<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">“NONE OF YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO SAY A THING ABOUT HIM! NONE OF YOU!”</span><br/></span><br/>The words made Pakak flinch as if he'd been struck; more than their volume and the anger with which they were uttered, what stung most of all was the truth behind them. Xiao was right, and though he hadn't said a word, he knew he did not carry the right to do so if he wished to. He should have been better prepared for the attack. He should have been quicker to recover- he was the healer, damnit! If he could've gotten back to his feet faster, there might have been hope. The Avatar might have lived.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">“WHERE WERE ANY OF YOU WHEN THIS HAPPENED?! WHERE WERE ANY OF YOU WHEN HE WAS STRUCK DOWN?! WHERE?!”</span><br/></span><br/><span style="font-style: italic">On the ground. On the ground, like a damned fool, while the greatest man I have ever known bled out in the dirt</span>, he thought bitterly. He was furious with himself and numb from the loss, and the guilt weighed heavily on his mind. After all the Avatar had done for him, he could have- no, he<span style="font-style: italic">should</span>have done something. Anything.<br/><br/>Pakak's bag was already slung over his shoulder by the time Xiao had ridden by; something about the scene had changed with the disappearance of Ro Pan's body, as if the painful sight of the badger mole taking it beneath the earth had left behind a kind of echo. He felt a desperate need to be gone, yet there was also a strong reluctance to leave the place where he had last seen his friend alive.<br/><br/>As You passed him, the girl fixed him with an angry, accusing glare; Pakak returned the look with a stoney one of his own, remaining silent as he had since the moment the Avatar had been given his mortal wound. In happier times he thought of the Fire Bender as something of a bratty niece, a person he cared for deeply in spite of the fact that he carried a natural distrust for Fire Benders in general. At the moment, however, he could feel nothing but self-loathing. Her look mirrored his own feelings. He should have done<span style="font-style: italic">something</span>, and he was a long way from forgetting it. As she followed in her surrogate sister's wake, Pakak let out a weary sigh, reluctant to start moving.<br/><br/>He cast a final look back at where Pip had vanished with Ro Pan's body, only snapping out of it upon hearing the words of the woman who had ridden up on her catdeer, ironically to warn the Avatar of impending doom. He snorted with a joyless smile at being called "honorable", but he started off after her and the other two, towards the lands of the Fire Nation after finally tearing his eyes away from the Avatar's final resting place.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Honorable. I am a long way from that.</span><br/><br/>It occurred to him that Ro Pan might have disagreed, but the man's reassuring voice, like the rest of him, was gone forever. With a sigh, Pakak checked his water skins and trudged forward.