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You Have To Stand Firm

Summary:

After fleeing Ba Sing Se, Aang and the others know that the Day of Black Sun is their last chance to defeat the Fire Nation and win the war. Meanwhile, Crown Prince Zuko has returned home in triumph, but it’s nothing like he’d planned it. Our heroes will face hard choices and impossible odds, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll never give up without a fight.

Chapter 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Three Weeks Ago

 

“And you’re absolutely sure there’s no way I can convince you to stay?”

“Quite sure,” Suki managed as she caught the bag Sokka dropped down to her.

“Because I want it on the record –” Sokka grunted as he hefted another bag – “That I’d be cool with sharing my seal jerky with you, if it meant you’d stay.”

Suki laughed as she braced herself to catch the next sack of stuff – Rangi, that was heavy. What on earth had Ensign Takahashi put in that one?

“Tempting offer,” she panted as she stowed it under the seat and looked up at her boyfriend from the little sailing boat she and Takahashi were preparing to leave on. “Terrible innuendo, though.”

Sokka frowned. “What’s an innuendo?”

Suki smiled up at her goofball boyfriend as she clambered back up the rope ladder to the deck, and gratefully accepted his hand as he reached out to pull her over the railing.

“You know why I’ve got to go, Sokka,” she told him plainly, holding onto his hand as he moved to let go.

He sighed, and Suki could see the warring emotions in his tired blue eyes, but he still tangled their fingers together and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

“And you know why I want you to stay,” he offered eventually, looking at her with a resigned smile. “But that’s why I have to let you go, right?”

Suki gave him a wan smile of her own. Just like her, Sokka was dedicated to taking care of the people he was responsible for. Even if the two of them were still figuring out exactly how that worked for the two of them in a relationship, she knew that Sokka understood why she had to leave.

Suki honestly didn’t have the first clue how things had gone down in Ba Sing Se – and that had been before Sokka’s theory about what Zuko might or might not have had to do with it had made things even more confused. But even if Suki wasn’t sure what had happened with Azula in Ba Sing Se, she was at least clear on how Azula had gotten into Ba Sing Se. She’d somehow disguised herself and her cronies as Kyoshi Warriors, and Suki intended to find out what had happened to her girls.

“We’ll be back for the invasion,” she promised, taking both his hands in hers in a very real and daring display of affection that Huong and Byeol-jji would have given her no end of teasing over. The thought of the two girls, thick as thieves and twice as sneaky, only reminded her of what she needed to do.

“I know,” Sokka conceded, rubbing his thumbs over her knuckles in soothing circles. “Just… promise me you’ll take care of yourself?”

She smiled, and raised their entwined hands to press a kiss to his wrists, then the back of his hand, and then a long press of her lips against their fingers together. He smelt like pine resin, and that seal jerky he was always eating, and the kind of sweat that you worked up after a good sparring session.

Suki appreciated a good sparring session, so she maybe spent a bit more time smelling her sweaty boyfriend than was acceptable in polite company.

“Everything ready?” An impatient voice broke in. “Or do you two turtleducks need another ten minutes to say goodbye?”

Then again, Suki was getting the feeling that there wasn’t much polite about Ensign Takahashi’s company.

Sokka sighed, and Suki felt him press a kiss to her forehead where she had bent her head over their hands. “All set, Taki.”

“Good,” the stern-faced, dark-haired Fire Nation sailor muttered. She’d swapped out the armor she’d been wearing last night for a dark, sleeveless tunic and a pair of dark grey pants, but she still looked ready for business. Maybe she and Suki would get on pretty well after all?

“The seal jerky’s still on offer,” Sokka said with a feeble attempt at humor as Suki clambered back down the rigging.

“Still just as tempting an offer as before,” she replied once she got to the bottom. She had to hold onto the side of the rocking boat as Taki dropped the last two feet to land with crococat-like grace.

Showoff.

“You want me to say anything to the others?” Sokka called down.

“Tell Katara she’s amazing,” Suki replied. “And tell Toph she’s the second-coolest Earth Kingdom girl I know.”

She counted Sokka’s fond half-smile as a win. It broke up the worry lines on his face. “Will do. What about you, Taki?”

“Tell Jee thanks for the fireflakes,” Taki answered as Suki started rowing. “And that he’d better have the oil lamp in my room fixed by the time I get back.”

“He doesn’t know you’ve nicked them, does he?”

“He should have fixed that lamp sooner!”

Suki would have laughed along with Sokka at that, but she was already a little out of breath from all the rowing. If she’d known it was this much of an all-body workout, she would have been doing this for her warrior training a long time ago.

“You got my bag?” Taki asked as she busied herself with… whatever she was doing. Something to do with some ropes and knots. Suki didn’t know anything about boats. It was probably a bit ironic that she had grown up on an island and yet didn’t know port from starboard, or anything else like that, but that was why Taki was coming along.

“I put it underneath the seat,” Suki answered in between breaths. “What’ve you got in it, anyway? It weighed a ton.”

“Couple of boxes of ginseng,” the sailor replied.

Ugh. Suki hated ginseng.

“I’m not hauling a ton of ginseng around the southern Earth Kingdom,” she huffed, pulling on the oars and relishing the burn in her triceps.

“That’s cool,” Taki said distractedly, holding a piece of string between her teeth as she fastened some rope round the… jib? Or the stern?

Suki was suddenly really glad Taki was here, because she had no idea what all this stuff did.

“What I mean is that if your bag’s just full of ginseng, we can save ourselves some time and effort, and just toss it overboard now,” she tried again.

“Can’t do that,” Taki replied, spitting the string out. “It’s not my ginseng.”

What?” Suki wheezed.

“It’s not like Master Iroh’s going to miss it.”

First the fireflakes, now the ginseng. “Is any of the stuff you brought along actually yours?”

The Fire Nationer hummed consideringly as she looked at the bag under Suki’s seat. “I’m pretty sure at least half the shit in that bag is Zuko’s. Even the bag.”

Suki shook her head, but she had a grin on her face all the same.

 

 

Sokka would have been happy to keep his eyes on Suki’s auburn hair for as long as he could, until she and Taki were well over the horizon. But part of being a man was knowing where you were needed, and right now, he had things he needed to be doing.

With a sigh, he pushed himself back off the railings and headed for the bridge. Dad, Lieutenant Jee, and Cook Yoshida were waiting for him when he got there.

“Master Sokka,” Jee greeted him. He looked tired, but still as stiff and severe as ever. “Ensign Takahashi and Miss Suki have left?”

He nodded. “I’ve just seen them off. How’s everyone else doing?”

“I’ve just come from the sickbay,” Dad answered. “Avatar Aang is stable, and Katara’s just finished a healing session on his lightning wound.”

Sokka winced, but he had to ask anyway. “Did you tell her?”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “Honestly, Sokka? I’m not sure what to tell her. You have to admit, it’s pretty unbelievable.”

Sokka did have to admit that. He’d still been reeling from how the jerkbender had sided with Azula against Katara and Aang when Yoshida had told him that Master Pakku and King Bumi were members of the Order of the White Lotus. It had been all Sokka could do not to swim back to Ba Sing Se and strangle the Fire Prince himself, even if he was still on their side.

Sokka was really glad to know that they had a complete and utter moron on their side.

“Katara told us that Master Iroh showed up just in time to hold Azula off whilst she and Aang escaped,” he explained again. “Zuko once told us about a time when King Bumi trapped him and Iroh in jennamite, and it took them a while to break free. I think the Dai Li had captured Iroh, and Zuko couldn’t risk turning on Azula until she didn’t have Iroh as a hostage.”

Just like when Zhao had captured Zuko back at the abbey. If memory served, it had been up to Sokka to save the day on that occasion. He’d done a much better job of it than Zuko had, that was for sure.

“But why did he attack the Avatar?” Lieutenant Jee asked, folding his arms. “Surely he should instead have assisted Master Iroh in escaping?”

Sokka was not going to disagree with him there. But he remembered what Zuko’s plan at the North Pole had been.

“They’ll probably attack us.”

“Probably?”

“They might not. But if they do, we need to buy time until Pakku shows up.”

Tui damn it. Sokka was the plan guy for a reason.

“If Zuko didn’t step in and make it look like he was going after Aang, Azula would have attacked him herself,” he replied. “When Suki asked Katara whether he had any major injuries apart from Azula’s lightning wound –”

Yoshida let out a slight cough, and to be fair, Sokka couldn’t blame him, because that was a pretty major injury.

“Katara said that was the only one,” he persisted. “She told Suki that Aang had been winning until Azula shot him! I think Zuko was pulling his punches and buying time until Master Iroh could show up and turn the fight against Azula in their favor, and then hoping that Iroh could stop Katara from killing him.”

But Dad was already shaking his head before he’d finished speaking.

“That’s just a theory, son,” he reminded Sokka. “That doesn’t mean we can trust him.”

“What?” Jee’s face tightened. “Prince Zuko had months to try and capture the Avatar –”

“And he had months to tell Katara and Aang who he was,” Dad cut him off firmly. “We can’t trust someone who keeps secrets from us.”

“Then you can’t trust me,” Sokka pointed out stubbornly. “I promised Zuko I wouldn’t tell them either, Dad!”

“You did,” Dad agreed, frowning impressively at him. “And we’re going to have a talk about that, too. But you were doing it to protect your sister, Sokka. Zuko was only doing it to protect himself.”

Sokka was torn. On the one hand, Zuko had saved his neck, Aang’s neck, and most importantly, his little sister’s neck more times than Sokka could count. And no matter Dad’s skepticism, Sokka’s instincts told him that the jerkbender had only been trying to protect Aang and Katara in the Catacombs.

But with no way to prove it… and the way he’d gone about trying to protect them… and the way he’d gone about everything leading up to that fact…

Sokka wanted to believe his theory was true, but without proof, it was just speculation and wishful thinking. And Sokka was Mr. Science And Reason Lover, not some wacky moron from Makapu.

“You’re right,” he decided, hardening his resolve. “We can’t trust him.”

“Then we must decide on our next move,” Yoshida spoke up at last. “If Prince Zuko knows that you’re planning on invading the Fire Nation during the Day of Black Sun, then he’ll already have told the Fire Nation when to expect you.”

Honestly, Sokka thought it was a mark of how exhausted he was after the last twenty-four hours that he could think of a few things he’d rather be doing right now than planning their next move. He’d been lying awake in bed all night running over every last one of his conversations with Zuko, trying to figure out what had happened somewhere down the line to make things go the way they did, and he’d realized something along the way.

Zuko hadn’t lied to them, but he hadn’t told them the whole truth. And Sokka… might have done something similar.

More by accident than by design, yes, but it was the principle of the matter.

“Zuko wasn’t with us when I talked to King Kuei about the invasion plan,” he explained. “The Fire Nation doesn’t know when we’re coming.”

“But surely the Prince is aware that you plan to invade the Fire Nation on the day of the eclipse?” Jee asked with a frown.

Sokka let out a nervous laugh. “Zuko knows there’s an eclipse coming up, but he wasn’t with Aang and I in Wan Shi Tong’s library when we figured out when. And… I kind of never got round to actually telling him the date of the eclipse?”

“Great work, Sokka!” Dad exclaimed, flashing him a grin full of pearly white teeth. “All warfare is based on deception – that’s brilliant! You’ve completely duped the enemy!”

Sokka wasn’t quite as sure as his Dad that Zuko was the enemy, but then again, that was what made Dad such a good leader; he could put his complicated personal feelings aside to focus on the priorities. Just like Suki.

Oh, man, Sokka missed his beautiful, hypercompetent, terrifyingly awesome girlfriend already.

“Then it’s settled,” Dad nodded decisively. “The Avatar will continue to recover aboard the Wani; Master Yoshida will alert the White Lotus that Prince Zuko cannot be trusted; and we’ll start making plans for the invasion.”

“What are we telling the others?” Sokka asked, trying to focus on the priorities. “Katara, Toph, the warriors, the crew – are we telling them about how Zuko might still be on our side?”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “After the way that Beifong girl was cursing out Prince Zuko, you want me to tell her he was a good guy all along? No thanks, son – that’s your job.”

Tui damn it all.

He was going to kill that jerkbending bastard.

 

 

Zuko had been told he couldn’t return home unless the Fire Lord restored his honor. But as he looked up at the moon, he remembered what Fire Sage Nakamura had said about what it took to be honorable.

Duty, and honor, and the Nation. Let these be your inspirations. Courage, and faith, and hope. Let these be your aspirations.

Princess Yue had been brave. She’d done her duty, and she’d done the right thing, and she’d done it for her people. She’d shown courage, and faith, and hope. She’d sacrificed herself to become the Moon Spirit, the source of a waterbender’s power.

“Aren't you cold?”

Zuko stiffened at the interruption. He hadn’t heard Mai approaching behind him.

“I've got a lot on my mind,” he replied, trying to cover up his wariness. “It's been so long. Over three years since I was home.”

He wasn’t sure where he and Mai stood after three years apart, but he figured that honesty was probably a good place to begin.

“I wonder what's changed,” he confessed lowly. “I wonder how I've changed.”

Mai just looked at him blankly. He felt himself color slightly, and turned back to face the ocean.

“I just asked if you were cold,” Mai told him flatly. “I didn't ask for your whole life story.”

Neither had the others, but maybe Zuko should have told them anyway. In hindsight, he was a bit late in trying this whole honesty thing.

Mai let out a laugh and reached out to his face, and her warm, pale hand touched his jaw to turn his face towards her.

He resisted slightly, and she hesitated. The kiss that must have been meant for his mouth landed on his right cheekbone instead.

He swallowed and looked out at the water, reaching out a hand to curl around the railing.

“After I was banished, I spent a lot of time reading the Fire Sages’ writings,” he began. “I struggled with Nakamura, but I quite liked his work.”

“I never bothered with the Fire Sages,” Mai responded. “I get enough patronizing moral guidance from my parents.”

Uncle Iroh had given Zuko an awful lot of patronizing moral guidance when he was thirteen – fourteen, fifteen, even sixteen, now. But the guards had refused to let Zuko speak to him when he’d tried to go and talk to him earlier.

Apparently, they couldn’t let him endanger himself by spending time with such a dangerous enemy, but Zuko hadn’t been fooled. His honor might have been restored, but it seemed that Azula’s crew still had more respect for the requests of the Dragon of the West, even imprisoned as a traitor, than for the demands of the Crown Prince of the Nation.

Zuko knew they were right to think that way. Uncle Iroh was the most honorable man he knew, and now he didn’t want to speak to him.

Zuko had been ready to send the Order of the White Lotus a letter to try and explain what he’d been trying to do, but he’d realized just in time that it would be safer if he didn’t try and contact Cook Yoshida. Uncle had told Sokka that the Wani was in the Gulf of Deng Hu, and for all Zuko knew, the others might have fled to the ship when they’d escaped Ba Sing Se. Even if he wanted them to know he was still on their side, he couldn’t risk leading Azula to them.

So Prince Zuko had failed to capture the Avatar.

And yet, the Fire Lord had restored his honor.

“There was one Fire Sage called Itō,” he explained. “He wrote a lot about the relationship between the Fire Lord’s judgement and the judgements of Agni.”

“Fascinating.”

Mai’s voice was making it very clear that she might have preferred to watch a performance by the Ember Island Players rather than listen to Zuko. Still, he persevered.

“Itō wrote a treatise called On the Distinct Will of Agni which made him unpopular with Fire Lord Chaeryu. He argued that Agni doesn’t always agree with what the Fire Lord says, so the Fire Lord should always make sure his pronouncements are in line with Agni’s revealed wisdom.”

“Did he, now.”

Zuko nodded. “Fire Lord Chaeryu banished Itō for questioning the Fire Lord’s will, and –”

“What, exactly, am I supposed to be getting from this conversation, Zuko?” Mai interrupted flatly, turning to face him. “Apart from a staggeringly unsubtle parallel?”

Zuko looked down at the waters. The Wani had sailed all across the world in the first eighteen months of Zuko’s exile, but they’d concentrated mainly on the Western Earth Kingdom after that, because that was where the Blue Spirit could work to sabotage the Fire Nation’s war effort.

Zuko had been dishonored and exiled for doing the right thing, and once he had realized that the Fire Lord had been wrong to banish him, he had given up hope of returning to the Nation. When the Avatar had returned, he and Uncle Iroh had learned to hope again.

But now Uncle was imprisoned, and Aang was…

Zuko looked up at the moon, the source of a waterbender’s power.

Please.

“I have loved justice and hated iniquity,” he quoted. “Therefore, I die in exile.”

“Well, you’re not exiled anymore,” Mai pointed out. “So I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

That hadn’t been Zuko’s point, but at least she had been listening. “Itō meant that it was better to be exiled for doing the right thing than to be honored for ignoring injustice.”

His words seemed to be the end of Mai’s patience with him, because she turned towards him abruptly.

“Do you want to die in exile, Zuko?” She asked him lowly. “Because if you keep talking like that, I can’t see your restored honor lasting very long.”

Zuko couldn’t help but scowl. “I want to do the right thing.”

Mai scoffed. “It sounds like you think questioning the Fire Lord’s will is the right thing to do.”

“Maybe it is.”

“Agni’s sake,” she muttered, giving his chest a hard shove. “You don’t get it, do you, Zuko? You’re coming home. You’ve got a second chance – and you’re going to ruin it if you don’t shut up.”

“You think I should just not say anything?” He demanded. “That I should just keep my mouth shut the next time Bujing wants to –”

“You should keep quiet, Zuko!” Mai hissed. Even in her anger, she never shouted. “That’s how everything went wrong in the first place!”

Zuko looked at Mai as she stood in the moonlight – her tawny eyes, her pale skin, her straight black hair. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but he beat her to it.

“You’re right,” he told her, standing up from where he had been leaning over the railings and striding past her. “That’s how everything went wrong in the first place.”

Notes:

Avatar Wiki has an article on Fire Lord Chaeryu, and Zuko previously referred to Fire Sage Itō in the ‘One hundred and forty-nine to nil’ sections of my fic ‘Seventy-two to nil’. The quote he attributes to Itō is the epitaph of Pope Gregory VII.

Chapter 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Present Day

 

Toph took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of calming jasmine tea, before letting it out again in what was supposed to be a breath all nice and peaceful-like.

Nope. Even then, it still sounded ridiculous.

“Let me get this straight,” she demanded, digging her finger into her ear so she could hear the absolute idiocy Snoozles’ Dad was spouting. “You guys thought Sparky was pregnant?

The stupidity of dudes from the Water Tribes, she thought to herself, never ceased to amaze.

“Actually, Bato thought that Lee, the boy travelling with the Avatar, was pregnant,” Ice Pops corrected her. “We didn’t know that Lee was Prince Zuko travelling under a false name.”

Or that your kid Snoozles was just playing a joke?” Toph asked sarcastically, turning her head to face him. Even if she couldn’t see him, she wanted him to feel judged. “Because Sparky’s a guy?

Pops chuckled a little and scratched the side of his head as he accepted a cup of tea from Lieutenant Jee. Or, as Toph liked to call him, Old Smokey. “Well, when you put it like that, I guess it does sound a bit ridiculous.”

“Not just ridiculous,” she snorted, sitting back on her cushion. “More like flat-out insane.”

“Although perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to deny Prince Zuko’s potential for insanity,” Old Smokey observed drolly. “Considering the circumstances.”

Toph had to admit, the fussy old firebender had a point. Hearing that Sparky, Gramps, and now Snoozles were all part of a secret organization dedicated to helping the Avatar and protecting the balance was a bit much, considering that the Avatar had been lying in a sickbay bed for two weeks.

When Snoozles had come out with his theory about why Sparky had apparently sold them all out and sided with his crazy sister, Toph had needed him to repeat it three times, each time checking his heartbeat to make sure he wasn’t lying, before she’d allowed herself to consider it. But now, just like Ice Pops, the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. It would have been a breathtakingly stupid, mind-numbingly idiotic, insanely risky thing to do.

So of course Sparky had tried it anyway, in what had to be the craziest swerve Toph could remember since Headhunter’s storyline at Earth Rumble II.

Credit where it was due, she actually kind of respected him for that.

“It’s a thin line between insanity and genius,” Ice Pops said. “But if Prince Zuko was trying to pull the same move against Princess Azula that Sokka says he tried up at the North Pole… it makes sense.”

“But we don’t know one way or the other,” Toph reminded him frustratedly. “If he was just here, I could check his heartbeat and tell you whether he was lying like that –” she snapped her fingers – “But he’s not.”

“No,” Smokey sighed. “And I must admit, compared to previous occasions wherein I have found myself in command of the ship in Prince Zuko and Master Iroh’s absences, I find this instance much less enjoyable.”

Toph snickered. “Because the band of Water Tribe warriors who invaded your ship makes things a little crowded in the hammocks?”

“Perhaps not the sleeping quarters, but certainly the canteen,” Smokey replied diplomatically. “I would never have suspected that the Water Tribes would have such a fondness for fireflakes – and yet, Boatswain Honda was informing me this morning that we should restock sooner rather than later.”

“Wasn’t he the dude playing the tsungi horn on Music Night?” Toph double-checked.

“He was,” Smokey agreed. “Boatswain Honda and Prince Zuko often performed together on Music Nights; though he would not wish it known, the Prince is a rather talented musician.”

Toph hid her smirk by taking a sip of jasmine tea. Oh, she was going to rip the shit out of Sparky for that, and after all he’d put them through in the past few weeks? He deserved every bit of smack talk he was gonna get.

“That reminds me,” Ice Pops began in a voice that was almost casual. “My daughter seemed fairly surprised to find out that the Lee boy she had been travelling with had been the banished Prince of the Fire Nation all along.”

Toph was sitting on what Smokey had told her was Gramps’ favorite cushion, but with her feet placed on the vibrating metal floor, she could sense Pops folding his arms and looking in her direction.

It only took Pops about five seconds to remember that she was blind, rather than the ten or fifteen it usually took Sucker. “Toph?”

Toph just sipped her tea and smacked her lips. “Yeah?”

“Would you mind telling me why Katara seemed so surprised to find out that Zuko was Fire Nation royalty?”

Most times when Toph had gotten in trouble back home, she’d just been sent to her room, so to be faced with an unimpressed adult who was actually calling her out on something she’d done was a fairly unfamiliar experience for her.

She found she didn’t like it much, and it made her defensive. “If she thought that was crazy, wait until she finds out he was pregnant.”

Jee let out a cough that sounded like a laugh, and Toph hid her smirk by taking another sip of jasmine tea. It wasn’t quite how Gramps made it, but it was still pretty good.

Pops let out the slightly-amused, slightly-irritated huff that Toph’s Dad had always let out when she tried playing smart. “You knew he was the Prince all along, didn’t you, Miss Beifong?”

For a moment, Toph considered just professing complete and total innocence. She didn’t have to tell him anything. Ice Pops wasn’t her dad, and she didn’t owe him anything, and in case she had forgotten to mention it, she was Toph fucking Beifong. She didn’t have to explain herself to this guy.

But they were kind of in this mess anyway because Sparky hadn’t told them anything and tried to hide everything, so she figured maybe it was time for their little group to try something new.

“He asked me not to tell them,” she explained. “When I figured it out, he told me he was on the Avatar’s side, and he wasn’t lying. So I figured I could trust him.”

“And when was this?” Ice Pops asked. “When did you figure out who he was?”

She shrugged. “About five minutes into our first proper conversation.”

Pops groaned, and Smokey made that coughing-laugh noise again.

“It was actually really obvious,” she continued, taking refuge in audacity. Much like Sparky had done, actually. “He really wasn’t subtle about it.”

“Subtlety is not a word I would associate with Prince Zuko,” Old Smokey agreed.

“Neither’s ‘pregnant’,” she quipped casually.

Pops let out a long sigh, which, again, Toph was pretty familiar with hearing from her own Dad. “You keep it up, and I’m confiscating those seasickness herbs.”

The thought of going back to those awful days of being hunched over a bucket in her cabin gave Toph serious pause for thought. Ice Pops drove a hard bargain.

She kind of respected him for that.

 

 

Katara was concentrating on the blue light as she used her waterbending to try and heal a little more of Aang’s scar, but she already knew that it wasn’t going to work.

It’s a scar. It can’t be healed.

But she kept trying, pushing her will and her determination into her bending, looking to pour her love and care into the water. For the past three weeks, she’d been spending most of her waking hours on the Wani down here in the medical bay, making sure that Aang was okay.

“Katara.”

It had taken weeks for Katara to feel confident that the awful wound in Aang’s back wasn’t going to be the end of the Air Nomads. Weeks where she had spent seemingly every waking moment either using her waterbending to heal him, or getting Uncle Iroh’s crew to help her. They could assist her by getting fresh bandages, purifying the seawater with their bending, or getting other medical supplies as she requested, demanded, and shouted for them.

It had taken weeks for her to stop dreaming of green crystals, and golden eyes, and orange-white fire.

Katara.”

