Chapter 93: Rin and the Earthbender Girl
The silence in the wake of Commander Ryo's execution was thick enough to choke on. The soldiers didn't move, their eyes darting from the headless body to the Princess, who stood with a faint, smug smile, to the Crown Prince, whose face was a mask of cold stone. The air still crackled with the residual heat of their bending and the chilling finality of murder.
Zuko did not look at Azula. To acknowledge her now would be to give her the satisfaction of knowing she had gotten to him. Instead, he turned his back on her, a dismissal more powerful than any chain. He scanned the faces of the stunned survivors, his gaze sharp and demanding.
"Ensign Lee!" His voice cracked through the silence like a whip.
The young strategist, who had been staring at Ryo's corpse with a look of academic horror, flinched and snapped to attention. "Y-Yes, Your Highness!"
"Where is Sergeant Rin?" Zuko's tone was clipped, impatient. He needed competent officers, and the gruff, reliable sergeant was conspicuously absent. "I haven't seen him since before the… incident."
As if summoned by his name, a clatter of shifting rubble came from the remains of a collapsed storage shed. From behind a shattered support beam, Sergeant Rin emerged, his uniform coated in a fine grey dust, his face smudged and weary. He wasn't alone. A step behind him was a girl, no older than sixteen. She was slight, with wide, fearful eyes and hair the color of dark ash, tied back in a simple, practical tail. She wore the plain, soot-stained tunic of a camp follower or a junior laundress.
Rin's eyes immediately took in the scene: the staring soldiers, the palpable tension, and the body on the ground. His weathered face, usually a stoic mask, tightened. He strode forward, placing himself subtly between the girl and the rest of the assembly.
"Your Highness," Rin said, saluting sharply. "My apologies. I was… securing the area."
Zuko's golden eyes narrowed, flicking from the sergeant's guarded expression to the girl, Mesa, he'd called her, who seemed to be trying to make herself smaller behind him. The pieces clicked into place with sudden, crude clarity. He wasn't securing the area; he'd been digging her out, or hiding with her, prioritizing her safety amidst the chaos. The protective stance, the shared dust, the way her eyes stayed fixed on Rin's back, it was the same unspoken language he'd seen on Kyoshi, the same biological imperative he'd enforced with Lee and Hinaro. Meaning Rin was obviously smitten with the girl.
A flicker of irritation warred with cold pragmatism. He didn't have time for this. But he also couldn't afford to break the fragile loyalty of one of his few remaining capable men.
"Busy," Zuko repeated, his voice flat, letting the unspoken accusation hang in the air for a moment before letting it go. He filed it away at the back of his mind, a piece to be used later if needed. "Get your act together, Sergeant. We don't have the luxury of distractions."
He turned his attention back to the whole group, his voice rising, cutting through the shock and reclaiming his authority.
"Listen to me! The Avatar's display of power changes nothing about our objective. It only clarifies it. He is wounded. He is grieving. And he is heading north, to the only place left that can offer him sanctuary and training. The Northern Water Tribe."
He began to pace in front of them, his boots crunching on the glassy ground, a general addressing his shattered troops.
"Here is what we will do. We will gather every able-bodied man. Every weapon, every scrap of food, every waterskin that survived. We will triage the wounded. A quarter of our force will stay here, under the command of the senior medic. Their duty is to stabilize the injured and then begin a slow, safe march to the nearest outpost, Fortress Tsung."
He stopped and pointed a commanding finger north, towards the distant, snow-capped peaks that seemed to scratch the belly of the sky.
"The rest of you, the strong, the willing, the loyal will follow me. We are not chasing a ghost. We are marching to a battlefield. We will push north, to the next Fire Nation stronghold along the coast. There, we will regroup, resupply, and merge our strength with the garrisons. We will build an armada. We will gather an army."
His eyes burned with a new, terrifying intensity. The fight with Azula was forgotten, a petty squabble. The true enemy, the true goal, was now in focus.
"The final confrontation will not be in some forgotten temple or on a barren mountainside," Prince Zuko declared, his voice ringing with absolute certainty. "It will be at the walls of the Northern Water Tribe itself. That is where the Avatar is heading. And that is where we will be meeting him."
The orders were given. The grim work of sorting the living from the dying, the useful from the lost, began under the stoic direction of Sergeant Rin and the analytical eye of Ensign Lee. The soldiers moved with a new, grim purpose, the horror of Ryo's death and the scale of the task ahead forging them into a harder, more focused unit.
Zuko watched for a moment, ensuring the momentum of his command had taken hold. Then, his gaze, cold and deliberate, found Azula. She stood apart from everyone, near the jagged remains of a wall, examining her nails as if the world around her was a tedious dream. He strode toward her, his steps silent on the ashen ground.
He stopped a few feet from her, his voice low, a blade meant for her ears only. "A word."
She didn't look up. "Come to deliver another thrilling monologue, Zuzu? Perhaps about teamwork and perseverance?"
"Look at me," he commanded, the tone leaving no room for refusal.
Slowly, her head lifted. The smug amusement was still plastered on her face, but her eyes were twin pools of simmering, homicidal resentment.
"What you saw here today," Zuko began, his voice dangerously quiet, "was a fraction. A heated skirmish. A family dispute. It was nothing." He took a half-step closer, invading her space. "The Siege of the North... that will be my masterpiece. It will be the battle they write songs about for a thousand years. It will be the victory that cements the Fire Nation's destiny and my name in history, right beside Fire Lord Sozin's."
