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It was late evening when the messenger arrived at the clinic. Song was packing up to go home, and almost didn’t hear the hubbub in the street.
‘Doctor Song?’ the apothecary called. ‘Um…there’s a…for you…’
She sighed, and put her bag down. ‘If it’s urgent, I’ll see them now, otherwise we open in the morning at six-’ she froze as the Fire Nation messenger walked in.
The war had been over for a year, but still. People just didn’t walk around this part of the Earth Kingdom in crisp, Fire Nation uniforms. The man’s eyes were the tell-tale amber of a firebender as he made a precise salute – wait, a salute??
‘Doctor Song,’ he said.
‘That’s me,’ she said, cautiously.
‘I bring you a message from the Firelord.’
‘There…must be some mistake,’ she said, her hands clenching and unclenching beneath her apron. ‘The Firelord doesn’t know who I am.’
‘On the contrary, Doctor, he owes you a great debt,’ said the messenger. ‘And he has sent me to pay it, despite the fact that seeing Fire Nation soldiers here again must be…alarming.’
‘Yes,’ she said, without thinking. The man smiled, thinly. His uniform was far too clean, he couldn’t have travelled in it. Also – he’d arrived alive. So he had probably travelled incognito.
‘I have twenty ostrich horses lodged with the stables at the town gates. They are yours, as is this chest – and these letters.’
They stood there in complete silence, while Song waited for this to make sense.
‘So you’re telling me that the Firelord is giving me twenty ostrich horses. Twenty. What, as a gift??’
‘No, Doctor, as repayment of a debt. He borrowed your ostrich horse. He is repaying you with interest. I can arrange for any number of them to be sold, and the profits brought to you, if that’s easier.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Song was shaking her head. ‘This is frankly ridiculous. When did Firelord Zuko borrow my-’
And then, of course, it all fell into place.
*****
The messenger waited quietly until the Firelord had finished with his other business, before the young man looked up and noticed him.
‘Yes?’
‘I have returned from the Earth Kingdom, having found Song, and her mother,’ he said.
Zuko’s expression cleared slightly. ‘And?’
‘She returned the gold, the letter, and nineteen ostrich horses. She kept one. She wrote a letter to you in return…’
It was short. Zuko scanned it. Then read it through properly. The messenger waited.
Finally, Zuko put the letter down. ‘You told her they were a gift. Nothing was expected in return.’
‘She said she didn’t accept the gift, my Lord.’
‘You told her I was…you extended my apologies?’
‘Yes, my Lord.’
Zuko looked back down at the letter. One line in particular stood out.
After you stole from me, do you know how many veterans I thought about inviting home, and didn’t, out of fear? Five.
She was still a doctor. She hadn’t had her faith in humanity completely corrupted, or anything. She was just a lot more cautious, now, it seemed.
Zuko took a breath, and handed the letter back to the messenger. He knew he’d remember every word, in any case. ‘I want you to return to the Earth Kingdom with the remaining ostrich horses,’ he said. ‘And I want you to give one out to the first nineteen injured war veterans you come across. And then you can tell Doctor Song-’ He stopped himself. ‘No, never mind. You don’t need to go back to her.’ The point wasn’t to gain the approval of an Earth Kingdom girl, the point was to make amends for what he’d done wrong. No matter how much he wanted her forgiveness, he doubted he could do anything to get it. Their house hadn’t been big. They didn’t have animals to spare to thieves, particularly not thieves from the royal family of an enemy nation.
‘Anything else, my Lord?’
‘No, that’s all. Thank you,’ said Zuko. The messenger bowed, and left.
He tried not to dwell on it, that night, but without much success. After all, to Zuko, the idea that some wounds can never fully heal was hardly a new one.