Several days on the ship exhausted my very resilient body more than travelling across half the continent on my own. The situation was so deadlocked that, perhaps without realising it, I gave Kioshi's warriors food for thought about the possibility of peace among all our peoples. Namely, its impossibility. Being even more isolated than before, at sea, and with the enemy on board, it was difficult to expect anything good or even the absence of conflict. What was happening on board showed me the stratification of society and the possible reaction of ordinary people to the need to live side by side with a former enemy. What happens when a stronger people is placed in the same territory as a weaker one? Subjugation inevitably begins, followed by bullying and attempts to establish a hierarchy in order to feel superior. And what if the weaker people begin to feel superior to the stronger ones?
"What, did you just look at my wife?" Passing by a young man wrapped in rags, who was dragging a box of tools to repair yet another breakdown, a man pushed a nameless soldier of the Fire Nation and made him hit the iron floor. The woman standing behind the bearded man just smiled at the grimacing soldier and nodded approvingly at her beloved. "I'll knock all your teeth out if you keep staring at her.
"I was just looking to make sure I didn't bump into anyone," said the fallen man, whose tools were scattered across the deck, clenching his fists with all his might, struggling to endure the situation. But the Kioshi Warriors around them kept a close watch on every soldier and were ready to rush in to stop the fight. But now... they all just stood aside and watched.
"You have no right to talk to me! "With his leg raised, driven by an inexplicable desire to hurt the guy, he didn't notice how the soldier's fist began to rise from the ground, releasing a couple of sparks... but before the irreparable happened, the limbs of the combatants suddenly turned into sand, squeezing the weak flesh hard enough to make any thoughts of resistance disappear. Lifting their heads, they focused on me towering above them. "M-Mr. Dagoth! It's good you came. Punish this... bastard."
"M-m..." moaned the soldier in fear, lowering his gaze as quickly as he had looked at me.
"Stop this quarrel at once," the chilling tone wiped the smile off the bearded man's face and that of his wife. "This was aggression for no reason, a simple desire to take revenge. You should behave more maturely.
"But he's a damn fire soldier who has killed many people!" shouted the woman, her face contorted, clinging to her husband's shoulders, and bold enough to shout while he was such a convenient and living shield. "Let go of my husband, you're hurting him! Whose side are you on anyway?
"Your animal behaviour is undermining our chances of reaching Omasu. A ship this big needs constant maintenance, and you go and start a fight with the crew for no reason. Do you want to go and dig coal with your bare hands to fuel the engine instead of the soldiers who had several teeth knocked out? I'll make that happen right now," the woman's eyes nearly popped out of her head, but my chilling voice silenced her. I let the man go, watched closely to make sure they left and couldn't bother anyone else, and then focused on the soldier. "You could have just signed your own death warrant. Fire magic is forbidden.
"...Yes, sir," he replied dejectedly through clenched teeth.
Controlling all this was terribly difficult. With each passing day, the fire soldiers realised more and more that they were being sent to a place from which they might not return alive. Some believed that it was worth taking at least one life before they took their own. Many still retained their willpower and did not condemn themselves to a life as mummies, but how long could this continue? Conflicts had to be resolved at the root, and preferably not by me alone.
"I have gathered you here to explain our situation to your young minds, which are clouded by a distorted sense of justice," I said, standing in a large iron room next to Suyuki, who was silently crying into a rag, as I stared intently at the rows of thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls. The problem I saw was precisely their age — it is too difficult to make serious, well-thought-out decisions that are not based on emotions at such a young age, when hormones are raging, brains occasionally go haywire, and other people suffer. "You have been taught all your lives that evil, personified by gangsters, murderers and other marginalised people, conveniently embodied by soldiers of fire. In your worldview, they deserve punishment and retribution. But among you there are representatives who shift the responsibility for punishment onto other people who are not ready to face the consequences of their actions... All those who witnessed today's incident on the deck, take a step forward.
The girls exchanged uncomfortable glances, and several ladies stepped forward. Their eyes darted from side to side, then fixed on my face as if challenging me. Already understanding the situation, Suyuki covered her face with her hand, feeling incredibly ashamed of these people's behaviour.
"Suyuki has something to say to you.
"All of you, not just those who stepped forward, must understand one thing," she said in a harsher tone, taking advantage of the opportunity to raise herself in the eyes of her subordinates by using new methods of command. Her hands, which only I could see behind her back, were trembling with excitement and a little anger." "You can't uphold justice by choosing one enemy. Fire soldiers are entitled to protection as soon as they become personal workers and potentially useful allies. This means that you must protect not only civilians from soldiers, but also soldiers from civilians - only then will you be able to understand the philosophy you are studying.