When she’d seen Azula’s lightning tear through Aang, and his body tumbling through the air to crumple on the ground, it had been the most terrifying moment of Katara’s life. In those brief, awful moments between seeing Aang’s glowing tattoos suddenly fall dull again, seeing him crashing back down to the stone floor of the Catacombs, and the mad, frantic, ocean-frenzy desperation to reach him before Azula or Zuko, Katara hadn’t known whether Aang was alive or –

Or…

But he was safe, and he was okay, and even though he hadn’t woken up yet, it was just a matter of time. Because Aang had to wake up – he was the Avatar. But the Avatar had almost died in Ba Sing Se, and the Fire Nation had conquered the Earth Kingdom, because Katara had…

“It’s been three weeks, Katara. You can’t just not talk to me forever.”

The words slipped out unbidden. “Watch me.”

Sokka sighed, but Katara couldn’t see why he was the one who was annoyed at her right now. After she’d found out just how long he’d known who Zuko was…

Sokka had known since before they’d even reached the North Pole, but she’d had to find out from Azula.

The Fire Princess. His sister.

“I didn’t tell you because he made me promise not to tell you, Katara,” Sokka told her, misinterpreting her silence. “Should I have broken my word?”

I gave you my word, Katara! I promised you on my honor!

After three weeks, the simmering emotions in Katara’s chest snapped free, and she rounded on him angrily.

“Yes, Sokka!” She spit furiously. “You should have told us who Zuko was! When the person who’s been told to capture Aang asks you not to tell us that he’s been told to capture Aang, yes, you should break your word and tell us! Preferably before he tries to capture Aang!”

“He wasn’t trying to capture Aang!” Sokka groaned. “He had hundreds of opportunities to capture Aang before Ba Sing Se!”

“He had hundreds of opportunities to tell us who he was!” Katara hissed. She tried to keep her voice low so as not to disturb Aang, but it was a struggle. “He spent months with us, and he was lying the whole time! He made you lie to us the whole time!”

“I know, Katara,” Sokka closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. “I know, and I’m sorry, okay? But we were trying to keep you safe –”

“He was trying to keep us from suspecting him, Sokka!” Katara gestured to Aang as he lay in his bed. His skin was pale, and his cheeks were slightly gray from how long he’d been hidden away from the sunlight. “So I guess you did a really great job of keeping Aang safe!”

Sokka let out a deep sigh. His blue eyes suddenly looked a lot dimmer, and he looked a lot more tired. Katara remembered that Suki had left the Wani three weeks ago today.

“I’m not angry with you, Sokka,” she admitted unwillingly. “I’m not – I know you made a Water Tribe promise. But he… he was lying the whole time!”

“Katara, I know you’re mad at him for lying, but I swear, he was doing it to fool Azula –”

“This isn’t just about the Crystal Catacombs,” she told him determinedly, needing him to understand. “Sokka, Aang died in there.”

“I know –”

“No!” She cut him off, glaring at him. “No, you don’t know, Sokka! I don’t care if you think Zuko was trying to fool Azula, or do the right thing, or – or protect Aang! Aang died, and he wouldn’t even have been in that situation if Zuko hadn’t been lying to us the whole time! If he’d just told us who he was…”

But even as Katara trailed off, she wasn’t sure what would have changed if Zuko had been honest with her. Maybe nothing would have changed, maybe everything would be different.

But at least he wouldn’t have been lying to them all along.

Katara was so tired of being lied to. He’d been lying to her since the beginning, since the very start, and, like a silly little girl, she’d fallen for it. She’d offered to heal his scar, she’d told him about her mother… and he’d been lying to her.

He’d been lying to all of them.

“Zuko was an idiot,” Sokka said firmly, and she took heart from the anger in his voice. “He was a moron, and he made a super dumb decision, and he didn’t think it through at all. Not just in the Catacombs,” he added, seeing her open her mouth. “He should have told you who he was. But – Katara, listen to me, he was trying to protect you guys.”

But that wasn’t good enough for Katara. If he’d wanted to protect Aang, he shouldn’t have let Azula bend lightning at him!

She hated him. She hated him. Aang had almost died, and it was all his fault, because he’d been lying to them all along.

But at least Aang was okay, she reassured herself, looking down at the young monk as he slept on in his bed. She’d been able to heal him using the spirit water, and Zuko and Azula couldn’t get to him now.

And Katara would make sure they wouldn’t ever be able to hurt the Avatar again.

 

 

When Zuko had gone after Aang in Ba Sing Se, he’d done it because he’d needed to stop Azula from going after him herself. It had been a desperate move, and it had failed.

He had failed.

The Avatar had fallen, and Uncle Iroh had needed to fight the Dai Li off himself whilst Zuko stood stock still, frozen in horror at what had just happened. He’d been trying to keep Aang away from Azula, but he’d also been trying to keep an eye on Azula whilst making sure Katara didn’t get hurt. Trying to take care of all three things at once had ended just as badly as the first time Uncle had tried to make him juggle candle fires.

He hadn’t meant for Azula to be able to get a clear shot at Aang, but when he’d tried to stop Katara from hurting his little sister, he’d been drawn into fighting her instead. The rage and hurt and pain in Katara’s eyes had been hard for Zuko to take, but he hadn’t had a choice. He had to protect his family, too. But then Azula had bent her lightning at Aang, and Uncle had been captured, and Katara had only just managed to escape with Aang. Zuko had just had to hope that she had been able to heal him with the spirit water, but it had been three weeks, and he hadn’t heard anything.

So either Katara had saved him, and they were keeping Zuko out of the loop because they didn’t trust him, which would be an entirely understandable decision… or Aang was dead.

And it was all Zuko’s fault.

He’d never meant to get the Avatar killed. No matter what some people had to say on the subject.

“Why'd you do it?” He asked without preamble as he entered Azula’s darkened room.

If he moved first, she would be on the back foot and trying to keep up; that was part of how Master Piandao had encouraged him to use the knotweed tile in Pai Sho.

“You're going to have to be a little more specific.”

His little sister seemed as unsurprised by his sudden arrival as if she had been expecting it for weeks. After what the Fire Lord had said in their meeting earlier, Zuko thought maybe she had.

“Why did you tell Father that I was the one who killed the Avatar?” He demanded.

Azula’s only response was an unaffected sigh. “Can't this wait until the morning?”

Zuko gritted his teeth. “It can’t.”

The sheets rustled as Azula sat up in bed. A blue fireball flamed up in her hand, lighting up the room and her unimpressed expression. Uncle had taught Zuko how to use glowing sparks, but Zuli had always favored the straightforward approach.

“Fine,” she replied matter-of-factly. “You seemed so worried about how Father would treat you because you hadn't captured the Avatar. I figured if I gave you the credit, you'd have nothing to worry about.”

That only transferred the source of Zuko’s worries from the Fire Lord to Azula. “But why?”

“Call it a generous gesture,” she shrugged idly as she got out of bed. “I wanted to thank you for your help and I was happy to share the glory.”

“You're lying,” he replied sharply. “You’ve never been good at sharing, Azula.”

She barely paused as she stalked past him, humming her reply in a sing-song voice. “If you say so…”

“You have another motive for doing this,” he accused her, turning around to watch her progress. Turning your back on Azula only invited the knife. “I just haven't figured out what it is.”

Azula sniffed as she pivoted on her right foot. It was an elegant movement, but twisting and vicious. A perfect example of Sozin School.

“Funnily enough, I thought the exact same thing when I saw you bend the lightning meant for the Avatar,” she told him. “I’d be lying if I said you couldn’t be stupid enough to willingly align yourself with the Fire Nation’s greatest enemy, but I had rather hoped for better from you, Zuzu.”

Zuko gritted his teeth. Azula wasn’t the only one who’d hoped for better from him. Uncle was still in prison, and the guards were refusing to let him speak to the dangerous prisoner.

“I didn’t know you’d learnt how to bend lightning,” Azula continued in a conversational tone. “Though I suppose even Uncle must have gotten bored of your attempts at scalding tea leaves after three years, and decided to teach you something new instead.”

“I can’t bend lightning.”

“Really?” Azula raised an eyebrow in what appeared to be surprise, though her voice remained level and even. “Then what was that in Tu Zin?”

Redirection. How did she always do it? How did she take whatever Zuko was feeling confident in, and turn it to her own advantage?

This conversation. His return home. A pair of blue eyes under green crystals.

“Uncle taught me how to redirect lightning,” he muttered unwillingly. “But I can’t bend my own.”

“Ah,” Azula nodded in comprehension. “Another instance of you taking the credit for another’s accomplishment, then.”

“I didn’t want the credit,” Zuko spat lowly. “I didn’t even know what you’d done until I met with Father earlier. Why’d you do it?”

Azula let her mouth fall open in a mockery of surprise.

“Zuzu, are you accusing me of having an ulterior motive?” Her eyes sparkled with dark amusement. “When you were lying to the Avatar all along?”

Zuko hadn’t been lying, but he doubted Azula would appreciate the distinction. “Just tell me why you did it, Zuli.”

His sister sighed as she bent at the waist to curl around one of the columns of her bed.

“What could I possibly gain by letting you get all the glory for defeating the Avatar?” She asked simply, before pausing. “Unless, somehow, the Avatar was actually alive.”

Did that mean…?

“All that glory would suddenly turn to shame and foolishness,” Azula continued, and Zuko felt his chest go cold as all his fragile hope was punched out in an instant. “But you said it yourself, that was impossible.”

Zuko didn’t trust himself to speak, so he only nodded jerkily.

Azula was apparently satisfied with that response – or, at least, considering what a poor response it had been, maybe she simply didn’t care – because she slipped past him to meet his eye again.

“I was bending lightning at twelve years old, brother,” she murmured.

Zuko fought back the urge to bat her hands away as she straightened the collar of his robes.

“And the reason I’m capable of doing what you can’t,” she continued, tracing her hand up from his collar along the line of his throat. “The reason why, if you will…”

He jerked his head away and took a step back as her manicured fingernail began to travel up from his cheek to his –

Zuli gave him a triumphant smile, the corner of her lip curling up in pride.

“It’s because I’m always in control, Zuzu.”

Zuko couldn’t respond, so he turned on his heel and left. He could hear Azula’s self-satisfied giggling behind him as he stormed through the silent hallways, all the way back to the Crown Prince’s bedroom.

Notes:

In professional wrestling, a swerve is a sudden change in the direction of a storyline to surprise the fans. Often, it involves one wrestler turning on an ally in order to join a supposed mutual enemy.

Chapter Text

A hundred years ago, Aang had found himself caught up in the middle of a huge storm at sea, and he’d accidentally managed to get himself frozen in an iceberg for a hundred years. He didn’t think he’d been asleep for a hundred years this time round, because Katara, Sokka and Toph didn’t seem to be a hundred years old, but all the same, he was getting a little tired of waking up to find that the whole world had turned completely on its head in his absence.

“Why are we on a Fire Nation ship?” He asked Katara, looking around at a weird mixture of Fire Nation soldiers and Water Tribe warriors wearing Fire Nation outfits. “Why is everyone dressed this way? And why am I the only one who's completely out of it?”

“You need to take it easy, okay?” Katara advised him, putting her hand on his shoulder. “You got hurt pretty bad.”

Aang tried to remember what had happened to him. He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, but he was pretty sure it had involved onion and banana juice.

“I like your hair,” Katara added, giving him a pretty smile.

What?

“I have hair?” He asked in shock. How had he managed to miss the part where he had hair now?!

He patted the top of his head and tried not to shudder. The Air Nomads had always shaved their heads because it meant they could feel closer to their element. To have hair on his head felt… weird.

“How long was I out?”

“A few weeks,” Katara answered.

Oh, right. He’d missed the part where his hair had been growing because he’d been lying unconscious in a sickbed for a few weeks. That would probably explain the general wooziness, too.

“Everything okay?” A man in a Fire Nation army uniform asked.

Aang’s experiences with people in Fire Nation uniforms up until this point had been fairly mixed, so he was quite relieved that they were asking questions instead of attacking them. But Katara just looked away from them and folded her arms.

“We’re fine, Dad,” she said in a grumpy tone.

Aang wasn’t sure what was going on, because he couldn’t remember many times when Katara was grumpy, or annoyed, or mad at someone. But Katara’s dad definitely didn’t seem too mad, because he just reached out a hand in greeting.

“I’m Hakoda,” he introduced himself. “Katara and Sokka’s father.”

Personally, Aang thought he made a really good impression on Katara’s father, considering it was their first meeting. He hadn’t even needed to eat stewed sea prunes!

He’d been about to say he preferred it when people didn’t make a fuss about him being the Avatar and that he was actually a really humble monk who only happened to be a powerful bender, but then Katara interrupted.

“Great!” She said in a fake-bright voice. “Great, so now you guys have finally met. So would you mind giving us a little privacy?”

Hakoda did end up giving them a little privacy, but Aang liked to think he was a pretty observant guy. So by now, he figured that something was definitely up with Katara and her Dad. He just couldn’t figure out what.

“Are you mad at your dad or something?” He asked tentatively.

“What?” Katara gave her Dad another funny look as he walked away, before turning back to Aang. “Not at all. Why would you say that?”

Uh-oh. Aang was pretty sure he’d heard Katara use that tone of voice before. She’d usually used it when Sokka or Zuko had said a rude word, and then she’d say I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that, would you mind repeating it? in that tone of voice. Aang got the feeling that it was the tone of voice Katara used to warn someone that if they continued with that topic of conversation, it would end with a water whip to the face.

So instead of continuing with the conversation, he just shrugged – and ow, monkeyfeathers, that was a bad idea! He almost said a rude word, because that really, really hurt his back!

How on earth had that happened?

Aang couldn’t even remember how he’d ended up on this ship. The last thing he remembered was fighting against Azula and Zuko in the Crystal Catacombs. Zuko had sent a wall of fire Aang’s way, completely blocking him off from Katara and Azula. He’d tried to fight back, but the flames had been everywhere. He’d had to go into the Avatar State to try and find a way out of there for him and Katara…

He hadn’t wanted to, because he knew that Katara didn’t like it when he was all full of rage and pain, but he hadn’t seen any other way of getting them out of there. He remembered the way he had been about to give up his earthly attachment to Katara, but then he’d felt a cold shock, and he’d felt like he was falling through the cosmos…

It must have been from where Azula had struck him with her lightning when he was in the Avatar State, Aang realized.

“I went down!” He exclaimed as Katara used her waterbending to heal his back. “I didn't just get hurt, did I? It was worse than that.”

Oh, acorns. Avatar Roku had told him that if he was killed when he was in the Avatar State, the reincarnation cycle would be broken, and the Avatar would cease to exist. But Aang was still very much existing – and don’t get him wrong, he was super appreciative of that fact – so something must have happened.

“I was gone, but you brought me back,” he told Katara in amazement.

“I just used the spirit water from the North Pole,” Katara answered, moving her hand so it hovered over his lower back. “I don't know what I did, exactly.”

But Aang knew exactly what she’d done. “You saved me.”

Aang had been frozen in ice for a hundred years, and he’d almost been killed in Ba Sing Se, but both times, Katara had brought him back. That was one thing that would never change, he thought to himself with relief. Katara would always be there for him.

 

 

Sokka could see when Aang came back out on deck later that the poor guy was still pretty confused by pretty much everything, so he took pity on him and gathered everyone round to make sure they were all on the same page.

“After what happened at Ba Sing Se, we had to get you to safety,” he began explaining, pausing every now and again to make sure that Aang was following. “Master Iroh told me that the Wani was in Chameleon Bay, but as it turned out, my Dad and the other Water Tribe men had already found it.”

Lieutenant Jee looked like he wanted to say something here, but Toph had raised her clenched fist in warning, so he contented himself with a cough and a grimace.

“Didn’t we have more people with us in Ba Sing Se?” Aang asked, looking around at the group. “Wasn’t Suki with us? And… wasn’t there a bear?”

Aang had been lucky enough to forget the bear. Sokka wished he could forget the bear. He hadn’t even known bears could get seasick, let alone come up with that much vomit.

“The Earth King decided he wanted to travel the world in disguise, so he set off alone – well, not completely alone,” he amended, remembering that bear with a shudder. “Suki set off with  one of the sailors on this ship a couple of days ago to find out what happened to the Kyoshi Warriors.”

Again, Jee looked like he wanted to say something, but Sokka didn’t care about how Taki had gone off with his fireflakes, or Master Iroh’s last box of ginseng tea. Ginseng was the worst.

He missed Suki, he thought sadly to himself. Suki understood his pain; she hated ginseng, too.

“Since then we've been traveling west,” he finished. “We crossed through the Serpent's Pass a few days ago. We've seen a few Fire Nation ships, but none have bothered us.”

Aang nodded slowly, but Sokka could tell he was still struggling to take it all in. That was fair enough; so was Sokka.

“So what now?” Aang asked, most likely trying to figure out what they were meant to do with no King Dude.

“We've been working on a modified version of the invasion plan,” Dad explained.

“It's Sokka's invasion plan,” Katara corrected him with a frown. Sokka tried not to preen, but, you know. He thought it was a pretty good plan.

“Yes, Sokka's plan,” Dad agreed. “We won't be able to mount a massive invasion without the Earth King's armies, but the solar eclipse will still leave the Fire Nation vulnerable.”

Sokka nodded. “So we're planning a smaller invasion,” he explained. “Just a ragtag team of our friends and allies from around the Earth Kingdom. We already ran into Pipsqueak and The Duke.”

“Good to see you again, Aang!” Pipsqueak smiled, eating a bowl of noodles. Sokka sure hoped his cooking had improved from that time in Gaipan when he’d given them all cold stew.

“And the best part,” he tried to distracted himself from that traumatic memory, “Is the eclipse isn't even our biggest advantage! We have a secret – you!”

Considering how Aang had seemingly been incapable of keeping his identity as the Avatar secret for more than six minutes whenever they’d showed up in a new place, Sokka never thought he’d say something like that.

Aang looked kind of surprised too. “Me?”

“Yep,” Sokka nodded happily. “The whole world thinks you're dead! Isn't that great?”

“The world thinks I'm dead?” Aang repeated disbelievingly. “How is that good news? That's terrible!”

“It could be worse, Twinkles,” Toph said. “The world could think you’re pregnant.”

Aang, for some strange reason, did not think this was the comforting encouragement that Toph had apparently meant it to be. But before Sokka could convince him of death’s inherent tactical and strategic advantages, a Fire Nation ship drew up alongside them. Whilst Dad and Lieutenant Jee took care of seeing off the boarding crew, Sokka ducked into a hideaway with Katara, Aang, and Toph.

“Commander,” the Fire Navy officer barked at Jee. Real charmer, this one. “Why are you off course? All Western Fleet ships are supposed to be moving toward Ba Sing Se to support the occupation!”

“The Wani has not yet been brought back into active service in the Fire Navy,” Jee responded, making the sign of the flame with his hands. “We sail under the direct command of Crown Prince Zuko.”

Aang’s eyes widened, and Sokka had to lunge forward to muffle his shout of alarm. Slush, he’d forgotten to tell Aang about Zuko!

That was kind of an important part of making sure everyone was on the same page.

Mmrrh!” Aang shook his head from side to side, but Sokka made sure to keep his hand over his mouth.

“Jee’s on our side!” He hissed, glancing out nervously to make sure they hadn’t given themselves away. He noted with relief that the officer looked a bit uncomfortable at the thought of pissing off Fire Nation royalty. The sooner he left, the better.

“The Prince’s honor has only recently been restored in the eyes of Agni, the Fire Lord, and the Nation,” Jee continued calmly. “So as you can imagine, we’re still catching up on our communications.”

“Ah,” the Fire Nation officer nodded. “Well, sure was nice of Prince Zuko to let us know he was sending his crew our way.”

“I'm sure Prince Zuko meant no disrespect, sir,” Jee answered.

Sokka had always thought that Jee had no sense of humor, but the Fire Navy officer laughed out loud. The universe just loved proving him wrong…

“Wonder where we’ve heard that one before,” He chuckled, giving them an approving nod. “He can kill the Avatar, but I guess he can’t write a quick note and send a hawk our way, huh?”

“Next time, we'll send two hawks to make sure you get the message,” Dad promised.

Sokka watched nervously, but it didn’t seem like the Fire Navy commander or his second-in-command suspected anything. Still, Sokka let out a long, long breath when they were able to sail away without any further trouble.

Mmrh!

Oh, right. He had to take his hand away from Aang’s mouth so that Aang could take a breath of his own.

“This is Zuko’s ship?” Aang demanded, looking at Dad and Jee with shock in his eyes as they joined them. “What’s going on?”

“Aang,” Sokka began, “I know it looks bad –”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Toph snarked.

“Shut up, Toph,” he snapped, before turning back to Aang. “It’s Zuko’s ship, yeah, but the sailors here are on our side!”

“How do you know that?” Aang asked, still looking at Jee suspiciously. “How can we trust his crew, after he betrayed us in Ba Sing Se?”

Sokka looked appealingly at his Dad. Dad didn’t look happy about it, and he let out a sigh, but he didn’t say anything. Sokka figured that was good enough.

“Actually, Aang,” he began slowly. “I don’t think Zuko did betray us in Ba Sing Se.”

 

 

Katara had heard Sokka’s theory before, but it was still pretty unbelievable the second time around. She could see that Aang was struggling to get his head around it, too. He still looked pensive by the time she knocked on his door with the others later that evening, but with the way his face contorted when Sokka asked him to wear a bandana around his head to cover his arrow and hide his identity, Katara could see that he clearly had a lot on his mind.

“I'm not going out if I can't wear my arrow proudly!” He snapped back at Sokka, lying back down on his bed and crossing his arms.

“Aang,” Sokka sighed. “Come on. Be practical.”

Katara stifled a sigh at her brother’s lack of sensitivity, but put a hand on his shoulder. “You guys go ahead without us. We'll catch up to you.”

Sokka must have realized that he’d made a mistake – the way Aang was scowling up at the ceiling might have tipped him off to that. As he and Toph slipped out of the room, Katara sat down on Aang's bed. Just like with Sokka, she reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder.

“I think I understand why being a secret bothers you so much,” she began hesitantly. “You don't want people to think you failed.”

“It’s not just that,” Aang sighed, drawing his knees up to his chin. “It’s just… Zuko kept who he was a secret all that time, and look how that turned out.”

“That’s not your fault, Aang,” she assured him firmly. She didn’t want him blaming himself for how things had gone so disastrously wrong in Ba Sing Se. “What happened was Zuko’s fault, not yours.”

“But it did happen!” Aang said angrily, getting up to his feet. “It is true – I was in Ba Sing Se. I was there! But I lost, and now the Earth Kingdom is fallen for good!”

“It's not for good!” She tried to encourage him, standing up as well. “Remember, there's still a plan – the invasion!”

“And I hate the invasion plan, too!” Aang half-shouted, ripping down the Fire Nation flag that they had put up to hide his glider staff. “I don't want you or anyone else risking your lives to fix my mistakes!”

“Aang,” Katara began, moving towards him. “Aang, it wasn’t your mistake – it was Zuko’s fault that Azula was able to attack you!”

But Aang didn’t seem to want to listen to her. “I've always known that I would have to face the Fire Lord. But now I know I need to do it alone.”

Hearing Aang say something like that sent a chill down Katara’s spine. “Aang…”

“Katara, please!” Aang shook his head and turned his face away. “Just go. Please.”

She sighed, accepting that he wasn’t in a mood to talk to her right now. She supposed all she could do was show that she would still be there for him when he wanted to talk. “Is there anything you need?”

Aang was quiet as she left the room, but she thought she could hear him mumble something about honor as she caught up to Sokka and Toph at the end of the corridor, both of whom had been doing a terrible job of pretending they hadn’t been eavesdropping.

It took until they had reached the marketplace in the Earth Kingdom town they were visiting for Toph to dispense entirely with the pretense. “What’s going on with Twinkles?”

“I don’t know,” Katara admitted worriedly as she handed over a few copper pieces in exchange for a few heads of cabbage. “It sounded like he was blaming himself for what happened in Ba Sing Se.”

“What?” Toph scowled as she tested the weight of a ceramic bowl in her hand. “What did the Fancy Dancer do that he’s got to beat himself up about?”

“Aang didn’t do anything!” Katara defended Aang fiercely. “It’s not his fault that Zuko betrayed us back in –”

Sokka cleared his throat meaningfully, and Katara fell silent as he jerked his head towards a merchant who seemed to be listening to their conversation with something more than polite interest.

“Let’s just get what we need and go,” Sokka advised her lowly, hefting a bag of rice up in his arms.

Katara took the hint – even if they weren’t in Ba Sing Se anymore, it probably wasn’t a good idea to mention the war, or anything to do with Aang, or the Fire Prince. It would be better to keep a low profile – that was why Sokka had tried to get Aang to wear that headband, after all.

As they returned to the ship laden down with enough food to keep their strength up, and hopefully a few treats to boost Aang’s spirits, Katara thought absently to herself just how much Aang’s appearance was changed by a full head of hair. Although, in all honesty – she shouldn’t have been so surprised by it; spirits knew some of the warriors of her Tribe had looked so different when she’d seen them again on the Wani. She remembered Inuksuk being a giant of a man, she was pretty sure Amaruq’s hair hadn’t been grey three years ago, and had Panuk always had so many tattoos?

