Prison Caravan

[gandalan]

Hibiki had never felt more... bored.

Yes, that was a fair way to put it. He looked out of the metal cage at the fire nation camp. He was in a cage rather familiar to him. He'd been in one before, a long time ago. It was a simple metal cage mounted on a wagon so it could be carted to wherever the prisoners were going. The bottom was filled with hay, a minimal attempt to give the prisoners some comfort. It was pulled by giant rhino-somethings; Hibiki had forgotten what they were called. Of course, he didn't really care.

He ran a hand through his hair. His head was still a bit sensitive after the capture. He'd been running, running... and then he woke up here. He'd been struck in the head with something- maybe he tripped and fell, thrown off his feet by something, he didn't know. In any case, he was in a cage again. He knew what that meant.

Most of the people in the cages had seemed frightened, but rather talkative. Hibiki knew the rules already, being a veteran of this sort of thing- sit down, shut up. The more you whine about what's going on, the worse it will be. He sighed and leaned back against the bars, reclining as it was. Things had been going so well... he'd put on some weight, he'd been starting to get used to being free... having it snatched away again seemed like the story of his life.

Now the people in the cages were a sad and hopeless bunch, as he had been. They looked dejected, and since they were used to eating so much more, they were always hungry. They devoured their bread hunks quickly, and almost never seemed satisfied. Hibiki wasn't either, but he wasn't going to show it.

He looked out of the cage again. A ring of 12 or so cages was around a fire nation encampment. Other wagons used for equipment were also ringed about the area. Small fires for cooking were dotted about the circle, as well as a command tent, for those higher ups who didn't have to sleep outside. The smell coming from the cooking fires made Hibiki's mouth water, but he didn't dare speak a word against them. He wanted his hunk of bread.

Speaking of which, they were being given out now. The soldiers who passed by the caravans were guarded by another, in case anybody tried anything stupid. The one next to him looked like an older soldier, a veteran. So he was probably used to this duty. The one guarding him was young, and seemed very much distrustful of the young earth bender. Hibiki wanted to laugh. What could he do against these two soldiers? He submissively took the chunk of bread the man gave him, and ate it quickly. It tasted old, but it was food.

[vu]

Vu cupped his face then covered while he sat crossed legs. He heaved and breath deeply as the smoldering Tachi Dai remained where it was, across the river valley. This felt much worse than the humiliating defeat at the Northern Air Temple, and almost as bad as the failure that was Zhao's siege upon the Northern Water Tribe capitol.

The insurgents of Tachi Dai had dealt them something rather fierce with their trap. A parting gift even. Did anyone but them know they were down there? The mines. A system of mining tunnels that many of them not only used as an escape but packed with explosives they detonated. Now the shanty looking city was crumbling further once again. The explosion left not just a sizeable hole at the southern edge of the city but was making the landscape treacherous. The entire system of mining tunnels were ablaze, poisonous gases and heat were venting and forcing their way to the surface, the ground itself was cracked and crumbling and dotted with sinkholes. Forget about occupying it or tearing it down; it would become dangerous to even near the city. All they could do is just abandon Tachi Dai and its surrounding area to continue defying them.

Vu's face slid into the helmet at his lap, uncertain or maybe trying to cry or rage at the situation and failure. Virtually every cavalryman and his steed were gone in the explosion and immediate aftermath. Then some of the infantry had the intelligence to charge towards the city, through the area where the explosion took place and the resulting smoke that kept them from seeing the debacle they were charging into. But none of that hit as hard as the hit on his own unit with all six of his machines gone with four of his men injured and another seven out of eighteen total... missing.

He remained in his despondent state for over an hour as behind him the Fire Nation base camp established away from the city reorganized itself; restraining prisoners, personnel roll calls, attending injured soldiers and preparing for departure. With Tachi Dai an uninhabitable disaster area and the unexpected loses, it was decided they everyone would march to Colonel Shinu's Pohaui Stronghold in the western Earth Kingdom for resupply and further orders.

As originally planned, when they were expected to occupy Tachi Dai, every earthbender was to be caged, loaded into trackless locomotive and transported to Pohaui stronghold the same day and with them the Fire Nation's own injured. Everyone else? Well there was the forced march under constant armed guard. Hopefully being outnumbered and weaponless would deter the non-earthbenders in spite of the lack of enough shackles and rope to bound them all.

[set]

The feeling of being completely numb was almost relaxing. It was the part of unconsciousness that you didn't want to leave. To Setsuko, it was like waking up to her mother's call to start on her chores, but she didn't want to leave her bed. It was that feeling that maybe if she lay still enough, the numbness would return. Sometimes it would be accompanied by a dream. Sometimes it was a dream she didn’t want to leave, and hopefully by falling asleep again she would return to it. It was the vast place of peace and tranquility she could probably roam in forever if it wasn’t for her physical body stuck in reality.

