Aang wants to know what happens if they do end up catching him. Toph thinks they’d better figure it out – Katara agreed to the plan too, but it’s less that she thinks it’s funny and more that she’s laughing at the idea of drowning Zuko. Sokka promises to get back to her on that, and Toph says she’ll go head off watery death; Aang is amused at the idea that Katara might be scary, which he can’t take seriously. When they’re gone, Hakoda comments that he can tell Aang doesn’t like Tao’s lessons. If something is upsetting him, Hakoda is here to talk. Aang can’t wrap his head around the idea that spirits can be evil – he thinks they’re supposed to be good guys. Hakoda thinks most people realize this the first time they see a bad birth – but Aang didn’t grow up around expecting mothers, so he doesn’t know about that. Hakoda has to explain that some spirits are attracted to newborns – because they want to eat them. Aang thinks that’s horrible, but Hakoda explains that it’s nature. Aang wants to know why Gyatso never told him, so Hakoda wants to know what a normal Air Nomad’s life might have been like. Aang starts talking about his people but gets choked up at the loss; Hakoda says he misses Kya too and hugs him. Aang knows he’s supposed to be detached, but Hakoda thinks it’s all right to miss them. Ultimately, Hakoda thinks the problem is that Gyatso raised Aang the way he was raised – to be a monk. He didn’t know how to raise him to be the Avatar. And most of the rest of the world didn’t live like the Air Nomads – even Hakoda, who considers himself a man of peace, can barely imagine what their lives were like. He still led his people in war against the Fire Nation, or small raids against other villages for what seemed like good ideas at the time. Finally, Hakoda tells Aang that Tao is looking for him, but wonders what he isn’t telling him.
We cut to Katara, after Hakoda asked her to find out what Tao is saying that Aang doesn’t want to talk about. With Toph’s help, and Tao keeping Boots busy, she’s sneaking down to Tao’s quarters. She overhears Tao telling Aang that there are many levels of spirits, and most of those aren’t powerful enough to merit the Avatar’s attention. Even a spirit like Hei Bai could be handled by a competent shaman. The Avatar’s chief concern is with the greater spirits. Wan Shi Tong is very powerful, but even he isn’t one of those – there are only a few of them. The Moon, the Ocean – the Face-Stealer. Katara is horrified that Koh is as powerful as the Moon Spirit, and Aang asks why Koh isn’t doing anything, if he’s that strong. Tao explains he hates humans, for reasons no one knows, and shouldn’t be discussed so casually, which might draw his attention. But whatever Koh hates might not be something humans can fix, and an angry spirit might do whatever it thinks necessary to restore its idea of peace. Back to the original topic, the great spirits are Koh, the Moon and Ocean, Tengri, Guanyin and her deputies Oma and Shu, who are ascended humans… and Aang says there’s one more, Agni, but Tao refuses to acknowledge him. He thinks a true spirit wouldn’t let his people try to conquer the world, nor allow the majority of them to turn their backs on the spirits entirely in favor of industry and machines. Aang thinks Tao doesn’t like the Fire Nation much; Tao doesn’t want to see them destroyed, but he thinks all Fire Nation soldiers have done evil acts. He wonders exactly how much Aang knows about Iroh’s history and tells him to call up a spirit and ask if he’s curious. The ship is full of them – how does Aang think Hakoda took it? Wind suddenly blasts out of the cabin, and Katara blacks out until Toph wakes her up. Aang is gone, and Toph is determined to catch him so he can apologize for hurting them. She thinks he left the ship – he took his glider. Katara thinks they have to find him; Toph can’t track someone who isn’t on land, but Katara can guess where he’s headed and a moment later Toph does too – the Fire Nation. Katara thinks they betrayed him – they should have told him Hakoda and his men had to kill to get the ship. Tao is stunned that Aang had to be told, and Toph points out that Aang’s sheltered. He’s from before the war, and Tao doesn’t seem to fully grasp what that means. Katara cuts her off and says they’re going after him.
Potentially triggering material to follow.
We cut to Hakoda, having docked his hijacked ship and wished his children safe travels, turning to confront Tao. Tao can’t believe Aang is so naïve – even in his time, the airbenders saw Sozin’s first attempt to invade the Earth Kingdom. Hakoda thinks that’s important but reminds Tao that Aang was born decades after that and wasn’t old enough to recognize its importance. He doubts Gyatso taught Aang anything about Sozin – when that gets an angered reaction, he demands to know what Sozin did to Tao. Even Tao wasn’t born at the time of the first invasion, and Aang can understand hurting someone to stop them from hurting someone else, but he doesn’t get revenge – certainly not against a dead man. Tao says he bared his shame to Aang and Aang let it rest – Hakoda thinks Aang is polite, for an airbender, but that’s not saying a lot, and wonders just what Tao’s shame is. Tao drove Aang away, and Hakoda’s children – and Toph – went after him and might be heading into danger, and Hakoda wants to know. Tao says that his mother left Taku after the invasion because she didn’t want to give birth there. Hakoda can understand that, but doesn’t see why it’s such a big deal, unless it has something to do with the patriarchal structure of Earth Kingdom families. He wonders if the Fire Nation killed Tao’s father, and Tao admits that no, they wouldn’t have killed him… and Hakoda understands. Looking Tao over, he can see the hint of Fire Nation features, and he tells him that Aang didn’t understand. He explains how Katara went undercover on a prison barge to inspire earthbenders to revolt and were unaware of the dangers. The Fire Nation don’t like the ice and cold, and when raiding the Water Tribes they come, kill and leave, and don’t usually stick around long enough to assault women. And the worst Zuko ever did to Katara was to try to use her as bait for Aang. Hakoda’s not even sure Aang knows what rape is – Air monks weren’t allowed to have relations with nuns until they were eighteen. Tao is horrified; Hakoda admits he sometimes can’t understand Aang, but he thinks if anyone can, it’s Katara, Sokka and Toph. He just hopes they reach the capital in one piece in time for the invasion. Tao is shocked to realize just what they’re planning.
