Chapter 6: Chapter 6

Life as a prisoner of war wasn’t too bad…if you were captured by the 11th Regiment, anyway. Colonel Lidai was known for his honorable conduct, and his hospitality was nothing to complain about. It was only after the prisoners had been handed over to other Fire Nation forces that most of the escapees who returned to tell the tale began their complaints.

And things got better when the brat joined the regiment. General Yama was lucky enough to be captured during the last few years of Lidai’s command. The old warrior was as every bit a gentleman and a stark contrast to many of his younger and brash peers, it almost felt at times that the imprisonment was more like a forced vacation away from Ba Sing Se politics. 

They ate the same food as the Fire Nation soldiers, their prisoner’s tents were spacious with decent bedding, there was no torture and interrogation, and Lidai rarely had the prisoners bound too tightly. Even as the regiment’s conditions deteriorated from attrition, the old man did not compromise on his treatment of prisoners.

Much as Yama loathed to admit it, the boy also made confined life more tolerable. Whether they liked it or not, the boy often ate with them (initially to prove that the food was not compromised in any way) and always asked if they had any needs (other than freedom) that their captors could attend to. He helped write and then pass along messages back home, made sure their pot of tea was never empty, and served as the friendlier face for the newer prisoners to get accustomed to.

The other imprisoned officers warmed up to Xing quickly, seeing in the brat their own children. Many half-seriously offered the brat a place in their household should he ever surrender to them in the future.

It took Yama a bit longer to tolerate his presence though; The sting to his pride took a long while to fade. But as prisoners came and went, the Earth Kingdom general soon became the longest staying guest of the 11th Regiment and eventually got accustomed to the boy.

Politics kept his name from being requested during prisoner exchanges, and stubborn pride kept him from accepting Lidai and Xing’s offer to be sent back home. The pissant strategists back home clearly sought to kill two birds with one stone by leaving him to the mercies of the Fire Nation; they’d quietly celebrate his demise, and at the same make a martyr out of him to drum up more support.

Fortunately for the stocky general, the old man and his annoying apprentice were happy to keep their prisoners hale. Little wonder then that few Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe captives thought of escaping, and none who had stayed for longer than a month had actually bothered trying.

Speaking of annoying, a knock came to the wooden door to the prisoner’s barracks.

“General Yama? Elder Kilin?”

Yama huffed as he turned away from the board before him to shout at the closed door. “Go away, brat, I’m in the middle of beating this water hag’s ass!”

His opponent cheerily called out right after him. “Come in, lad. You’re just in time to watch rock-for-brains get buried. Again.”

As Yama grumbled, the brat stepped in with a respectful bow before walking over to the Pai Sho board. “Not a word, brat,” the general preemptively said as he felt the boy’s judging gaze.

“But you-”

“Shut it,” Yama interrupted, and stared back at the board, just in time to see Kilin place a dragon tile to effectively capture Yama’s flower tiles. And just like that, an encirclement was created that counted down the general’s remaining moves.

Another sharp glance warned the brat to stay silent, and Yama stared hard at the board. And he stared some more before finally sighing heavily. “Stupid Southern River rules…”

The wrinkled waterbender smirked, folding her arms smugly. “It was your idea to play it. Not my fault you’re as bad at it as you are with the Garden Cage variant, or the Silver Diamond one…or practically any form of Pai Sho.”

Harrumphing, Yama rose up and turned to the boy. “So, what are you here for, brat?”

The boy gave an amused smile. “You could’ve won just now in two moves, you know that, right?” He reached down to pick up a blue lotus and a jasmine, and placed both tiles to decisively seize Kilin’s territory.

“Fucking…” Yama breathed out half-heartedly. Stupid kid showed him up again.

“Anyway, I’m here for the healing?”

Any remaining bluster left Yama as he remembered what Xing had been through. Relaxing the sudden clenching of his fist, the general gave a nod and headed out. “I’ll be in the yard.” 

He didn’t want to see the results of his defiance. 

Leaving the waterbender to her repairs, the general found himself sulking as he always did when he recalled the utterly horrific events back then. He tried to channel the emotions through his earthbending, ignoring the other prisoners and the guards of the 11th that stood guard outside the newly built internment facility not too far from the Fire Nation’s capital.

They paid him no mind as he stomped on the ground to will up a column of earth. A downwards chop with one hand split the column in two, and Yama began using one half to batter at the other. The quick destruction of the crumbling earth columns was only a little satisfying. Imagining the fucker Shiluo’s punchable face ate at his nerves.

As ever, the thought of that brainless fool inevitably brought Yama’s thoughts back to that night. As the sole Earth Kingdom general, he’d been tied to a post and threatened with torture. Shiluo didn’t care that Yama had been stuck with the 11th for four years already, and that any information he had was clearly going to be out of date at best. Stupid prick was clearly wanting to flex his impotent authority.