However, she couldn’t will herself to fall back into the world of slumber this time. She wasn’t in her bed. Her head wasn’t against the cushion of a soft pillow. She wasn’t beneath the warmth of her blankets at home, and the smell of her mother’s cooking in the morning didn’t rouse her senses awake. In fact, the stinging stench of drying blood filled her nostrils. The bed she did lay on was warm, but it was uncomfortable and hard in some places. There were lumps, and the surface was uneven. Against her head, she felt a faint, rhythmic thumping. The surface she lay on was moving up and down, as if it were breathing.

It was breathing. Setsuko sat up quickly, but she lay back down again at the rush of blood into her head. Suddenly, all of the numbness diminished and her senses screamed at the awareness of everything against her. She coughed at the strange odor around her; her skin was clammy from the heat. She looked down, and she saw that she was very filthy with dirt and dried blood. Her stomach growled at the lack of nourishment, and her limbs trembled some at her deprived energy. She was still wearing green and brown clothes to pass off as an Earth Kingdom citizen. As she looked down, she noticed that she had been lying on a person. That person also wore a disguise like she did. Trees loomed above her head. Off in the distance, the smell of burning reeked as it blended with another unfamiliar stench, but she could not identify what it was. Her attention turned back to what she sat on.

Her dull-golden eyes widened. She sprang off and kneeled beside the body. At first, she thought it was dead, but it still slightly moved. It was barely alive. Unconscious, but it was still breathing. She recognized who it was. He had fallen out of exhaustion on his face while carrying her on his back. He had carried her far from the town, but he was severely wounded. It seemed like he bled so much by the look of his red-stained clothes of green.

“Teiú?” she squeaked quietly. The body didn’t even flinch. She felt her heart jumpstart into a panicked pace. “T-Teiú?”

No response. Little Setsuko was shuddering with fear. Shakily, her tiny, skinny arms reached out to his head and turned it so his face was to her. It also was stained with drying blood. His face was a lot paler than it was before, and it was covered in sweat. Alarmed, Setsuko began shaking his shoulder with hard shoves. “Teiú?!”

He did not respond. Her eyes became glossy with tears. “Wake up!” she whined. She looked around frantically and turned back to him. She shook him again. “Please wake up!” Still nothing. “Please! I’m scared! Wake up!”

Off in the distance, her ears finally picked up chatter. She perked some. Slowly, she began recalling what had happened before everything became blank. She was taken hostage by a strange man. She was thrown about everywhere. Everything erupted into chaos, and her head hit against something hard. It began to throb now that she thought about it. She remembered the tavern. The strange people. Staring at the floor.

Staring at the floor. She couldn’t let people see her eyes. She remembered her promise to Teiú.

But now people would look at her eyes even if she covered it with a cloak. They would force it off her head to see her face completely. What was a way to cover her eyes and force them not to peak beneath the veil? She shut her golden irises tightly and rubbed her face. Her mind ran through memories to inspire her for an idea. Something that’ll help her. The image of people were seen in her mind, and she recalled those who didn’t have eyes for her to see. They were mainly wearing types of clothing that prevented her so, like helmets and cloaks. Then the image of a homeless man back at the Fire Nation came into her thoughts. He played a funny instrument and sang oddly off to the side of the road, but she didn’t see his eyes as she passed him. He wore a cloth around his eyes. His head bobbled about strangely. Curious, she asked her friend Kaito why he did that—the man was blind.

Setsuko looked down at Teiú again. She saw a piece of loose cloth at the tail of his shirt. Biting her lip, she pinched her tiny fingers at the trimmed slid. She pulled, but nothing happened at first. Trembling, she pressed one end still and yanked with the weight of her body until she heard it tear. She pulled harder, and a strip of it ripped. Her body shook a little more from the forced tension, but she managed to roughly and messily get what she needed. She took the tattered strip over her eyes and around her head. She tied it around back.

Her heart became even more terrified at the darkness she saw. She swallowed. Her hand touched around the ground until she felt Teiú’s sickly face against her fingers. He still did not awaken. “Teiú?” she began again, slapping his cheek a little. Still nothing. She frowned hard, and continued to try and awaken him.

That was before her face was suddenly covered by the burlap of a sack. Once again, she was lifted off her feet that kicked wildly for freedom. She recalled herself screaming, but then the feeling of numbness took over again. She let herself drift back into the world of fantasy.

[jialingjin]

She had been broken. The spirited young woman with the ratty mop of hair had been utterly and so terribly broke. Not by the actions of a soldier, but by the apparent death of her beloved Reed. Her face had been washed clean of the blood, her hair and those crimped bangs cut loose of their mats and rat-nest qualities. The smudges of dirt that had covered her face, kissed her nose, and clung to her lips were gone. Now only the layer of grime that came from sitting in a cage, shackled and without a bath sat on her skin. Her hair, almond frost, in color, had been shorn, cut short in ragged patches across her head, the remants of her bangs hanging into her face. They had deemed her hair such a flithy mess that when she had been captured that it had been roughly trimmed.
She sat on the ground, with her arms and legs shackled together, but thankfully out of a cage. The cages were reserved for benders, meant to keep them from prolonged contact with the earth; to discourage them. They were being treated the worse, like they were being treated like animals. The young woman sat in her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms wrapped tightly around them and her hands grasped near her feet. The curve of her back ached. She would have rathered been leaning against a barrel, a crate, something, but they wouldn't allow that.