At least her Dad hadn’t changed a bit. He still looked exactly the same as he’d looked three years ago. He’d left the South Pole behind to go and fight the Fire Nation, and he’d left the Southern Water Tribe behind to fight the war, and he’d left Katara and Sokka and Gran-Gran behind to fight, but at least he still looked like he’d looked when he’d left. That was a good thing, right?

Katara let out a deep sigh as she made her way back to Aang’s room. Stuff with her Dad right now was tricky, there was no denying that. She was so happy to see him, but… even though he looked the same, she knew Dad wasn’t the same person he’d been three years ago, and neither was she.

But she could worry about all that later; right now, Aang was probably hungry.

“Hey, Aang,” she knocked on the door. “It’s me. It’s Katara.”

She wasn’t too surprised when there wasn’t a reply; today had been a tiring day, and Aang was still recovering. Still, at least he’d be happy to wake up to dinner.

“Hope you’re hungry,” she continued absently as she shifted the bag in her arms to nudge the door handle down with her elbow. “I got you an egg custard tart – Tui and La, I really had to fight to keep that out of Sokka’s greedy paws…”

But her words trailed off as she opened the door, only to find an empty room.

Chapter 4

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Toph had been having a perfectly nice time sitting down and listening to Old Smokey playing a game of Pai Sho with the cook – whilst trying not to listen to Snoozles eating his dinner at the same time – but then she’d sensed a pair of feet running down the metal corridor from Twinkles’ room and bursting up onto the deck. That couldn’t be good news.

As Toph made her way up out onto the deck, she could hear that Bato dude excusing himself in a kind of awkward voice. Hearing how quickly Sugar Queen was breathing, and the way her heartbeat was jumping around? Toph wouldn’t have wanted to stick around for that, either.

Good thing her Pops was around, though. “What's wrong, Katara?”

“He left.”

“What?”

Pops sounded as surprised as Toph did. Sucker hadn’t left – in fact, he’d been eating with enough gusto that she’d been struggling to keep track of the Pai Sho game down in the canteen. So if it wasn’t Snoozles, who was Sugar Queen so worried about –

Oh, mudslides.

“Aang,” Sugar Queen continued, confirming Toph’s fears. “He just took his glider and disappeared! He has this ridiculous notion that he has to save the world alone – that it's all his responsibility!”

Twinkle Toes had gone?

Toph was going to kick his bony airbender butt so hard, he wouldn’t be able to sit down for a month. They’d risked life and limb to get him out of Ba Sing Se – Fan Girl had been going out of her mind with worry, Snoozles had almost worked himself to exhaustion trying to get them to Chameleon Bay, and Sugar Queen… well.

Katara hadn’t left the sickbay for a week whilst she’d been healing the Fancy Dancer, Toph thought furiously to herself. And this was how he said thank-you? By jumping up and ditching the first chance he got?

“Maybe that's his way of being brave,” Ice Pops told her, like that was going to help the situation.

The last time the Fancy Dancer had ran off, back in the Si Wong Desert, Toph was pretty sure Katara had been the one holding them together when Tantrum Toes had been flying around on his glider having a sulk. Toph was blind, and even she could see which of them had been the brave one out there in the desert.

“It's not brave, it's selfish and stupid!”

Told ya.

“We could be helping him!” Sugar Queen continued, “And I know the world needs him, but doesn't he know how much we need him, too? I thought he was going to be there for us!”

Ice Pops was silent for a long moment, but when he spoke again, his voice was real quiet. “You're talking about me too, aren't you?”

Toph was suddenly struck with the thought that maybe this wasn’t the kind of conversation she should be an audience to. Sugar Queen didn’t seem like the kind of person who wanted a whole crowd around for when she was having her problems.

Maybe Bato had had the right idea by leaving as fast as he could.

“How could you leave us, Dad?” Katara was crying now. “I mean, I know we had Gran-Gran, and she loved us, but we were just so lost without you!”

Toph was kind of regretting sticking around for this. Mistress Ouyang hadn’t really allowed her any friends, but she didn’t need tutors to tell her that snooping and eavesdropping on private conversations wasn’t exactly what nice young ladies did.

“I'm so sorry, Katara.”

But Toph wasn’t exactly a nice young lady, and she wasn’t entirely sure that if she moved, she wouldn’t end up getting spotted. She tried to listen to the rain as it beat down on the metal ship.

“I understand why you left,” and yeah, Katara was crying. “I really do – and I know that you had to go, so why do I still feel this way? I'm so sad and angry and hurt!”

At least the vibrations were dulled if she stood in the wet puddles on the decking and stopped leaning on the metal wall. Toph figured that counted as some attempt at giving them privacy, right?

“I love you more than anything,” Ice Pops told Katara quietly, and Toph tried really fucking hard not to listen in. “You and your brother are my entire world. I thought about you every day when I was gone and every night when I went to sleep, I would lie awake missing you so much it would ache.”

Toph didn’t lie awake at night missing Gaoling. But she did kind of miss going to the opera with Mom.

Suddenly, footsteps came running up behind her, and she barely managed to jump out of the way before stupid Snoozles knocked her over like one of the pins whenever The Boulder and The Gopher had played bowling in the changing rooms.

“What’s happening?” Sucker shouted. “Bato came down and said there was something going on – is something going on?”

“Aang’s flown off,” Ice Pops replied seriously. “Do you have any idea where he would have gone?”

Snoozles swore, and Sugar Queen yelled at him, but that was business as usual for those two. Personally, Toph thought that a bit of a sweary outburst was a better way for Sucker to react than the last time Twinkles had ran off on them, back in the desert. At least he wasn’t hallucinating giant mushrooms this time around.

And at least this now gave Toph an excuse to run out on deck and pretend like she hadn’t been there all along.

“What’s going on?” She gasped, making sure to look around a few times like a poor, helpless blind girl. Finally, a good use for all those amateur dramatics classes The Boulder had dragged her along to.

“Toph!” Sucker must have spotted her first. “Come on, Toph, we’ve got to go!”

“What?” She let her mouth fall open, but resisted the urge to clap her hands to her cheeks. That was probably a bit too much. “What are you talking about?”

“Aang’s run off on us again,” Snoozles explained in an irritated sort of voice. “Come on – I’ll give you a hand up onto Appa.”

Once again, Toph did not appreciate being thought of as incapable, but Snoozles did have a point; she needed the help to climb up onto the bison. At least his warm hand had a nice firm grip, though.

Not that Toph had noticed, or anything. Whatever.

“Did Twinkle Toes make a habit of running off before I showed up, too?” She asked as the fuzzball set off into the air. She hoped that stupid lemur wasn’t going to pop up out of nowhere like he always did.

“It’s a more common occurrence than I want it to be,” Snoozles answered moodily. “Remember when he went running off in that fishing village, Katara? And then we got into a massive storm? And then we ended up in the inn, eating –”

“Fuck off, Sokka!”

Yeesh. Toph was always caught out by the set of lungs Sugar Queen had on her.

 

 

If Azula suspected that Aang was still alive, Zuko couldn’t afford to make her any more suspicious than she already was. He hated doing nothing, but he couldn’t risk tipping her off by writing to Yoshida and the Wani. So, instead, he had been spending his evening in the palace library, trying to think of a way to convince the prison guards to let him speak to Uncle.

“Which dusty old Fire Sage is it this time?” Mai’s voice asked, in a tone as close to interested as she might ever come.

“It’s not a Fire Sage,” Zuko answered, rolling up the scroll he’d been reading. “It’s a copy of something I read when I was banished.”

Whilst Uncle and King Bumi had played Pai Sho and drank jennamite-dusted tea, Bumi had allowed Zuko the freedom of the King of Omashu’s personal library, and in amongst the tomes on political philosophy, military theory, and the six-volume personal memoirs of a small village in Sichuan Province, commanding spectacular views of the Heizhu Valley, Zuko had found a set of poetry scrolls that had resonated with him.

Banished to these southern wastes

I’m lucky to be alive;

With just enough to wear and eat

I’m ready to live out my days.

I gave up hope long ago

Of achieving high rank or position –

Even with good luck from a god,

Merit is hard to achieve.

“Ah,” Mai nodded as she approached the table he was sitting at. “Yet another story that begins with the words ‘when I was banished.”

The faint glimmer of amusement in her eyes made Zuko think she might actually have been teasing him, and he gave her a hopeful grin in response. “I mean, ‘Once upon a time’ gets a little repetitive, right?”

“Well, at least this story has a handsome prince,” she replied, reaching out to tilt his chin up so she could look into his eyes with a small smile. “What sort of scroll is it?”

“It’s a copy of a poem I read in the Earth Kingdom,” he began hesitantly. “It kind of summed up where I was, about a year ago.”

Mai’s golden eyes darkened, and her mouth turned down a little as she dropped her hand from his face and stowed it back within her robes. “I don’t really care about your Earth Kingdom poetry, Zuko.”

Zuko had figured that might be the case. He didn’t think that fire was the superior element anymore, but he’d always thought that the poetry was better in the Fire Nation than anywhere else.

“We can talk about something else if you want,” he tried. “There’s Fire Nation poetry, if you want to talk about that?”

“Not especially,” Mai shook her head, though she let out a faint laugh. “It’s just all about the sun, and sunrises, and sunsets. It gets kind of boring after a while; orange is such an awful color.”

“The Hyakunin Isshu’s got some cool poems,” Zuko offered. “Love poems, and that sort of thing. Don’t girls like that kind of stuff?”

“Maybe stupid girls,” Mai replied, though she had a faint smile on her face. “I’ll have to get Ty Lee a copy.”

Zuko remembered how enthusiastic everyone had been for the poetry night the Pao Family Tea House had put on for Katara’s birthday. He had been stunned that Sokka had been so open with his feelings for Suki – in the Fire Nation, love wasn’t something you discussed openly in polite company. It was only alluded to through delicate hints and veiled metaphor; even in Love Amongst the Dragons, Noren and the Dragon Empress only confessed their feelings obliquely through their promises of devotion.

Whatever he and Mai were to each other right about now, Zuko didn’t think they were going to establish anything through an open discussion. And he wasn’t entirely sure she’d appreciate it if he wrote a poem that might express his feelings on the matter, either.

“When I was in Ba Sing Se, I went to a poetry night,” he told her instead. “And one of the boys there recited a poem for the girl he liked. It wasn’t, like, a great performance, or anything, but – it was nice.”

He had chosen his words carefully, but he had to lower his eyes anyway, just in case Mai might realize from his expression that he wasn’t talking about Sokka and Suki anymore.

“Seriously?” Mai asked, and disdain wasn’t just in her expression, but in her words now, too. “You’re back home, Zuko. You should be happy your banishment’s over, not – not moping about in here, having a sulk over peasants who don’t even know what a haiku is.”

“I’m not moping,” he retorted. One. “And my mother always said that peasants had great honor and great courage.”

For a moment, he thought he saw Mai’s eyes widen in surprise that he had mentioned his mother. But almost before he had caught the motion, she had schooled her features back into an impassive mask that gave nothing away.

“You should probably forget what your mother said,” she told him lowly. “The Fire Lord issued a decree – well,” she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I’ve been away for three years,” Zuko replied. “I can’t remember what the Fire Lord said.”

That was two.

Zuko remembered exactly what the Fire Lord had said, and he wasn’t ever going to forget.

Mai hesitated again, but only for a moment. It was a mark of good character and high class to be composed and collected at all times. She must have felt uncomfortable with how close the conversation was coming to acknowledging an unspoken truth about at least one of Zuko’s parents, if not both, because she cleared her throat.

“Azula sent me out here to get you because she wanted to play a game,” she informed him in a bland voice. “So if you’re done wasting both our time, we can head over to the garden in the east wing.”

“Is she going to stick another apple on your head?” Zuko asked as he stood from his chair and dusted himself down. One of the servants appeared to take the scroll from him with a deep bow, but he could have put it back on the shelf himself.

“I think it might be your turn, actually,” Mai replied. “And I won’t shove you in a fountain to put it out, either.”

Her voice gave nothing away, but when she looked back at him, Zuko thought he could see a tiny smile on her face.

“That’s fine,” he answered, trailing a half-step behind her on their way. “I hate it when people get my hair wet, anyway.”

Three.

 

 

Since the very beginning, Aang had known that he would be the one to face the Fire Lord and defeat him and end the war. But with everything that had happened in Ba Sing Se, he’d come to an important realization: he couldn’t let other people get involved in his destiny. He couldn’t let any of his friends get involved, because he couldn’t see them get hurt by Zuko or Azula. And he definitely couldn’t let Zuko or Azula get involved, because then he’d end up getting shot with lightning.

So he’d flown off alone into the middle of a rainstorm so he could reach the Fire Nation on his own. That had maybe not been Aang’s best idea ever, because he’d almost ended up drowning.

Bumi had told Aang that the Dark Water Spirit was a friend of the Avatar, but Aang’s experiences with the ocean now included getting frozen in an iceberg, the Ocean Spirit taking him over and wiping out a whole bunch of Fire Navy ships, and now a near-drowning. He’d been here before, like when that old fisherman had yelled at him for turning his back on the world. That was yet another instance of Aang having a bad experience with the ocean.

The Dark Water Spirit could suck it, Aang thought annoyedly to himself as he bent the water out of his shirt. They were an even worse friend than Zuko!

At least Avatar Roku had shown up in a spirit vision to encourage Aang that he hadn’t failed. That had been his biggest fear – that everyone would think he was dead again, and that Aang had abandoned them again, and that he was letting the whole world down again. Aang had thought earlier that being remembered as Avatar Aang, The Avatar Who Couldn’t Do Anything Whilst He Was Busy Pretending To Be Dead was the worst way he could imagine being remembered, but Avatar Roku had reminded him that he was destined to redeem the good name of the Avatar and save the world.

Aang hadn’t been convinced, but then Princess Yue had showed up and reminded him of what Avatar Roku had said the first time they’d met, back on the Winter Solstice. The Avatar had already saved the world a whole bunch of times, so there was no reason Aang couldn’t do it again. But he couldn’t give up.

At least Katara looked happy to see him when all his friends turned up on Appa.

“You're okay!” She cried out, giving him a super tight hug. Aang was super happy to see her too, but he wasn’t going to be okay for much longer if she kept hugging him around his neck like that.

When Momo, Sokka, and Toph all joined their hug, Aang felt a surge of determination as he remembered what Yue had told him. He would save the world again, just so long as he didn’t give up.

“I have so much to do,” he confessed as he stepped back out of the hug.

“I know,” Katara agreed, giving him a smile. “But you'll have our help.”

Yeah, Aang thought happily. Yeah, he’d have his friends to help him! He’d have Katara’s encouragement, and Sokka’s smarts, and Toph’s determination, and Zuko’s –

Oh, right, yeah. Hotman wasn’t their friend anymore.

Aang didn’t have time to feel sad or angry or confused about that, though, because Toph punched him on the arm, and that kind of hurt.

“You didn't think you could get out of training just by coming to the Fire Nation, did you?” She asked, folding her arms.

“What about the invasion?” Aang asked, looking at Sokka nervously. He realized that this was the second time he had taken Sokka away from his family, and he hoped he wasn’t as mad at him as he’d been the last time.

“We'll join up with my dad and the invasion force the day of the eclipse,” Sokka replied calmly. Aang breathed a sigh of relief – he didn’t seem too mad, at least!

As Aang set his glider on fire to destroy it and hide his identity, he felt a mixture of sadness and peace. It hurt him to get rid of one of his last ties to the Air Nomads, but he knew it wasn’t the end of the world. After all, Zuko had lost loads of dao swords when he was travelling with them…

Aang sighed. He was really going to have to get used to the idea that Zuko wasn’t around anymore.

“It’s a good thing my Dad had the presence of mind to grab your stuff when we had to get away,” Katara told him as he rejoined them all on Appa, holding up a bag that represented pretty much all of Aang’s earthly possessions now that his glider was burned down to ash.

“Thanks, Katara,” he said gratefully, opening the bag and rummaging through his stuff. Wow, he really didn’t have a lot of earthly possessions. A bunch of marbles, a couple of odd socks, Zuko’s dagger, that flute the singing nomads had given him –

Wait, what?

“This is Zuko’s dagger,” he realized, drawing the knife out.

“What?” Katara scowled at the dagger like it was going to jump out of his hand and attack them. “Why’ve you got that?”

“He gave it to me when we reached Ba Sing Se,” Aang remembered. “It’s got an inscription on the handle.”

Katara took the knife and frowned. “Made in Earth Kingdom?”

Aang had read that side first, too! “On the other side, it says ‘Never give up without a fight’,” he explained. “He wanted it to remind me not give up when I was feeling down about how Appa was missing.”

Appa let out a long growl that told Aang that he’d really missed him when they’d been separated, and Aang leaned over the side of the saddle to pat him on the side.

“Not as much as I missed you, buddy,” he reassured him, and Appa made a snuffling noise that made him smile.

“Who knew the jerkbender had a heart after all, huh?” Sokka asked thoughtfully.

“That’s Sparky for you,” Toph replied. “Just a big ball of feelings.”

Katara didn’t say anything, but she gave the dagger another angry look.

Zuko had said that sifu Iroh had given him that dagger to remind him of Iroh when he wasn’t around. Aang wasn’t sure if he wanted to remember Zuko now that it had turned out that they hadn’t been able to trust him all along, but he decided to keep the dagger anyway. Roku and Yue had told him not to give up, and he figured it would be a good reminder.

Avatar Aang, who never gave up without a fight. He supposed that one sounded kind of cool.

Notes:

The contents of Bumi’s library reference Blackadder the Third, where King George III believes himself to be ‘a small village in Lincolnshire, commanding spectacular views of the Nene valley’. Zuko quotes Peter Harris' translation of a poem by the Tang poet Han Yu (768-824), ‘[i]nscribed on a tower in a Buddhist monastery on Mount Hen while staying the night there during a visit to the mountain’.

Chapter 5

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Zuko’s birthday fell in the middle of winter, which wasn’t exactly an auspicious time of year for a firebender to be born. The Fire Nation didn’t associate long, cold nights with good fortune and great benders, and neither had Zuko’s father. As Fire Lord Ozai liked to tell the story, Zuko had been born without a spark in his eyes, and it had only been the intervention of Zuko’s mother that had stopped him from casting the newborn prince over the palace walls. For a long time, the royal family hadn’t even been sure whether Zuko was a bender at all, and even when he had eventually proved them all wrong, it hadn’t been a very dignified vindication of whatever small measure of patience his father had shown him – at seven years old, Zuko had sneezed and set a curtain on fire.

By that point, Zuli had already been bending for two years; she’d been three years old when she’d first clapped her hands together to make sparks, and at five years old, she was already a prodigy. Zuko’s hopes of catching up to his little sister as she made her inevitable way to firebending mastery had been quickly dashed – his balance and breathing had both been unsteady, and he had struggled to generate anywhere near the power and force Azula could when he practiced his katas under his disapproving tutors’ eyes. The only thing Zuko had ever really been better than Azula at had been his meditating, but that had only been because Azula didn’t need to meditate to strengthen her connection to her inner fire. She had always been an effortlessly natural bender, but Zuko had needed to sit down with his mother in her study every morning with a candle and try and sense the little heartbeat in the flame. When he had tried the door this morning, it had been locked; he wasn’t sure if the room had been used since his banishment.

As he took another deep breath, Zuko could almost smell the shōgayu tea. Mom had always told him that if he could keep his eyes closed and focus on his meditating for the entire duration of an hour, he could have a sticky bun with their tea.

“Six candles, Zuzu? I’m almost impressed.”

And just like then, Zuko thought wryly to himself, Zuli only showed up in time for the sticky buns.

“I’m sure you can manage seven in your sleep,” he returned, opening his eyes to see his little sister standing in the doorway to their mother’s study.

“You’d be correct,” Azula replied as she made her way over to sit on the other side of the candles he was using. “I did get all the luck in the family, after all.”

Right, Zuko remembered. Azula had been born lucky. Zuko had been lucky to be born.

“Maybe I’ll try eight tomorrow,” he countered sullenly, rather annoyed to have his meditations interrupted.

Azula seemed amused, but it seemed a little softer than her usual cold laughter. “Perhaps you’d do better with nine.”

Zuko didn’t respond as he looked at the candles, and he and Azula sat there for a few moments in a silence that was almost comfortable. He was waiting for her to grow bored and leave like she always had done when she’d joined Zuko and their mother in meditations; she’d never needed to –

“Did you have many opportunities to practice whilst you were travelling through the Earth Kingdom?” Azula asked suddenly, raising her hand and turning the candlelight blue with a careless wave.

Zuko was instantly wary. Since he had returned to the Fire Nation with his sister and her friends, they hadn’t talked about the time when he had fought Mai and Ty Lee with Sokka and Katara, and saved Aang from Azula in Tu Zin. Mai, perhaps, would have been happy to forget it all and leave it in the past, and Ty Lee probably didn’t mind overmuch now that they were all back in the Caldera, but Zuko should have been expecting something like this from Azula.

“A few,” he responded. He wasn’t a very good liar, but if he could keep his answers as short and noncommittal as he could, maybe she would lose interest before he gave anything away.

“Ah,” Azula nodded placidly. “It must have been difficult to hide your firebending from the Avatar.”

Zuko hadn’t made it through his first day before Aang, Sokka and Katara had found out that he was a firebender, but he wasn’t going to admit that to Azula. She would laugh her head off at him for being such a dum-dum.

“But I suppose if he wasn’t able to figure out who you really were, I doubt he could have put the pieces together if you bent right in front of his eyes.”

For all Zuko’s reticence, he wasn’t able to stop his right eye from twitching in irritation. But of course Zuli picked up on it, and she let out a small chuckle.

“So he did know you’re a firebender?” She smirked. “And he didn’t tell the others? Gosh, Zuzu – he must have been a bigger fool than you.”

Zuko tried not to let the fact that Azula was using the past tense get to him.

“They knew, too,” he answered. He didn’t like his little sister thinking he was an idiot, but he would rather confirm her suspicions about him than set her off with a whole new set of suspicions about Aang.

Please.

Zuli looked a little surprised for a moment before she recovered her poise admirably. “So the waterbender knew you were a firebender, but not that you were the Fire Prince?”

Zuko gritted his teeth. “Not until you told her.”

“I didn’t tell her who you were.”

He scoffed. “Sure, you didn’t.”

Azula always lies.

“I didn’t tell the waterbender who you were, Zuko,” Azula assured him.

“Katara.”

“Hm?”

“Her name,” he looked back at the candle. “She’s called Katara.”

“Be that as it may,” Zuli twisted her fingers, and the candle winked out. “I didn’t even know you hadn’t told her until I saw how shocked she was that I knew Uncle Iroh.”

Zuko still hadn’t been able to go and see Uncle Iroh. He’d been trying – he needed to tell Uncle what he’d been trying to do, and he needed to find out if Aang was still alive, but he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to get into the prison. He’d tried going in disguise nearly every day, and it hadn’t worked once. He was seriously debating whether or not he could get away with turning up in full Crown Prince regalia and forcing the guards to let him in, but that probably wouldn’t endear him to Uncle very much.

Azula sighed impatiently, and stood to her feet again. “Come on, dum-dum. Let’s go get tea and sticky buns. You do still like tea and sticky buns, don’t you?” She added as an afterthought.

Zuko remembered that his sister had always gotten bored of meditating when she’d joined him and Mom to meditate. But she’d always come back for the sticky buns.

“Sure,” he decided, standing to join her. “Just like old times.”

 

 

“Great job with the cloud camo,” Sokka told Katara and Aang, “But next time, let's disguise ourselves as the kind of cloud that knows how to keep its mouth shut.”

“Yeah,” Toph agreed, because he was correct and she had common sense.

“We wouldn't want a bird to hear us chatting up there and turn us in,” she continued, because she was a brat and Sokka was unappreciated.

“Hey,” he snapped. “We're in enemy territory. Those are enemy birds!”

After that whole mess with the Fire Temple, Zhao, and Avatar Roku deciding to reinvite himself back to the land of the living, Sokka had made one very simple request of the spirits – don’t have them going back to the Fire Nation. But he should have known that the only time the spirits listened to his prayers was when he was asking for a new Moon Spirit, and even then they liked to screw him over.

So after the last time they had visited the Fire Nation on the winter solstice, Sokka would have thought the others would have appreciated his suspicion of seemingly harmless people and animals from the Fire Nation, but apparently, they were too busy complaining about how they’d be living in caves until the invasion began.

“Sokka, we don't need to become cave people,” Katara protested. “What we need is some new clothes.”

Sokka had to concede that his little sister was probably right. If they got some Fire Nation disguises, they’d be just as safe out in the open as if they were hiding in a cave.

“Yeah,” Aang agreed. “Blending in is better than hiding out. If we get Fire Nation disguises, we would be just as safe as we would be hiding in a cave.”