Potentially triggering material ends here.
We cut to Azula, practicing archery on the shore under the moonlight. She’s frustrated at her lack of skill – she’s not used to this sort of imperfection. Still, the worst of her despair and fury doesn’t take her, and she curses Amaya again for what she did to her. She’s suddenly interrupted by a Dai Li agent named Bolin; she thinks about all the ways she could kill him, and it occurs to her that while the Dai Li know she’s cruel, they trust her not to be needlessly cruel, which is a strange thought. She wonders if she is too afraid of failing her father and knows that sort of fear leads to sloppy work. Bolin tells her she needs to return to the ship; Azula is insulted that he, and not the senior Dai Li she brought with her, has come to tell her this. She thinks there must be something the Dai Li are trying to head off, and Bolin tells her that they need to get running water underneath them. He can sense that there’s something out there, and the other agents and Ty Lee are looking for it but haven’t found it yet. Apparently, the sense of it reminded Ty Lee of something she’d forgotten – Azula is again reminded of what Ty Lee’s elders did to her, and how it sounds like certain Dai Li techniques. Agent Hai, the senior Dai Li with her, assured her that the worst rumors were totally unfounded and all the Dai Li’s unique techniques were taught to them by Kyoshi herself – which makes Azula all the more certain those rumors really are true. Azula doesn’t think going out on the water would be wise without knowing what the spirit is – and then someone else greets her, and she turns to see a strange Fire Nation noblewoman standing there, probably armed and probably a firebender. The woman introduces herself as Nawahime and bows as a lesser noble to an heir, but Azula can tell something is wrong. She thinks this must be one of Ozai’s spies and says she’ll take her report in private – and warns Bolin to keep Ty Lee away. When he’s gone, Nawahime tells Azula that the Avatar is in her grasp – she knows he is still alive, and jokes darkly about how he was declared dead. Azula considers the meaning of her name – binding rope princess – and thinks that her father’s spies have too much of a sense of humor for their own good. Nawahime explains that her network in the Earth Kingdom was damaged recently, but she picked up the Avatar’s trail when he entered the Fire Nation in a stolen ship. Azula asks if there’s anything else, assures Nawahime that her plans will take her information into account, and for now that’s all she needs to know. Nawahime is angered that Azula is seemingly allowing an enemy to escape; Azula, sensing treachery, shoots a fireblast at her… and Nawahime catches it. And keeps it burning blue.
Azula is stunned, and Nawahime says that she can see her bloodline in Azula, even if she also takes after her mother, and wishes she’d killed Ursa when she had the chance. Azula attacks again – no matter what she thinks of Ursa, she can’t let a stranger insult her mother – but deliberately overplays her rage, to make Nawahime underestimate her. She tries to break Nawahime’s hand – but the other woman casually breaks her arm, burns her and tosses her aside. Azula is left stunned as Nawahime grabs her and invades her mind, deciding she is worthy of the bloodline after all. Azula manages to roll away and starts blasting with fire, as Ty Lee and the Dai Li appear to back her up. Azula says she wants the creature alive; Nawahime is amused that she has no idea what she is. She starts bending lightning and Azula, in desperation, manages to redirect it – she doesn’t get the technique quite right and it hurts, but at least she’s alive. In a daze, she can hear Ty Lee shouting orders and the Dai Li trying to bury the attacker… and then a blue dragon bursts out of the sand and leaps into the sky. Ty Lee bends a massive blast of air at her wings, and the dragon flees. But as she goes, she calls Azula a fool, says she set the stage perfectly, and the Avatar isn’t her only enemy. Azula, relieved to be alive, faints with Ty Lee calling her name.
We end with a long author note: A/N: Yes, Shidan is giving Ozai way too much credit for sanity. Everybody makes mistakes.
Eshe is actually Ancient Egyptian, meaning life. (All the Touzaikaze have been given Ancient Egyptian names. They're from a desert, it seemed to fit.)
Just as I've used the milpa system as inspiration for Fire Nation agriculture, I've put in a bunch of actual Andean crops in here. They're exactly what you'd want for volcanic and high-altitude environments. "Oogami nuts" = lupin seeds. And yes, one type of Vietnamese transparent noodles (miến dong)is made not with mung beans, but with a crop that originated in the Andes. This amuses me, just like pizza being an Italian dish (tomatoes, heh) and "American as apple pie" (apples coming from Eurasia). Sometimes, people are just cool.
I've had this background for Tao in mind all along, especially after the prison barge episode. I know, in Real Life the reason Katara isn't worried about maltreatment is because this is a kid's cartoon. Even so. If people consider the Fire Nation monsters, and it's a more realistic setting... I'm sure some were.