They were across a dried river valley from Tachi Dai which was now reduced to smoldering ruins. Watching as the smoke creeped up through cracks in the ground, Jialing reflected back on what she had known of the plan. She didn't know that they were planning on blowing up the coal mines. It was certainly the last resort that had been talked about and discussed, that she had heard about. Fires raged now below the ground and they would feed on the coal veins for spirits knew how long. Would Tachi Dai ever be habitable again? Perhaps if the Avatar could come and stop the fire, heal the earth. In silence, she stared, drawing curious glances from the passing soldiers, from her guards. She had put up a fight when she had realized she was caught, when they had roughly grabbed her by her hair and shorn it. It was why she was in metal shackles and not just rope like some of the captured. A rough, canvas or burlap like material blanket had been given to them, and hers was wadded up and tucked under a bare arm. Her bare arms.. no longer did she wear those dirtied and worn wraps around her arm, bearing the faint marks from her snapping bowstring now for all to see. The olive green tunic she often worn was still there, but even more of the decorative gold braiding around the high, upturned collar, and the chest-panel had been pulled away, the loops of orchre braids having been pulled from their seams. A giant tear had been wrenched into her baggy loose breeches on the left knee, but the rest of her garmets were intacted, right down to her now muddy, rabbit skin boots.

Her eyes moved, but not her face, as her lips sat in that unemotional, limp sort of smile as she glanced towards the one familiar figure. She could see Hibiki's weak and small, frail form in a cage. He was up on a wagon, surrounded by metal he could not bend, looking sorely dejected but also at home. He knew this, even if he had never been caged, he knew imprisonment. Jia had freed him once upon a time.. and now thanks to her, he was caught again. Stupid kid.. shoulda ran.. She thought. Jin was missing, her loyal dog. He had disappeared in all the chaos. Probably got caught in a sink hole, or trapped where smoke had laid and smothered to death. And Reed.. She didn't know what had happened to him. The last she knew.. she saw those two soldiers hovering over him and he had collasped on the ground. She couldn't see his face. Jialing could not see his face. He had been her constant comparion for the past year, and even if they had not become romanticlly involved... there was something.. about his loss, about Jin's loss, that rang throughout her being.

Casually, she looked as far as she could without moving her head. She did not want them to know she was looking. She wanted them to think of her as the quiet, broken girl. And so she continued to play the role, remaining silent, but letting her eyes doing the talking. Bread was being passed out. She could see the soldiers walking through the circle of cages with the basket; halfheartedly throwing the small loaves in. Her lips parted and her tongue darted out, quickly to run over her lower lip. Hunger had dulled for her in the years that she had been on the loose, she did not crave the bread yet.. it was enough. That and the water they brought.

Where would they be taken? Probably out West.. to the Colonies. They would be dealt with the colonies, put to work in labor camps like Hibiki was. Earth Benders were useful. What were non benders good for? Servants in homes? Would she held indefiently? Would she be released or was she seen as a threat? They better see me as a threat. Her mind mused, for a moment shoving away the bloody memory of Reed's gutted torso. She looked againt to Hibiki, as he received his bread. Spirits she wanted him to look this way, but for what? It was not like she had an idea, a plan yet.. lord knows she couldn't do much while in shackles. Her gaze dropped as she looked to the thick metal band encircling her wrists. The space between them was about a foot.. a foot and a half.. and that was it, which thick links. She couldn't break it even if she tried. Jialing huffed and raised her head again, squitting against the sun. What had happened to Gengoro? To Tseng Wei? To Tsuya? To that long haired boy and the girl?

What would happen to her?

[gandalan]

Hibiki rubbed his sore belly immediately after receiving and finishing his loaf. It wasn't enough- but it never was. He'd grown used to that fact. At least he had a little excess weight he could work off now. He took the band out of his hair, and worked his hands through it for a few moments, trying to get some of the dirt out of it. He was so tired of having it stuck together. His endeavor was mildly successful, and he retied his ponytail, so his hair wasn't all over.

He then realized that he would stare at a cage for hours unless he did something. He was bored enough to do so. He adjusted himself against the cage, moving himself towards the corner at the front of it, pulling his knees up so he could fit between the cage and another prisoner, a bearded man. He turned his head to look about all the prisoners outside. It wasn't as if others hadn't done it. He didn't care at this point. It wasn't like he'd see anybody he knew anyway. Jialing, Jin, and Reed were gone, escaped for sure. They knew what they were doing.