Oh, for the love of –

Whatever. Sokka didn’t care anymore. He’d had it up to here with Aang butting in and saying just what he’d been about to say. And he was done with trying to keep them all safe, if they were just going to go and steal clothes in broad daylight. And he was well and truly unimpressed with Toph’s attempts at getting appropriate footwear for the blind earthbender. He didn’t care how stylish the shoe was when she was launching the sole at him and leaving a red mark on his face!

He was still grumbling about it when Katara showed up wearing a red Fire Nation outfit. That would have been bad enough for Sokka, as a proud member of the Southern Water Tribe, but it was an outfit that showed off his little sister’s bare arms, shoulders, and midriff. This might actually have been the one time Sokka looked at a Water Tribe warrior wearing Fire Nation red and gone hmm, needs a bit more Fire Nation red.

“How do I look?”

Sokka had been about to bet Katara a month’s supply of seal jerky that Gran-Gran had never gone around wearing an outfit like that when she was younger when Aang piped up.

“Uh,” he scratched his head and gestured at her neck. “Your mom's necklace…”

“Oh,” Katara said softly, touching her hand to her necklace. “Yeah. I guess it's pretty obviously Water Tribe, isn't it?”

In Sokka’s opinion, it didn’t matter a slush if Mom’s necklace looked Water Tribe or not, he would have thought Aang would have appreciated how much that necklace meant to Katara. He’d been there for how sad Katara would have been after she’d lost Mom’s necklace on the Beihe prison rig, right? And surely he remembered how happy she’d been when she’d got it back in Taku, considering he was the one who’d gotten it back from… oh, for La’s sake.

Stupid jerkbender.

Zuko had shown up, did a bunch of neat stuff, made them all think he was on their side, and then vanished without so much as a By the way, I’m willing to sink your canoe without so much as a heads-up – and now Aang was doing the same thing!

Sokka and the others had gone to grab some food from a meat store, and when they’d come back out again, where there had once stood Aang, merrily calling everyone Hotman, now there was just an empty part of the cobblestone street, decidedly not calling anyone Hotman. Which was a relief, to be honest. Apparently, Toph listened to the earth, but if the cobblestone started talking to Sokka, he’d officially be going kooky.

Bad enough that soft rock and choirs of winged lemurs kept chatting to him, if the Fire Nation had talking rocks? That would be the worst discovery Sokka had yet made.

Stupid Jerk Nation. Sokka didn’t care if everyone ate meat. He didn’t even care if the meat ate the meat. They were all untrustworthy morons who never thought things through, and their slang was super stupid. Who said stay flaming to someone? Surely a better greeting would be keep it chilled, or something like that!

“Because if you get too hot, you just burn out!” He ranted to Katara and Toph as he paced their secret cave. It wasn’t a secret tunnel, but at least it didn’t have angry badgermoles, suspicious yellow goo on the walls, or jerkbenders, in that order.

Seriously,” he continued aggravatedly. “I don’t like angry Fire Nationers either, but yellow goo? That’s a whole different matter. And don’t get me started on badgermoles –”

“Shut up, Snoozles,” Toph interrupted.

“Excuse me?” He asked indignantly. “Listen, Toph, I don’t care if the badgermoles were the best tutors you ever had, when you’re stuck in a tunnel with nomads –”

“They’re better than Mistress Ouyang,” Toph cut him off again. “But someone’s coming, Sucker, so shut up already!”

Oh, slush. Sokka had to think quickly. If someone had caught Aang – worse, if they’d managed to figure out where they were all hiding, and they were setting a trap for him –

“Where have you been?” Katara asked, almost running towards Aang. “We've been worried sick!”

Sokka wasn’t going to agree out loud, but he was so relieved, he almost felt his legs give way beneath him like soft rock. Aang was okay, thank the spirits. The useful spirits, that was.

“I got invited to play with some kids after school,” Aang explained as he undid the headband covering his arrow.

Whew, Sokka breathed a sigh of relief. He’d been worried Aang had been captured again, like in Pohuai Stronghold, or something. Yeesh, it would have been hard to break him out again this time, not without –

Not without that stupid jerkbender.

At least Aang hadn’t been caught up in a military base by that total prick Zhao this time around, Sokka thought to himself. No, he’d just gotten invited to hang out after school.

Wait a minute.

“After what?” Sokka asked dumbly.

“I enrolled in a Fire Nation school,” Aang elaborated, as if Sokka’s world wasn’t crumbling like soft rock. “And I'm going back tomorrow!”

Aang was enrolled in a Fire Nation school. Oh, man, when Zuko heard about this, he was going to –

Oh, yeah.

Stupid jerkbender.

“Enrolled in what?!

 

 

Okay, so maybe Aang hadn’t made the best choice when he’d stolen a Fire Nation school uniform off the washing line. But how was he supposed to know that was what Fire Nation kids wore to school? Kuzon had never sat him down with a scroll containing illustrations of the latest Fire Nation fashions, and Zuko had always been wearing black pants and grey tunics. Or dark green tunics. And there had also actually been that one time with the pirates where he showed up later wearing a black tunic, now Aang came to think about it.

But that just proved Aang’s point about how he didn’t know what Fire Nation school uniforms looked like! He couldn’t read people’s minds like Guru Pathik and just instinctively know what Fire Nation kids wore to school!

He’d just been waiting outside the store whilst the others were getting food when some soldiers had showed up and hauled him off to school. Miss Kwan had been kind of strict, and she hadn’t been too impressed when he’d messed up his fancy Fire Nation bow until one of the girls in class had shown him how to do it properly. He hadn’t much liked the name she’d given him; Avatar Aang, the Mannerless Colony Slob didn’t sound too catchy. But the math lesson had been pretty cool, even if Aang was still a bit confused about where the line between a couple of something and a whole bunch of something was. Maybe there were some mysteries that even the Avatar was never meant to know. And the literature class had been awesome; Aang had finally figured out how poetry and rhythm and meter worked, and he’d even managed to write a haiku!

I’m Avatar Aang / But I said my name’s Kuzon / To fool everyone

He hadn’t been able to read it out in class, but he couldn’t wait to show Sokka!

“We made it through the day, Momo,” he whispered to Momo as they left the school at the final bell. “And it was pretty fun!”

Momo chattered about how he hadn’t liked the biology class, because dissecting that frog squirrel had been super gross.

“Trust me, Momo,” Aang assured him. “That’s not even my worst experience with frog squirrels. This one time, in the Foggy Swamp –”

“Don't let the headmaster catch you with that monkey.”

Monkeyfeathers!

“What monkey?” Aang laughed nervously. If he got caught with a winged lemur, that was almost as bad as getting caught with a poem saying he was the Avatar!

The girl who’d helped him figure out how to bow properly was standing there and smiling at him. She was kind of pretty, with brown hair and a nice smile, and Miss Kwan had said that her calligraphy was really neat in literature class.

“Don't worry, I'm not a tattletale,” she reassured him. “My name's On Ji – I like your headband, by the way!”

“Really?” Aang brightened up. “That’s cool!”

Aang hadn’t been too sure about the headband, but it was kind of growing on him. It was definitely better than the flat cap one of the old men in town had been wearing when he’d been strumming on a lute, loudly singing about Wheear wor ta bahn when Ah saw thee?.

But that old guy had given Aang a bit of a funny look when Aang had started bobbing his head in time to the music. Maybe he’d been a bit annoyed that Aang wasn’t throwing any money into his lute case on the floor, but Aang didn’t even have two copper pieces this time round – either that, or he might just not have liked Aang’s headband.

Aang had just been about to ask what the latest Fire Nation trends were regarding headbands, flat caps, and other ways to cover up the top of your head, but then a bigger boy bumped into Aang as he walked past him, and then he casually put his hand around On Ji’s shoulders.

“On Ji,” he said in an annoyed voice, “You don't have to babysit the new kid.”

Aang hadn’t thought this counted as babysitting, but, then again, he hadn’t thought haiku counted as a legitimate form of cultural heritage before their literature lesson earlier, so he figured that was what the Fire Nation education system was all about – learning new things.

“Wow,” he began, bowing and carefully counting his syllables. “You must be one of those popular kids I've been hearing about.”

Five-seven-five! Aang was getting good at this poetry stuff!

“That’s right,” this big, muscular, popular kid agreed. “Now listen, friend, I know you're from the colonies, so I'll say this slowly. On Ji is my girlfriend – don't forget it!”

He leaned in and poked Aang in the chest as he said it, and Aang kind of hoped that he hadn’t jabbed Momo in the kidneys or anything like that. Even if he was hiding right now, Momo was one of Aang’s best friends, and he always worked so hard to help him and Katara and Sokka and Toph. He didn’t deserve some Fire Nation kid sticking his finger in his ear or whatever.

Whoops – guess Momo’s ears were safe, because they were sticking out of Aang’s tunic now after that poke! Aang had to hastily cram him back down into his tunic and stifle a wince as he felt Momo scratch at his belly. He’d probably have to ask Sokka if he could give Momo some of his lychee nuts as an apology.

“It was nice meeting you!” He called after On Ji and her boyfriend as they walked off.

“I don't believe it,” another boy marveled as he came and stood with Aang, watching On Ji leave. “He didn't beat you up – not even a little!”

Aang hadn’t even thought of that. Had that really been a possibility?

“I guess I'm just lucky,” he shrugged. The other boy seemed to think that was a good enough answer, because he asked Aang if he wanted to play a game of Hide and Explode.

Aang hesitated – he should probably be getting back to Sokka and the others so they could decide what they were going to do next. Sokka had been saying that their plan was to make their way through the Fire Nation to meet up with the invasion fleet, but Aang remembered how Katara had always said their plans could change, and that was okay. Except for when Aang was planning to master the Avatar State, and then the plan changed because he’d thought someone had been trying to hurt Katara, and then it all went a bit wrong. Oops.

But Aang couldn’t see any way a game called Hide and Explode could go wrong, right?

“I’d love to!” He smiled.

Notes:

Zuko and Azula’s conversation about candles is full of symbolism. In Japan, 7 is considered a lucky number; 8 is considered a lucky number because it is nearly homophonous to the word ‘prosperity’; 9 can be considered lucky or unlucky, depending on pronunciation.

The man Aang saw in town is a composite of a couple of Yorkshire stereotypes – he’s wearing a flat cap, he’s singing ‘On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at’, an unofficial anthem of Yorkshire… and he’s only interested in Aang’s money! 😉

Chapter 6

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Katara would have been more than happy if she and her friends were to keep their presence in the Fire Nation a secret until the moment their invasion force attacked the capital to defeat the Fire Lord and end the war, but she and the others clearly had very different ideas about what that meant. For Katara that might have simply meant not drawing attention to themselves, but Sokka, for instance, thought it meant living in caves for the next month or so.

Aang seemed to think it meant pretending to be a boy from the Fire Nation, going to a Fire Nation school, and learning more about the Fire Nation, with nothing but a headband to protect his identity. After he’d turned up yesterday covered in dirt and soot, Katara had been amazed that his headband hadn’t been singed off during whatever crazy Hide and Explode shenanigans he’d gotten up to. He’d told them that today was when  they were apparently learning about a secret river that went right to the Fire Lord’s palace today, and that had been enough to convince Sokka to let him stay in school for a few more days. Katara wasn’t sure how secret a secret river was if it was common knowledge in Fire Nation schools, but whilst Aang was in class, and she and the others were left waiting in their cave, she was determined to make the most of their time here, and she’d been practicing her waterbending every chance she could.

In Ba Sing Se, she’d been so caught up in… in everything that she’d let herself skip out on practicing. She’d grown careless, and so when – when everything went wrong, she had been caught out, too out of practice to be able to protect Aang. When Zuko had attacked, his fire had been so hot that she hadn’t been able to feel the water as strongly as she’d done when they’d been practicing regularly on their journey across the Earth Kingdom. She’d struggled to draw the water out of the air like she’d always been able to before, and it had only been sheer desperation that had given her the strength to bend her way to Aang and then escape the Catacombs when Uncle Iroh blasted a hole in the ceiling with lightning.

If the Fire Nation came after the Avatar again, she’d be ready for them. If Aang needed her, she’d be able to protect him. Because that was the important thing right now.

In Ba Sing Se, she’d been so caught up in – in things with Zuko that she’d almost forgotten that there was a war on. Too busy thinking about love and romance and destiny to remember that there was a war on, like a silly little girl.

A silly little girl, just like in Gaipan. Just like with Jet, she’d been too distracted by a handsome boy who acted like he cared – and by the time she had realized the truth, it had been too late.

And then she’d found out that Sokka and Toph had known who Zuko was all along, and they hadn’t told her. They were sitting by the mouth of the cave now, talking about Earth Kingdom poetry and laughing as they shared stories about Lieutenant Jee, whom they’d met on the Wani. Katara had thought he was a bit strict, but she’d appreciated how he’d been happy to play Pai Sho with Sokka and help Toph adapt a few firebending forms to help with her metalbending. But Jee had also agreed with Sokka’s crazy theory, and he’d been adamant that Zuko was still on their side.

“Don’t you two have anything better to be doing than sitting round talking?” She asked irritably, letting the water fall to the ground with a gentle patter.

“Not really,” Sokka answered, apparently completely over whatever worries he’d had about Aang attending a Fire Nation school. “We can’t do much until Aang gets back, right?”

“You could be training with your boomerang,” Katara pointed out. “Or thinking about how we’re going to meet up with Dad and the others when it’s time for the invasion.”

“I already sorted that stuff out with Dad and Jee,” Sokka said with an unconcerned shrug. “We’re going to meet up with Dad at the Black Cliffs on the day of the eclipse.”

“And Jee?” Katara asked, feeling her anxiety spike. “What about Jee? Is the Wani going to be there? What if he betrays us, like Zuko did –”

“Smokey isn’t going to betray us,” Toph cut in dismissively. “Don’t work yourself up into a worry there, Sugar Queen.”

“How can you be so sure?” Katara demanded. “You thought we could trust Zuko, and look how that turned out!”

“We don’t know how that turned out, Katara,” Sokka pointed out. “Like I said, Zuko might still be on our side –”

“I’m not talking about your theory, Sokka!” She said angrily. “I’m talking about what happened to Aang!”

“That’s sort of the point of the theory, Splish-Splash,” Toph waved a careless hand and sent a few pebbles scattering across the cave with a clattering sound. “If Sparky hadn’t tried his stupid little heel turn, what happened with Twinkles down there could have been a lot worse.”

Katara wanted to shout at Toph and ask her how, exactly, it could have been worse. Aang had died! She’d had to use the spirit water to bring him back! What about that situation could possibly have been worse?

“But that’s not the point right now,” Sokka interrupted hastily, glancing back a little nervously at her. “You asked how we could trust the Wani – do you remember Yoshida?”

Katara couldn’t place the name, but, then again, she had spent most of her time aboard the Wani in the sickbay, healing Aang and trying to reassure herself that he was okay. “No.”

“Okay,” Sokka nodded. “That’s cool. Well, Master Yoshida is part of the Order of the White Lotus – the same organization that Master Iroh and Zuko were a part of. He’s making sure that Jee takes the Wani to the South Pole –”

What?

“– To get some supplies to the Southern Water Tribe whilst we’re preparing for winter,” Sokka continued determinedly. “Even whilst Dad and the other warriors are going round the Earth Kingdom and recruiting our allies for the invasion, we still need to make sure everyone back home is okay.”

“And the last time some Fire Nation dude sided against his own nation, it kind of ended badly,” Toph said.

Katara was getting sick of this. “You don’t even know that Zuko is on our side –”

“I was talking about Gramps,” Toph snapped back, and Katara’s angry words died in her mouth.

She remembered with a small flash of shame that she hadn’t been the only one to think of Uncle Iroh as a member of their family.

“I’m sorry, Toph,” she told her quietly. “I know you liked hanging out with Uncle.”

Toph was quiet for a moment, but Katara waited for her to speak; earth could be stubborn, but water could be patient.

“I’m sorry too, Sugar Queen,” Toph said eventually. “I know you two were close, too.”

 

 

When Aang had told Sokka that he’d be learning all sorts of interesting things about the Fire Nation if he stayed in school for a few more days, he’d been thinking of getting an idea of what Fire Nation kids thought about the war, finding out what alternative headwear he could use to disguise himself, and maybe getting a few ideas for what Fire Nation animals he could ride once the war was over. He hadn’t been expecting to learn that Fire Nation kids started every day at school by reciting a Fire Nation oath. He’d had to mumble along and try to pretend he knew the words, talking about the Fire Lord, and forefathers, firebenders. He’d even tossed in an extra Fire Lord just to be on the safe side, but he didn’t think Miss Kwan was fooled.

“Since it's obviously hilarious to mock our national oath,” she said sternly, “We'll begin with a pop quiz on our great March of Civilization.”

The whole class seemed to let out an annoyed groan as they got ready to take the test. Great, now all the popular kids were going to be mad at Aang for getting them stuck in a pop quiz. Well, if they thought that was bad, they should try getting stuck in an iceberg for a hundred years!

“Question one,” Miss Kwan began. “What year did Fire Lord Sozin battle the Air Nation army?”

Even if Aang was quickly learning that Fire Nation school was pretty different to the education he’d received at the Southern Air Temple, he was pretty sure that the word ‘battle’ was pretty consistent.

“Is that a trick question?” He asked confusedly. “The Air Nomads didn't have a formal military. Sozin defeated them by ambush.”

Aang wasn’t sure whether that was a trick answer or not, because Miss Kwan didn’t say right! or wrong! and neither did the rest of the class. They all just looked at him like he was crazy, and he had to resist the urge to check whether his ears were still normal-sized.

“Well,” Miss Kwan recovered herself after a moment. “I don't know how you could possibly know more than our national history book, unless you were there a hundred years ago.”

Aang remembered how Sokka had made him leave his I’m the Avatar haiku at home today, just to be on the safe side. He didn’t think Sokka would be very impressed if he gave Miss Kwan another reason to be suspicious.

“I'll just write down my best guess,” he mumbled.

Aang was pretty sure he’d failed the pop quiz – okay, so he was the Avatar, so he was supposed to know about spirits, but how was he supposed to know which spirit had cursed the Dragon Emperor and made him turn into Noren? – and as if that wasn’t bad enough, he somehow found a way to fail at music class, too. Aang knew he wasn’t very good on the tsungi horn, but Sokka had said that when he and Zuko had been trapped in the secret tunnel to Omashu, Hotman hadn’t been very good at making a tsungi horn noise either, so Aang had never really felt self-conscious about it before now. But then the music teacher Mister Hōgaku called him out on it, which really sucked.

“Kuzon?” He tapped his music stand with his baton, and Aang let out a sigh which made a phrhhtrt noise into the instrument.

“I know,” he said sadly. “I'm a terrible tsungi hornist.”

“No, child,” Mister Hōgaku said annoyedly. “That hullabaloo going on with your feet. Is that a nervous disorder?”

Aang was definitely nervous right now, but he didn’t think he was being disorderly. That was usually Toph’s area of expertise.

“I was just dancing,” he explained. He’d been trying to pass himself off as Kuzon, the kid from the Fire Nation colonies, so maybe this might be a little easier if he reminded them that he was from the colonies. “You do dance here in the homeland, right?”

His new friend Shoji shook his head. “Not really, no.”

“Dancing is not conducive to a proper learning environment,” Mister Hōgaku pronounced in a really strict voice. “Young people must have rigid discipline and order.”

Aang thought this guy sounded just like Monk Tashi and Master Jeong Jeong. “But what about expressing yourself?”

“I know sometimes we're so ruled by our love for our nation that we can't control our own bodies,” Mister Hōgaku answered, even though that hadn’t really been Aang’s question. ”If you must, you may march in place quietly next time the urge hits you.”

Ugh. The fact that Aang wasn’t allowed to dance was so rubbish! That music teacher had been such a jerk about it, saying Aang wasn’t allowed to dance – and then, even when On Ji had said she actually liked the dance moves he’d been doing, her boyfriend Hide had come along and been all No, you can’t show my girlfriend how to dance; you’re Avatar Aang, the Avatar who Sucks at Pop Quizzes!

“What'd you say, colony trash?” He snarled. “You're gonna show her something?”

“Just some dance movements,” Aang tried to explain.

Apparently, the only thing Hide hated more than dancing was reasoned explanations. “Nobody shows my On Ji anything, especially movements!”

If Hide didn’t want anyone showing On Ji movements, Aang thought he should probably stop trying to beat Aang up. Then Aang wouldn’t have to keep moving around and dodging his punches and ducking his attempts at hurting him. Eventually, Aang had to trip him up so he couldn’t keep trying to whack him, but of course that was when the principal arrived. Seeing Aang and Hide in the middle of a group of students shouting Fight! Fight! Fight! seemed to be enough to convince Principal Kikuchi that Aang had been picking a fight, and now he had to bring his parents to a conference to discuss his punishment after school. It seemed to Aang that whoever had cursed the Dragon Emperor and made him turn into Noren had also cursed him and made him turn into someone who couldn’t help but get into trouble with Fire Nation teachers.

How was Aang supposed to bring his parents to the principal’s office when he didn’t have any parents around? At the Southern Air Temple, he’d never known his parents; all the other boys had been raised by the monks as one big community. They’d had awesome airball tournaments, and they’d messed about on their air scooters, and they’d always had a great big party on the southward equinox in mid-autumn to celebrate everyone’s birthdays. They’d had all the egg custard tarts Aang could eat, and for his twelfth birthday, Kuzon and Bumi had come along, and they’d sang songs and danced together.

Aang thought sadly to himself that if Bumi and Kuzon had been twelve years old today, instead of a hundred and twelve, they wouldn’t have been able to come to the Southern Air Temple and eat egg custard tarts. And if Kuzon had been twelve years old today, he probably wouldn’t have been able to sing and dance, either.

 

 

When Aang had first come back to their cave only to announce that he’d started attending public education, Sokka hadn’t been happy about it, but he’d appreciated Aang’s argument that finding out about a secret river that went straight to the Fire Lord’s palace. Spending a couple of days stuck in a cave wasn’t Sokka’s idea of a good time, but if Aang could make it worth their while, he wouldn’t be complaining.

Attending a teacher-parent conference because Aang had managed to get himself a detention wasn’t Sokka’s idea of a good time, and it didn't fall under his definition of worthwhile, either.

“This is exactly why I didn’t want you coming back here,” he grumbled as they approached the school’s front gates. “Bad enough that you enrolled yesterday, and it somehow got even worse when you started talking about secret rivers – those things are even worse than secret tunnels, I swear to La –”

“It’s not my fault I didn’t know what all the answers to their questions were!” Aang protested. He’d been complaining pretty much the whole way up to the school. “They kept asking me all these crazy questions, like what year Fire Lord Sozin battled the Air Nation army. We didn’t even have an army! And this one guy didn’t even want me to show his girlfriend my moves,” he finished, kicking a stone and glaring at it annoyedly.

Sokka really hoped he had somehow misheard that. “You showed some girl your moves?

“I tried to,” Aang grumbled. “I couldn’t do it in class, because apparently it’s a bad thing if you can’t control your body, but then she said she really liked what I was doing. So I was all, you know, ‘I could show it to you again if you like’, and she seemed really excited to see it, so I –”

“I don’t want to know!” Sokka squawked, clapping his hands over his ears.

First, Sokka had needed to tell Aang about pregnancy. When Aang had started talking about his spirit vision in the Foggy Swamp, he’d thought he’d been able to pass the conversation about girls off to Zuko. Oh, Tui, was he going to have to give the Avatar the sex talk, too?

“You were supposed to talk to Zuko about this stuff, not me!”

“Well, Zuko isn’t here,” Aang pointed out confusedly.

“I know,” Sokka sighed morosely. “Which is why I’ve got to pretend to be your Dad for this stupid meeting.”

“What?” Katara asked, turning to Sokka. “You’d let him be Aang’s Dad?”

“He looks a lot more Fire Nation than we do,” Sokka pointed out. “And it’d be a lot easier for you than pretending to be married to your brother.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Katara asked, stopping just by the school gates and putting her hands on her hips. Oh, man, Sokka knew that look. That was Gran-Gran’s best You’d better tread carefully, Sokka, because you’re on thin ice here look.

Sokka had spent most of his time in Ba Sing Se trying very hard not to think about… whatever had been going on between his little sister and the jerkbender, but he didn’t think that reminding Katara of the way she and Zuko had been giving him the oogies would end very well for him right now. Especially not when her attitude towards Zuko recently had been more of the Fuck you, you lying jerkbender variety than anything else.

“Just that Zuko looks more Fire Nation than I do,” he mumbled, looking down at the ground. He figured that was a simple fact that nobody could get mad at, right?

But Katara seemed to think it was the wrong answer, because she let out an angry noise and stormed off towards the school. From what Aang had been saying earlier, Sokka wondered whether there was just something about Fire Nation schools that made people forget what the facts of the matter were.

“Thank you for coming,” the headmaster began when they sat down for their meeting. “Mr. and Mrs…”

At the South Pole, they didn’t really have surnames; Sokka had always just been Sokka. Aang had wanted them to be the Pippinpaddleopsicopolis family from the colonies, but Sokka was pretty sure an unusual name like that would make them stand out, and he’d had just about enough of Aang drawing attention to himself. They needed something that was so common in the Fire Nation, nobody would even think twice about it.