He leaned in, his golden eyes boring into hers. "And I am not going to let your petulant jealousy and staggering arrogance waste it. Do you understand me? Your little tantrum here is over. It ends now."
Azula's smirk finally cracked, her lips pressing into a thin, white line. "You think you can…"
"I don't think. I know," he interrupted, his voice dropping to a whisper that was more threatening than any shout. "I am calling on you now, Azula. Not the screaming, impatient little girl who just murdered a loyal officer for interrupting her. I am calling on the Azula I admired. The prodigy. The one who was always five steps ahead. The one whose mind was a sharper weapon than any fire she could bend. The calm, calculating genius who could orchestrate the fall of Ba Sing Se without a hair out of place."
He held her gaze, challenging the very core of her fractured identity. "That is the weapon I need. That is the sister I will take to the North. Not this... this spoiled child throwing a fit because she's no longer Father's only favorite."
He paused, letting the words, both insult and plea, hang between them. "The game has changed. The stakes are higher than our pride. So, make a choice. Are you the master strategist? Or are you just the broken princess who burns everything she touches when she doesn't get her way?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He turned and walked away, leaving her standing alone in the ruins, his final question echoing in the silence he left behind—a challenge she could neither ignore nor easily answer.
The grim logistics of survival took over. The wounded were gathered in a makeshift infirmary in the lee of a half-standing wall, their moans a soft counterpoint to the clatter of gathered supplies. The dead, including Commander Ryo, were laid in a row, covered with whatever cloaks or canvas could be spared. The sun dipped lower, casting long, skeletal shadows from the ruins.
In the midst of this organized despair, Zuko found a moment of relative quiet near the crater's edge. He saw Sergeant Rin directing two younger soldiers in sorting a pile of salvaged weaponry. The young woman, Mesa, was never far, quietly helping by gathering scattered crossbow bolts into a quiver, her movements efficient but her eyes constantly, subtly, checking on Rin's position.
Zuko walked over, his approach silent on the ash. "Sergeant. A word."
Rin turned, his face immediately tightening into a mask of professional neutrality, but Zuko didn't miss the flicker of apprehension in his eyes. It was the look of a man who had seen the prince's cold fury and his terrifying power, and now understood the absolute weight of his command. The trust built over months was now coupled with a primal fear.
"Your Highness," Rin said, his voice even.
Zuko didn't bother with preamble. He gestured with his chin towards Mesa, who had frozen, a bolt clutched tightly in her hand. "Her. What's the situation?"
Rin didn't lie. The fear of Zuko demanded honesty, but the trust they'd built allowed for it. "Her name is Mesa, sir. An orphan from a Earth Kingdom village near the coast. She was… assigned to laundry and kitchen duties when we arrived at the base yesterday." He paused, choosing his words with the care of a man crossing a frozen river. "We… connected. I was ensuring her safety during the attack."
Zuko's gaze was impenetrable. He glanced back and forth between the hardened sergeant in his thirties and the young, wide-eyed girl. The protective stance, the shared, unspoken language, the same biological imperative he had explicitly encouraged on the ship. He recalled their conversation in the officer's mess with perfect clarity, the laughter about Lee's disastrous proposal, which had then turned serious.
**---**
"I figured I'd have kids by now. Wife. Maybe a second. Definitely a first. I'm in my thirties. I should've left something behind already."
"…You don't have any kids?" Zuko had asked.
Rin had shaken his head. "Not one."
Zuko's tone had changed. Low. Commanding. Not cold… but heavy.
"That's not acceptable."
"Who did you have in mind?" Zuko had asked.
**---**
Now, standing in the ashes, Zuko repeated that question, not with curiosity, but with the tone of a commander evaluating a strategic asset. "I asked you once who you had in mind. Is she the one?"
Rin stood straighter, meeting his prince's gaze. "She could be, Your Highness."
Zuko held his stare for a long moment, the memory of his own policy- "That's not acceptable."- hanging between them. He had demanded his men build legacies, create something lasting beyond the war. He had orchestrated the marriages on Kyoshi for this very purpose.
"Remember our talk on the ship, Sergeant," Zuko said, his voice low and deliberate. "I told you it was unacceptable for a man of your caliber to have no one to fight for, no one to leave his name to. I meant it." His eyes flicked to Mesa once more, a quick, assessing glance. "If she is strong enough, if she is loyal enough… then she is acceptable. But understand this," his voice hardened, "your duty is to the Fire Nation first. To me first. Your personal life cannot become a distraction that costs us this war. Get your head clear. I need the focused sergeant I rely on, not a lovesick recruit."
It was both a blessing and a warning. He was giving his tacit approval, rooted in his cold, pragmatic philosophy of legacy, while simultaneously drawing a line in the ash.
Rin saluted sharply, the relief and tension warring on his face. "Understood, Your Highness. It won't happen again. You have my focus."
"Good," Zuko said, his gaze sweeping over the preparing camp. "Now, let's finish this. We march at first light. The North awaits." He turned, his mind already moving to maps and tides, leaving Rin with the profound and terrifying realization that his prince had just peered into his soul, judged his heart, and found it strategically useful.
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