He saw many scenes that were eerily familiar to him. The smoke off in the background was the biggest memory that came back. His town, too, had been a smoldering heap of rubble and ash. His town eventually recovered, though, and was now back in its former place as a farming town. Tachi Dai... who knew?

There were families of people huddled together- for what? Safety? Support more like it. Hibiki had partially forgotten what that felt like. He'd not seen a parent in a long time. Nor either of his best friends. It really made him long for them, but there wasn't much he could do about that. Maybe when the war was over, the Fire Nation would let him go back home-

Had he really given in to that? That the Fire Nation would win? He hadn't heard any news of the Avatar in a long time. Maybe he'd been killed? Or gotten caught like Hibiki had. Hibiki looked down at his filthy feet, hugging his knees. He was depressing himself.

He turned his eyes back outside for a moment, and took one more look. Something clicked in his mind, reminding him of Jia. But he didn't see her. He squinted at the woman in question. Jia? Her clothes were similar, but filthy, and her hair-... well, it hadn't been cut by a barber. But yeah, it was definitely Jia.

He smiled a little. She was looking at him, although not intently. He understood the reasons for that. Didn't want to get in trouble. He hardly blamed her. He sighed, and stretched a little. He was sorry for her that she was here, but happy that a friend was nearby. Something inside him knew that they hadn't abandoned him- they just moved fast and he wasn't ready. He swore then and there that if he ever got free again, he wouldn't be a liability.

Although freedom was looking rather like a longshot at the moment.

The next thing he saw was rather confusing. Two soldiers came towards the mass of people, carrying what looked like a burlap sack with half a body and two legs sticking out of it. It took him a moment to realize that they were carrying a person. People looked for a moment as they dumped her on the ground near Jialing. It was a girl- and she looked even younger than Hibiki. She was unconscious for the moment, and there was a bit of cloth tied tightly over her eyes. A blindfold? Or something else? He had no idea. He was safe to keep looking from his angle at this point- he'd been staring awhile. So he kept watching. It would prove to be better than staring at a cage, anyway.

[set]

“NAH!” was the first little noise, close to a grunt, that escaped the little girl’s mouth when she hit the ground. She had been abruptly yanked out of her dream world once more. Her nerves screamed as the tingles radiated throughout her tiny body; adrenaline rushed through her to awaken her senses. All of the previous pains she felt before unconsciousness struck upon her again, and she was shaking. At the first attempt to lift herself by her trembling forearms, the heel of a guard’s foot shoved her back into the dirt.

As she lay under the weight of the enormous foot, Setsuko tried to recollect what had happened. Everything at first seemed fuzzy, but not at all in a warm or funny way that she enjoyed. It was more of a dizziness that plagued her sense of thought and she couldn’t get rid of it, and it irritated her. Her other senses began to lift out of that foggy feeling. Her delicate and pale skin, still covered in Teiú’s blood, had more cold dirt smear against it. A rapid heartbeat raced in terror with the idea of a man’s foot perhaps being able to crush her if he stomped hard enough onto her back. Her fingers twitched some because the rest of her body was quivering, and her stomach growled irritably. Her head lay sideways, so that her soft and childish face was still seen. However, she was also stained with Teiú’s blood there.

One soldier scoffed down at her. “Was she wearing that blindfold when you caught her?”

“Yeah, actually. She was trying to wake up a dying man when I saw her. One hell of a little dog rodent—kicked me in a struggle to get free when I carried her.” His ankle dug into her back. She let out a small whimper.

“What about the dying man?”

“Didn’t know who he was and didn’t care. He was as good as dead with those wounds.”

Setsuko’s lip trembled at this fact. It drew into a hard frown as the rest of her face grimaced. She appeared as though she was going to burst out in tears, but out of fear, she kept silent.

“Hey, ya little piece of—” His teeth clenched as he pressed his foot harder. She squirmed some instinctively. “Why are you wearing a blindfold? What are you, blind?”

Her head nodded stiffly in response. The other soldier shook his head. “Doubt she’ll be of any use around here. What will they do to her?”

“They’ll do what they do with every useless prisoner. Execute ‘em.” He sneered down at her. “Unless she’s got some excuse to make herself useful around here in some sad attempt to stay alive.”

The girl couldn’t respond. She was too frightened, too afraid of what might happen to her. Perhaps she could save herself by removing her disguise. If they saw that she was truly a citizen of the Fire Nation, they would send her back home, safe and sound. She would be with her mother and father again. She would be with her brother and her friends.