“Fire,” he answered, giving a stroke of his Appa-hair beard. “Wang Fire. This is my wife, Sapphire.”

“Sapphire Fire,” Katara smiled, giving a little wave. “Nice to meet you.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Fire,” the headmaster surveyed them with a raised eye, but Sokka had put at least five minutes into this disguise, so there was no way he was seeing through it. “Your son has been enrolled here for two days and he's already causing problems.”

Sokka wasn’t going to argue with him there. He’d dyed his Appa beard brown, but he was pretty sure his hair was turning white with all the stress Aang was causing him.

“He's argued with his history teacher, disrupted music class, and roughed up my star pupil.”

“My goodness!” Katara gasped. “That doesn't sound like our Kuzon.”

“That's what any mother would say, Ma'am,” the headmaster harrumphed. “Nonetheless, you're forewarned; if he acts up one more time, I'll have him sent to reform school!”

Pfft. Sokka didn’t think that sounded so bad. Reform school? Aang was the Avatar! He was all about reincarnating, so reforming wouldn’t even be a problem by comparison, right? All he had to do was –

“By which I mean the coal mines,” the headmaster continued. “Are we clear?”

All Aang had to do was keep his cool, keep out of trouble, and keep his mouth shut, Sokka amended in his head. He was pretty sure Aang had a bit less experience with coal mines than reincarnation; apart from that time Katara and Haru had rescued that old man in Beihe village, and look how that had turned out.

Maybe it would be best if Aang kept his head down for a bit, Sokka decided. Otherwise, he might end up on a Fire Nation prison rig again, and Tui only knew that once had been bad enough.

“Don't you worry, Mr. Headmaster,” he promised. “I'll straighten this boy out somethin' fierce!”

Aang looked pretty alarmed at that, but he didn’t have to worry. Sokka wasn’t going to kick his bony airbender butt too badly.

Notes:

Hōgaku is the traditional folk music of Japan. Kikuchi Dairoku was the Japanese Minister for Education from 1901-1903.

Chapter 7

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Zuko was trying very hard not to act like Mai had caught him doing something he shouldn’t be doing.

After all, it was his room. And he was the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. And it wasn’t like he was doing anything wrong.

He could practice with his dao swords if he wanted to.

But he couldn’t shake the sense of unease as he felt Mai’s eyes following his movements. It wasn’t just that he was beginning to suspect that Mai wasn’t just seeking his company out for its own sake, but to keep an eye on him for Azula, but also that even when he had been training under Master Piandao’s tutelage, Zuko had never quite gotten used to having people watch him practice with his swords.

Fire Lord Ozai had always been very clear that to wield a non-bender’s weapon was something unbecoming of the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. Zuko sometimes thought that the only way he had ever impressed his father before his banishment had been with just how many ways he had failed to impress him. But Mai was silent as he concentrated on making his way through the last few stances of the kata, and only spoke when he stepped out of the final pose and turned towards her.

“I didn’t know you handled blades,” she observed with something approaching mild interest.

“I don’t handle the blades,” he pointed out. “They’re sharp.”

He realized exactly how stupid a reply it was when Mai showed her teeth in a sharp, crococat-like smile.

“Nice touch with the black handles. I like them.”

Zuko lowered the swords with a rueful smile. Of course Mai would rather talk about the design of his weapons than the fact he was using them. “So did Ensign Takahashi.”

Mai blinked. “Taki?”

“She was part of my crew,” Zuko explained. “On the Wani. She preferred the black too, when I got a new pair.”

The old pair, with the snazzy blue handles a fifteen-year-old Zuko had thought had been awesome, had been lost when the Blue Spirit had come off second best in a fight in Yu Dao. The new pair had been lost when Aang had washed them down a river in the Earth Kingdom.

Zuko still hadn’t been able to contact Yoshida.

For once, Mai seemed somewhat interested in hearing about his banishment, but that might only have been because he’d mentioned Ensign Takahashi. Before she had joined Zuko’s crew, Taki had been part of the Royal Guard in the Fire Palace.

“She taught me how to use throwing knives,” Mai reminisced with an uncharacteristically fond look on her face. “I practiced with them all the time when I came here.”

“You don’t have to remind me,” Zuko chuckled as he stowed his swords away again. “You shredded my sleeve at my ninth birthday party.”

“Azula made me do it. She was jealous of all the attention you were getting.”

“It was my birthday,” Zuko reiterated in a long-suffering voice. “It was the one day of the year I got more attention than her.”

“One day too many,” Mai smirked. “If it makes you feel any better, she made me slice Ty Lee’s braid off on her thirteenth birthday.”

“Azula’s birthday, or Ty Lee’s?”

“Azula’s,” Mai answered. “Although she got Ty Lee a jade hairpiece for her birthday last year.”

Zuko had sent Azula a box of sticky buns for her thirteenth birthday. He hadn’t gotten any letter of acknowledgement, but he hadn’t really been expecting one. He had been dishonored, and the sticky buns had probably gone stale by the time they had reached the Caldera.

“I think I preferred my ninth birthday,” he decided. “I spent most of it playing Pai Sho with my cousin.”

“And you ate a whole ton of fruit tarts together, too,” Mai agreed in a conversational tone. “I remember being quite jealous.”

“I don’t blame you,” Zuko acknowledged with a sad little smile. “Everyone loved Lu Ten.”

“Not that you got to spend time with your cousin,” she corrected him. “That you got to spend time eating fruit tarts.”

“You were jealous that we could eat fruit tarts?” Zuko almost laughed at the thought. “We can go get a fruit tart now, if you want.”

“Maybe later,” Mai answered noncommittally. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”

“You wouldn’t be,” Zuko assured her, as an idea began to form in his mind. “In fact, we could bring the food back up here and write Taki a letter, if you wanted?”

Mai considered it for a moment – maybe she was wondering if this was something Azula would deem suspicious behavior – but eventually, she nodded.

“Sure. It’ll be nice to hear how she’s doing.”

Zuko nodded, trying not to appear too excited. If he could just get a message to Yoshida through the letter… he could finally get an answer – if Aang was alive…

Even if he hated Zuko, at least he’d be alive.

“Taki and I used to play Pai Sho, too,” he said in an attempt to keep the conversation going. “She taught me a trick play with the chrysanthemum tile.”

“I never really cared for Pai Sho,” Mai remarked as they set off for the kitchens. “I think what she taught me was more useful.”

Zuko could give her that. “She tried teaching me how to throw knives, too, but I wasn’t very good.”

“We’ll have to practice sometime,” Mai said with a small smile. Her amber eyes gleamed, and Zuko remembered that she had always liked demonstrating how capable she was.

“I’d like that,” he mumbled in response. Seven.

That seemed to be good enough for Mai, because she seemed happy to walk the rest of the journey to the kitchen in silence, the dark red carpets muffling their footsteps. She merely stood by and watched as Zuko stepped forward to talk to one of the palace bakers.

“Can I have two fruit tarts brought up to my room?” He asked one of the bakers, who bowed deeply in deference. “Thank you.”

“It is our honor to serve, Your Highness,” the man intoned.

“Um,” Zuko said awkwardly. “That’s cool.”

He glanced at Mai, who looked a little amused by his helplessness in the face of aggressive obedience.

“Keep up the good work,” he mumbled, before setting off back towards his room. He was pretty sure he could hear low laughter behind him, and it reminded him painfully of working with Sokka in Pao’s teashop.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Mai told him as they retraced their steps back to his room.

“Hm?” He turned back to her. “Do what?”

Mai’s eyes, for once, weren’t narrowed in distrust or disdain. They were open, showing nothing but honest confusion. “Thank them. It’s their job to do that stuff.”

“I didn’t have to,” Zuko agreed. “But I wanted to.”

Mai was good at hiding her emotions, but there was something in the way her eyes narrowed and the corners of her lips turned down that made Zuko think she wasn’t quite satisfied with his response.

“Whatever,” she sniffed. “Let’s go write that letter to Taki.”

Right, Zuko thought to himself. Taki. The Wani.

And hopefully Aang, too.

 

 

Toph had spent pretty much her whole life being hidden from the world, so being stuck in a cave hiding from the Fire Nation wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. Honestly, she thought Twinkle Toes had gotten the rougher end of the deal. She’d been stuck with Mistress Ouyang as a tutor – from the way Twinkles was telling it, he’d been stuck with a whole bunch of Ouyangs, Yus, and other assorted bozos. And that was just the staff.

“I can’t believe Hide is their star pupil,” the Fancy Dancer was grousing. “The Fire Nation would probably be better off if they didn’t have a formal education system!”

“And we’d be better off if you weren’t getting yanked into detentions!” Snoozles retorted. “That settles it! No more school for you, young man!”

At the Earth Rumbles, Fire Nation Man had kept doing his fake accent even backstage. Toph appreciated a good gimmick as much as anyone, but if Sucker kept putting the same effort into whatever this Wang Fire guy was supposed to be, she was pretty sure she’d be showing him a bit of Blind Bandit action.

“I'm not ready to leave yet,” Fancy Dancer was complaining. “I'm having fun for once, just being a normal kid. You don't know what it's like, Sokka – you get to be normal all the time!”

Toph couldn’t help but snicker at that. Most of the time, she didn’t regret leaving behind her life as Miss Toph Beifong to come travel with these morons, but she did sometimes miss the smack talking at the Earth Rumbles. The Fancy Dancer had come out with a good one there, though.

“Listen, guys,” Twinkles appealed, “Those kids at school are the future of the Fire Nation! If we want to change this place for the better, we need to show them a little taste of freedom!”

Snoozles let out a sputtered choking noise, which Toph thought she probably should have found more alarming than amusing. “What could you possibly do for a country of depraved little fire monsters?”

“I'm gonna throw them a secret dance party!”

Toph was pretty sure Twinkles did a little shake and a shimmy when he was saying that, but she was too busy listening to the way Snoozles’ heartbeat skyrocketed. He could probably do with some of that green tea Gramps had said helped with his blood pressure.

Go to your room!

Told ya. Toph was blind, and she’d seen that coming.

The thing Sucker just didn’t seem to get, she thought to herself, was that there were different kinds of freedom. Okay, sure, there was the kind of freedom Snoozles and the rest of the Water Tribe warriors were fighting for, but Toph had been waiting twelve years for a little taste of freedom until she’d figured out a way to get along to the Earth Rumbles, and she still remembered how shitty it had been when the only things she’d had to look forward to in her day had been etiquette lessons, math class, and having to pretend that she couldn’t do the bending exercises Master Yu was setting her in her sleep.

“We’re throwing a dance party, Snoozles,” she declared. “And if you try and stop it, I’m gonna start bending sand in places you really don’t want sand being bent.”

The way Snoozles gulped nervously, she thought he got the message, but he was still complaining and whining by the time Toph and Twinkles finished earthbending a stage, and he and Sugar Queen were finished sticking candles around the place.

“I can't believe we're having a dance party,” he muttered sullenly. “It seems so silly.”

Toph personally thought this dance party didn’t crack her top ten of dumbest things she’d had to deal with since she’d joined up with these morons, but that was just her. “But a poetry night’s the most sensible thing in the world, right?”

“That’s completely different!” Snoozles protested, but Toph could tell that he was lying; she was getting quite good at sensing heartbeats through sand by now.

“Don't think of it as a dance party,” the Fancy Dancer tried to cheer him up, “But as a cultural event celebrating the art of fancy footwork!”

The saddest part was that Twinkles’ heartbeat didn’t even change, so he actually believed that shit he was telling himself.

Toph scoffed. “Yeah, no. This is a dance party.”

As all the kids from school started showing up, Toph was pretty sure there was going to be at least five scuffles, maybe two fights, and hopefully even a mass brawl. After what Twinkles had told them about the fight he’d gotten into with that Hide dude, she’d bet Snoozles there’d be at least seven punches thrown before the second dance was over.

As the Lameos band did their dumb Fire Nation music – and Toph noted with disappointment that Fire Nation music didn’t commonly have rap interludes, despite what Fire Nation Man had always claimed – the Fancy Dancer tried getting everyone dancing, with little to no success.

“Dancing isn't something you think about!” He proclaimed, although Toph was pretty sure the list of things that Twinkles never thought about was a lot longer than just dancing. “It's a form of self-expression that no one can ever take away from you!”

The Fancy Dancer went on and on in some rambling manner about a load of weird Fire Nation dances they’d done a hundred years ago, but Toph wasn’t really going to pay attention to that. Mistress Ouyang had given up trying to teach her the steps to the dances they did at all the fancy Gaoling parties, and the only steps the Blind Bandit had needed to know at the Earth Rumbles were pretty simple. Step into the ring; step two, victory.

But from what Toph could sense through her feet, Twinkles really was a fancy dancer. Tons of hops and skips that carried him around the cave, and it seemed to be good enough to at least get people slowly stepping from side to side. Toph didn’t think they were going to win any prizes for style – or rhythm, or basic competency, or anything else, for that matter – but at least they were letting themselves do what they wanted. Even that guy who’d been worried about what his parents would think was tapping his feet. Fuck yeah, Flame Guy. Don’t let your parents push you around!

There was no way Toph was going to be throwing shapes like The Hippo at some afterparty – she’d heard some horror stories from The Boulder – so she’d chosen to stand at the side of the show with Sugar Queen and Snoozles whilst everyone else was stepping out, and maybe step in if anyone was looking to start anything. But at least everyone seemed to be responding well to Twinkles’ little speech; all the girls seemed to like his dancing, especially when he did some weird hopping-roll thing, and Toph could hear a couple of the guys muttering and saying shit like wow and cool.

If these bozos thought that was impressive, Toph was pretty sure they’d lose their minds at metalbending.

 

 

Katara was caught in two minds. Like Sokka, she didn’t think that having a silly dance party in a cave was necessarily the best way to spend their time; but on the other hand, at least this cave didn’t have a group of singing nomads driving Sokka insane. And like Aang had said, he was having fun for once, just being a normal kid. When Aang had told her about how he’d grown up at the Southern Air Temple, Katara had been horrified to hear that the older monks had always been pushing him to train harder and remember his responsibilities as the Avatar.

She’d once told him that she wished Aang didn’t have those responsibilities, so if she could help Aang relax and have fun, just for one night, she’d be okay with a silly dance party.

And Aang was having fun, Katara observed with some satisfaction from where she stood by the side of the cave with Toph. Watching him dancing and leaping around with all the other boys and girls – if she didn’t keep her eyes on him, it would actually be kind of difficult to spot him, dressed the same as all the other boys and girls, with his hair cut in a similar style. Although she knew Aang preferred to keep his head shaved, Katara thought it suited him. She wasn’t sure how he had ended up looking even more mischievous than he had done previously, but somehow he’d managed it.

“Who knew Twinkle Toes could dance?” Toph asked, taking another sip of her drink.

“He said they had a few dances at the Spring Equinox,” Katara remembered.

“Oh, yeah,” Toph nodded. “Yeah, at Gramps’ poetry night.”

When Sokka had recited some poetry for Suki, Katara thought quickly to herself. That was what she remembered about that night.

“And this is how they do it in the ballrooms of Ba Sing Se,” Aang announced to the crowds. He started tapping his feet from side to side, and Katara watched as a pretty girl joined him.

“Wow,” Sokka observed, coming to stand beside her as they watched the two kids having fun. “They look pretty good together.”

“If that’s what you like,” Katara muttered. She didn’t want to think about anything to do with Ba Sing Se, even if it was only dancing.

But she couldn’t help but glance back at how Aang and that girl were dancing. She’d thought, back in Ba Sing Se, that… well. It didn’t matter. He was the Prince of the Fire Nation, and nothing else mattered.

He’d been a powerful bender. He’d been tall, and handsome, and he’d made her tea and recited poetry. She’d thought he’d understood her, until he’d betrayed them all.

Because he’d been lying to her from the start.

But Aang was a powerful bender, too. And she’d been thinking about the Cave of Two Lovers earlier, hadn’t she? When they’d… they’d kissed?

But Katara remembered how she’d been so caught up in thinking about romance and love and destiny in Ba Sing Se that she’d forgotten that they were in the middle of a war. She couldn’t make the same mistake twice – they had other things to worry about right now!

“Katara?”

Katara jolted out of her daydreams with a start. Whilst she’d been in her own little world, Aang had held his hand out to her. He was right in front of her, grinning at her, hoping she’d dance with him.

They hadn’t really had many dances at the South Pole, because none of the women had been agile enough in their old age to demonstrate the dances of their people. Katara didn’t know what she was doing when it came to dancing, and she did not want to look like a klutz in front of a bunch of Fire Nation schoolkids.

“I don't know, Aang,” she hedged, tugging on her hair as she glanced around the cave. “These shoes aren't really right for dancing, and I’m – I'm not sure that I know how to –”

“Take my hand,” Aang told her, smiling encouragingly at her. It did the trick, and Katara breathed a sigh of relief.

She didn’t have to do this alone; Aang was going to be doing this with her. She wasn’t going to have to do anything crazy – it was just a dance.

“Okay,” she agreed, taking his hand and letting him pull her out into the middle of the cave. It would have been kind of awkward if she’d said No, anyway. But maybe she should have.

“Aang,” she whispered, trying hard not to feel intimidated by all the eyes on her. “Everyone's watching.”

“Don't worry about them,” Aang reassured her with a confident smile. “It's just you and me right now.”

Katara couldn’t help her blush. It was just the two of them. Her and the Avatar, in a Fire Nation cave.

Spirits, how was this her life?

The dance wasn’t quite like how they had practiced their bending, but it was still challenging enough for Katara to have to really pay attention to her movements. Aang would be doing all sorts of kicks and flips and spins, and she had to dart around his movements and try and come up with a few of her own to show everyone else that it wasn’t just Aang doing all the work, but they got the hang of it pretty well.

At one point, they were working so well together that they both leant in at the same time, and for a moment Katara thought they were about to kiss – but Aang just grinned at her and carried on, and Katara had to shake herself for being so silly.

As they finished their dance, Katara leaned back into Aang’s arms as he dipped her, and in the firelight, she could see his gray eyes sparkling with happiness, his warm smile, his thick dark hair –

Tui and La, what was the matter with her?

“He's the one we want! The boy with the headband!”

That was the headmaster’s voice!

“Uh-oh,” Aang muttered, almost dropping Katara to the floor as he began to bolt.

Katara flailed embarrassingly for a moment – she really hoped the Fire Nation kids hadn’t seen that – before running on after him. Toph was already earthbending them a way out of the back of the cave for them to escape on Appa when she caught up to them.

“Way to go, Dancy Pants,” Toph was saying to Aang, once they were far enough away that they could relax. “I think you really did help those kids. You taught them to be free.”

“I don't know,” Aang shrugged, even though he was trying to hide his pleased smile. “It was just a dance party, that's all.”

Aang beamed at Toph, and Katara smiled; she knew just how big a deal freedom was to Toph. And to Aang – it was the philosophy of his people, after all.

“Well, that was some dance party, Aang,” Katara told him fondly.

She hesitated for a moment, but kissed him on the cheek all the same. He was a powerful bender, after all. And now that he’d grown his hair out, she quite liked how it looked on him.

Notes:

Jade is a highly-prized gemstone in Eastern Asia; it’s the national stone of Japan, where it historically symbolized wealth and power. According to Wikipedia’s article on Chinese jade: ‘Jade objects originally begun as forms of spiritual connections or value but in later years, developed into symbols of authority and status.’

Chapter 8

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Back in the Si Wong Desert, Snoozles had gotten the great idea of taking a mini-vacation to Wan Shi Tong’s library. Toph had thought that was a super dumb idea to begin with, but then they’d ended up stranded in the desert without Appa, and her gut feeling that Snoozles had the worst mini-vacation ideas in the world had been confirmed. But now that they were making their way through the Fire Nation so they could meet back up with Ice Pops and the rest of the dudes from the Water Tribe, Snoozles was completely against the idea of mini-vacations. Schedule, schedule, schedule, that was Sucker right about now. He’d almost thrown a fit when Sugar Queen had announced that they needed to stop to make a detour to a nearby town to get some food.

The only thing stopping Toph from dunking Snoozles’ head in the river was that after how he’d been acting in the desert when he’d been out of his mind on cactus juice, she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to know what polluted river water would bring out in him. His last meal, probably. Hearing him eat breakfast had been bad enough; she didn’t need to hear him throwing it back up again, too.

“We're a fishing town,” Dock explained, paddling them along in his little boat. “At least, that's how it was before the factory moved in. Army makes their metal there – moved in a few years ago and started gunking up our river. Now our little village is struggling to survive.”

The village wasn’t the only thing struggling right now, Toph thought sourly to herself as the Fancy Dancer helped her out of the boat onto a wooden platform. She hated not being able to use her seismic sense to help see her surroundings at the best of times, and if she made a false move right now, she’d fall into a potentially toxic river and her skin might burn off. That was not the best of times, nor anywhere near.

“This is the first and last time I’m ever gonna say this, Twinkles,” she muttered. “But do not let go of my hand.”

“Huh?” She heard rather than felt Aang stop, and she stumbled a little as she hastily froze a half-step ahead of him. “How come?”

“I can’t see through the wood,” she gritted out, resisting the urge to stamp her foot. “And I really don’t want to go walking in the wrong direction anytime soon.”

Snoozles let out a laugh, which really wasn’t helping Toph’s nerves over here. “Can’t swim, huh, Toph?”

She couldn’t swim, actually, but that wasn’t the fucking point. “No, I’m just uncomfortable about being on a rickety bridge over a burning river of acid.”

“Look at this place,” Sugar Queen said. Toph had been about to say something very witty in response when she continued speaking. “It's so sad. We have to do something to help!”

“No, we can't waste our time here,” Snoozles answered, and Toph felt all warm and grateful and other emotions that she would never confess to out loud. “We have a bigger mission that we need to stay focused on. These people are on their own.”

Judging from the hurried footsteps and rustling cloth, Toph figured that Sugar Queen hadn’t been too impressed with Snoozles’ argument. Had she got him in a headlock? Toph really hoped she’d gotten him in a headlock.

“These people are starving, but you'd turn your back on them? How can you be so cold and heartless?”

“I'm not turning my back!” Snoozles protested. “I'm just being realistic!”

Not quite out of breath enough to be in a headlock, Toph judged disappointedly. But even if he had been in a headlock, or even if he’d been turning his back, she wouldn’t have been able to see it through the wood.

For the love of all that was mineral, she hated not being able to see.

“We can't go around helping every rinky-dink town we wander into,” Snoozles continued. “We'll be helping them all by taking out the Fire Lord.”

Okay, Fan Girl was definitely the brains of their little group. Toph yanked on Twinkles’ arm and pointed in the direction of Snoozles and Sugar Queen. Thankfully, he got what her subtle hint was trying to convey, and guided her across to them with some careful nudges to her shoulders and a surprisingly firm grip on her hand.

“Hey, loud mouths!” She hissed as she clapped a hand over the moron’s mouth. “Maybe we should be a little quieter when we talk about taking out the Fire Lord?

Snoozles flailed about a bit, but when he eventually stopped trying to pry her hand away from his mouth and admitted defeat, Toph took her hand away. It was important to let people know that the Blind Bandit was superior, because then they’d appreciate how lucky they were that Toph allowed them to do their own thing.

“Come on, Katara,” he pleaded with Splish-Splash once Toph gave him the signal that he could continue. “Be reasonable about this. You know our mission has to come first!”

Toph could feel the irritation coming off Sugar Queen in waves, and it was definitely there in her voice, too. “I guess so.”

“Let's just get what we need and go,” Twinkle Toes said in a placating tone. He was probably wearing what Snoozles called his sad lemur face.

Sugar Queen seemed to cave pretty easily after that, which Toph thought was frankly stupid. How was Twinkles supposed to learn stubbornness, determination, resoluteness, and other useful earthbending traits if nobody demonstrated them?

Sooner or later, Sugar Queen was going to have to stand firm and learn how to say No to the Fancy Dancer.

“Hey, Dock,” Snoozles greeted someone as they walked along the bridge. “You work here, too?”

“I'm not Dock,” said some guy in Dock’s voice. “I'm Xu! Dock's my brother!”

What the fuck?

What in the name of geology was this dude talking about?

Toph never forgot a voice. Even when she’d been seeing nothing but fuzz in the desert, she hadn’t forgotten the sound of that sandbender’s voice. Well, now she was seeing straight-up nothing, and the only way she could make it through this village was by holding onto Twinkles’ hand, but she still remembered Dock’s voice. That was definitely Dock’s voice.

“But we just saw you,” the Fancy Dancer protested. “You're even wearing the same clothes! The only difference is your hat!”

“Dock works on the docks,” this weird Xu guy said – again, in Dock’s voice. “That's why we call him, ‘Dock’. And I work in the shop; that's why they call me ‘Xu’!”

Toph’s early suspicion that Gramps and Fan Girl were the only two sighted people with brain cells – and that everyone else was a straight-up fucking moron – was fast becoming something more like an empirically verified fact.

Please, spirits, she pleaded with anyone that might be listening. Save me from morons who have eyes but no brains.

