Something hard and implacable pulled Yaosen from the waves by his collar. The hand around his gi dragged him too quickly for him to get his feet under him though, and he was eventually hauled out and tossed onto the sand on hands and knees.

Every inhalation made his lungs burn, and every exhalation made him cough up water until he vomited. As soon as his lungs – and stomach – were empty, he looked up to see a man standing over him, blocking the sun.

“Hmph,” was the only thing the man said before striding back into the waves.

Yaosen crawled further up the beach to catch his breath and watch the man plow back through the breakers then plunge into the depths to collect something else.

The man reemerged grunting and sputtering, barely able to keep his chin above the water for a dozen or so steps before finally getting back to where he could walk the shallows. By then he was merely panting, and when Yaosen spied the man’s cargo, it was clear why; the man was hauling an entire trunk from the waves. The way water poured from the cracks as the man got it ashore, Yaosen figured he was hauling as much seawater out of the sea as anything else.

When the man paused long enough to look up at Yaosen, and saw him still sitting on the beach, his only reaction was another “hmph.”

“Why don’t you just leave it?” Yaosen said. What’s the point, was the undercurrent to the question.

The man didn’t dignify the question with so much as a “hmph.”

When he opened the chest and began setting the pieces of what was inside out on a torn bit of cloth to dry, Yaosen realized why the man couldn’t just leave it.

Meteorite armor.

Yaosen thought there was something familiar about the man. More specifically, there was something familiar about the sword the man carried.

“You’re the Meteor Knight from the trial, the one who was going to execute me. Torun Bo.”

“Hmph.”

“What would the Fire Lord’s personal bodyguard be doing on a ship to the Farwilds?”

The man finished laying out his armor, then pulled something else from the chest and flung it at Yaosen.

Yaosen caught the scroll against his body

It bore the seal of the Fire Lord.

Yaosen unrolled it, careful not to tear the wet velum.

Official Orders from Fire Lord Ozu to Torun Bo, First Sword of the Meteor Knights:

Torun Bo of the Meteor Knights is hereby charged with protecting the Fire Nation’s interests in the new continents of the Farwilds at all costs. As such, he will protect the Fire Lord’s emissary Yaosen of the Light Temple, until the emissary finds the avatar or perishes in the attempt, or Torun Bo perishes in the attempt to fulfill these orders.

Yaosen turned the scroll over, in case it continued on the back side. It didn’t. This was it.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

He let out a long breath, feeling bitter, but somehow, at the same time, fortunate. Important people – a Fire Lord and a Light Temple master among them – had talked for hours in order to decide Yaosen’s fate. But this Torun Bo got nothing more than a scroll. Two sentences had decided his fate, without so much as a “thank you,” or a “spirits protect you.”

“Fire,” said the gruff voice.

“What?” said Yaosen, looking up from the scroll.

“Fire,” said Torun Bo, arms laden with salvage pulled from the waves, “I assume you know how to make one.”

“Um, yes, but-”

“Hmph.”

Yaosen couldn’t help but sense that there was an extra note of derision in that particular grunt.

Torun hadn’t said why they needed a fire, or where to make it, or what to use as fuel. So Yaosen’s best guesses were, respectively, “because it gets cold at night,” “somewhere you’d want to sleep,” and “wood,” since there would be no coal just lying around for them to use.

Well it seemed like they had a while yet before the sun would set, and by the look of the pines just beyond the beach, finding wood wouldn’t be a problem, so Yaosen set out to find somewhere he’d want to sleep.

“Want” was a strong word for it, because he was essentially choosing between this windblown patch of sand or that windblown patch of sand. When his shoulder started throbbing where the metalbender had impaled him, Yaosen decided this patch was as good as any.

He picked up the nearest fallen branches and stacked them in a jumble, only to find out that he did not, in fact, know how to make a fire.

Oh he could make fire, alright; all it took was a flick of his wrist, the simplest of firebending forms that he had learned how to do when he was little more than a child. The problem was making a fire. No matter what he did, he could not get the fallen branches to light. His first attempt produced absolutely nothing except more strain on his energy and confidence.

His second attempt – where he had gotten to his feet and produced a full series of master firebending techniques – produced nothing more than smoldering bark in the wake of his inferno.

Finally, on his third attempt, he produced such a sustained blast of flame upon the three pitiful branches that he finally got one to ignite and burn on its own power.

The problem was, that only one of the three caught, and by the time Torun found him night had fallen, the temperature had dropped, and the pitiful little log had burned out.

Torun just looked at Yaosen accusingly.

“Well I had it, just…”

“Hmph.”

Torun threw down the waterskins he had collected, and apparently filled up from some nearby spring. He began using a side knife to hack off parts of the log.

Yaosen was astounded to see how much dirt and grime and rotted wood came off with the bark. And as the unfavorable pieces of wood fell away, Yoasen began to see how deep the moisture had soaked into the fibers of the fallen wood.

Torun looked up for a moment, facing the breeze, and began using the knife to dig out a pit, banking the edges against the wind.

Then Torun – very precisely – stacked the remaining two logs he had prepared in the pit so that they leaned up against one another, touching the ground minimally.

He stepped back and gestured to the logs.

With a frustrated gesture, Yaosen flicked a wrist and ignited the logs. To his surprise, they caught immediately, and in moments both the cold and dark were chased away. Torun arranged his sword, armor, and some other bits of salvage around the fire to dry, then seeing Yaosen doing nothing but sitting there again, he nodded toward the treeline.

Yaosen groaned, but set about collecting more wood.

***

There was no food that night, but there was water. And though Yaosen held out as long as he could, for the sake of his pride, he eventually reached for one of the waterskins Torun had filled up. He thought Torun noticed, but thankfully, the old Meteor Knight spared Yaosen his looks and his grunts.

Torun had prepared the dozen or so logs Yaosen had collected in much the same way. But when a passing breeze made Yaosen shiver and he reached for another log to add to the fire, Torun stared daggers at him.

Yaosen replaced the log and sullenly tucked his arms into his once-pristine white gi. At some point he fell into a fitful, uncomfortable sleep.