However, removing her blindfold would break Teiú’s promise. She remembered when they came across that unfortunate village, the one abandoned when the soldiers came around. Her innocent eyes beheld what her people did to others as they saw the burn marks and collapsing houses. Those houses once held families like her own. Teiú said that this was what the Fire Nation did, but at first she didn’t believe it, but no one else could produce such flames to cause destruction. Now she was witnessing what they did to the people. She witnessed what they do when they couldn’t see that they were beating up and abusing someone from their own land, who had never committed anything against them. This was her people—her people judged by sight and little knowledge. It frightened her that she perhaps shared the same roots with these horrible savages. True, she was afraid of death, but she was even more afraid of these wretched souls. Maybe that’s why Teiú left his homeland. He didn’t want to be one of them. With his kindness, he could have never done anything like this. If he stayed with the Fire Nation military, he could’ve been the very soldier shoving his foot against her back.

Setsuko began to think about his choices. He was dead now, she thought. There was nothing she could do about it. Now all she thought about was what the Fire Nation had done. Teiú bled because he tried to save her, and he did. He tried to carry her away from the danger, but he didn’t make it too far. His wounds didn’t kill him—the Fire Nation did. They killed her friend by giving him those wounds. They killed her protector. Although she had been naïve before, this fact she knew.

She didn’t want to give in to the killers.

[vu]

Vu clenched his lips tight while a lower officer explained a new arrangement to him. The practicality did not make make his wounds any less painful. Given a choice he would rather have them utilize the space to transport some of the siege engines. Instead, with his six war crawlers destoryed or missing, the available tank-train's cars used to transport the contraptions would now be used to cart additional prisoners. Hauling away the earthbenders was a matter that was already accounted for before the operation began. But with how events of taking the city turned out and incarcerating most of its population, the Fire Nation soldiers were improvising.

Vu's lips tightened further and his eyes beaded at the caged earthbenders now being loaded. Komodo-rhinos plowing their horns between the cage bars and lifted, their riders taking some delight in trying to frighten or nearly skewer the prisoners. The cages were fork-lifted into the rail-less cars that opened from the side, arranged into neat rows to walk between and stacked atop one another as if they were cargo crates. Vu exhaled in defeat at his situation and theirs. Even if he could enjoy the view it would not return his soldiers or his pride. Relenting, Vu bade the officer away, who trotted off with a brisk salute, then trudged to help oversee the prisoners that he so had kindly gave away his seating for.

Before arriving on the scene it was far easy to tell that they did not sound too happy. Until now most of them had remained silent silent, renouncing themselves to their fate. Maybe most of them did it because they were able to cling to what friends and family they could find around them, which was going to be the case no longer. Even in the presence of armed soldiers and firebenders they screamed, pleaded, clawed, bit, tried to fight or clung to the ground as the women and girls were wretched and dragged to the cars. A few simply went limp and were quietly dragged then thrown inside. Fewer still stood on their own feet and walked.

Trying to remain impassive in his features and his clenched jaw starting to ache, Vu tried to remember what the officer explained to him as to why they were separating the nonbending women, the shackles and ropes use to restrain them now being given to the men who would march to Pohaui Stronghold. That the commanding officer considered himself a gentleman and took pity on the fairer gender? That he wanted to break these defiant people further? It was making Vu's sight vacant and far away in attempting to not sympathize with the Tachi Dai citizen's calamity and just observe.

[jialingjin]

Her eyes were narrowed as she watched Hibiki in the cage, looking strangely at home with a quiet peace over him. She had to let the slightest chuckle pass through her lips, one corner turned up into the slightest hint of a smile while her shoulders bopped with the breath. He was watching, looking around.. just like she.. except she was being a little bit more cautious about it. The wind tussled her hair a bit, causing her to squint at the breeze as she looked up to the noise. With her uncaring, half-lidded gaze, Jialing watched as they brought in a body, throwing it on the ground. She saw the legs sticking out, the bare feet that were dirty, covered with mud that was beginning to flake off. The Soldiers, clad in their armor stood around the body talking among themselves. Jialing's eyes lifted as she followed the line of their bodies. From the head to the feet, they were clad in armor. Iron and leather shaped around their heads was enamled with colors.The Non-Benders were obvious. Rounded helments in nutmug were trimmed in silver with leather flaps protecting the back of their head. Their shoulders were covered by thick sheets of leather over the plates, ashen black. Coral red trimmed chestplates colored like wine with long blast-sheild skirts over their thighs. The Benders.. those were the intimidating ones.

Helmets pointed to the sky, ruby enameled flames spreading from the white skull-plates that slid into the metal around their faces. Leather flaps also sheilded their necks, but the entire ensemble was more decorated, with coral trim. The Fire benders too had the shoulder guards, but they wore thicker chest plates, and stronger blast skirts around their legs. They mixed and mingled, talking with eachother but there seemed to be a cautiousness around them. As if they did not want the prisoners to see them relaxing. Perhaps they still feared the power of the rage of Tachi Dai, what was under the ground now. Did they know how far the coal mines stretched? She didn't know.