 

 

Katara could understand why Sokka wanted to focus on taking out the Fire Lord, and why he wanted to keep moving so they could get to the Black Cliffs for the day of the invasion. But what she couldn’t understand was how he could be so unaffected by the suffering they could see all around them. When a little boy by the docks had asked Katara whether she could spare any food, she’d felt her heart breaking at the dull, hopeless look in his eyes. It was like he hadn’t even been expecting her to give him anything.

How could things have gotten that bad? She knew the fish she’d given him wasn’t much, but she couldn’t possibly have kept it. Not when he had needed it a lot more than she did.

Katara knew that Sokka was right, that they could help the Fire Nation by ending the war. They needed to help them by changing the way the Fire Nation was treating their citizens, making sure the army wasn’t fighting anymore so they didn’t have any reason to keep making metal and harming the river – she understood that. But these people needed their help now! What good was it to help the Fire Nation if they didn’t care about the people they were trying to help?

There was so much misery here, but Sokka was adamant that they had to keep moving. Aang’s stint in full-time education had set them back a few days, and he was determined to make up for the lost time. Katara couldn’t see why he was so annoyed at Aang – she’d been all manner of worried when she’d heard that he’d be out and about with all sorts of people who could realize who he was, yes, but he’d been trying to find out valuable information about the Fire Lord’s palace. And, okay, so maybe she’d been a bit unsure about the dance party, but he’d only been trying to help those Fire Nation kids have a good time!

“Our detour into town today has completely thrown off our schedule,” Sokka announced later in the evening, after a meal Katara had made from Jang Hui fish. She’d tried her best, but it had tasted almost as bad as Aang’s burned soup. “It's gonna take some serious finagling to get us back on track.”

“Finagle away, oh schedule master,” Toph muttered. Katara privately agreed with her sarcasm; maybe if her big brother spent less time bent over his schedule and mumbling to himself, they’d have more time to help the people of Jang Hui!

But Sokka seemed to take Toph’s sarcasm as some sort of encouragement to keep ordering them around. “Well, for starters, it looks like we'll need to wake up forty-three minutes earlier every day.”

“Forty-three minutes?” Katara asked with disbelief. She hadn’t had any idea that Sokka’s schedule had been that detailed!

“Look, we only have a few weeks to get to the Fire Lord in time for the invasion and the eclipse,” Sokka defended himself, “Which, by the way, only lasts for eight minutes. And we just lost a whole day, so if we want to make up the time and stay on schedule, we have to wake up early!”

Toph stabbed a finger in the air, and Katara gulped as she heard what might have been a rock shifting slightly behind them. “Well, I'm not waking up early!”

Katara seconded Toph’s disapproval by giving Sokka one of her best scowls. She hated getting up early – she’d only gotten up early on their travels through the Earth Kingdom because that had been the quietest time of the day, when she could sit with a bowl of water and practice feeling a connection to her element without anyone else around.

Of course, that had been when Zuko had been the one to wake up at dawn and get breakfast ready for everyone, but now that task had fallen to Katara, which meant she didn’t have that much time to practice her bending in the mornings anymore. But she was still determined to practice, because she was determined to be ready to protect the people she cared about if they needed her.

But even if they needed her, she still needed her lie-ins!

“Or we could just cut out all of our eating breaks,” Sokka offered as an alternative.

Katara doubted that Sokka was ever going to be so desperate to reach the Black Cliffs that he would willingly deprive himself of eating opportunities, but she wasn’t prepared to take that risk.

“No way!” She told him flatly, and Aang and Toph both nodded in firm agreement.

“Okay, fine,” Sokka held his hands up. “Okay, how's this – from now on, we'll take food breaks and potty breaks at the same time?”

Katara thought Aang was turning green at the thought. Even Toph, who had a semi-permanent coating of dirt extending halfway up her legs, seemed a little perturbed at the idea of… no, Katara wasn’t even going to think it.

“It might be gross, but it's efficient,” Sokka continued on, either in response to or in complete disregard of the look on Katara’s face. “Either way, we have to leave here first thing tomorrow morning.”

“We can’t just leave, Sokka!” Katara protested. “These people need our help!”

“And I already told you, Katara,” he argued, “We’re going to help them by making changes that’ll help everyone – by ending the war!”

“They don’t just need us to end the war,” she shouted. “They need us now, not in a few months’ time, after we’ve defeated the Fire Lord and figured out what happens next!”

“I’m sorry, Katara –” and her big brother did look apologetic, that was the worst part – “But the plan is to defeat the Fire Lord. That’s the whole reason we’re doing this!”

Right, Katara acknowledged begrudgingly. That was the plan. But plans could change, and that was okay.

Well, Katara had a plan of her own, and she couldn’t see any reason she couldn’t do it.

 

 

Despite popular wisdom – which, as he remembered from Makapu, wasn’t always wisdom at all – Sokka wasn’t a completely unfeeling jerk. He could see that Katara had been really upset by how things had all been so bad in Jang Hui, so when she’d been lamenting over how the river had been poisoned, and the children seemed to be going hungry, and eating during your potty break was super unhygienic, he’d tried his best to reassure her that things might look better in the morning.

But then, in the morning, things hadn’t looked better at all.

“I think Appa's sick,” Katara told them all, as Appa let out a loud grumble. Sokka wasn’t as fluent in bisonese as Aang, but even he could figure out that Huwllyaargh meant that yes, actually, Appa was sick.

“Appa's sick?” He gasped. His voice sounded rather unmanly and squeaky, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care about that right now. “That's awful!

“Wow, Sokka,” Toph said. “I didn't realize you cared so much.”

What? Did everyone think that he was just some unfeeling jerk? Of course he liked Appa! He hated Momo, of course – the little bastard kept going through his bags, and Sokka was beginning to suspect that he was just doing it on purpose by now – but of course he liked Appa!

“Of course I care!” He shouted. “I might as well just throw our schedule away now!”

Aang let out a noise like Sokka had just punted a winged lemur into the Jang Hui River, and, okay, so maybe Sokka hadn’t phrased that in the best way possible.

“And I'm concerned because my big, furry friend doesn't feel well,” he finished awkwardly, refusing to feel guilty over Aang’s sad lemur face.

“He must have gotten sick from being in the polluted water,” Toph speculated.

“He doesn't look sick,” Aang mumbled, pulling out Appa’s tongue – before quickly letting out a panicked cry. “His tongue is purple!”

Sokka’s medical expertise mainly revolved around the delicate task of removing fishhooks from flesh, so Katara had decided that the best thing to do would be to go into Jang Hui and see whether they had any medicine. Bato had always said that laughter was the best medicine, but Sokka didn’t think Appa would appreciate his joke about a Water Tribesman, a Kyoshi Warrior, and an idiot who all walk into a bar. Mind you, the people of Jang Hui must have had a great sense of humor, because Sokka couldn’t help but notice that the people seemed happier today than they had been yesterday. Sure, a lot of the smiles were missing teeth, but they were smiles nonetheless.

“What's going on with everyone today?” He asked Xu when he got to the old man’s stall. He knew it was Xu because he was the one wearing a yellow hat with a red stripe. No, it didn’t make sense to Sokka either.

“Something amazing happened last night!” Xu answered happily, enjoying what looked like some tasty soup. “Food was delivered to our village by a mysterious and wonderful person – the Painted Lady!”

“The Painted who now?” Katara asked.

“The Painted Lady,” Xu repeated, bringing up a miniature statuette of a cool-looking spirit with a red dress, a cool red hat, and some super-cool face paint markings. Sokka could appreciate face paint markings; if you’d grown up at the South Pole, and then met Suki, you kind of had to be a fan of face paint.

(Ha! Get it?)

“She's part of our town's lore,” Xu continued reverently as he stared at the statuette. “They say she's a river spirit who watches over our town in times of need. I always thought she was just a legend until now!”

Great, Sokka thought to himself miserably, doing his best to suppress a groan. More crazy spirit shit to deal with.

So far, Sokka’s experiences with spirits had been decidedly mixed. The one in Senlin Forest had kidnapped him – a negative, a serious negative, it could not be overstated how much of a negative that was – and the one at the North Pole had destroyed potentially thousands of Fire Nation ships – a positive, but still terrifying – and, in one especially notable instance of the spirits messing with Sokka, his girlfriend had turned into the moon to save the Northern Water Tribe.

He didn’t even know how to process that, much less whether it counted as a negative or a positive, but he definitely knew how to respond to it: what the slush?

So all things considered, Sokka didn’t have a great deal of patience for the spirits. Not even ones that apparently had magical healing powers. But if this town had a Painted Lady to help them, he figured he could let them have nice things, just this once.

“See,” he turned to Katara and Aang, trying to cheer them up. “We don't need to help these people – they already have someone to help them! All we need is medicine for our sick friend.”

“Medicine?” Xu shook his head. “Sorry, all the medicine we have goes to the factory. That's why there's so many sick people in our village.”

Monkeyfeathers, Sokka thought glumly to himself. That wasn’t good. If they couldn’t get Appa any medicine, they’d probably have to let him get through the worst of it on his own. It was looking like they’d have to get up fifty-oneminutes earlier in the mornings from now on.

“Isn’t it great that the Painted Lady’s helping all the villagers?” Katara was saying happily as they made their way back up the hill to their camp.

“It sure is!” Aang agreed. “And it’s super cool that they’ve shown up just as we’ve shown up, too!”

Sokka almost choked on air.

Oh, slush.

Aang was right!

“It’s you!” He cried, rounding on Katara and stabbing a finger at her. “You’re the reason the Painted Lady’s here!”

“What?” Katara let out a high-pitched noise that sounded something like a laugh crossed with a dying cranefish. “No, I’m not!”

Katara could deny it all she wanted, but Sokka knew what was going on right now.

Who was it that had broken Aang, literally the Avatar, out of the iceberg? Katara!

Who was it that had gotten arrested and taken to the prison rig where the Blue Spirit had showed up? Katara!

And who was it that had shown up in Jang Hui and made the Painted Lady show up?

You guessed it! Katara!

Oh, man, Sokka should have seen this all along! He’d said it back in Beihe – whenever Katara was around, crazy spirit stuff started acting up!

He put on his best imitation of Gran-Gran’s Now listen here, young lady expression and pointed an emphatic finger in Katara’s direction. “Stop making weird spirit shit happen!”

As they made their way up the hill, Katara continued to protest that she had nothing to do with the Painted Lady’s sudden appearance in Jang Hui, but Sokka knew what this was. This was the spirits fucking about with him again!

The spirits might have hated Sokka, but he definitely hated them more!

Notes:

‘No, I'm just uncomfortable about being on a rickety bridge over a boiling lake of lava!’ – Shrek (2001)

Chapter Text

One day in Jang Hui, where everything was wood and therefore awful, would have been a day too many for Toph. Three days of having to hold onto someone’s arm, sleeve, hand, or in one unfortunate instance, Sugar Queen’s hair? That was three days too many.

The unsettling feeling of blind helplessness was one thing, and the constant smell of stagnant, toxic water was another, but the worst part was dealing with the locals. Toph wasn’t quite sure how many locals there were, but the problem was that this Dock guy didn’t seem quite sure either.

“Hi, Dock,” Snoozles was saying to That Hat Dingbat. Toph had figured that coming up with one nickname was easier than two. “Is Xu around?”

“Let me check –” Toph heard a thumping noise as Dock rustled around – “Hey there! Back again, are ya?”

That wasn’t Dock’s voice. That was Xu. They sounded exactly the same to Toph, but they were apparently different people.

Fuck this , she decided, shoving Sucker to the side. She was done dealing with morons. She did that every day – she didn’t need another one. Two. Whatever.

“We need more food,” she declared flatly, slamming their money down on the counter. “Our friend is still sick, and we can't leave until he's better.”

“Oh, well, that's too bad,” Dingbat tutted sympathetically as he did whatever he was doing to get them some food. Toph didn’t know what he was getting them, and the way the others kept complaining, she wanted to keep it that way. “Maybe if you guys are lucky, the Painted Lady will visit you in the night, and heal your friend!”

“Sure!” Snoozles agreed sarcastically. “And maybe she'll cook us a midnight snack, and we'll all have a sing-along!”

“Yeah, maybe!” Dingbat nodded. “You know, last night she visited us again. Healed most of our sick folks!”

“Is that why this place seems so festive?” The Fancy Dancer asked.

“Yep,” Dingbat announced happily. “It's all because of the Painted Lady!”

“Can you believe how much an entire village can be affected by one lady?” Splish-Splash asked excitedly. “I mean, spirit?”

Toph once again sent up a silent prayer for the spirits to preserve her from morons.

“Well, I hope she returns every night,” Snoozles grumbled. “Otherwise, this place would go right back to the way it was!”

“You really don’t want to hope for that, Sucker,” Toph replied tiredly. She deserved a medal for putting up with this shit.

“Why would you say that?” Sugar Queen demanded. “Look how much better off these people are!”

“Yeah, now,” Snoozles argued. “But without her, they wouldn't be able to fend for themselves. If she really wanted to help, she would use her spirit magic to blow up that factory!”

He started making a whole load of weird spirit noises, which Toph presumed was his way of trying to be funny. Sugar Queen didn’t find it amusing, though, and she was in a bit of a funk for the rest of the day. She sure was cranky when she wasn’t getting enough sleep - and Snoozles was cranky when he wasn’t getting good food.

“I can’t believe we’re going to be stuck here for another day,” he complained to Toph, who honestly deserved a second, separate medal for putting up with his yapping whilst the Fancy Dancer and Sugar Queen went off to do their waterbending training.

“Believe it,” Toph advised him, idly practicing her dirtbending. “If you believe crazy stuff now, it’ll make it easier to believe crazy stuff later.”

“I don’t want to believe crazy stuff!” Sucker whined. “I’m Mister Science And Reason Lover! I’m about evidence, and proof, and rational conclusions!”

“Good for you, Snoozles,” she drawled, packing the dirt into a ball and tossing it up in the air. “I’m about done with this conversation, but please, do keep talking.”

“And why aren’t you more annoyed by this?” He demanded, sprawling out on the grass next to her and drumming his fingers on the ground. “I thought you hated being stuck on all those wooden bridges?”

Toph pulled a face. It was actually kind of sweet that Sucker had noticed that – not that she cared, or anything – but it did make her wonder how someone so perceptive in some respects could be such a moron in others.

“I’m a little more worried about Fuzzy over there,” she gestured in Appa’s general direction.

“I’m worried about Appa too,” Snoozles said indignantly. “Why does everyone think I don’t care?”

Toph snorted. “Probably because your first reaction when you heard he was sick was ‘Oh, no, my beautiful schedule is ruined’, instead of wondering if he was going to be okay?”

Snoozles let out a deep sigh as he rolled onto his back and propped himself up on his elbows.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he admitted quietly, sitting up and picking at the grass. “But we need to stop the Fire Lord, otherwise this town and all the others like it are just going to continue being hurt by the war. I just think that’s the most useful thing we can do right now.”

At least he was telling the truth, Toph decided after checking his heartbeat. You could never be quite sure with some people who were travelling with the Avatar.

“Look, Snoozles,” she relented. “If you want to do something useful, go find the Fancy Dancy something to eat.”

She couldn’t quite hear the frown in Snoozles’ voice, but the confusion was pretty easy to make out. “Why do I need to go do that?”

Toph sighed. If Snoozles was going to be this dense, she might as well tell him. Except he didn’t deserve to know, if he was being this dumb.

“Aang’s a vegetarian,” she spelt it out for him.

“Um… so why does that mean I need to go get him something to eat?”

“This is a fishing village, dunderhead,” she snapped. “He can’t eat fish, so he needs to eat something else!”

“Well, if this is a fishing village, what else is there for him to eat?”

How was Toph supposed to know that? She was blind!

She waved in the vague direction of her left. “I’m pretty sure I saw an egg custard tart tree over in that direction.”

“Really?” She could hear Snoozles frowning. “I’m pretty sure those don’t exist.”

Mudslides.

Never mind a medal, Toph deserved Huangshan tea for putting up with this shit.

“I’m. Blind,” she enunciated slowly. “You. Moron.”

“Oh, fuck off, Toph –”

“Just get him some fruit or nuts or something!” she half-yelled in exasperation. “Seen any trees around?”

“I think I saw a bush earlier with some berries on it,” he mumbled. “I’ll go check that out.”

“Yeah, you’d better,” Toph muttered, snatching up some grass of her own and throwing it in his general direction. “Otherwise, we might be stuck here for another day.”

Seriously , she thought to herself irritably. Did she have to do everything herself?

 

 

Zuko had attempted requests, demands, and even flat-out bribes, but the guards had still refused to allow him to see the disgraced former General Iroh. He felt about ready to crawl into bed, curl up in a ball, and block out the world, so when he saw Mai leaning back in a chair with her ankles crossed and resting on his desk, looking for all the world as if she belonged there, he couldn’t bring himself to feel much enthusiasm.

“You’d better have a good reason for showing up this late.”

If Mai felt offended by his bluntness – or whether she felt anything at all – she didn’t show it. “Nice to see you too, Zuko.”

Mother had always told him that he was to be respectful and polite. With an effort, he tried to set his tiredness and irritation aside. Even if Mai wasn’t the person he wanted to talk to right now, that wasn’t her fault.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own.

“What are you doing here so late, Mai?” He asked, trying to keep his voice down as he dragged his hand through his hair to undo his topknot. It was supposed to be the mark of his honor, but he couldn’t help but close his eyes and sigh as his hair fell back down around his face.

“There’s a letter for you,” she informed him casually, raising a scroll in her left hand. Her right was lazily spinning a knife. “I figured you’d want to be the first to read it.”

Zuko tried not to snatch the letter up from her, but his eagerness must have shown in the way he plucked the scroll out of her hand, because her tawny eyes flashed in amusement. She didn’t comment on it, though, which he counted as a small mercy as he examined the scroll.

His heart sank. The unbroken crimson seal was that of the dishonored Prince Zuko. It must have come from the crew of the Wani, not from Yoshida.

So the White Lotus still didn’t trust him.

“You thought I’d already opened it?” Mai asked dryly as he set the letter down on his desk. “I’m hurt, Zuko. It’s almost like you don’t trust me.”

“I trust you, Mai.” Fifteen. “It’s Azula I don’t trust.”

“That must be why you’ve been avoiding her,” she observed, continuing to spin her knife around her fingers.

“I haven’t been avoiding anyone,” Zuko defended himself. “I’ve just been making friends with all the turtleducks.”

Sixteen and a half . Chamomile and Assam always seemed happy to see him whenever he went out to the garden with bread, but Ginseng didn’t want to talk to him.

“Perhaps the only friends you’ve got, the way you’ve been acting.” Mai reached out to trace a light fingertip over one of the scrolls on his desk. Then, like a crococat playing with a ball of yarn, she batted it over, sending it rolling across the desk.

Zuko had to lean across Mai to stop the scroll from tumbling off the desk onto the floor, and when he turned back to her, her amused eyes were very close to his.

“What’s with you, Zuko?” She asked quietly, slipping her feet off the desk and standing to her feet. Zuko had to straighten up as she rose, but her eyes stayed fixed on his.

“You don’t seem happy to be home,” she continued, “You’re spending all your time by that stupid pond – and you keep going to visit your uncle in prison. What’s going on with you?”

He swallowed hard, and averted his eyes from Mai’s searching gaze. “I guess I’m still adjusting to being back.”

Seventeen .

“A lot’s changed in three years,” Mai agreed, reaching up for his face again. He could feel the warmth of her hand on the right side of his face.

“But not you and me,” she told him softly, pressing her lips to his in a closed-mouth kiss.

For their last kiss, Zuko had been thirteen, Mai eleven, and it had been a tentative, uncertain thing. He was pretty sure he’d apologized afterwards. This time around, Mai wasn’t tentative; she was confident, and her lips were warm as they moved against his. He exhaled shakily, but she took his breath and deepened the kiss, taking his lip between hers. Her right hand reached up to slide into his hair –

Zuko stumbled backwards, bumping into the desk. He thought he heard a choked breath, but he wasn’t sure whose – it might have been a laugh, he didn’t know.

“It’s late,” he managed. “We shouldn’t – I don’t – it’s late.”

Whatever Mai had been feeling as she kissed him, it was hidden again behind her calm, collected expression. Zuko watched her dark amber eyes cool again.

“It’s late,” she agreed. “But maybe it’s also too early.”

“Maybe,” Zuko choked out. He didn’t know if that counted.

Mai let out a breath, and picked her knife up from his desk, twirling it once, twice, before stowing it away in her robes.

“Aren’t you going to open your letter?” She asked, changing the subject deftly.

Zuko tried to remember what was happening. The letter. The Wani. “Maybe later.”

“Maybe it’s from Taki,” she reminded him, a stubborn tilt to her jaw. “I wrote to her too, remember?”

Mai wasn’t usually this insistent, so that probably meant Azula wanted to know what the Wani was saying. She’d be disappointed, though; without the White Lotus seal, it would just be a regular letter. Probably Jee detailing his logistics again.

With a sigh, Zuko lit a candle on his desk and broke the seal, spreading it out on the mahogany wood. As he quickly read through the short missive, written in neat, precise calligraphy, he tried to tamper down his rising disbelief. He had to calm himself down before he made the fucking candle explode.

Mai must have picked up on his emotions. “What’s it say?”

“It’s from Lieutenant Jee,” Zuko struggled to keep his voice flat. He couldn’t let his excitement show. “He says that Ensign Takahashi is on leave, and unable to respond to my letter.”

She frowned, and moved to read it over his shoulder. “Is that all? What else does he say?”

“Nothing important.” Eighteen. “He talks about their last Pai Sho match.” Eighteen and a half.

Mai wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Was it a mandatory requirement for your crew to enjoy that stupid game?”

“I don’t think Jee liked it very much,” Zuko managed. “Reading the letter, I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about.”

Twenty .

That seemed to be enough for Mai. Maybe she wasn’t interested in rehashing the rules of Pai Sho, maybe she was satisfied that she had nothing to report to Azula. Or maybe she was just tired – Zuko never knew with her.

“Ty Lee’s planning a trip to Ember Island as an early birthday present for Azula,” she informed him as she walked towards the door. “I’d invite you, but if you’re planning on continuing the little pity party you’ve got going on, I shan’t bother.”

He supposed that was her way of inviting him. “I’ll think about it.”

She left without another word, which left Zuko alone with his unsteady breathing, his anxious thoughts, and the letter.

Aang is alive , he realized numbly.

 

 

Aang had been having a really weird dream about food that ate people, but after Momo had woken him up by landing on his stomach, he didn’t think he was going to be worrying about eating at all until his stomach reinflated. He’d been about to waterbend some cold water over Momo in retaliation, but he was distracted by the sight of a figure in a red dress. He watched on in confusion as they disappeared over the hill in the direction of the village.

“It's her!” Aang realized, jumping up and running after the spirit that must have been healing the town’s sick people. Maybe she could heal Appa, too!

“Excuse me!” He called out as he chased after the Painted Lady. “I don't mean to bother you, but my friend's sick and we're on kind of a tight schedule!”

But the Painted Lady seemed to be on a tight schedule as well, the way that she glided across the river without even breaking stride. Aang had gotten bored when Katara had been showing him how to run across water, so he’d started bending wet sand to try and juggle it instead. It hadn’t been successful, and Toph hadn’t been impressed, and Aang was kind of regretting not paying attention now, because he had to freeze some ice in the river to jump across as he chased after the spirit.

“Wait!” He cried out again as he hopped across the ice. “I'm a great bridge between your world and mine! I know Hei Bai – we're close personal friends!”

But the Painted Lady kept moving, and Aang had to chase her across one of Jang Hui’s wooden bridges before jumping up onto a roof. It was like that The Floor Is Lava game Hotman – um, that game Zuko had talked about.

“Hey!” He shouted, trying to get the Painted Lady’s attention again. “Hey, do you know the Dark Water Spir–”

Ouch!

Oh, man, the Dark Water Spirit was bringing Aang nothing but trouble, he thought crossly to himself as he rubbed his nose and glared at the pole he’d just ran into. Why Bumi had thought they were a friend of the Avatar was completely beyond him!

“Aang!” The Painted Lady called out, turning around and hurrying back towards him. “Aang, are you alright?”

Aang hadn’t seen that pole coming, but when the mysterious figure in red rushed up to him and he realized who they were, he really hadn’t seen that coming either.

He was never telling Momo about this. If Momo found out, he’d laugh at Aang for ages.

“Katara?” He gasped as she checked his nose for bruising. “You're the Painted Lady?”

“I wasn't her at first,” Katara confessed, taking off her snazzy red hat. “I was just trying to help the village. But since everyone thought that's who I was anyway… I guess I just kind of became her.”

“So you've been sneaking out at night?” Aang asked confusedly. “Wait – is Appa even sick?”

“He might be sick of the purple berries I've been feeding him,” Katara admitted. “But other than that, he's fine.”

“I can't believe you lied to everyone so you could help these people,” Aang marveled, still struggling to wrap his head around it.

“I'm sorry,” Katara began sadly. “I know I shouldn't have.”

