章 105: Civil War(2)

It took a while for Korra to get here but in the meantime, Senna, Korra's mother, prepared some appetizers for us. I have to say that I've never eaten such good cookies, they were on another level, couple that with the great tea she made alongside them, by far the most authentic Water Tribe experience I had till now. The environment was just right, I could hear the firewood crackling in the middle of the room and the wind howling viciously outside, truly a soothing experience. I wasn't the only one affected by this, the elders started to calm down and their wrinkled faces have started to relax. About ten minutes later the avatar finally came.

As soon as she entered she was bombarded by questions about what were the northern troops doing inside the capital. She tried to appease the crowd but she couldn't handle Varrick's logic, it was quite fun to watch, I was looking at two idiots trying to argue their point of view by shouting louder.

"Aren't you going to be the voice of reason in the room? If you don't do something this will drag on forever and we will solve nothing."

"Just let me enjoy it a little more, Nya. How often do I get to enjoy this kind of theater? If you are so bothered by this why don't you step in?"

"I would if I could. Varrick doesn't know me and it's quite a stretch to call Korra and me friends, you, on the other hand, are one of Korra's best friends and one of the few people Varrick respects, you are a well-known freedom fighter, entrepreneur, engineer, your words carry weight if you say something people listen."

"Haaa, I guess I should step in..."

I got up and approached the two, this made the entire room quiet, the tension was palpable, making my desire to drop a joke skyrocket.

'Hold it in, hold it in, no jokes, no jokes.'

"Korra, you may think that what Unalaq is doing is for the betterment of the Water Tribes but from what you told us his actions don't align with his words. He talks about how he wants to change things for the better but all he does is bring soldiers here something that has not happened since the 100-Year War. I'm not saying that he got it all wrong, the South needs to get its spiritual side back, we've seen what happens if things continue as they are, we may want the same thing but the way he's doing things it's wrong. I think we can come to an agreement if certain measures are in place. I think the two sides should meet and have a talk, both sides what something and if they understand each other's needs maybe we can smoothen things over."

"Ok, this is all I wanted to hear, just give him a chance to talk! I'll go and talk to him to set up a meeting."

She left and silence once again fell upon the room, for a few seconds just the fire could be heard but then an elder asked.

"Are we just going to do nothing till the meeting is set? Each moment we stay with our hands crossed Unalaq gets more control of the city, making it less likely for him to agree to our demands."

"Who said anything about doing nothing? I have a plan but you might not like it, but it's our best shot to win in case shit hits the fan. Are you ready to make some sacrifices?"

I paused for a second to take a look at their faces, this is something I learned while I was in the Equalists, you can tell how much a person is ready to do by the look in their eye, there is a kind of spark, a tint of craziness, of savagery, that tells you if they are ready or not. This light dulls with age, they say as people grow old boldness is replaced with wisdom, so my expectations for seeing this in their eyes was low, but low and behold there it was that spark of madness, that light of courage.

"No objections? Good! Now listen carefully and don't interrupt me. The Southen Water Tribe doesn't have an army like the north, they have numbers but we have the home ground, we need to prepare for the exchange to awry. It's all about timing, at a moment's notice we need to do as much damage as possible, as such, we need impeccable coordination since we can't gather in big groups without drawing attention our best chance is to use couriers but it can become suspicious for men or women to run across the city all the time so to combat this we'll have to use kids.

I know you don't like it but it's the safest way, the soldiers will never stop a kid, and if they do they can just say that they are running late home or playing. Now for the actual plan, we need to map down all their patrols and their most frequented places, once we're done we need to start booby-trapping those places, we need to wire them so they blow up all at once, Varrick will help with that. We also need to blow up their boats because if push comes to shove they will use them as a kind of "last bastion" if you will, in the chaos we need to have the high ground and use guerrilla tactics to thin their numbers further down. The streets need to be clear of civilians so that we can do this without holding back, for this, I request the elders' help."