They stood around the body, talking. One of them put his foot on the person's back. Jialing couldn't see her.. couldn't tell that she was blindfolded or that she was a young woman, really almost a child. They growled at her, something about blindness.. and then said she was useless. A noise distracted her. Another pair were starting to gather up those that were sitting freely. Those outside of the cages with shackles or ropes on their hand. They were walking down the line, grabbing the women by their long hair and ripping them up to their feet. Some started sobbing, screaming. A few were dragged back to the trains.. some walked quietly. They were coming near her.. Jialing was a non-bender. She turned her head towards them as they neared, pressing her lips together into a impassive line. She put her hands on her knees, feeling the skin through the hole in the one and pushed herself up. Wiggling her toes inside her boots, she rolled her head towards the soldiers approaching.. they still hadn't gotten to her yet. She was planning on walking.. on not being dragged, and her hands curled into fists under the cool metal of her shackles. Her head turned back to the soldiers that she could see clearly, still lording over the little body under the burlap sheet.

A smug sort of smile tugged at her lips and the Earth Kingdom woman with the shorn hair took a step forward. The shackles at her feet jingled around her boots as she took a lazy step forward, then another towards them. "Hey!" She called out, raising her chin cockily as she let her smile spread across her face. Her eyes rolled back into her head, allowing her to look down her nose at them while she tilted her head to the side. The ragged bangs, all that were left of her previously long, crimped strands, fell into her eyes and against her brow. "Why don't you leave the cripple alone, boys? Or don't you feel you couldn't take one of the best of good ol' Tachi Dai?" She grinned, lowered her head now as she flexed her fingers under the shackles. Oh she was going to get a beat down for this.. she knew it. Her heart was going triple it's normal speed in her chest and she could feel the heat rising in her face.

[set]

One man stiffly turned his head to the woman. A piercing glare was shot at her through his narrowing eyes. He lifted his foot from the small body. Setsuko relaxed a bit at the relief of the weight against her back. The other soldier scoffed and stepped forward. His hand struck across the woman’s face. “Keep talking, and you’ll be the cripple one.”

“Hey!” a voice shouted. A stout man was off at some distance. He also shared a uniform colored with various shades of red. “Get moving! We need those non-benders in the rail cars and those shackles for better use!”

The soldier nearest Setsuko grunted. He bent down, snatched the burlap, and picked up the body effortlessly and stood it on its feet. She stumbled some, and her legs trembled from the sudden weight put upon them. “Move!” he spat, shoving her forward. The poor girl staggered. She whimpered and walked shakily. Each step was slow and hesitant. The other soldier near the Earth Kingdom woman and forced her forward as well, pushing her in the same direction as the small Fire Nation girl in disguise.

Little Setsuko quivered from fear, lack of nutrition, chills, and harassment. Her innocent mind had become traumatized of the events from the past…how long has it been? Days? Weeks? She did not know. Due to the fact that she couldn’t even see, she wasn’t even aware of most of the people around her. With her lack of sight, her other senses felt heightened. She sharpened her hearing a bit and relied heavily on her sense of touch. Her sense of smell was fogged with the stench of dirt, blood, and burning. A buzz of adrenaline made her head numb, and the rush of it made her dizzy. Her bruised feet were throbbing along with her head and her quickened heartbeat. The ground felt hard, and the air was still uncomfortably humid.

Soon, they were near the rail cars. Harshly, the soldier shoving around the woman with shorn hair took off her shackles. He pushed her into the rail car. The small girl was nearly thrown in after at the grab of her shoulder.

[gandalan]

Hibiki still watched Jialing and the girl rather intently. It was a strange thing, happening. The men were talking amongst themselves, the firebenders and their soldiers. Hibiki looked sidelong at the 3 other men in his cell with him, as they were all gesturing to one another. He really hoped they didn't do anything stupid- he didn't want to share in any punishments they incurred. He didn't like this imprisonment, or (what was more likely) the slave labor to come, but this wasn't the time to be conspiring for escape. Better chances for that lie ahead.

He looked back to Jialing and Setsuko, not caring anymore about the Fire Nation seeing him or not. Everybody was getting restless as the soldiers talked- they suddenly dispersed, and began gathering up the women, throwing them in the train cars. Hibiki winced. They weren't being very gentle. He looked worriedly back to Jialing, as the poor girl squirmed under the boot of a soldier. He saw that Jialing said something, but couldn't hear much over the screams of the women from this far off. Then the soldier struck her- he winced, even this far off, knowing it must have hurt.

He had intended to keep watching them, worried for Jialing's safety at least, and concerned about the girl's as well. She looked so young. However, this was all interrupted when yelps from the next cage over were heard. Further down the line of cages, rhinos were sticking their horns into the cages, through the bars, and lifting them up onto the trains. People were nearly getting speared! He shivered, his eyes gone wide.