At the South Pole, Katara had seemed kind of weird for a few days after Aang had accidentally revealed that he was an airbender, and she had been mad at Aang for lying to the Gan Jins and the Zhangs in the Great Divide, even though Aang had had only been doing it for a good reason. Katara looked really downcast right now, and Aang didn’t want her to feel awkward or nervous about how he might react to finding out that she’d been hiding stuff from him.

“No, I think it's great!” He reassured her emphatically. “You're like a secret hero!”

First it was hiding who they really were, then it was lying – Aang couldn’t wait to see what the next thing they’d have in common might be! Maybe it would be knowing that he was a powerful bender, and then Katara would like him?

“Well, if you want to help,” Katara shifted on her feet and gave him a smile. “There is one more thing I have to do.”

Yes!

Aang had been all ready to say Why yes, I’m a powerful bender in a super suave and aloof voice, but it turned out that Katara had actually been planning on destroying the factory. She thought that getting rid of the factory was the only way to help these people permanently.

That was Katara, Aang thought admiringly. She was always happy when she was helping other people.

Aang was happy when he was doing super cool and super deadly stuff, and whilst there wasn’t anyone in the factory when they blew it up, blowing up a factory definitely counted. He’d still been laughing about it when they returned to their campsite in the early morning, making boom! explosion noises to make Katara smile and laugh.

“Shh,” Katara hushed him as they approached the campsite.  “We don't want to wake Sokka.”

Aang had been about to say there was no chance of that, because Sokka was a really heavy sleeper, but then he’d turned around and realized that there was no chance of that… because Sokka wasn’t even asleep.

Monkeyfeathers . Sokka and Toph were there, and Sokka was looking at them both with an annoyed look on his face. They were well and truly busted.

Yet another thing they had in common, Aang thought miserably to himself.

“Hi, Sokka,” Katara began, giving him a nice smile. “We were just out on a morning walk!”

“Oh, really?” Sokka sneered skeptically. “A morning walk?”

This was bad. Sokka hadn’t just figured out that Katara was the Painted Lady. He’d also figured out that she’d been sneaking out at night, and he’d even figured out that she’d been lying about Appa and been feeding him purple-izing tongue berries.

“What you did put our whole mission in jeopardy!” Sokka yelled at Katara as she walked past him with a sad expression on her face. “We're leaving right now!”

Aang had just been about to go and try and talk some more about how cool it had been when the factory went boom to try and cheer her up, but then Sokka gave him a big annoyed frown of his own.

“And how long did you know about this?” He asked aggressively.

Aang had to try and not gulp nervously as he considered Sokka’s question. Okay, so Katara had been a bit mad at him when he’d lied to the Gan Jins and the Zhangs. But now that she’d realized that it was cool if you lied so long as you were doing it for a good reason, Aang felt like she’d understand if he told Sokka a little white lie for a good reason.

“Hey, I just found out this morning!” He told Sokka, holding his hands up in the air.

Aang didn’t want to get in trouble, okay? Staying out of trouble totally counted as a good reason!

Chapter 10

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Katara wouldn’t have been able to tell Sokka why exactly she had started masquerading as the Painted Lady, but even if she couldn’t explain it, she knew it was something she’d needed to do. It had been like she’d figured out what she should have been doing all along.

She remembered what she’d learnt at the North Pole about how the key to waterbending was about knowing when to push the water, and when to pull it. Master Pakku had said that everyone was, to some degree, a person who gave or a person who took. In order to waterbend well, you had to know yourself, and know when to give into the water and when to take out of the water.

Katara had learnt that she could control the temperature of the water much more easily if she tried to give warmth into the cold water, because that was the kind of person she was. Katara was someone who gave. She tried to give people hope, but she also wanted to be someone who would give people help when they needed it.

She scowled, and threw Sokka’s bag onto Appa with unnecessary force. Then, she tossed Aang’s stuff up for good measure. Her anger buzzed around her head, rising to a droning noise as she gathered up her cooking pots. Sokka was so focused on what they needed to do to help people, but he didn’t actually seem to want to help people when they needed their help…

But that buzzing noise wasn’t just in her head anymore, and she frowned in confusion. She wasn’t the only one who seemed puzzled. Toph was kneeling down, and Aang and Sokka were looking out over the river with serious expressions on their faces.

“What's going on?” Toph asked, placing her hand flat on the grass.

“Fire Nation soldiers are heading toward the village,” Aang replied, looking towards Katara with a nervous expression.

Oh no.

Katara had wanted to destroy that factory so that the Fire Nation army wouldn’t keep polluting the river, and then people in Jang Hui could keep their medicine and heal all the sick people living there. She’d only been trying to help, but if the army were going to blame the people in Jang Hui for what she’d done…

The expression on Sokka’s face was a lot less nervous than Aang’s look had been, and a lot more accusing. “What did you do?”

She laughed a little nervously. “I… kind of destroyed their factory?”

Okay, for Sokka’s face to turn that shade of red was quite impressive. “You what?

Katara noted in the back of her mind that she couldn’t remember Sokka’s voice being that high-pitched since he’d been twelve, at least.

“It was your idea!” She pointed out defensively.

“I was joking!” He dragged his hand over his face, which was now rapidly turning pale. “I also said to use spirit magic and made funny noises!”

Oops. Well, in Katara’s defense, she’d kind of been a bit focused on keeping her identity a secret at that point. She’d been so busy trying to be careful with what she was saying around Sokka to actually pick up on what he was saying to her.

But still – oops.

“Did you even think this through?” Sokka asked her angrily. “The army is going to blame the villagers! They're headed there right now to get revenge!”

“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Katara shouted.

Honestly, he got offended when she didn’t find his jokes funny, he got annoyed when she found his serious plans ridiculous, and now he was getting mad when she took his jokes seriously. Really, what was she supposed to do?

“Leave!” He groaned, now waving his hands around. “Do nothing!”

But Katara couldn’t just do nothing. She had to help them. She knew that Sokka wanted to help all the poor and struggling people in the Fire Nation by ending the war, but the people of Jang Hui needed them now. She’d been practicing her waterbending this whole time so that she would be ready to help Aang if he needed her, but these people needed her too.

“No!” She shouted, rounding on Sokka. “I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me!”

If the people in Jang Hui were in danger from the Fire Nation Army, Katara had to protect them. It was as simple as that. She’d been ready to protect Sokka in the Great Divide; she’d been ready to protect Aang at the Spirit Oasis; she’d been ready to protect that little Fire Nation child in Omashu. She wasn’t going to stop now!

“I'm going down to that village, and I’m going to do whatever I can!” She declared, storming away from Sokka to get her Painted Lady outfit out of her bags. It had been a bit tricky to keep it hidden during the day, but if Sokka had been able to lug his Detective Outfit all around the Earth Kingdom, Katara had figured there was no reason she couldn’t play a little dress-up of her own as well.

“Wait!”

But Katara wasn’t going to wait. She didn’t care if Sokka didn’t come with her. She’d been in this situation before, when she’d been determined to get to the North Pole and find a waterbending teacher. She would have left the South Pole without him, and even if Aang hadn’t been willing to take her, she would have paddled a canoe the whole way. It had driven her, it was her goal – it was what she would do, no matter what.

And this was no different.

As she prepared herself to do what she needed to do to help the people in this poor Fire Nation town, she felt a hand on her shoulder. As she turned around, she saw Sokka looking at her with clear eyes and a set jaw.

“I'm coming, too,” he told her firmly, in a voice that held no room for discussion.

What?

Katara couldn’t help but feel like she was missing something here. “I thought you didn't want to help?”

“You need me,” her big brother replied simply. “And I will never turn my back on you.”

She refused to tear up, because she knew that would just make the big goof get all awkward. “Sokka, you really do have a heart!”

“Aw,” Aang smiled a little tearily. “He really does have a heart, doesn’t he?”

Not even the way Toph punched Aang for his little joke could stop Katara from giving her big brother a hug. Sokka always came through for her. She wasn’t on her own – she was never on her own, not when her goofy, dumb, hilarious, smart big brother was right there with her.

 

 

This whole slush-damned mess just showed how Sokka was the only sensible person in their group!

He missed Suki, he thought sadly to himself. She was always sensible. Suki would have taken one look at the possibility of pretending to be the Painted Lady, consider and evaluate it, and then go No, that’s crazy, and I’m sensible. But, alas, the world was what it was, and Sokka had to deal with it.

That was what the Water Tribe was all about. You adapted to the situation, and made the best of it. But you also did things together, helping each other, building the community and making sure everyone worked together as a family.

So that was what they did. As the soldiers set to work destroying the town, Sokka, Aang and Toph set to work creating a tense, spooky atmosphere. As Sokka started playing a spooky melody on Aang’s flute, he could see Katara take a deep breath and draw the water of the Jang Hui River up into the air, shrouding herself in mist. Once they were all sure that Aang was in position, she let out a slow breath, and pushed the water vapor towards Jang Hui.

As the thick grey fog descended upon the village, Sokka could hear the cries of shock and shouts of alarm. Toph was earthbending a boulder to create a thudding noise, and even Appa was getting involved in the performance, making a low growling noise. Sokka wasn’t sure what Momo was doing, but he was sure it was almost certainly helpful. Probably. Maybe.

As Katara bent the fog away, revealing herself to the crowds, Sokka could hear cries of shock and alarm. He had to admit, his little sister cut quite the picture in a red dress, all that face paint, and a massive hat. Sokka didn’t have the faintest idea where she’d gotten the outfit, or where she’d been hiding it during the days, but now that he knew it was Katara messing with the Fire Nation soldiers, it wasn’t quite as impressive as it might have been if he’d still thought it was the actual Painted Lady.

He should have learnt his lesson after meeting Huu in the Foggy Swamp, Sokka thought to himself. Rule number one of traveling with the Avatar: it’s probably not the spirits, because it’s probably just some weirdo dressing up and pretending to… hang on a minute.

Wait just one second here.

What the slush?

THAT JERKBENDING BASTARD!

Sokka would have really appreciated the way Katara launched herself towards the dock with her waterbending and sent up a spray of water as she landed on the wooden platform, just to really show the soldiers that she wasn’t someone to mess with.

He would have enjoyed the way Aang added to the performance with his airbending, making it seem like the spirits were really on their side for once.

And he would have absolutely loved the looks of shock and fright on the soldiers’ faces when Katara set about destroying the Fire Nation soldiers’ jet skis and sending them crashing into the cliff across the water.

But he didn’t really catch any of that.

He only snapped out of his stunned silence when Toph punched him in the shoulder – ouch, that was a rude awakening.

“Come on, Snoozles!” She pointed towards the village. “We’ve gotta get over there, and I can’t do it on my own!”

Right, right, right. Katara was dressing up as a weirdo spirit and messing with the Fire Nation.

Oh, La’s depths and Tui’s stars.

As he and Toph made their way towards the village, Sokka didn’t know who he was going to kill first. The spirits who kept messing with him, or that no-good, sneaky son of a polar bear dog Zuko.

By the time they had made it over to what served as the center of the little town on the river, Katara had already sent the Fire Army’s goons packing, and the villagers were singing her praises as they surrounded her. Were they crying? Sokka was pretty sure they were crying. Slush, to see how much Katara had done for them, and how much it meant for them…

“Hey, wait a minute!” Dock shouted, and Sokka lurched back to reality with a jolt. “I know you! You're not the Painted Lady – you're that colonial girl!”

Oh, great, Sokka groaned to himself. They must have figured out that Katara had just been pretending to be a spirit.

She should have worn a mask. Why didn’t the jerkbender tell her to wear a mask?

“You've been tricking us,” Dock accused Katara angrily, as the crowd’s cheers turned to an angry hubbub of outrage. “You're a waterbender!”

As the crowd started muttering and jeering, Sokka had to run forward to stop them from turning nasty. Protect baby sister now, lecture her on the importance of wearing masks when messing with the Fire Nation later.

Skinning Zuko alive would have to wait as well, but Sokka was definitely putting it in the schedule.

“Maybe she is a waterbender, but she was just trying to help you!” He shouted as he took up a stance protecting Katara from the villagers. “Because of her, that factory won't be polluting your river, and the army is gone! You should be down on your knees thanking her!”

“Sokka, it's okay,” Katara mumbled, stepping forward and giving him a gentle push to make him step aside. He didn’t like the idea of letting his little sister deal with an angry mob all by herself, but he’d once told her that he knew it wasn’t up to him to stop her from going after what she wanted, or to protect her when she didn’t need protecting.

He’d meant it in a very different context, but still.

“I shouldn't have acted like someone I wasn't,” Katara confessed to the crowd. “And I shouldn't have tricked you. But I felt like I had to do something. It doesn't matter if the Painted Lady is real or not, because your problems are real, and this river is real. You can't wait around for someone to help you. You have to help yourself!”

Sokka could feel himself getting a little emotional at the passion and conviction in his baby sister’s voice. Only a little, though. A Manly amount.

“She's right,” Dock eventually conceded, “But what should we do?”

Sokka could see Toph covering her face and muffling her voice. “Maybe we can clean the river!”

As the crowd cheered, Sokka took back every mean thought he’d had about Toph, and quite a few of the not-so-mean-but-still-vaguely-insulting thoughts he’d had, too.

“You know, you're not so bad for a waterbender,” Dock told Katara in all the hullabaloo and excitement.

“You wouldn't mind keeping that a secret, by the way, would you?” Katara asked worriedly.

“No problem,” Dock assured them with a toothy smile. “Keeping my mouth shut is a personal specialty!”

Through sheer force of will, Sokka refrained from making any smart comments. He could feel his eyebrow twitching with the effort.

He was going to kill that jerkbending bastard if it was the last thing he ever did.

 

 

They’d been flying on Appa for two whole hours, but Snoozles was still ranting on about how those morons in Jang Hui had reacted when they’d found out Sugar Queen was a waterbender.

Like, sure, okay, Sugar Queen had purified a whole river for them, and that had made the whole load of them treat her like the spirits’ gift to environmentally sustainable fishing villages, but that had been Toph’s great idea in the first place. Yet again, sighted people were a little slow on the uptake in listening to Toph’s genius, and yet again, when they did eventually listen to her, things worked out fine!

If Toph had said it once, she’d said it a thousand times: she was always right, and people needed to listen to her more often.

“I can’t believe those jerks were so ungrateful!” Snoozles was continuing aggravatedly. “After everything you did for them, they were just talking about how you’d been tricking them!”

“I know, right?” Twinkles agreed with him. “Like, they didn’t even care that you’d been helping them, Katara! It was like they were all, ‘Oh, never mind that you were just trying to do a good thing, now we’ve realized who you really are, we hate you!’.”

“Imagine that,” Toph shook her head. “The audacity.”

“I shouldn’t even have had to step in and remind them how you’d just been trying to help them!”

To be honest, it was probably a good thing that Snoozles had been brave enough to stand up for his little sister, but Toph was thinking that very quietly.

It wasn’t like she thought that idiot Sucker was, like, brave, or anything like that! He still wasn’t good enough for Fan Girl.

“I just can’t believe that none of you figured out that Sugar Queen was dressing up as the Painted Lady,” she said out loud, instead of voicing any of that.

“Wait.” Splish-Splash sounded surprised. “You knew?”

“You told Snoozles it didn’t have anything to do with you, back when we were walking up the hill,” Toph pointed out. “I could tell you were lying through your heartbeat.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Twinkle Toes asked annoyedly.

Toph would rather jump in the river than admit she had thought it was pretty cool that Sugar Queen had been doing a good thing for those villagers.

“‘Cause it was kind of funny to see how dumb you guys are,” she answered instead. “I can see how Sparky got away with it for so long.”

“Don’t even get me started,” Snoozles groaned. “Tui and La, it was bad enough when Zuko was pulling this shit, dressing up like a weirdo spirit, but for Katara to do it, I’m –”

“Wait, what?” The Fancy Dancer asked. “When did Zuko dress up as a weirdo spirit?”

“When didn’t he, more like,” Snoozles muttered disapprovingly. “I’d completely forgotten it was him at the prison rig – like, at the time, I just thought it was an actual spirit, you know –”

“Zuko wasn’t at the prison rig,” Sugar Queen said, sounding a little confused herself. “What are you talking about?”

“Yeah, Snoozles,” Toph interjected. “What are you talking about? I wasn’t here for that bit!”

“What do you mean, Zuko wasn’t at the prison rig?” Sucker demanded. “Don’t play dumb with me, Katara! You know exactly what I’m talking about!”

“Uh,” Twinkles sounded like he was raising his hand for permission to speak. Guess he’d learned some manners in that Fire Nation school; Toph would have to help him unlearn them. “I’ve got literally no idea what you guys are talking about, Sokka. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how Zuko was the Blue Spirit!”

Toph waited for a response, and then waited a bit more. And then waited some more, because earthbending was all about how you were supposed to wait and listen to the earth. But even if these guys were as dumb as three especially stupid rocks, they wasn’t usually as quiet as the rocks.

“Hotman was the Blue Spirit?”

No. Fucking. Way.

This, Toph thought to herself gleefully, was a million times better than the time everyone had thought Sparky was pregnant.

“You didn’t figure it out?” Sucker asked. He sounded like he was about to throw these morons off Appa and into the Jang Hui River. “You seriously didn’t figure it out?”

“Figure what out?” The Fancy Dancer asked. “That Zuko was the Blue Spirit? I never saw him doing anything like that!”

“He was always doing something like that, Aang!” Snoozles half-shouted. “He got you out from Pohuai with his dao swords, he got Katara away from the pirates, he saved our butts in Omashu when Azula showed up – how did you not figure it out?

Toph had heard about the first two instances, but that time in Omashu sounded kind of crazy. She wondered whether King Bumi had had anything to do with it; Sparky had always seemed to hate that mad old guy.

“No,” Sugar Queen sounded stunned. “No, he – he couldn’t have been…”

Snoozles, by way of contrast, sounded like Mistress Ouyang had always sounded after Toph had mislabeled the Supreme Palace Enclosure as Wài Tēi Yuán instead of Tài Wēi Yuán.

“You didn’t know?” He mumbled to himself as if he was dreaming. “You mean – he didn’t tell you?”

“Tell us what?” The Fancy Dancer laughed nervously. “Wait – Zuko was the Blue Spirit? Or did he just tell you he was the Blue Spirit?”

“He didn’t tell you after Omashu?” Snoozles was asking in a faint voice. “In Gaoling, when you started getting all… he didn’t tell you?”

“Getting all what?” Twinkles asked confusedly. “What’s he talking about, Katara?”

Toph wanted to know that too, but Sugar Queen seemed incapable of speech. She made a few sputtering noises, but the concept that Sparky was the Blue Spirit seemed to have robbed her of the ability to talk.

Toph considered it an improvement, personally.

“He made me promise not to tell you,” Sucker mumbled dazedly. “He seriously didn’t tell you?

Snoozles seemed to be struggling with the very basic concept that Sugar Queen didn’t know stuff. It was a concept that fit well with Toph’s view of the world, such as it was.

“Hotman never told me he was the Blue Spirit,” Twinkles admitted. “Did he tell you?

“Zuko never told me anything, Sokka!” Sugar Queen shouted, finding her voice at last. “And if he told you that, he was lying like he always was! There’s no way Zuko was the Blue Spirit!”

“Well, he wasn’t lying when he told me he was the Blue Spirit,” Toph interjected. “Heartbeat, remember?”

“So you just…” Snoozles said faintly, “You just came up with the idea of dressing up as a weirdo spirit… and messing with the Fire Nation… all by yourself?”

Toph laughed so hard, she almost fell out of Appa’s saddle. And she kept laughing for a very long time after that.

These guys were idiots, but she fucking loved these idiots.

Notes:

Tài Wēi Yuán, or the Supreme Palace Enclosure, is one of the Three Enclosures of traditional Chinese astronomy.

Chapter Text

Aang was still trying to figure out the part where Hotman Zuko was actually the banished Prince of the Fire Nation, who had to capture Aang and take him back to the Fire Nation so he could be Prince Zuko again after his father Fire Lord Ozai had banished him, but was also the Blue Spirit, who’d rescued Aang when he’d been captured by the Fire Nation. That was a crazier backstory than anything Bonzu Pippinpaddleopsicopolis III could have come up with.

He’d been so distracted when he’d been thinking about it last night that he’d almost missed the massive flaming meteor crashing into a valley pretty close to a village, but he and Katara and Toph had been able to save the day and stop Shu Jing town from getting all flamed out, so at least there was that. Shu Jing was a nice little town, with all kinds of beautiful grassy hills, this super amazing canyon with loads of awesome waterfalls, and loads of rock and water. It was all so pretty, and Aang had to admit: the Fire Nation countryside could be really picturesque at times. Especially when it wasn’t getting flattened by a massive flaming rock.

“These people have no idea how close they were to getting toasted last night,” he observed amazedly, watching the people walking past the little café he and his friends were sitting outside.

“Yeah,” Toph nodded. “The worst thing about being in disguise is that we don't get the hero worship anymore. I miss the love.”

Aang couldn’t really say they had that in common, he thought to himself. He wasn’t just an observant guy, but a humble guy, too. The only reward he needed was maybe a nice egg custard tart.

“Boo-hoo,” Sokka muttered, still looking a bit grumpy. “Poor heroes.”

“What's your problem?” Katara asked, giving Sokka a concerned look. “You haven't even touched your smoked sea slug!”

Personally, Aang thought that smoked sea slug was a great argument in favor of being a vegetarian, but he listened with growing confusion as Sokka talked about how he felt like he couldn’t do anything, just because he couldn’t do awesome bending stuff, or fly around. Well, Aang didn’t think that doing awesome bending was the be-all and end-all of the world. He couldn’t write awesome poetry like Sokka could! Even after that literature class in school, he still had trouble with the meter sometimes.

Don’t worry, Sokka / You are still the best poet / I know.

No, wait, hang on a minute.

Don’t worry, Sokka / You are still the best poet / I have ever met.

See?

Aang sucked at poetry!

“That’s not true,” Katara pointed out. “No one can read a map like you.”

“I can't read at all!” Toph interjected.

“Yeah,” Aang nodded vigorously. “And who keeps us laughing with sarcastic comments all the time? I mean, look at Katara's hair, right? What's up with that?”

“What?” Katara asked, looking around nervously and trying to duck her head. “What's wrong with my hair?”

Oops. This was like that time Aang hadn’t meant to call her a party pooper and ended up calling her a party pooper. He hadn’t meant to say it like that!

“Nothing,” he reassured her hastily. “I was just trying to –”

“Look, I appreciate the effort,” Sokka sighed. Well, Aang really appreciated the save! He hadn’t known how to reassure Katara that her hair was super pretty without it sounding weird.

“But the fact is – each of you is so amazing and so special and I'm not,” Sokka continued in a defeated kind of voice. “I'm just the guy in the group who's regular.”

Katara put her hand on his shoulder, and even Toph must have realized that this wasn’t a moment where she should make a sarcastic comment, because she was quiet. Aang and Toph were actually quiet for quite a bit of time, and it was getting kind of awkward, until Katara perked up again.

“I know something that's going to make you feel better!”

“You do?” Sokka mumbled.

Aang was feeling a little skeptical about Katara’s plan to make Sokka feel better, too. That time Hotman – uh, Zuko had tried to make him feel better after they’d left Omashu without Bumi, it had involved throwing lychee nuts at Sokka. Aang hoped Katara wasn’t planning on letting Sokka pelt Aang with lychee nuts.

But it turned out that Katara had a better plan in mind – she took them all shopping at a weapons store. All these swords, and knives, and daggers, and murderous weaponry… Aang figured there would be all kinds of haggling potential here, with all these weapons that pirates used for currency. Sokka seemed to like the weapons, too, because he kept trying tons of different swords and nunchucks, clubs and spears, and all sorts of cool knives. Aang tried to find a boomerang, but he couldn’t find any; not even a novelty one.

“We once found some pretty cool stuff when we met some pirates,” he explained to Toph. “I’m pretty sure Hotman had to haggle a bit, but he got Sokka a novelty boomerang, and he got Katara her waterbending scroll back. And I got two copper pieces!”

“Are these the pirates that kidnapped Sugar Queen?” Toph asked bemusedly. “And what do you mean, haggle?

“My friend Kuzon said pirates usually haggle with knives and swords,” Aang remembered. “So maybe Zuko had to beat them in a swordfight?”

Oh, wait – they’d only been in that situation in the first place because Aang had washed Zuko’s dao swords down the river. So he wouldn’t have been able to do any sword-fighting. Never mind.

“Or maybe he had to, like, juggle or something,” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

Toph scoffed. “You think Sparky can juggle?”

Aang had to admit, Zuko hadn’t really shown much of an interest in juggling. He’d always been interested in how Aang’s juggling was coming on, when he’d been practicing his marbles, acorns, lychee nuts and pebbles, but he’d rarely used his firebending to juggle little fires, despite how many times Aang had asked him to.

“Okay, fine,” he conceded. “But he still managed to get Katara her waterbending scroll back when the Blue Spirit was rescuing her from pirates, so it all worked out okay in the end.”