Yama only offered curses, of course. The dickless general was about to call for the first of his soldiers to ‘practice’ their firebending on him when Xing desperately tried to put a stop to it.

“He won’t have anything useful!” the boy desperately cried out. “And he’s a valuable prisoner!” 

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Yama remembered the fucker’s sneer right as he callously backhanded Xing. “Enough! I’ve had it with your insolent disruption.” The veterans of the 11th twitched and made to move, but they were badly outnumbered by the fresh reinforcements Shiluo had brought with him.

Xing still tried to protest, but that only riled the feckless general to a breaking point. “I said enough, you petulant child. You. Tie him to the other post, that one.” Yama realized too late that that was the point; the boy had purposely redirected the general’s wrath.

Chaos erupted in the camp as Captain Kai, Lieutenant Ren and the others protested and tried to reach Xing, but the conflicted newcomers were ultimately obedient to Shiluo’s orders. “Back away, you louts! Clearly discipline needs to be reintroduced in this regiment.” The way he sniffed after that was just asking for a stone spike through the face. “I’ll see to the rest of you after my victory.”

Yama remembered the boy’s stony features as he was tied to the post. Shiluo had one of his bodyguards bring out a standard military flogger.

“The boy wants to be part of the army, I’ll treat him like he’s in the army. Forty lashes, Budo.”

The veterans of the 11th cried out and fought harder, and Kilin and the other prisoners were screaming down curses as well. Kai and Ren were actually held back from firebending against their fellows. Some of the others interrupted from drawing their daggers.

Yama felt sick at seeing the boy accept his fate. To his eternal shame, Yama only kept silent as he watched the brute of a bodyguard unfurl the whip to begin the lashes.

The first wet crack of hide on flesh drowned out all other noises. Xing grimaced, but didn’t give voice to his pain. Ren broke through right as the second lash landed, but Shiluo’s bodyguards tackled her to the ground.

Yama saw Xing going pale as blood began to drip onto the ground below him. He was shuddering from the pain, closed eyes and bruised cheeks wet with tears. His legs gave way by the eight lash, leaving him almost dangling from the post. But even as the twelfth lash tore into his back, the boy fought to deny Shiluo the satisfaction of so much as a groan.

Only the loud appearance of Colonel Dao and his fully armed retinue stopped the thirteenth strike. “What is going on here!” the large man exclaimed more than asked, his broadsword already in hand as he glared at Shiluo.

True to his spineless nature, the dickless coward actually wilted at the belligerence from a lower ranking commander. “I-I was j-just about to interrogate the prisoner, col-colonel. But the b-boy… The boy-”

“Shut it.” Dao was fuming, and as much as Yama disliked the lummox, he was glad to see the Fire Nation commander’s wrath unleashed. “Let them go. Now!”

“But the p-prisoner…”

“The prisoner the Fire Lord charged the 11th to keep?” Dao roared back, and Shiluo paled and shrinked back further. “The prisoner whose good health was royally decreed a strategic necessity? The prisoner you were about to fucking harm? What of it?”

The farce of a general let out a whimper of an order, and Yama was untied and sent back to join the other glowering prisoners. He glanced back just in time to see Lieutenant Ren running to a bloody pile that was Xing, wailing his name.

Dao’s men dispersed the regiment, and Yama didn’t know what happened after, save that there was a lot of shouting outside and the colonel of the 4th Regiment entered the prisoner’s tent with Xing in his arms, immediately turning his gaze to the Water Tribe prisoners. It was the only time Yama had heard the boisterous warlord whisper. “Waterbenders, can I leave him in your care?”

It took Kilin and two other waterbender healers the whole night to keep the boy from expiring. Yama would forever remember the boy’s shredded back, ruined to the point where his spine and the back of his ribs could be seen poking out at places. That Xing awoke the next morning was a minor miracle in itself.

“Oi, general!” A familiar voice snapped him out of his dark reminiscing, and General Yama of the Earth Kingdom found himself under the shadow of a towering pile of dirt, with deep pits on either side of him. 

Lieu- Captain Ren gave him an amused look as she strode up to him. “Are you trying to dig your way back home, or build a mountain high enough to leap over the sea?”

Annoyed at his own distracted state, the general harrumphed before bending the pile of earth to refill the holes he had created. At the same time, he buried his dark thoughts with his usual gruffness. “The brat’s with Kilin.”

The cheery psychopath grinned brightly. “You know he’s been promoted to colonel, right?”

Yama rolled his eyes. “Colonel Brat’s with Kilin. There, happy?”

The captain chuckled as she gave his shoulder a pat before she walked on. “Never change, old man.”

“I’m not old!”

“Yes you are, grandpa!” she replied over her shoulder.

The imprisoned general let out a sigh, and then stomped off to his quarters. He’ll not dwell on those dark memories anymore for today. Better to find something productive to do…like find something in this new camp that the brat needs fixing.

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