#triedbytides

"United Earth Empire moves to settle Swampland"

The headline of Maniitok's newspaper spelled out the phrase in big, threatening letters, and though his eyes read and reread the article beneath it, not a single word stuck in his mind. He was lost in thought, as he was prone to be these days. He had attained the wealth and respect he had desired for so long since the Elites had been separated after Harmonic Convergence, and was now looking for something... fulfilling.

Though the people of Republic City tended to walk quickly along the sidewalk, foot-traffic slowed to a meander as people jostled past a girl dragging a large footlocker behind her. Wait, it wasn't a girl; it was a young woman. As Maniitok caught sight of her face, the name clicked in his head-- then immediately reverted to his much-maligned nickname for Nyla:

"Pipsqueak? What are you doing?"

"Dear Nyla,

If you're reading this, it means that I've been killed, one way or another.  I suppose we all should have seen it coming; I hardly suspected I'd live as long as I did.  Either way, I won't tell you not to grieve, but I do urge you to think back on all our happy memories; perhaps that can balm the wounds in your soft, young heart.

But you can never let yourself wallow in the past.  The future belongs to young people like you; it's what you live for.  With the time you have left, there's nothing you can't do.  Never forget that you have warrior's blood in your veins; the same code that made your father who he was is the same code that will make you a woman he would admire and respect.

Look after the old man for me, will you?

"Premature, I'm afraid," Iroh quipped back, shuffling a few stacks of papers on his desk, before pinching his brow; his eyes ached from the thousands of pages he'd read in the past few days, not to mention the constant ringing of phones, bustling of liasons, and tapping of telegraphs at Central Command.  "I'm alive, at least for now.  Ten Thousand Years, right?"

Iroh quickly unrolled his sleeve after the younger officer mentioned the ghost of a laceration still visible on his forearm, a souvenir from his first encounter with the Red Lotus, when the firebender missed him, but a shattered stone cut right through his sleeve and split his forearm open.  "That's classified," he answered shortly, not making eye contact.