And while shamans and medicine men may have been honored in many societies, more often they were respected - warily - because they were weird and dangerous. The social outcasts, barely accepted by the rest of their group. The outsiders. And yes, sometimes of mixed blood. Which is a lot more daunting in societies where your group is The Real People and everybody else is not. (And if the Earth Kingdom is modeled after ancient China - yes, that is exactly what they think.)
I know I'm hard on Aang. I find him really, really hard to write. (For one, I can't remember ever - ever - being as naive about the vicious things people do to each other as Aang is portrayed in canon.) Azula is easier for me to write than Aang.
But if Aang weren't Aang, this story would not have a happy ending. And it will.
...Well, mostly happy. With this many Doom Magnets? Sometimes, breaking even is good.
To answer a couple of review questions...
The amusing thing about Codex Alera is that I've only read the first book, and that only recently. Yet I do see some similarities. Heh. Probably due to the similarities between the Alera-verse and ATLA in general.
The whole story of Ryuuko-hime and Kingami: I have part of that written, but it just doesn't fit in Embers. Darn it. I plan to write the whole thing after I get Embers finished. Particularly since it will pick up various plot threads I have scattered in here. Heh.
"How big is Asagitatsu? Would it be like Mt. St. Helens? Or Krakatoa? Santorini used to be a volcano too."
Yes. Yes, it did. So did (or more accurately, is) Lake Toba. Take out the spaces.
en. wikipedia wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
...What, did you think Koh was leaving things to chance this time?
Given some of the questions I've been asked about Ozai, Azula, Zuko, and the whole dragon-child mess, I thought I'd share a few genetics terms: hybrid vigor and hybrid breakdown.
A lot of people are familiar with hybrid vigor. Cross two very different pure strains, and the offspring can be more successful than either parent. There are various reasons for this, ranging from a lucky genetic outcome (not all hybrids do well) to the extreme that some genes (or gene complexes, bunches of related genes) are over-expressed because the other half of the hybrid's DNA doesn't have a "match" to them. (See mules and ligers.)
Hybrid breakdown is a little more complicated. It basically hinges on the fact that because of chromosome crossover (part of how most organisms form gametes to reproduce), we do not inherit genes and gene complexes as discrete units. Not always.
Let's say we have two "pure" strains to begin; call them red and green. Imagine each individual with their set of genes; a pair of chromosomes, two long strings of colored beads. (Humans have much more than one, but let's keep it simple.) Red parent has two strands of red. Green has two of green. Before they reproduce, crossover happens - but since they are pure strains, red crossing over with red still gives you a strand of red, and likewise for green. So your hybrid has one red strand, and one green. A good setup for hybrid vigor, and reasonably simple.
The problem comes when your hybrid reproduces. The red and green strands line up to crossover... and the resulting single strand that goes into the offspring (and its genes) is a patchwork of red and green. You may literally have part of a gene from one of your hybrid's parents, and part from the other. The resulting gene may not work.
It may work somewhat, but not as well as an all-red or all-green gene. (This, BTW, is part of what's called outbreeding depression.) Or it may not work at all... which can be lethal.
Now, if your hybrid dragon-child is breeding back into a plain vanilla human line (for example, Azulon and Ilah), this can be survivable. The "mixed" gene can be compensated for by a "plain" human gene, and all should be well. Plain dragon would also work - in the case of Sozin and Tejina, Tejina's "plain" dragon genes would compensate. Again, it works. (This is called introgression.)
The problem comes when a hybrid has offspring with another hybrid.
Hear that? Yes, that is a Hell Is That Noise. That is the sound of a million possible very bad genetic outcomes, cackling in unholy glee.
You now have the chance for mixed, barely functional, weirdly functional, or otherwise scrambled genes on both sides. And one of the most complicated, delicate, jury-rigged bits of evolution we have, so dependent on healthy genes, is a sane, intelligent brain.
Long story short: There is every reason Sozin, Azulon, Ozai, Iroh, Lu Ten, and Ursa should be sane and rational. A few of them might incline more to the draconic definition of sane, but they're sane.
Zuko and Azula, though, are screwed.
...This also explains why Azula the prodigy bent at four. Some parts of her genes are human. Some are dragon. The mix is not predictable. It is entirely possible for Azula to have some traits that are more dragon than Zuko, and others that are more human. And the same for him. It's even possible that one of the pair is almost entirely human. Though the odds are against it.
Crossover also helps explain how long-buried traits like Fire or Air heritage can resurface without being strictly dominant or recessive. Get enough scattered pieces of one allele to combine, and poof! Somebody's got a heritage the family tried to bury generations ago.
FYI, this is also why stories with "nations of half-elves" tend to have me tossing them across the room or Headdesking. Genetic inheritance does not work that way. If by some chance it did, we'd probably be talking about a situation of codominant alleles at one major locus, which means that of every four offspring, 2 would be half-elves, one elf, and one human, and you don't see that happening...
I know, I know. A Wizard Did It. I'd just like to see a story where someone thought about this...
MG’s Thoughts
Okay, I have some very mixed feelings on this chapter (surprise, surprise…). First off… it actually has two scenes I really like. The first is Hakoda comforting Aang. For once, I think Vathara actually does nail both the warmth and papa wolf protectiveness of Hakoda (without him being brainwashed into it!) and has two people from radically different cultural backgrounds actually manage to communicate effectively and bond. The second is Azula’s encounter with Makoto, which is the first in-person appearance of one of the fic’s two real main villains, and genuinely manages to be tense and frightening (if Azula is scared, we should be scared too).