"They are not allies, they are slaves!" one of her friends said, rejecting the Captain's words. There was also one problem with that: Kioshi's warriors were not an army, but a group of mercenaries, so to speak, who had every right to express their dissatisfaction." "I agree that the argument should have been stopped. Those girls made a mistake, but the soldiers deserved it. It's no coincidence that there was so much dynamite on the ship. They planned to use it all against us!
"Violence gives both sides free rein! You may not forgive these people, but if you don't control the situation, or if you continue to blame the people, a fire will start that Dagoth will have to put out, and he's already suffered enough because of you," the young girls' counterarguments stuck in their throats. "I can hardly stand these soldiers either, and every time I want to throw them overboard, but I don't forget Kiyoshi's main principle: calmness.
The further conversation only reinforced Suyuki's arguments and allowed her to hammer home the concept of law into the young minds. Yes, we are not in a state, but sooner or later everyone will have to abide by such rules. But for now, it was nice to even reduce the number of conflicts per square metre. And yet, remembering Afka's words that I was responsible for every life and had to prevent the most obvious deaths, I still had to think in advance about what to do with the soldiers. The question turned out to be so important and apparently influential on the fate of my life that even Anubis rose from his deep slumber.
"Choose: 1 - Ship of Two Nations (Unite two irreconcilable peoples to set a precedent. The peaceful inhabitants will defend the soldiers before the King
Boomi, and you will begin to lay the foundations of friendship between the peoples) 2 -
Elemental of Fear (You have frightened the people of fire enough to be hunted. Continue to spread the most terrifying tales about yourself, surround yourself with the aura of the most powerful mage on Earth, so that the Master of Fire himself will recognise you as his equal)3 - Heir to Two Heroes (
Kyoshi was a person who could bring the King himself to his knees. Chin was powerful enough to conquer the entire continent. The heir to these people must be able to subdue the dissidents by force - set your terms before the kings and make them all obey).
Each of the choices provided was based on actions I had already taken. Peace and friendship - after reading lectures about how everyone is one; horror after forcing the people of fire to see my shipment with the ghost ship and the crew of mercilessly dried people with a degraded chi system; and heir, as is understandable, after I wished to study the abilities of past heroes evenly and began trying to combine their styles into a single system. But the answer was already clear — I would never have made the people of fire fear me so much if I wanted to start peace talks with them, and conversely, I did not believe that Oza should be my equal. These are the actions of a man ready for half-measures — with a clear mind and the ability to calculate fairly competent moves in advance, I understood that a single conflict that arose on our ship could arise in any of the cities, except that the two nations would have leaders like Oza and the Earth King who would be capable of escalating them. How could they be reconciled if they suddenly decided to start a conflict?
With friendship and chewing gum, which literally means that I would have to sit and learn diplomacy, or with fear, which means that one side would consider itself humiliated? Of course, since Anubis showed these options, they must be worth something, but I've already made up my mind. There were people in this world whose experience I wanted to draw on, so I'll just copy them.
You could say that this is the path of the Avatar, but as a member of the Lotus, I spread a different ideology, and thanks to my connections, I was able to get some support. In other words, I am more effective than the Avatar only because of my connections at every level of society and in every nation. Aang has a different role to play — as a bridge between spirits and humans. He has no reason to get involved in human conflicts.
Yes, I have lofty thoughts after strengthening my willpower. I feel ready to rush into fire and water to resolve the issue at hand, rather than stand on the sidelines and watch, as everyone else did, including the Lotus. The problem is that I've been thinking about making Omasu the city that can unite different peoples. It's already technologically advanced, has many smithies and other good things, which means there's no need to spend money on infrastructure. The available fire soldiers could show how to modernise the city, but would Bumi accept it? Or would I have to enter into conflict with my first king?
I would like to avoid that, but how can I show Bumi that I'm cool and not to mess with me? This old man will just start a fight with me for fun, and I can hardly predict the outcome. No, I had to show my authority as a member of the Lotus and their hero. Coming up with a quick plan, I invited Suyuki to my cabin, which was filled with books and useful maps.
"I'd like to ask you something important.
"Of course!" she listened attentively.
"Keep an eye on the soldiers yourself, I want to concentrate on Kio's fighting style and something else. With so much material around me, I can't help but try to master it," she became wary, because until now, I had been responsible for making all the decisions.
"If you trust me, I'll do my best not to let you down, but..." Suyuki looked around in confusion. "What kind of material are you talking about?"
Smiling quietly, I looked at the small steel coin that had been lying on the table between us all this time and held out my hand to her. Putting all my strength and concentration into it, feeling the echoes of the earth that had not been cleaned off during minting, I moved it a couple of pitiful millimetres under Suyuki's shocked gaze. Yes, feeling the impact of the metal core on myself at first, and then spending several days on the iron blank, I couldn't help but remember that, by the way, it was high time to master an additional branch of earth magic. If only to show off in front of Bumi.
=