17

"Dinner!" Li Ming announced to the training yard before hurrying back to the mess hall to help prepare against the coming invasion. The wave of hungry, dead-eyed recruits shambled in, with small groups of exhausted but otherwise still lively veterans mixed within. Li Ming and her colleagues served them with equal efficiency, handing over trays of rice and meat and greens.

It was only slightly later, while everyone was in the midst of gorging themselves, did the colonel appear. Xing took the meal as everyone else, sitting with a group of veterans. From what she understood, all this was different enough to be a bit scandalous to the upper classes. Officers were, according to Chiya and the others, supposed to eat at their own separate tables with their own separate meals.

Even cranky Yama agreed that it was the same in the Earth Kingdom.

The officers of the 11th were simply carrying over their habits from campaigning though. As far as Li Ming knew, it was a habit set by Colonel Lidai due to supply shortages. Anyone in the 11th, be they spearmen or colonel or camp staff…or even prisoners, shared the same limited menu. There was only a short period when that changed, but then again little good came during Shiluo's short reign.

Li Ming looked at the table of grizzled soldiers offering advice to their greener comrades. The newbies in another table were meekly nodding along as they were caught between Captain Kai's and Captain Ren's discussion. Probably about Xing again. Then she looked at the colonel's table, where he ate in silence, but wore a noticeable smile as the enlisted men and women around him conversed and joked.

A sense of melancholy seeped into her, dragging with it the memories of the past.

Li Ming tensed as she remembered the leering faces of her abusers, a bunch of Fire Nation garrison guards. She remembered the barracks door exploding open, almost literally.

"And what the fuck is going on here?" an armored giant growled softly, causing the rapists to flinch back.

"W-We were just…just interrogating a…rebel, sir. She was…she was-"

Another figure stepped into view, an equally scarily armored woman with a face locked into a fiery scowl. "Save it, fuckwits. Leave. Now."

Li Ming wanted to curl up when she felt the two figures' gazes fall on her. For a moment, when the giant of a man approached, she thought that he had simply wanted to keep her to himself. Then a dagger appeared, and before her fears could evolve her arms fell free from the bedpost.

"Can you walk?" the woman asked, far gentler than she'd expected. Li Ming gave a scared nod before rising up to her feet. The man draped a heavy cloak around her, and Li Ming was escorted out of the guards' barracks and introduced to a man far too old to be in such heavy warplate. Despite the imposing image, the old man radiated warmth and reassurance.

"I'm sorry for what you had to go through," he said in a voice too warm and kind for a Fire Nation butcher. "I'll have Lieutenant Ren escort you back to your family. You have my word that those…men will trouble you no more."

When she told them she had no family to return to, the old man's eyes softened with sorrow before he offered her a place with them. "It's a bit of rough traveling, but you'll be paid, and I can assure you that no harm will come to you."

They did not ask her whether she was really a rebel or an Earth Kingdom saboteur. Even now, none of the 11th cared that Li Ming was a former Earth Kingdom villager. The moment she accepted, she was treated like every other camp follower. They trusted her with their laundry at first, and then later their meals. The strange young boy who called himself Xing would notice her worry when she began serving in the kitchen, and try to alleviate it with jokes and feigning food poisoning from 'evil Earth Kingdom ingredients'.

Li Ming missed his bright smile. Colonel Lidai's passing dealt a blow to the boy that dimmed it, but Shiluo's cursed actions all but smothered the youthful joy in Xing.

She remembered sobbing with the others and desperately closing her eyes and ears as the crack of the whip filled the air that night. She remembered the shouting, the beginnings of violence, and the arrival of Colonel Dao.

She remembered the day before the battle, where Xing brought her into the prisoner's tent just as he was about to let them loose. "You'll be safe with them," the boy had assured her with a brittle smile. "If you encounter the Earth Kingdom, you can say we forced you to work for us."

He left with camp guards and followers, ignoring the shouts of Shiluo's people. Li Ming remembered the shock she felt back then, followed quickly by a deep outrage.

How dare he leave her here. After her time with the 11th, was she not a part of them? Did she not earn the right to join them? Even in an impossible attempt to-

A rattle shook Li Ming out of her thoughts, and she saw Xing looking at her curiously, with a bowl in hand. "All good, Li Ming?"

She banished the bad memories with a shake of her head. "Yeah. Yes colonel. Here, I'll get you topped up." She took the empty bowl and packed the rice in tightly, making sure the growing boy ate his fill. "Here you go, sir. I've made sure not to poison it."

Xing replied with a lopsided smile. "Thanks, Li Ming."

As she watched the colonel return to his seat, another voice drew Li Ming's attention. "Everything alright?" Mozi stood just to the side, his sharp face furrowed a little in a frown.

Li Ming knew better than to try deflecting too blatantly. "I was just…thinking."

He raised an eyebrow in concern. "Old times?"

"Yeah," she replied with a slow nod. "Old times. Bad times."

Mozi reached out and Li Ming gladly took his proffered hand and squeezed it tightly. "Things will be fine," he reassured her, and Li Ming gladly believed it.

She gave the lieutenant colonel a grateful smile. "You're done with your meal?" At Mozi's nod, Li Ming managed a smirk, then led him out the mess hall's side doors. Nobody that noticed made a scene out of it, and the new kitchen crew needed to learn how to work with reduced manpower anyway.