On the other hand, the conversation with Shidan at the beginning is interesting, but also really serves to underline how dragons have started to take over everything about the story, to its detriment. And I really can’t help but notice that while Zuko has been given a helpful mentor in the form of Shidan, Aang gets Tao, who’s frankly more of a hindrance at this point than a help. Not only is he demonstrably wrong about how various things work in the Embers!verse, he clearly has no idea how to teach Aang specifically and ends up chasing him off so we can have a version of the Gaang’s canon journey through the Fire Nation (going back to a version of the stations of the canon for a while with Aang’s side of the story being even more jarring since Zuko and co. are now doing something completely different). And… I really don’t know what to think about his backstory. I still don’t know if discussion of sexual assault is really something an A:TLA fic needs… but I’m also not the most qualified person to tell if it’s well handled or not, so I’ll left it lie. And several of the characters still feel off – Vathara’s admission in the AN that she doesn’t get Aang and has a hard time writing him doesn’t surprise me at all, tbh, and even though we’re past the worst of the Katara-bashing, the character still doesn’t feel like Katara to me (especially with the offhand comment from Toph about how she’s apparently chomping at the bit to drown people, which doesn’t seem to be a joke…). I’m also kind of confused as to how Koh is apparently on level with literal cosmic forces like the Moon, Ocean and Sky. I’d be more inclined to rate him as a peer of Wan Shi Tong.
As for the AN, a few comments. First off… yeah, I can kind of see the Codex Alera comparisons, to a certain extent, though I think there are some critical differences as well (not least that Alera is Rome-inspired while Avatar is Asia-inspired, but also that Alera is a setting where the nature of the magic system means that there are going to be multiple avatar-tier people running around at a given time – and also that Alera at least admits that a magocractic empire run by military aristocrats with elemental powers is probably going to be pretty messed up all on its own, without needing an outsider to come in and break it). Honestly, in some ways I think that Embers resembles both canon!ATLA and the Codex Alera less than it does certain aspects of the tabletop rpg Exalted, particularly the Realm (and its ruling class who are, interestingly enough, the Dragon-Blooded) though I have no idea if it was an influence. About hybriziation – it's interesting, but I’m not sure how relevant it is considering that, IMO, a human and a dragon mating are pretty much the definition of “a wizard did it” (or at least, a magical shapeshifting dragon did it) and mundane genetics can probably only get you so far. Also, I’m wondering where Vathara keeps seeing “nations of half-elves” – the only setting I can think of with something like that made it very clear said half-elves were not a stable, true-breeding race and took a lot of effort not to go extinct (maybe in Eberron, where half-elves – Khoravar – are a recognized minority group but not really a nation per se, just something that tend to crop up where you have both humans and elves having kids over the course of generations and the bloodlines get mingled in interesting ways). *shrugs* Maybe we’re just reading different fantasy series.
Also, in terms of things that are amusing in hindsight, a Dai Li agent named Bolin is definitely up there. As is the fact that I was doing this writeup the day a new trailer for the Netflix live-action A:TLA dropped, which included a shot of Azula practicing archery. Coincidence? You be the judge😉.
Chapter Forty-Seven
We open with an author note. A/N: A disturbing subject will be mentioned later in this chapter. It will not be described in detail, but one of the realities of war will come up. Nightwish's "I Wish I Had An Angel" would not be inappropriate background music. The chapter proper begins with Shirong and Saoluan watching Zuko sparring with Langxue, when they’re startled by Shidan sneaking up on them. Apparently, dragons enjoy startling creatures they consider to be possible prey – like humans. Shidan explains that Byakko will be sending aid to them, and it’s unlikely the Fire Lord will move against them, out of fear of what will happen if they lose control of their volcano. Shirong is more worried about who will be going to Byakko, and who will be going to Asagitatsu with them, and thinks it’s crazy that so many Fire Nationals don’t seem worried about living on a volcano – and that he’s crazy for going along with it. Out loud, he comments that he’s not heard of a lot of the things that the farmers are planning on planting. Shidan guesses they smuggled them in as flower seeds and explains a bit about what they are. Saoluan doesn’t get the big deal, as long as there’s food, but Shidan thinks food is good for morale. Shirong is more worried about the differences between earth and fire farming techniques and whether the spirits might be confused or offended. Saoluan doesn’t think it’s a big deal compared to the whole ocean wanting them dead and has a different worry – Makoto. She’s more than a thousand years old, and from the way people talk about her, she’s still out there. Dragons live a long time. That makes Saoluan wonder how Shidan’s people lost the way to Asagitatsu in the first place. Shidan explains that there was interference, from Koh and Wan Shi Tong. Kingami invented words to carry dragon’s tales, but dragons themselves keep their tales in their minds and pass them on mind-to-mind. With Wan Shi Tong’s help, Makoto destroyed or stole all written knowledge of Asagitatsu’s location; with Koh’s help, she bound lesser water spirits to her will and used them to kill off members of her clan. The rest died with Yangchen, when Asagitatsu blew, so there was no one left to tell other dragons that Makoto was anything but a lone, lucky survivor. Saoluan realizes Shidan was the one who figured out the truth; he explains that he was barely more than a hatchling when he put it together and no one else listened. He went after her himself, and barely survived with help from the mountain sages.