He heard the booming of another bunch of footsteps- rhinos were coming his way. He shivered, seeing the eyes of the soldiers looking down at him. You can't be serious. It wouldn't-... Oh Spirits, protect me!-

The rhino shoved it's horn in directly at him, and only his scampering footsteps saved him. He stared wide eyed up at the rhino- just the horn was enormous! He could smell its terrible breath, and heard it's guttural groaning, as well as the cackling of the soldier. He shivered as two more rhinos assisted the first, and they were placed into a rail car. The cage jostled this way and that, and he was hard pressed to stop himself from slamming into the bars on more than one occasion. Finally settled in the rail car, he gripped the bars, staring out for Jialing, or the girl- he thought he saw them being herded into a rail car, but he couldn't be sure. He sighed, and sat down cross-legged again, reclining. He may as well- there wasn't going to be much else to do. Soon, they'd be off to- wherever.

So. What was it going to be this time, he wondered? Mining? Landscaping? Clearing rubble somewhere? Or just toss him in a cell and let him rot? He wondered why this always seemed to happen, why the Fire Nation did this at all. He watched as the last few women were led away. All the men were still outside, being bound up in ropes, or shackled- they didn't look particularly cooperative, and who could blame them? The Fire Nation troops had done everything possible to cause the people to struggle, hate them. And that too- of all things to do, why do that? Surely they had more to gain by gaining the people's willing submission? Hibiki couldn't understand why they were made to suffer to much. It wasn't enough that they were conquered, humiliated and imprisoned- they had to be enslaved, separated from loved ones. It was so wrong.

He pulled his arms around himself to try to stay warm as he lay down to sleep. He hoped his dreams would be kind to him.

[vu]

Vu's shoulder lower in relief as cars were being closed shut. The people of the now former Tachi Dai may have been seemingly pacified but they were not wholly docile while they were separated and loaded. More than one moment he had feared a small riot would erupt among the war prisoners.

Blessedly, it did not come to pass.

Vu waited until someone stood before him with a suit, relieving him of his current duty, then trotted to the lead train car to report in.

Though, there was always the chance it could happen among the Tachi Dai men once the overland train departed. But those men were heavily outnumbered and would tomorrow be marching side-by-side with the main force of their army that was invading the city. Vu and other soldiers like him traveling with their injured, the earthbenders and the women however would be outnumbered. But they can be assumed as not a threat, locked inside cages or stuff in cramped quarters for the next few days.

In time, the steely screech of a whistle cut across the air and everyone's eardrums, signaling the contraption's departure and that anyone near it should move aside for their own safety.

[jialingjin]

She braced herself for the smack, gritting her teeth and pressing her lips together as the soliders neared her. Her shoulders tensed up, her body became rigid and his hand met heavily with her cheek. Her head whipped to the side as the sharp crack rang out from her skin. Already red and heat was beginning to spread across her face. It nearly knocked her down, forcing her to catch herself as she rocked to the side with a outstretched foot, straining the shackles between her feet. They sneered at her, leering over her as he raised his hand again to back hand her. Fully expecting another smack, it was halted by a shout ordering them to finish loading up the others. She lifted her head slowly, roughly cut bangs dangling in her eyes as she looked up to the soldier lower his head. Yet she did not breath out just yet. She felt a hand grab her shoulder, shoving her forward and straighteneing her back to talk her past the girl on the ground. Complying she stumbled forward, her muddy eyes angled downward towards the young girl on the ground. As she passed her, it clicked within Jia's head.. this was the girl that was with the long haired guy and the cloak. She almost snorted in amusement.

Spirits love us.. It seems they were all ending up here. She wanted to chortle as she lifted her head, suddenly feeling a rush even through her face was throbbing. The young rebel lifted her head up and walked briskly with the hand at her back guiding her. They were loading them all up into rail cars. What for? Transport to the colonies? She remembered Hibiki talking about the mines that his town had and how they all worked for them. They were more likely to go to a labor camp.. not a similiar town situation. Already the gears in her head were turning, even as she trudged up the ramp into the rail car. They spun her around at the very top, her back towards the other women loaded up and jerked her arms out. The shackles clanked and rang as they shoved a key in them, unlocking them. Breifly entertaining running for her life, Jialing kept a snarky sort of sour grin on her face despite the throbbing and swollen mound of flesh that was her cheek. It would be suicidal though to run now. So instead, the Soldier, as he stood up having unhooked the iron around her ankles, was treated to a lovely loogie that was spat from her lips at his face. Oh they were going to have hell from her. He growled, and swung the iron chains at her, the heavy weights striking against her shoulder, the side of her head and her chest as he yelled at her to get back.

Bruises would light up in a few hours, but it was worth it.

[set]

All she heard were voices. They blended together, and several were heard in the distance. Some cried in sorrow, shouted in fury, yelled in frustration, sobbed for mercy, and wailed in agony. They came from both the soldiers and the prisoners. They came from the torturers and the tortured.

In her life, Setsuko was taught to respect the soldiers because they protected her country. Her mother and father had explained to her before that there was a war going on, but they never explained in detail what was happening. Setsuko always assumed that it was just a conflict that was going to be resolved soon enough. As long as it did not involve her, she took no mind in what truly happened in the outside world. She was completely satisfied being a fisherman’s daughter, who lived peacefully near the harbor. None of the war had set foot near her homeland.

