Chapter 36

"I am aware that many of you are displeased at having to take orders from a girl younger than some of your grand-daughters, but to imply that I am incapable of leading this invasion is to imply that The Firelord was wrong to appoint me.

Tell me, would anybody else like to question The Firelord's will?"

...

Her eyes scanned the room as a tense silence descended, noting which of the assembled men were capable of holding her gaze and which could not. It was slightly worrying how many of the commanders were so easily cowed.

"Nobody? Good. Then nobody will have any problems with following the instructions I give you to the letter. The enemy cannot be allowed to learn the core of our strategy, so each of you will be told enough to play your role as required and nothing more. Leave worrying about how it all fits into the big picture to me."

"If I may, Admiral." One of the commanders, a wizened old man with a long, greying beard, spoke up. "Might we return to your earlier point? What caused the previous invasions of the north to fail?"

Tanya's expression shifted back to one of neutral formality. "An excellent question. Every nation's military favours strategies that suit the strengths of their enlisted benders.

We prefer fast, aggressive strategies to compliment our firebenders, just as the earth kingdom favours fortified positions and defensive manoeuvres to compliment their earthbenders."

Tanya pulled down a rolled up parchment that had been pinned to the top of the world map, revealing it to be their most current map of the layout of the Northern Water Tribe's capital city. "To date, every invasion of the North Pole has followed the same routine.

Our ships arrived at the break of dawn, using the power of the sun to push forwards as quickly and aggressively as possible during the day. The water tribe soldiers used their walls and other defensive positions to delay us, but unlike the Earth Kingdom would easily give up these positions and fall back before they could be overwhelmed.

Rather than attempt to repel us, they focused on delaying our advances for as long as possible while preserving their strength."

Tanya's expression turned grave. "Then the sun would set, and just as our firebender's powers fell, so too would the rising moon empower their waterbenders. Suddenly their soldiers turned around and began fighting back, using the strength they'd conserved during the day to push our forces back out of whatever territory they'd lost during the night. Like the tide flowing in and out."

"Then our only course of action is to take the entire city before the sun sets?" The wizened commander asked, stroking his beard.

"A sound analysis, but ultimately impractical." Tanya replied. "Their walls are too high, and their traps too numerous, for a fleet even twice our size to power through so quickly."

"Then what if we fortify the territory we capture during the day?" Another commander offered. "If we attack on the night of a new moon, their waterbender's strength won't be that much stronger than it is during the day. We could hold out through the night, and resume our push forwards at daybreak!"

"Again, sound in theory, but not in practice." Tanya admonished. "That tactic was attempted eighty five years ago by Admiral Han. He failed to consider that the entire Northern Water Tribe is built upon carved ice. There are no fortifications we can make that the waterbenders cannot simply sink into the ground."

"I do not see how it is possible then." The wizened commander said with concern. "What plan could Zhao have possibly concocted that can overcome all that?"

"As I have said, the plan is top secret." Tanya replied. "I will however reveal that it is not to attack during a new moon, as all other invasions have. Quite the opposite in fact. For it to work, the waterbenders must be confident in their strength.

Therefore we will be setting sail in a few days time. When we arrive the first day will be used for a bombardment, and for the first night we will remain out at sea. The second day we will begin the invasion in earnest, and that night…" Tanya grinned, a predatory gleam shining in her golden eyes.

"Will be the night of a full moon."

The resulting uproar blended together into a deafening mass of incoherent noise, drowning out any individual comments. Even with her sternest glare it still took Tanya a good couple of minutes to restore order.

"Peace gentlemen, peace! This rambling does none of us credit! You may speak your thoughts, but do so one at a time!"

"This is madness!" Captain Li shouted urgently. "Everyone knows never to fight a waterbender beneath a full moon, nevermind a city of them! We'll be massacred! What trick could possibly counteract the moon?"

Tanya grinned then: a wicked, malicious smile that sent a chill down the spines of every man present. "Fear not Captain Li. The moon will not be an issue." Though she said it so casually, the confidence behind her words caught the assembled officers off guard. It was as if she was saying something she already knew to be a foregone conclusion.

"The only thing I need to do," she continued, a hint of sharp teeth peeking out from between her lips, "is pay a visit to a childhood friend."

...

Katara couldn't help the defeated sigh that slipped out of her lips.