Shidan explains how the sages had come for the “ritual threatening,” to establish clan boundaries, and it was enough to subdue Shidan and take him to their home, where he stayed until Byakko’s lord came for him and learned his story. They also saved the last eggs and hatchlings of the clan. He thinks Shirotara’s spirit could have protected them from Makoto, if they had known what she was – but since she’d come pretending to be a friend, and they accepted her, it was powerless. Shidan knows it wasn’t his fault, and though Makoto killed most of their clan too, she didn’t get them all – mostly because she didn’t know how many hid in human form. At that time, they were too bound in their grief to pay any attention to the pirates, which led to Kyoshi’s vengeance, which led to the Fire Lord and war. Shirong is stunned to realize the scope of Koh’s plans against humanity, and Shidan explains how his clan and Asagitatsu’s were related, and after all her murders Byakko became Makoto’s enemies and though she could kill any of them one on one, together they drove her off – until she convinced Sozin to start killing dragons. Sozin did it for love; Shidan doesn’t know why Makoto is doing this, and he doesn’t care, though they can ask her if they meet. Still, they should kill her if they get the chance – Makoto is a dragon, and a firebender powerful enough to marry into the royal family, and with her human lover dead, she can assume other forms. Shirong at least thinks it’s simple – Makoto wants them dead, but so do lots of people. The human mess between Zuko, Ozai and the Earth King is more complicated. Shidan also explains that he slipped some other things into the story he shared with them – knowledge of how to “shape” a mate. Dragons, and dragon-children, aren’t very fertile – that the Wens have four children is remarkable. Yaoren had also sometimes used the power he shared with them. Yaoren often draw angry spirits – but those of dragon’s blood are often better able to withstand them, and Shidan senses some of that in Shirong. Dragon’s have an instinct to hoard, and Shidan is fighting against the urge to seize Shirong and all the refugees and carry them back to Byakko – but he knows Zuko needs them more and tells Shirong to stay true to earth. Zuko needs to be grounded; Shirong and Amaya can help with that. Saoluan, meanwhile, admits Shidan scares her – not the fact that he’s a dragon, but that he and Zuko never give up once they’ve started something, and she’s afraid that will end in conflict with the Avatar. Shidan agrees but thinks that to be otherwise would be to not be fire. Suddenly, Zuko and Langxue’s sparring goes awry and somehow whips up a snowstorm on deck, and everyone else decides to get away from it.
We cut to Aang, surprised as Sokka tells him he likes the irony of chasing Zuko for once. Hakoda thinks that ‘in pursuit of Suzuran’ has gotten them a lot of leeway so far, but sooner or later they’ll have to explain themselves to someone. Aang wants to know what happens if they do end up catching him. Toph thinks they’d better figure it out – Katara agreed to the plan too, but it’s less that she thinks it’s funny and more that she’s laughing at the idea of drowning Zuko. Sokka promises to get back to her on that, and Toph says she’ll go head off watery death; Aang is amused at the idea that Katara might be scary, which he can’t take seriously. When they’re gone, Hakoda comments that he can tell Aang doesn’t like Tao’s lessons. If something is upsetting him, Hakoda is here to talk. Aang can’t wrap his head around the idea that spirits can be evil – he thinks they’re supposed to be good guys. Hakoda thinks most people realize this the first time they see a bad birth – but Aang didn’t grow up around expecting mothers, so he doesn’t know about that. Hakoda has to explain that some spirits are attracted to newborns – because they want to eat them. Aang thinks that’s horrible, but Hakoda explains that it’s nature. Aang wants to know why Gyatso never told him, so Hakoda wants to know what a normal Air Nomad’s life might have been like. Aang starts talking about his people but gets choked up at the loss; Hakoda says he misses Kya too and hugs him. Aang knows he’s supposed to be detached, but Hakoda thinks it’s all right to miss them. Ultimately, Hakoda thinks the problem is that Gyatso raised Aang the way he was raised – to be a monk. He didn’t know how to raise him to be the Avatar. And most of the rest of the world didn’t live like the Air Nomads – even Hakoda, who considers himself a man of peace, can barely imagine what their lives were like. He still led his people in war against the Fire Nation, or small raids against other villages for what seemed like good ideas at the time. Finally, Hakoda tells Aang that Tao is looking for him, but wonders what he isn’t telling him.
We cut to Katara, after Hakoda asked her to find out what Tao is saying that Aang doesn’t want to talk about. With Toph’s help, and Tao keeping Boots busy, she’s sneaking down to Tao’s quarters. She overhears Tao telling Aang that there are many levels of spirits, and most of those aren’t powerful enough to merit the Avatar’s attention. Even a spirit like Hei Bai could be handled by a competent shaman. The Avatar’s chief concern is with the greater spirits. Wan Shi Tong is very powerful, but even he isn’t one of those – there are only a few of them. The Moon, the Ocean – the Face-Stealer. Katara is horrified that Koh is as powerful as the Moon Spirit, and Aang asks why Koh isn’t doing anything, if he’s that strong. Tao explains he hates humans, for reasons no one knows, and shouldn’t be discussed so casually, which might draw his attention. But whatever Koh hates might not be something humans can fix, and an angry spirit might do whatever it thinks necessary to restore its idea of peace. Back to the original topic, the great spirits are Koh, the Moon and Ocean, Tengri, Guanyin and her deputies Oma and Shu, who are ascended humans… and Aang says there’s one more, Agni, but Tao refuses to acknowledge him. He thinks a true spirit wouldn’t let his people try to conquer the world, nor allow the majority of them to turn their backs on the spirits entirely in favor of industry and machines. Aang thinks Tao doesn’t like the Fire Nation much; Tao doesn’t want to see them destroyed, but he thinks all Fire Nation soldiers have done evil acts. He wonders exactly how much Aang knows about Iroh’s history and tells him to call up a spirit and ask if he’s curious. The ship is full of them – how does Aang think Hakoda took it? Wind suddenly blasts out of the cabin, and Katara blacks out until Toph wakes her up. Aang is gone, and Toph is determined to catch him so he can apologize for hurting them. She thinks he left the ship – he took his glider. Katara thinks they have to find him; Toph can’t track someone who isn’t on land, but Katara can guess where he’s headed and a moment later Toph does too – the Fire Nation. Katara thinks they betrayed him – they should have told him Hakoda and his men had to kill to get the ship. Tao is stunned that Aang had to be told, and Toph points out that Aang’s sheltered. He’s from before the war, and Tao doesn’t seem to fully grasp what that means. Katara cuts her off and says they’re going after him.