Now it is different. She was thrust into the midst of the war by a mere twist of fate. Now she knew what was really happening, and it traumatized her innocent mind at how horrible and violent the turn of events have become. Hearing the voices of suffering, her imagination gave her a visual of faces twisted in pain. The misery of their sounds influenced her, and soon her small voice joined them in weak whimpers. Blindly, she had crawled to the wall of the rail car, feeling the rough metal against her delicate hands. Her limbs throbbed sorely; they did not endure the shock of abuse well. Against the wall, she curled into a ball and felt her chest and head pound in fearful anxiety. Her blindfold was dampened by tears. She wanted the pain to stop.

She could easily escape. Perhaps the color of her eyes could save her.

Fear struck her again. She reminded herself that these soldiers were the villains now. They were heroes when she was young, but they were demons to her. Their harassment served as temptation to give into them. They are evil, she thought. They were just like the evil things and creatures in stories she used to hear some years ago. In those tales, the true protagonists sought to destroy the bad and not give up. She felt like one of them. She did not want to give up. Unveiling her identity would be surrendering.

Her thoughts wandered again as she tried to ignore the agony blurting about. She zeroed in on the first thing that popped into her throbbing head. She almost perked at the name- Teiú. A hard frown drew across her lips. Perhaps he did not survive. From the last she saw of him, he barely seemed alive. He was just like one of those heroes in her bedtime stories- he fought against the evil ones.

She curled tighter in her ball, almost appearing to shrink in size. Setsuko wanted to believe he was still alive. She wanted him to miraculously come to her rescue, and she prayed he would succeed. All she needed to do was be brave and hope there was a way out of this chaos. Perhaps she was amongst the few prisoners who held a light of hope, but only because she still held onto the shattered fragments of her innocent mind.

[gandalan]

The door to his rail-car was closed, and Hibiki heard, in the distance somewhere, a whistle. It's start off soon then. The iron of the cage felt rather cool as he lay against it, but that was okay. The sun beating down on them outside made it feel nice for the coolness of the iron to touch his skin. It was the closest thing to a caress he'd had in so long. His mother... was still back in the village? He'd have to assume that. His memories came back to him slowly, one at a time. Allowing him to soak them up before the next splashed over his inert mind and body.

His two best friends- Arai, Rin. Rin was probably still back working the farm that Hibiki had been forced to leave behind. Arai was probably still working in the mine. Probably. He hated not knowing. Suddenly, being in THIS cage, with THESE people, he wished he'd never been broken out at all. He'd experienced just a little kindness, just a little freedom, only to have it snatched away again. It felt terrible.

Was it better to have never known it, rather than to be teased with it? Freedom? He now knew nothing of his two best friends, and might never see them again. Instead, he'd be here with people he didn't know, and he'd be all alone...

That wasn't true. There was Jia... at least he'd have her. If she even wanted to talk to him anymore. She probably didn't. He was used to captivity, but finally, his memories washing over him, he remembered the Fire Nation's orders: If anybody tried to escape, their loved ones would be killed. Was his mother alive? Would they have killed Rin and Arai? He shivered, and tried to push the thoughts from his mind, but they persisted.

He suddenly felt the weight of all of his memories pressing down on him. He'd lost his village, his former life, his father, his mother, Rin, Arai, everything he'd ever known! And for this! To be captured and put in a cage, to be a slave again.

Angry tears fell down his face, as he silently began to cry. If he ever got out of here, he vowed, he'd make his own destiny. He would help the rebels this time, not be a useless tagalong. He'd do something to help them, and then help his village. He was tired of being gypped by fate. He was going to find his own way.

He stopped, wiping his tears off on his sleeve, and went to sleep. He'd need his strength.

[vu]

“And now?” Vu’s injured subordinate cracked the metallic silence as they trudged down the empty train car, traveling through one after another on their way to one being employed as a makeshift field hospital, Vu’s own arm under the man’s shoulder to lift support from the broken leg.

“The prisoners?” Vu replied as he was slowly rolling out of the lull provided by the tank-train. The rock and rattle of this overland contraption as it traveled out of the valley felt little different from the roll and pitch inside an ironclad on the open sea.

“Not them! Sir.” Almost hissing and his face contorting in disgust.

Vu sighed without opening his mouth. “Too soon the tell for certain. I want that they give us… replacements,” he said quietly; feeling unclean saying it, as if his losses could be replaced with the same emotion as replacing machine parts. “And hopefully, still allow us some modicum of autonomy they already gave us. Otherwise…”

“They slip us back in with the regulars?”

Vu nodded. “Maybe, at worst, splitting us apart with they do.”

The two men’s footfalls and countenance grew quiet as they continued on. The injured soldier huffed in frustration. “They deserve what they’ll git!”

[Vu has left ze thread]