Fic: Post-Mortem
Title: Post Mortem
Word Count: 1557
Rating: T
Original/Fandom: Avatar: the Last Airbender
Characters/Pairings (if any): Aang, Lu Ten, OC
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/RPF etc): none
Summary: People have been going missing in Ba Sing Se.
Trope: Losing Your Head
Link: Challenge 16 at writerverse
People had been disappearing from Ba Sing Se in the middle of the day. It hadn’t been a terrible issue until a councilman’s daughter had vanished from the Upper Ring’s market square in broad daylight. Avatar Aang was summoned to the capital. By the time he arrived, it was estimated that over three-hundred people were missing.
Lake Laogai was searched first and found empty. The Dai Li hideout had been thoroughly rooted out after the organization’s disbandment.
Further outside help was sought in the form of June and her shirshu. All but one search - the councilman’s daughter had eloped with a merchant’s third son - revealed the same thing. The missing people no longer existed on this plane.
Of course, the Avatar was the bridge between the two planes and had become much better in the past year with making that journey.
Leaving his body in the care of Katara, his spirit traveled through the streets of Ba Sing Se at sunrise. There weren’t as many people as he remembered from the last time, and the few seemed to watch each other with a sort of paranoid wariness as they hurried about their business. It would seem news of the disappearances had gotten around.
Invisible to human and the stray animal alike, Aang walked the streets completely unnoticed. For the most part. He didn’t hear the footsteps so much as sense them. Turning around, he saw men in red armor marching down the entire length of the street.
But the people didn’t react to the presence of their former enemies. They didn’t even seem to see them at all.
These weren’t just spirits. These were Fire Nation ghosts. But what were they doing in Ba Sing Se? Were they still trying to conquer the city even after their deaths? There were so many of them. Maybe he could talk them out of it? Of course, that had never worked with Fire Nation soldiers in the Mortal World, but it was worth a shot.
“Stop where you are!”
To his great surprise, they did, not ten feet from him, and at ease. Showing none of the uncertainty he felt, he decided to try another order.
“I am the Avatar, and I command you to give back the people you kidnapped and go back to where you came from.”
One soldier broke away from the rest to stand at the forefront. The white mask was cracked around his eye, and his uniform - all of their uniforms - was falling apart.
“Our lord requires your presence, Avatar. Follow me.”
The soldier walked toward an alley, leaving his company standing in the middle of the street. The other soldiers looked as if they weren’t going anywhere for a while, and with little choice, Aang followed. The path the soldier took soon deviated from normal roads to simply passing through buildings and people as if they weren’t even there.
Aang had commented on several things as they walked, but the soldier responded to nothing unless it was a direct question, and only in monosyllabic answers. It was the most tedious walk he’d ever endured.
“So this lord of yours. Does he have a name?”
He was nothing if not persistent though.
“You will have to try harder than that to bind my lord. I will not simply give you his name.”
Aang frowned, confused about what the soldier was talking about. But then he remembered something Gyatso told him about spirits and ghosts. If a person had their name, then that granted some power over a spirit. He’d wished he’d recalled that fact earlier.
“Well, what should I call him when I meet him?”
“He will tell you, Avatar.”
“And what should I call you?”
The soldier stopped and peered at him from the slits in his mask. A young girl walked right through him while he contemplated the simple question. She paused right behind him and looked around her curiously for a moment then continued on.
“Call me Mijime,” he finally said.
“All right, Mijime. You can call me Aang.”
He nodded and proceeded onward. Their walk took them from the Upper Ring's outer wall all the way to the Lower and past it. Eventually, they were out of the city proper and into the surrounding farmlands. They did not stop until they’d walked up a hill. At the top, a tree offered shade from the morning sun, and a young man sat under it.
Hopefully, ghosts weren’t anything like the Hei Bei spirit or Koh. Aang watched the other man warily for any signs of shape-shifting or centipede legs. However, he looked completely normal. Except for being transparent, of course.
He had a wide, smiling mouth and sharp golden eyes. A three-pronged, flame hair piece held his topknot. The collar of his uniform was outlined in thick golden thread, a feature that signified high rank. All in all, Aang thought there was something familiar about him.
Mijime fell into a bow, full at the waist before the other man.
“At ease," the other ghost said. "You made good time. Dismissed.”
He pulled an abrupt about-face, marched three paces, then disappeared from sight. Now why hadn’t he done that to get them here?
“You’re the leader?”
“I am. You may call me Xiao Long. Please sit.”
Aang did, folding his legs into a lotus position. After walking through the city for miles, his patience had worn a little thin, and the novelty of dealing with ghosts had faded. He just wanted to get things resolved already.
“Why have you been kidnapping these people?” Aang asked.
“Straight to business. I like that. To answer simply, I needed to get your attention. I need your help. My body wasn’t…properly handled after my death. I cannot leave here because of it. If you find my body and burn it, then I’ll return the people and take my soldiers with me.”
“So you’re not an evil, vengeful spirit? You don’t want to hurt these people,” he clarified.
“No, but I can’t say the same for all my men. Some of them were twisted before they even died.”
“Then you have to protect them. I won’t help you if they’re hurt.”
“I am neither omniscient or omnipresent. As long as they recognize me as their lord, then they will obey me, but there has been talk.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you don’t have any time to waste. I think I can guide you to where they buried my body once you get back to yours, and you’ll have to handle it from there. Once my spirit is put to rest, my men will follow.”
“So find your body, give you your funeral rights, and everyone can go home. Sounds easy."
Xiao Long stared at him strangely, a hand going to his chin.
“What?” Aang asked.
“Oh, nothing. It’s just that ‘Sounds easy’ was the same thing I said before -“ he slashed a hand across his throat and made a slicing noise.
Aang flinched, his hand going to his own throat. Xian Long chuckled.
“However, I have complete confidence in your abilities, Avatar Aang.”
“Right. Thanks. There are a few things I don’t understand though.”
“Well, my schedule is pretty open right now,” he smiled at his own joke. “I’d be more than happy to clear them up.”
“I was here before, and there weren’t any of you guys around then. Why did you wait until now?”
“Before, the Dai Li had us in check. Since you and the Earth King have taken their power, we were able to break free, such as we are.”
“But we didn’t. They can still earthbend.”
“No, not like what you did to Ozai. The Dai Li are merely men, but the Earth Kings are…well, they have a certain authority when it comes to spirits and the like. They used to be great shamans, and it’s still in their blood. Avatar Kyoshi created the Dai Li and gave the Earth King and his sons the power to command them. I think there was some kind of ceremony with blood bonds and spirit contracts. When King Kuei disbanded the Dai Li, he weakened what Kyoshi gave them, and that lessening allowed us to escape the seals that kept us bound.”
“…okay. How do you know all this?”
“Come on now, Avatar,” he arched a brow and smirked at him, and it was really going to bug Aang about who this guy reminded him of! “You don’t expect me to tell you all my secrets, do you?”
“Fine. I guess I’ll get started then.”
Aang stood and bowed briefly to the officer. Turning around, Aang started back to his own body.
“Oh, and by the way,” Xiao Long called out.
Aang turned back to him. The ghost tilted his head sharply, and his head continued to roll down his shoulder to his hand, like a juggler playing with a ball.
If Aang had been in his body, he’d have gagged, fainted, and run away faster than the wind. He settled for staring with his jaw on the ground.
The soldier ghost, whose head was being held by his hands in front of his torso, smiled.
“I was decapitated and am not sure what they did with my head. Long Feng knows everything though.”
“But he’s missing too!” He recovered enough to say.
“Yeah. Good luck with that, Avatar.”