Potentially triggering material to follow.
We cut to Hakoda, having docked his hijacked ship and wished his children safe travels, turning to confront Tao. Tao can’t believe Aang is so naïve – even in his time, the airbenders saw Sozin’s first attempt to invade the Earth Kingdom. Hakoda thinks that’s important but reminds Tao that Aang was born decades after that and wasn’t old enough to recognize its importance. He doubts Gyatso taught Aang anything about Sozin – when that gets an angered reaction, he demands to know what Sozin did to Tao. Even Tao wasn’t born at the time of the first invasion, and Aang can understand hurting someone to stop them from hurting someone else, but he doesn’t get revenge – certainly not against a dead man. Tao says he bared his shame to Aang and Aang let it rest – Hakoda thinks Aang is polite, for an airbender, but that’s not saying a lot, and wonders just what Tao’s shame is. Tao drove Aang away, and Hakoda’s children – and Toph – went after him and might be heading into danger, and Hakoda wants to know. Tao says that his mother left Taku after the invasion because she didn’t want to give birth there. Hakoda can understand that, but doesn’t see why it’s such a big deal, unless it has something to do with the patriarchal structure of Earth Kingdom families. He wonders if the Fire Nation killed Tao’s father, and Tao admits that no, they wouldn’t have killed him… and Hakoda understands. Looking Tao over, he can see the hint of Fire Nation features, and he tells him that Aang didn’t understand. He explains how Katara went undercover on a prison barge to inspire earthbenders to revolt and were unaware of the dangers. The Fire Nation don’t like the ice and cold, and when raiding the Water Tribes they come, kill and leave, and don’t usually stick around long enough to assault women. And the worst Zuko ever did to Katara was to try to use her as bait for Aang. Hakoda’s not even sure Aang knows what rape is – Air monks weren’t allowed to have relations with nuns until they were eighteen. Tao is horrified; Hakoda admits he sometimes can’t understand Aang, but he thinks if anyone can, it’s Katara, Sokka and Toph. He just hopes they reach the capital in one piece in time for the invasion. Tao is shocked to realize just what they’re planning.
Potentially triggering material ends here.
We cut to Azula, practicing archery on the shore under the moonlight. She’s frustrated at her lack of skill – she’s not used to this sort of imperfection. Still, the worst of her despair and fury doesn’t take her, and she curses Amaya again for what she did to her. She’s suddenly interrupted by a Dai Li agent named Bolin; she thinks about all the ways she could kill him, and it occurs to her that while the Dai Li know she’s cruel, they trust her not to be needlessly cruel, which is a strange thought. She wonders if she is too afraid of failing her father and knows that sort of fear leads to sloppy work. Bolin tells her she needs to return to the ship; Azula is insulted that he, and not the senior Dai Li she brought with her, has come to tell her this. She thinks there must be something the Dai Li are trying to head off, and Bolin tells her that they need to get running water underneath them. He can sense that there’s something out there, and the other agents and Ty Lee are looking for it but haven’t found it yet. Apparently, the sense of it reminded Ty Lee of something she’d forgotten – Azula is again reminded of what Ty Lee’s elders did to her, and how it sounds like certain Dai Li techniques. Agent Hai, the senior Dai Li with her, assured her that the worst rumors were totally unfounded and all the Dai Li’s unique techniques were taught to them by Kyoshi herself – which makes Azula all the more certain those rumors really are true. Azula doesn’t think going out on the water would be wise without knowing what the spirit is – and then someone else greets her, and she turns to see a strange Fire Nation noblewoman standing there, probably armed and probably a firebender. The woman introduces herself as Nawahime and bows as a lesser noble to an heir, but Azula can tell something is wrong. She thinks this must be one of Ozai’s spies and says she’ll take her report in private – and warns Bolin to keep Ty Lee away. When he’s gone, Nawahime tells Azula that the Avatar is in her grasp – she knows he is still alive, and jokes darkly about how he was declared dead. Azula considers the meaning of her name – binding rope princess – and thinks that her father’s spies have too much of a sense of humor for their own good. Nawahime explains that her network in the Earth Kingdom was damaged recently, but she picked up the Avatar’s trail when he entered the Fire Nation in a stolen ship. Azula asks if there’s anything else, assures Nawahime that her plans will take her information into account, and for now that’s all she needs to know. Nawahime is angered that Azula is seemingly allowing an enemy to escape; Azula, sensing treachery, shoots a fireblast at her… and Nawahime catches it. And keeps it burning blue.