Yagoda was an excellent teacher. It was a little embarrassing sitting in with a class of girls half her age, but the veteran healer had been patient and understanding. In the span of a few hours she had already learned an incredible amount about how to use her healing gifts to their full potential.

"But I don't want to just learn how to heal." She thought. "I want to learn how to fight alongside Aang."

"You seem distracted, Katara. Care to share your thoughts?"

Katara looked up from the dummy she was practising on to find Yagoda kneeling next to her, her expression serene and understanding. "It's nothing." She lied.

"If it was nothing, it would not bother you so." Yagoda replied, no hint of judgement in her tone. "A healer is trained not just to remedy issues of the body, but the mind as well. Speak, Katara. It will do you no good to bottle your thoughts up, and nothing you say will leave this room."

"It's just-... Katara paused, struggling to put her thoughts into words. "I don't understand why you follow this silly tradition of not letting women fight! It's insulting! The other nations have proven that women can fight just as well as men can!"

"You've met warrior women?" Yagoda asked, genuinely curious.

"Yes! The Kyoshi warriors are some of the most respected warriors in the Earth Kingdom, without even being benders!" Katara replied passionately. "The women of my home village fought back the southern raiders for years! And the Fire Nation…"

The Fire Nation had the girl with the golden hair. The one she'd seen twice now in the company of Zhao. Tanya, Aang had said her name was. Katara had yet to see her fight, but Aang had told her about their encounters back at Roku's Shrine and the stronghold.

He'd said she was highly skilled, describing his experiences trying to evade her as like trying to outrun a wolf, yet had also claimed she had come across as reasonable, if misguided, during their one chance to talk.

It was strange to think that a girl younger than her had apparently climbed so high up the ranks of the military, but no doubt spoke of her competency as a fighter. She described her to Yagoda, and was surprised when the elderly healer frowned in a way that spoke of recognition.

"The Devil of the South Sea." She said disapprovingly.

"Who?" Katara asked, taken aback by the sudden shift in tone.

"Not someone you should aspire to imitate." Yagoda warned, her expression uncharacteristically grave. "Even here in the North, where we keep ourselves isolated from the rest of the world, word of her deeds has reached us."

"She's famous?" Katara asked, surprised to find that Zhao's little shadow was a celebrity.

"Notorious would be a better word." Yagoda replied. "She is single handedly credited with the deaths of hundreds of Earth Kingdom soldiers, and has ordered the deaths of thousands more. Rumours say she is completely without compassion or mercy. A killer to the core."

"What? No-... no, you must be mistaken. The Tanya we've met is just a little girl." Katara stuttered, shocked by revelation.

But Yagoda shook her head sadly. "There is no mistake. There is only one girl, in all the world, famed for hair the colour of sunlight." Yagoda looked back towards the other girls in the room, none older than ten, as they chatted quietly and put their best efforts into their healing studies with child-like enthusiasm.

"She represents all that is wrong with the Fire Nation, that one so young could be twisted into something so-..." Words failed the aged healer for a moment. When she spoke, it seemed as if just uttering the words caused her pain and regret in equal measure. "... evil."

Evil? No, that was surely taking too far. Katara had seen evil before: first reflected in the faces of the southern raiders who took her mother, and then again in the scarred visage of Prince Zuko as he ordered her village burned.

Though she served the Fire Nation too, Katara couldn't comprehend someone as young as Tanya being evil. "Aang spoke with her. He said she only wanted peace, and had been lied to as to how to obtain it."

"I never said she chose the path she walks." Yagoda answered.

"But whether she has been forced onto it or not, the fact remains that Tanya has killed many, many people, and has not even been in the military for a decade yet. How many will have fallen at her hand by the time she becomes a woman? How old will she be when people stop counting?" She shook her head sadly.

"Regardless of her intentions, Tanya has been turned into another weapon in the Firelord's armoury. Do not doubt that, should the opportunity present itself, she will try to kill you, your brother, or even The Avatar without a moment's hesitation.

The fate of the world rests on The Avatar defeating The Firelord and restoring balance. So please, Katara…" Yagoda grasped her shoulders, forcing Katara to look her in the eye, and the grim resolve she found in her teacher's eyes rendered the young waterbender speechless.

"Stop her! Look past her age, her appearance, and even that she may not act of her own free will! For the sake of the entire world, if she threatens The Avatar then you must, no matter what the cost, stop her!"

...

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