Author's Note: So as not to get further behind on updates, I've decided to post two today. I've already written something similar to this, but the other piece is its own oneshot, is written when the characters are their same ages… etc. This takes place years after the war, so the situation is completely different. Anyway. I'm just… addicted to the "unknown soldier" thing.
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender.
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Oneshot 38: Story
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Every life taken on the battlefield has a history.
Every unmarked body was someone, even if they can't be identified.
Every man and woman who gave his or her life to a cause greater than themselves had someone at home, awaiting the return of a loved one that would never come.
These great warriors are called unknown soldiers, and this is the story of one.
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Years following the war, peace had still not settled on the Earth. Rebellion after rebellion sprang up in the Fire Nation, and ties between this nation and the other two were severed to the point that repairs would take ages. Trade was broken and the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes still harbored ill feelings toward the Fire Nation, despite the reign of a new leader.
This story is about a soldier who lost his life during the Great Rebellion, the mother of all uprisings. It had many leaders, and no one knew their identities; they raided Fire Nation towns, killed supporters of the New Age, and destroyed whatever monuments to the new era they could get their hands on. Their final attempt at overthrowing the ruler would be made during a siege on the Fire Lord's palace, and they planned to assassinate the ruler then and there. They were regarded as nothing more than barbarians, but were taken seriously; they were a force to be reckoned with, however unorthodox they were.
A member of the Southern Water Tribe found out when the siege was to be held. He was a close acquaintance of the Fire Lord himself and specialized in strategic planning; he was an essential asset to the Fire Lord's forces. Because of this man the ruler was prepared for the worst, and he was allowed enough time to amass an army that would put any mere rebellion to shame.
This did not go unnoticed by the rebels, and they naturally assumed that somehow the Fire Lord had found out about the date of attack. They believed that they were stronger, however – they thought that because they were fueled by the desire for the Fire Nation to once again be the single world power, they could win. They were proud, they were strong – and they were ready, and so the date was not changed.
The Fire Lord's army was great. There were members from all three nations; there were benders and non-benders alike, men and women, old and young (though not too young, of course – none younger than sixteen). It was staged nearly ten years following the war, and since the nations had all experienced a mere taste of the peace that would come, they were eager to quell the rebels and destroy their inner fires. Each side fueled itself with conviction, but each side was not equally strong. The rebels believed they could make up for it. The Fire Lord's army did not.
There was one man who was one of the primary leaders in the Fire Lord's forces. This is the man around whom this story takes place; he was, without a doubt, one of the most essential soldiers – for it was he who gathered the information about the date of the siege, and it was he who, in the midst of battle, fought one of the highest ranking men in the rebel army.
Both were non-benders and were evenly matched in strength, but brute strength was not the key to their fight; the secret to winning was skill, and the young Water Tribe soldier who fought for the Fire Lord was not lacking in that area. His swordsmanship was unmatched; his weapon, made of mysterious minerals, was as black as the darkest night, and all who laid eyes upon it were stricken with fear in the very core of their hearts, for fate was unkind to all whom the man fought.
It had never been a contest. The rebel went down and the Water Tribe warrior was unscathed; he knew nothing of the fact that he had killed the man whose task it was to lead a few men into the palace, past the guards, and into the Fire Lord's chambers; his attempt would have been unsuccessful, but he certainly would have done more than his share of destruction.
The black sword was lodged in the abdomen of its first victim. The warrior needed more strength than he should have to wrench it out, but he finally did; his back had been turned, however, and a rebel firebender, recognizing the color of the weapon in the firelight, shot a blast of fire at the bearer of the famous black sword.
The shot surprised the warrior, but he was not altogether unprepared for such an attack; he'd braced himself for it and took the hit, then, scattering drops of the enemy's blood on the ground as he did so, jerked around and made for his attacker.
The warrior hated the way they fought. They had no grace, no style to them at all; they just attacked, without having a real purpose or plan beforehand. The man who had shot the small fireball backed away in surprise and, deathly afraid, conjured and launched as large of a blast of fire as he found within his power to do. His fear made him miss the target, however, and the bearer of the black sword ended his life.
Two kills - and the rebellion had only just begun. The warrior was doing well. He turned and, through the thick black smoke, saw another opponent. His newest adversary easily overestimated his own skill and thought himself to be better than the black sword bearer – a belief that would soon be shattered by the one weapon universally revered by all who wielded a sword.
The men who fought in the name of the Fire Lord were easily overtaking the rebel army. The rebels had tough exteriors but, at their hearts, there was the most disgraceful form of cowardice; therefore they would, in the end, retreat with the remaining survivors.
Hours passed and soldiers fought on. Many were becoming too exhausted to continue; this happened on both sides. There were more casualties on the side of the rebels, and it was suspected that they would retreat within the hour. The bearer of the black sword had yet to meet a man who could stand against the weapon, so great was his skill.
He had just engaged in a one-on-one fight with one of the more talented rebels. Perhaps this thought was merely because he was slightly fatigued, but either way, it was the most challenging fight since the rebellion had begun. At first they seemed equally matched, but the Water Tribe warrior was a moment quicker, and that made all the difference. However, just as he broke his opponent's defense and armor and struck him hard in the chest, another man took up fighting with the warrior. Then another, and the first man wasn't yet dead – and the warrior was fighting three men at once, his fatigue disappearing behind a thin veil of fear that tightened around his gut.