Azula is stunned, and Nawahime says that she can see her bloodline in Azula, even if she also takes after her mother, and wishes she’d killed Ursa when she had the chance. Azula attacks again – no matter what she thinks of Ursa, she can’t let a stranger insult her mother – but deliberately overplays her rage, to make Nawahime underestimate her. She tries to break Nawahime’s hand – but the other woman casually breaks her arm, burns her and tosses her aside. Azula is left stunned as Nawahime grabs her and invades her mind, deciding she is worthy of the bloodline after all. Azula manages to roll away and starts blasting with fire, as Ty Lee and the Dai Li appear to back her up. Azula says she wants the creature alive; Nawahime is amused that she has no idea what she is. She starts bending lightning and Azula, in desperation, manages to redirect it – she doesn’t get the technique quite right and it hurts, but at least she’s alive. In a daze, she can hear Ty Lee shouting orders and the Dai Li trying to bury the attacker… and then a blue dragon bursts out of the sand and leaps into the sky. Ty Lee bends a massive blast of air at her wings, and the dragon flees. But as she goes, she calls Azula a fool, says she set the stage perfectly, and the Avatar isn’t her only enemy. Azula, relieved to be alive, faints with Ty Lee calling her name.
We end with a long author note: A/N: Yes, Shidan is giving Ozai way too much credit for sanity. Everybody makes mistakes.
Eshe is actually Ancient Egyptian, meaning life. (All the Touzaikaze have been given Ancient Egyptian names. They're from a desert, it seemed to fit.)
Just as I've used the milpa system as inspiration for Fire Nation agriculture, I've put in a bunch of actual Andean crops in here. They're exactly what you'd want for volcanic and high-altitude environments. "Oogami nuts" = lupin seeds. And yes, one type of Vietnamese transparent noodles (miến dong)is made not with mung beans, but with a crop that originated in the Andes. This amuses me, just like pizza being an Italian dish (tomatoes, heh) and "American as apple pie" (apples coming from Eurasia). Sometimes, people are just cool.
I've had this background for Tao in mind all along, especially after the prison barge episode. I know, in Real Life the reason Katara isn't worried about maltreatment is because this is a kid's cartoon. Even so. If people consider the Fire Nation monsters, and it's a more realistic setting... I'm sure some were.
And while shamans and medicine men may have been honored in many societies, more often they were respected - warily - because they were weird and dangerous. The social outcasts, barely accepted by the rest of their group. The outsiders. And yes, sometimes of mixed blood. Which is a lot more daunting in societies where your group is The Real People and everybody else is not. (And if the Earth Kingdom is modeled after ancient China - yes, that is exactly what they think.)
I know I'm hard on Aang. I find him really, really hard to write. (For one, I can't remember ever - ever - being as naive about the vicious things people do to each other as Aang is portrayed in canon.) Azula is easier for me to write than Aang.
But if Aang weren't Aang, this story would not have a happy ending. And it will.
...Well, mostly happy. With this many Doom Magnets? Sometimes, breaking even is good.
To answer a couple of review questions...
The amusing thing about Codex Alera is that I've only read the first book, and that only recently. Yet I do see some similarities. Heh. Probably due to the similarities between the Alera-verse and ATLA in general.
The whole story of Ryuuko-hime and Kingami: I have part of that written, but it just doesn't fit in Embers. Darn it. I plan to write the whole thing after I get Embers finished. Particularly since it will pick up various plot threads I have scattered in here. Heh.
"How big is Asagitatsu? Would it be like Mt. St. Helens? Or Krakatoa? Santorini used to be a volcano too."
Yes. Yes, it did. So did (or more accurately, is) Lake Toba. Take out the spaces.
en. wikipedia wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
...What, did you think Koh was leaving things to chance this time?
Given some of the questions I've been asked about Ozai, Azula, Zuko, and the whole dragon-child mess, I thought I'd share a few genetics terms: hybrid vigor and hybrid breakdown.
A lot of people are familiar with hybrid vigor. Cross two very different pure strains, and the offspring can be more successful than either parent. There are various reasons for this, ranging from a lucky genetic outcome (not all hybrids do well) to the extreme that some genes (or gene complexes, bunches of related genes) are over-expressed because the other half of the hybrid's DNA doesn't have a "match" to them. (See mules and ligers.)
Hybrid breakdown is a little more complicated. It basically hinges on the fact that because of chromosome crossover (part of how most organisms form gametes to reproduce), we do not inherit genes and gene complexes as discrete units. Not always.
Let's say we have two "pure" strains to begin; call them red and green. Imagine each individual with their set of genes; a pair of chromosomes, two long strings of colored beads. (Humans have much more than one, but let's keep it simple.) Red parent has two strands of red. Green has two of green. Before they reproduce, crossover happens - but since they are pure strains, red crossing over with red still gives you a strand of red, and likewise for green. So your hybrid has one red strand, and one green. A good setup for hybrid vigor, and reasonably simple.
The problem comes when your hybrid reproduces. The red and green strands line up to crossover... and the resulting single strand that goes into the offspring (and its genes) is a patchwork of red and green. You may literally have part of a gene from one of your hybrid's parents, and part from the other. The resulting gene may not work.
It may work somewhat, but not as well as an all-red or all-green gene. (This, BTW, is part of what's called outbreeding depression.) Or it may not work at all... which can be lethal.