The odds were despicably unfavorable. The Water Tribe warrior fought the golden-eyed rebels with every bit of strength and skill he could find within himself; he didn't have to think about fighting – it was something that came naturally, something he could do as easily as breathing, if he needed to – and so his thoughts were free to half-wander to other things. He focused on the battle, sure, but his mind began to entertain thoughts of his new wife, of his not-yet-born child.
She had wanted to come. She had wanted more than anything to be a part of the quelling of the Great Rebellion, and he knew it. She had threatened him, bribed him, pleaded with him – and of course, all of her efforts had been in vain because they both knew that in the end she just couldn't go. She could have, but it would have been too dangerous for the unborn baby; it was a risk that neither was really willing to take, despite how badly she'd wanted to fight. It was natural to her, too – she reveled in battling just as he did, and perhaps, just perhaps, she found more joy in it.
They had each had duties, however; and those duties were fulfilled, no matter how painful they were. She had been denied a great desire, and he had been torn away from his family with the purpose of fulfilling obligations he had to his country and to the welfare of the world.
Questions began to form in his mind – questions that, he pondered, may never be answered. Questions like Will she have the baby while I'm gone? and Will it look like her? He wanted more than anything to see his child, and because of this desire, he became strong. The strength of need poured into his body and he used those reserves with relish.
His enemies went down. All three, in a bittersweet way, were dead; to his own dismay he'd had to behead one of them, but it had been the only way. Another had completely lost an arm; blood flooded out of the wound, pulsating from the artery – the warrior diverted his eyes, as he was driven by duty and not for the lust of killing. It was a terrible thing to do, he knew, because murder was never a good thing; but sometimes it was a necessary thing, and this was how he viewed his actions.
Another man attacked him, and another. It almost felt like sport, but that was a sickening thought. The warrior viewed the entire battle as almost unfair. How could these inexperienced barbarians even fathom overtaking the Fire Lord's civilized army? Well, perhaps inexperienced was the wrong word; ignorant was better. Either way, the rebels could not stand a chance – yet they'd lasted for nearly four hours, which greatly surprised the Water Tribe man.
Quite suddenly, a rather skilled firebender sent a shot toward the warrior. It was, once again, a man who sought to destroy the man with possession of the practically legendary black sword. This man, however, had held up well in battle; he was eager for the fight, whereas the Water Tribe warrior was tired enough to no longer find any thrill in combat. He did fight, however; it was never a question of that.
The firebender was too far away to be good use of as a target; he wasn't fighting fair, but then, that wasn't really expected of him. There was no such thing as a fair fight, however nice the phrase might sound. The warrior was no stranger to the strategy of firebenders, however, and easily dodged, moving as fluidly as though not a single muscle in his body ached in earnest for rest. He conformed to his environment and used every tree and boulder to his advantage; they were at the boundary between battlefield and forest, which the warrior found absurdly advantageous on his part.
The firebender, finding that the bearer of the black sword was too quick to even so much as graze him with a flame, decided that he must use his other weapons. Just as the warrior was accustomed to firebender strategy, however, the firebender was accustomed to depending on his sword for battle. The Water Tribe man learned this quickly and decided that now things might get interesting.
As each moved to strike, his adversary easily parried; the warrior considered briefly that he might lose, but the thought was so strange and so unwelcome that he immediately gained energy, though he didn't know how much he had left in him. His weapon, however, was an extension of himself, and however much energy he lost, his opponent merely regarded his sword as just that – a weapon. It was nothing more than a tool.
One move brought the two incredibly close together. The warrior could smell the firebender's ragged breath and frowned at the way the man inhaled; the warrior knew he was wearing the firebender down, but he was sure that the man could very well think the same thing about him.
And then, after a single instant, they were apart; but the warrior could not find any strength at all to move and, finally registering the pain, realized what the man had done.
While they had been close, the man had quickly and expertly unsheathed a dagger and stabbed the warrior in the back, quite literally. There was so much pain… it was his undoing. Such a low move, such a sneaky, disgustingly vile attack – if he had been able to feel anything, he would have felt shame at being vanquished in such a way. This was another instant.
The firebender would surely steal away his weapon; there was no question about it, but the sword was nothing. Nothing compared to the pain that wracked the warrior's body; and that, in turn, was nothing compared to his pure anguish at the realization that the last time he had seen his wife had been just that – the last time. As his own life drained, and the lights in his brain dimmed, the last thing that occupied his thoughts was the color of his wife's beautiful pale green eyes and the desperate hope that his child might inherit his heart.
The firebender, the murderer of one of the few men who had made the biggest difference in the war's outcome, was ruthless and loved war and violence and death. He charred the face of the man to whom the black sword truly belonged; he burned every exposed piece of flesh and relished the odor. Then he robbed the man of the legendary black sword, and he continued to fight for the remaining minutes of the battle.
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The black sword was recovered; the wife herself pried it from the bones of the dead thief, his body having lost its life to a dagger similar to the one in her husband, though she knew nothing of that. There were many unidentified bodies, and sadly, one of them was the warrior's. All of his weapons had been robbed of him by retreating rebels, and so, because no one knew exactly which corpse deserved the honor of the warrior, his body was placed in a grave reading Unknown Soldier. The last remains of Water Tribe clothing identified him as one of the Fire Lord's Water Tribe allies, but so many had died and could not be identified…
News of the warrior's death swept the nations and caused them to feel sorrow, but no one felt as much pain as the man's wife. Their child was born – it was a girl, and she looked like her mother in every way. Every way, that is, except her beautiful, piercing blue eyes.