Now, if your hybrid dragon-child is breeding back into a plain vanilla human line (for example, Azulon and Ilah), this can be survivable. The "mixed" gene can be compensated for by a "plain" human gene, and all should be well. Plain dragon would also work - in the case of Sozin and Tejina, Tejina's "plain" dragon genes would compensate. Again, it works. (This is called introgression.)
The problem comes when a hybrid has offspring with another hybrid.
Hear that? Yes, that is a Hell Is That Noise. That is the sound of a million possible very bad genetic outcomes, cackling in unholy glee.
You now have the chance for mixed, barely functional, weirdly functional, or otherwise scrambled genes on both sides. And one of the most complicated, delicate, jury-rigged bits of evolution we have, so dependent on healthy genes, is a sane, intelligent brain.
Long story short: There is every reason Sozin, Azulon, Ozai, Iroh, Lu Ten, and Ursa should be sane and rational. A few of them might incline more to the draconic definition of sane, but they're sane.
Zuko and Azula, though, are screwed.
...This also explains why Azula the prodigy bent at four. Some parts of her genes are human. Some are dragon. The mix is not predictable. It is entirely possible for Azula to have some traits that are more dragon than Zuko, and others that are more human. And the same for him. It's even possible that one of the pair is almost entirely human. Though the odds are against it.
Crossover also helps explain how long-buried traits like Fire or Air heritage can resurface without being strictly dominant or recessive. Get enough scattered pieces of one allele to combine, and poof! Somebody's got a heritage the family tried to bury generations ago.
FYI, this is also why stories with "nations of half-elves" tend to have me tossing them across the room or Headdesking. Genetic inheritance does not work that way. If by some chance it did, we'd probably be talking about a situation of codominant alleles at one major locus, which means that of every four offspring, 2 would be half-elves, one elf, and one human, and you don't see that happening...
I know, I know. A Wizard Did It. I'd just like to see a story where someone thought about this...
MG’s Thoughts
Okay, I have some very mixed feelings on this chapter (surprise, surprise…). First off… it actually has two scenes I really like. The first is Hakoda comforting Aang. For once, I think Vathara actually does nail both the warmth and papa wolf protectiveness of Hakoda (without him being brainwashed into it!) and has two people from radically different cultural backgrounds actually manage to communicate effectively and bond. The second is Azula’s encounter with Makoto, which is the first in-person appearance of one of the fic’s two real main villains, and genuinely manages to be tense and frightening (if Azula is scared, we should be scared too).
On the other hand, the conversation with Shidan at the beginning is interesting, but also really serves to underline how dragons have started to take over everything about the story, to its detriment. And I really can’t help but notice that while Zuko has been given a helpful mentor in the form of Shidan, Aang gets Tao, who’s frankly more of a hindrance at this point than a help. Not only is he demonstrably wrong about how various things work in the Embers!verse, he clearly has no idea how to teach Aang specifically and ends up chasing him off so we can have a version of the Gaang’s canon journey through the Fire Nation (going back to a version of the stations of the canon for a while with Aang’s side of the story being even more jarring since Zuko and co. are now doing something completely different). And… I really don’t know what to think about his backstory. I still don’t know if discussion of sexual assault is really something an A:TLA fic needs… but I’m also not the most qualified person to tell if it’s well handled or not, so I’ll left it lie. And several of the characters still feel off – Vathara’s admission in the AN that she doesn’t get Aang and has a hard time writing him doesn’t surprise me at all, tbh, and even though we’re past the worst of the Katara-bashing, the character still doesn’t feel like Katara to me (especially with the offhand comment from Toph about how she’s apparently chomping at the bit to drown people, which doesn’t seem to be a joke…). I’m also kind of confused as to how Koh is apparently on level with literal cosmic forces like the Moon, Ocean and Sky. I’d be more inclined to rate him as a peer of Wan Shi Tong.
As for the AN, a few comments. First off… yeah, I can kind of see the Codex Alera comparisons, to a certain extent, though I think there are some critical differences as well (not least that Alera is Rome-inspired while Avatar is Asia-inspired, but also that Alera is a setting where the nature of the magic system means that there are going to be multiple avatar-tier people running around at a given time – and also that Alera at least admits that a magocractic empire run by military aristocrats with elemental powers is probably going to be pretty messed up all on its own, without needing an outsider to come in and break it). Honestly, in some ways I think that Embers resembles both canon!ATLA and the Codex Alera less than it does certain aspects of the tabletop rpg Exalted, particularly the Realm (and its ruling class who are, interestingly enough, the Dragon-Blooded) though I have no idea if it was an influence. About hybriziation – it's interesting, but I’m not sure how relevant it is considering that, IMO, a human and a dragon mating are pretty much the definition of “a wizard did it” (or at least, a magical shapeshifting dragon did it) and mundane genetics can probably only get you so far. Also, I’m wondering where Vathara keeps seeing “nations of half-elves” – the only setting I can think of with something like that made it very clear said half-elves were not a stable, true-breeding race and took a lot of effort not to go extinct (maybe in Eberron, where half-elves – Khoravar – are a recognized minority group but not really a nation per se, just something that tend to crop up where you have both humans and elves having kids over the course of generations and the bloodlines get mingled in interesting ways). *shrugs* Maybe we’re just reading different fantasy series.
Also, in terms of things that are amusing in hindsight, a Dai Li agent named Bolin is definitely up there. As is the fact that I was doing this writeup the day a new trailer for the Netflix live-action A:TLA dropped, which included a shot of Azula practicing archery. Coincidence? You be the judge😉.
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