Toph turned to look at him. It was kind of uncanny, considering that she was blind. “Maybe that’s how he got the cool stuff, huh?”

Oh, right. Because Hotman had been the Blue Spirit.

Wow.

Aang had been about to ask Toph some more about how Zuko had been the Blue Spirit, but he got distracted when Sokka came over to talk to them. Apparently, the shopkeeper had told him that Piandao, the greatest swordsmaster and sword maker in Fire Nation history, lived in the big castle up the road out of Shu Jing.

That was what Sokka had needed all along, Aang thought happily to himself. He’d needed a master! Everyone else had had masters to help them get better, so if Sokka could study with Piandao, he’d be okay!

 

 

Aang is alive, Zuko repeated to himself with relief. Katara healed him with the spirit water.

They were okay. Zuko’s gamble had failed, but they were okay. Sokka was undoubtedly furious with him, and Katara probably hated his guts and wished he was dead, and Toph was most likely getting ready to deliver the mother of all Earth Rumble beatdowns on him, and Suki…

Zuko honestly didn’t want to think about how Suki might be feeling towards him right now, because the sheer metaphysical power of her rage might actually become manifest and smite him if he gave it the opportunity.

But Aang was alive, and Zuko was resolved to never think a bad word about Lieutenant Jee again.

Ensign Takahashi is currently on leave, and so is unable to respond to your letter. However, when she left, she was in good spirits. In our last Pai Sho game, she caught me by surprise, unexpectedly switching her wheel tile’s harmony with the boat, and choosing instead to favor the knotweed. I doubt we will have a rematch. Yours humbly, Lieutenant Jee.

On the surface, Jee’s words were as brusque, matter-of-fact and to the point as the man himself, with only the faintest touch of decorum almost as an afterthought at the end. The casual reader wouldn’t have cared too much about Ensign Takahashi’s work-life balance, and Mai certainly wouldn’t have thought the result of Jee’s last Pai Sho match was worth reporting back to Azula.

It wouldn’t have been worth reporting on, except that the letter made no sense. The tiles Jee had named were accent tiles. You couldn’t create harmonies with them; you could only create harmonies by placing two harmonious flower tiles along a line on the board.

Jee hadn’t used any of the White Lotus’ pass phrases, so he must have sent this letter on his own. No matter if the White Lotus wanted to keep Zuko out of the loop, Jee must have had enough faith in him to give him this small offering, with whatever cryptic hints he’d been able to come up with on his own. Good spirits must have meant the spirit water. The wheel was the air tile. The boat was the water tile. And the knotweed was the fire tile.

Zuko wasn’t sure if Taki really was on shore leave, or whether Jee was just making that up as a convenient excuse, but that wasn’t the point of the letter. Aang was alive. He had left the Wani, he was somewhere in the Fire Nation, and he wouldn’t be rejoining the ship before the invasion.

Zuko was pretty sure he was getting odd looks from the servants as he walked through the hallways of the palace with a smile on his face, but he couldn’t care less. The high windows seemed to be letting more light in than usual, the dark wood paneling on the walls seemed a little less foreboding and a little more cozy, and even the sight of that bastard General Bujing couldn’t bring his mood down.

Even Ty Lee seemed to pick up on the change, which was quite the feat considering Zuko wasn’t always sure Ty Lee knew which day of the week it was.

“Wow, Zuko!” She almost did a double-take as she saw him on his way to the palace library, but recovered herself enough to beam at him. “Someone’s in a good mood!”

“I am,” he acknowledged with a grin, pausing in the middle of the hallway. “I got some good news the other day.”

“I can tell,” Ty Lee tilted her head to give him a contemplative look. “Your aura looks way nicer now. It was super cloudy before, but now it’s all bright!”

Zuko thought he could remember Ty Lee saying something about his aura before, back in the Earth Kingdom, but the fact that he wasn’t entirely sure probably meant that he’d been whacked one too many times in the head with a frying pan.

Katara would probably want to give him a hundred blows to the face with her weapon of choice right about now, but he couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it.

“I thought you said my aura looked nice?” He asked Ty Lee, trying to distract himself from thinking about blue eyes, shōgayu tea, and a gentle touch on his face. “Back in Tu Zin?”

“Oh, it looked super pretty back then,” Ty Lee nodded seriously. “See, your aura’s always had these deep crimsons and golds, but you had some really nice silver mixed in there as well back in Tu Zin. But since Ba Sing Se, there hasn’t been much silver, so your dark shades have really been overwhelming the shiny.”

She sighed a little mournfully, but Zuko was fast learning that nothing could keep Ty Lee down for long, because she rallied almost instantly. “But now you’re all silver again!”

Zuko tried not to blush. Was that something he was supposed to blush at? He didn’t know. Sokka would probably have said it was unmanly to blush just because someone complimented your aura, but Sokka was the kind of guy who probably thought it was unmanly to cry at the final scene of Love Amongst the Dragons, so – whatever. Sokka could suck it.

“Thanks, Ty Lee,” he said instead. “I really appreciate that. How’s, uh… how’s your aura doing, anyway?”

“Oh, I’m doing great,” Ty Lee gushed, giving a happy sigh. “My aura’s always been super sensitive to what other people are feeling, so with Azula doing so well, I’ve never been better!”

“That’s really good to hear,” Zuko offered. “It’s cool that you’re such a good friend to her.”

“Uh-huh!” Ty Lee nodded, shifting her weight to her left leg and lifting her right ankle to place it on the inside of her left thigh. “And she’s such a good friend to me, too – she even let me win when we played The Floor Is Lava last week!”

Zuko vividly remembered the time he’d fractured his ankle when a nine-year-old Zuli had gotten so annoyed at how he was better than her at The Floor Is Lava that she’d pushed him off the roof. “That was nice of her.”

“It sure was,” Ty Lee agreed. “So what was it?”

He blinked. “Hmm?”

“Your good news,” Ty Lee elaborated, tilting her head to one side. “You know, that’s got your aura all shiny again?”

“Oh –” Zuko thought quickly – “I, uh, got a letter from Lieutenant Jee, one of my old crew. He told me one of my friends was in really good spirits.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” she smiled blissfully. “I love it when people are in good spirits. Everyone’s energy just seems so much warmer that way.”

Zuko didn’t have the first idea where to begin with that statement, but he was in such a good mood, he couldn’t help but nod along.

“Like, even the feng shui seems that much more ambient!” Ty Lee continued, turning to Zuko and clearly expecting some comment from him. It was a good thing that Suki had taught him a thing or two about customer service back in Ba Sing Se.

“Hmm, really?” He asked. “Goodness, imagine that.”

 

 

Sokka had only needed to knock at the imposing front gate of Master Piandao’s gigantic castle a couple of times before a man had opened it up with an unimpressed expression on his face.

“Can I help you?” The man asked in a bored-sounding voice. Sokka had needed to deal with his fair share of jerks when he’d been out front at Pao’s teashop, but he didn’t think his customer service had ever been that bad.

“I've come to train with the master,” he began, thinking that a polite, reasonable explanation would do wonders for their working relationship.

“You should know the Master turns almost everyone away,” the butler replied flatly. “What did you bring him to prove your worth?”

Sokka had to awkwardly fumble through his pockets to see what he could find, but he didn’t have much in there. A couple of copper coins, half a kale cookie, and one of the white lotus tiles Master Iroh had given him. Nothing that seemed particularly likely to impress the greatest swordsmaster and sword maker in Fire Nation history.

The butler looked down his nose at the odd jumble in Sokka’s hand, and he must have seen the awkward panic on Sokka’s face, because he only sighed and shook his head. “Let's get this over with.”

The butler led Sokka through the huge castle into a large room with a red carpet and tall windows. It wasn’t quite Beifong, but it still looked timeless. A dark-skinned man with expensive-looking clothes was sitting at a small table, holding a calligraphy brush and dipping it into a tray of ink. Sokka figured that this must have been Master Piandao.

“Master,” he began respectfully. “My name is Sokka, and I wish to be instructed in the way of the sword.”

Master Piandao didn’t turn around, which didn’t strike Sokka as an especially good start. Still, Suki had been a bit curt and aloof with Sokka when he’d asked her to teach him, and he’d had to persevere. Although Suki was much prettier than Master Piandao.

Like, Sokka was sure Master Piandao was a cool dude, you know? Just that Suki was Suki, end of.

“Sokka,” Piandao pronounced deliberately. “That’s an unusual name.”

Oh, slush.

Sokka could see the mistake he’d made immediately. Instead of Sokka, he should have said his name was Lee, or Mushi or, uh – um…

Tui damn it, what was Pao’s kid’s name?

“Um,” he began, trying to think quickly. “Really, uh, where I come from, the Fire Nation colonies, it's a pretty normal name.”

He swallowed, and quickly searched around for some way to reaffirm how he was just Sokka from the colonies.

“For Fire Nation colonials,” he settled on. There. That should do it.

 “I suppose it is a rather normal name,” Piandao agreed, and Sokka breathed a sigh of relief.

“Yes, there’s Sokkas all over the world, it seems,” the swordman continued, using a calligraphy brush to paint long, elegant sweeps of ink across a piece of paper. “When my friend Mushi was living in Ba Sing Se, for instance, he struck up a friendship with a boy named Sokka who showed an unusual aptitude for his favorite game.”

Sokka frowned. Did that mean what he thought it meant?

“My favorite game’s Pai Sho,” he ventured uncertainly. “I usually favor the White Lotus Gambit?”

Master Piandao had turned around to face Sokka, which was why Sokka could see him blink twice.

“That’s… not usually how this works, Sokka,” he said slowly. “Normally, we actually play a game of Pai Sho.”

Sokka grinned triumphantly. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

Apparently, Master Piandao couldn’t argue with that, because he cleared his throat and got straight down to business.

“Whilst Master Iroh is imprisoned, I’m temporarily in charge of the Fire Nation’s Lotus agents,” he explained. “And I’ve been keeping in touch with other Lotus agents throughout the Earth Kingdom and at the North Pole.”

“Have you heard from Master Iroh?” Sokka asked, holding onto the part of Piandao’s summary that he was most concerned for. “How’s he doing? Is he okay?”

“A little unimpressed with the quality of prison tea,” Piandao replied. “But other than that, he’s doing well enough.”

Sokka breathed a sigh of relief. Sure, it sucked that Master Iroh was in prison, but Sokka couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t been fearing the worst after what had happened in Ba Sing Se.

And speaking of Ba Sing Se…

“What about Zuko?” He asked tentatively. “What’s going on with him right now?”

“Prince Zuko has been welcomed back to the Fire Nation as a hero for killing the Avatar, but he’s a regular visitor to the prison where Master Iroh is being held.”

“What’s he been doing there?” Sokka frowned as another thought struck him. “And what’s he been saying to Iroh?”

“Nothing,” Piandao answered simply. “The Grand Lotus has decided that Prince Zuko must be isolated from the Order, so as to protect the Avatar from any further harm.”

Sokka nodded. He still wasn’t sure whether Zuko was on their side, but he was pretty sure they’d find that out for sure when they invaded the Fire Nation. If they invaded and he didn’t cause them any trouble, he was on their side. If they found themselves fighting him, he was against them. Simple.

“A Lotus in the northern Earth Kingdom has recruited someone they’re calling ‘The Engineer’ to help invade the Fire Nation on the Day of Black Sun,” Master Piandao added, picking up a letter from his desk. “They thought you might have some ideas for how The Engineer can help.”

Piandao handed Sokka the letter, which he gratefully began to read. Apparently this Engineer guy had met Aang and Katara at the Northern Air Temple… he was talking a lot about pepper, for some reason?

Was that another one of the White Lotus’ secret pass codes?

“So who’s the Lotus who’s put us in contact with The Engineer?” He tried to remember whether he knew any crazy old weirdos in the northern Earth Kingdom. “Is it Master Jeong Jeong?”

Piandao shook his head. “No.”

Sokka frowned warily. “Is it that Chey dude?”

“You must know I can’t reveal the names of our operatives, Sokka.”

That wasn’t a no, Sokka noted. He wasn’t sure whether he’d trust Chey with the whole secret organization thing, but Master Iroh was a kooky old dude at the best of times.

“But what I can do is train you,” Master Piandao continued, unsheathing his sword and holding it aloft. “Train you in the way of the sword.”

Sokka was almost blinded by the way the sunlight flashed off the blade of the sword. Or it might have been the tears of Manly emotion in his eyes.

On second thoughts, it was definitely the sunlight.

Chapter Text

Katara almost didn’t notice Momo as he ran towards her and flopped down next to her on the grass. She, Aang and Toph had been at a bit of a loss as to what they were supposed to be doing whilst Sokka went to meet Master Piandao, and she hadn’t had much to occupy her but her thoughts.

“I'm tapped out,” Toph announced loudly. “I already picked my toes. Twice.”

“Twice?” Aang repeated uneasily.

“The first time was for cleaning,” Toph informed him. “But the second time's just for the sweet picking sensation!”

Katara pulled a face. If that was the alternative, maybe she was better off with her thoughts. Even if they were hard for her to put together, at least they beat hearing Toph talking about her feet.

Zuko had been the Blue Spirit. No matter how many times she tried to repeat it to herself, it just didn’t make sense.

The Blue Spirit had been on the prison rig when Zuko had been back in Beihe village. When the Blue Spirit had saved her from the pirates, Zuko had been away in the port town. When the Blue Spirit had broken Aang out of Pohuai Stronghold and gotten Katara’s necklace back to her, Zuko had been out finding some ginger root whilst she and Sokka had been sick. And when the Blue Spirit had shown up in Omashu, they’d left Zuko behind with everyone that had escaped in their faked pentapox outbreak.

Everything fit, but Katara just couldn’t piece it together. If Zuko had been the Blue Spirit, then what about all the opportunities he’d had to capture Aang?

The Blue Spirit had saved her life in Omashu, when she’d had her bending taken away. Katara had been helpless when that Mai girl had been ready to throw her knives at her. If Zuko had just been trying to capture Aang all along, then why hadn’t he tried anything then? She and Sokka had been defenseless, but instead of joining Azula, Mai and Ty Lee and going after Aang, Zuko had saved them.

But if he’d been on their side then, what had happened in Ba Sing Se? Sokka had said he’d been trying to protect Aang from Azula until Uncle Iroh was safe, but if that was true, then…

Katara didn’t understand what had happened, and she hated it.

“Plus, it's so hot today,” Toph was saying.

“How hot is it?” Aang asked with a weak laugh.

“I dunno,” Toph answered casually. “Real hot?”

“It's so hot,” Katara began, trying to distract herself from all the thoughts running through her head, “It's so hot – Momo is shedding like Appa!”

She almost laughed out loud at the thought. All the fur she’d had to waterbend off Appa when they’d had Azula chasing them – imagine someone as small as Momo shedding all that!

“Huh?” She grinned and pointed to the lemur, who lazily flicked his ear. “Huh?”

Her great joke was met with silence, which left her more than a little disappointed. She’d thought that Aang, at least, would have a good enough imagination to see the funny side of someone as small as Momo shedding as much as someone as big as Appa!

“I guess the jokes don't run in the family,” Aang commented.

“Oh, everyone's a critic,” Katara grumbled. Appa just gave her a rumbling grunt in response, and she tried not to feel too annoyed. Why did she get the feeling that Appa didn’t think her joke was funny either?

“Toph?” She asked, finally giving in to her curiosity. “Did you know that Zuko was the Blue Spirit?”

She could see Aang roll onto his stomach and prop his chin on his elbows as he looked towards them.

“Yep,” Toph answered, casually popping the P. Katara waited, but she didn’t elaborate.

“When did you figure it out?” She asked, trying not to feel irritated with the younger girl.

“Oh, he told me pretty much as soon as we started talking.”

“What?” Aang asked, looking a bit put out. “He never even told me he was Prince Zuko! And he told you he was the Blue Spirit?”

Toph snorted a laugh. “The fact that you couldn’t figure out he was the banished Prince is hilarious, by the way.”

Katara felt a little guilty for feeling glad that she wasn’t the only one Zuko had kept his secrets from, but it didn’t make her feel any better. He’d told Toph the first chance he’d gotten?

“Why did he tell you?” She asked.

What made him tell you, but not me?

“I figured out he was Prince Zuko,” Toph explained. “So, you know, that kind of meant he had to convince me there was a good reason he was hiding that from you. And then it kind of all came out that he was keeping quite a few things from you guys, and –” she shrugged – “He told me he was on your side, Twinkles, and he was telling the truth, so I figured you guys didn’t need to know if he didn’t want you to know.”

“But he had been sent to capture Aang!” Katara protested. “Azula told me he got banished, and he couldn’t go home without the Avatar – how could you trust him?”

“Because Sparky’s a shit liar,” Toph replied simply. “Even worse than Sugar Queen.”

Katara scowled. Even if she appreciated the way Toph hadn’t ratted her out to Sokka and Aang when she had figured out that Katara had been pretending to be the Painted Lady, she didn’t have to be so rude about it!

“But Zuko told us he was banished,” Aang pointed out with a thoughtful look on his face. “And he thought Bumi had told me he was a firebender, remember? So how come he wanted us to know those things, but not that he was Prince Zuko or the Blue Spirit?”

“Maybe he didn’t think they were as important as the firebender thing?” Toph answered.

Katara scoffed. “You don’t think the fact that he was the banished Prince of the Fire Nation was important?

“See, this is exactly why he didn’t tell you, Sugar Queen,” the young earthbender muttered. “Because he knew you’d make it into a massive big deal –”

“It is a big deal!”

Why is it a big deal?” Toph asked plainly. “Okay, so you didn’t know he was the Prince – can you blame him? He probably thought you’d hit him with another frying pan!”

“That’s so weird to think about now,” Aang said absently. “Like – back then, we didn’t even know Zuko was a firebender. And now it turns out we didn’t even know who he was!”

That pretty much summed it up, Katara thought to herself. That whole time Zuko had been with them, she hadn’t known him at all.

“Come on, Aang,” she said to distract herself, getting up to her feet. “Let’s go practice our waterbending.”

 

 

“When you write your name, you stamp the paper with your identity,” Master Piandao explained calmly, watching on as Sokka tried not to show himself up as a complete novice. “You must learn to use your sword to stamp your identity on a battlefield. Remember, you cannot take back a stroke of the brush, or a stroke of the sword.”

Sokka shuddered to himself. This was just like Master Iroh’s talks in Ba Sing Se about how important it was to know how to brew tea. Sokka didn’t care how great a swordsman Master Piandao was – if he was going to make Sokka drink ginseng, Sokka was out of here.

But the more that Sokka struggled on through Master Piandao’s calligraphy sessions… and painting sessions… and rock gardening sessions – Tui and La, that one sucked, the only thing worse than soft rock was gardening rocks, stupid feng shui Avatar Stuff – the more he could see the similarities between Master Piandao’s training style and Master Iroh’s. Before Master Iroh’s impromptu sessions in Ba Sing Se, Sokka wouldn’t have thought for a moment that tea taught you about patience, thoroughness, and dedication, or that Pai Sho helped you with your creative improvisation, but now that he was learning from Master Piandao, he got it. Calligraphy kept your mind sharp and fluid, landscape painting helped you hold the lay of the land in your mind, and rock gardening taught you to manipulate your surroundings and use them to your advantage.

This stuff was like Water Tribe warrior training school, but times a hundred. Of course, it was only that much better because the Fire Nation had more varied natural terrain, and the resources they’d accrued over a hundred years of war, but Sokka had to admit, Master Piandao knew his stuff.

And Sokka was determined to learn as much of that stuff as he could. He finally got what Katara had been going through when she’d been waiting all her life to go to the North Pole to learn to bend. If he’d known Master Piandao was out there, and willing to teach him, Sokka would have paddled his canoe all the way to the Fire Nation by himself way before now.

“You've had a good first day of training,” Master Piandao praised him at the end of the day.

“I have?” Sokka frowned. “But I thought I messed up every single thing we worked on!”

He’d regretted drawing that smiley face on the sun pretty much as soon as he’d finished his landscape painting, and the ink had been dribbling down out of his eyebrows into his eyes for ages after that calligraphy session. And the butler, who’d introduced himself to Sokka as Fat – a name Sokka had unfortunately misinterpreted the first time he’d heard it, which had led to quite an awkward misunderstanding – had been giving him a few dirty looks once he’d seen the improvements Sokka had made to his rock garden.

At least when Sokka had talked about his time with Master Iroh in the teashop in Ba Sing Se, Master Piandao had been interested in hearing about the poetry night they’d put on. Sokka had been kind of embarrassed to admit that he’d written an unmanly love poem, but then Master Piandao had been very complimentary of it and even shown him some of his poems, and wow, Sokka had felt a lot better about his bardic gifts after that. Master Piandao had said he was a non-bender, but Sokka was pretty sure he was bending the rules of meter and rhythm something fierce.

“You messed things up in a very special way,” Master Piandao assured him. “You’re ready for a real sword.”

Now that was what Sokka was talking about! “Are you giving me one of yours?”

Master Piandao shook his head. “Your sword must be an extension of yourself. So tomorrow, you will make your own sword.”

Sokka knew that the basic gist of smithing a sword was that you took a whole load of molten metal – for which read: soft rock – and forging it, cooling it, and hammering it into a blade. That was the sort of setting the world to rights that Sokka appreciated. Besides, he’d be able to imagine that the blade was Zuko’s face as he whacked away at it with a hammer.

He had been joking when he’d said that thing in Makapu about how Zuko’s destiny was to settle down with some spirit weirdo who messed with the Fire Nation. He’d been joking when he’d told Katara that the Painted Lady should have a look at blowing up the factory in Jang Hui, and now his little sister was a spirit weirdo who messed with the Fire Nation!

Such was life when the spirits hated you.

As Master Piandao showed him the smithery, Sokka had to keep a careful ear open for his advice, trying to figure out which part was sensible and serious, and which part was a joke.

“Choosing the correct material is the most important step in crafting a sword,” Master Piandao said. That was probably the serious part, Sokka thought to himself as he appraised a steel brick with a slight chip in one corner.

“You must trust your steel with your life.”

That was also a pretty serious statement. Even if Master Piandao was just joking, Sokka didn’t want anything he trusted with his life to let him down.

“Choose carefully,” Master Piandao finished with a grave expression on his face. Sokka figured that meant he was being serious again.

He took two bricks and weighed them – he didn’t know what he was doing, but he figured it looked pretty cool. That was Aang’s whole thing, right? He was always trying to figure out whether it was better to look cool, or to look deadly.

Sokka, of course, knew that whilst deadly was always cool, cool wasn’t always deadly. You had to find something super cool, and then make it deadly. Kind of like…

“Master,” he began, turning to Master Piandao and hoping he understood that Sokka was asking something Very Serious that was in no way to be treated as A Joke. “Would it be possible for me to leave, and bring back a special material for my sword?”

The way Piandao smiled back at him made Sokka think that maybe he was treating this as a bit of a joke anyway, but his words sounded all kinds of serious. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”

 

 

Katara had been doing this thing where she was trying to bend a whole load of water from the waterfalls around Shu Jing, and make them stop in midair, so the waterfall was suddenly cut off and all the water was floating. It looked super cool, which Aang had been pretty impressed with – until she’d started practicing turning all that hovering water into steam, and then back into water, which honestly was a bit more boring for Aang, not that he’d say it out loud. He didn’t really want to spend his waterbending practice doing a few of the same moves over and over again and going back over the basic temperature stuff he’d learnt from Master Pakku, so he’d left and gone back to hang out with Toph some more.

“Hey, Toph,” he greeted her. “What’s going on?”

Toph was sitting back against Appa’s side, and Appa let out a noise to say Hi to Aang as well, and let him know what was going on. Aang was pretty happy that Toph was learning that Appa liked being scratched just behind his middle left leg haunch. It had taken Sokka ages to figure that out.

“Not much, now that Snoozles isn’t around,” Toph replied. “Guess he forgot about his stupid schedule.”

“I’m pretty happy about that, to be honest,” Aang confessed with a laugh. “Like, it’s cool that he’s got all that motivation and drive and stuff, but I’m usually motivated by having fun, and I don’t think getting up forty-three minutes early and skipping out on potty breaks counts as fun.”

“Fun’s a pretty good motivation,” Toph agreed. “I’m motivated by the fact that I’m Toph Beifong, but fun’s kind of cool too.”

“Right?” Aang was happy that at least someone understood. “And I’m pretty sure Sokka’s schedule didn’t have any slots marked out for fun, you know?”

Toph scoffed as she got to her super-dirty feet. “Yeah, well, he always did the planning with Sparky, remember?”

Aang remembered how Zuko had never liked having fun. He’d been super annoyed that one time when Aang had gotten them lost on the way to Makapu.

Actually, that had been the time the Blue Spirit had rescued him from Pohuai Stronghold. Wow.

“Toph?” He asked, because he wanted to make sure. “Was Zuko really the Blue Spirit, or were you just saying that to mess with us?”

Toph snickered. “To be fair, it is kind of fun to mess with you guys.”

Well, to be fair, Aang could understand where she was coming from there – having fun definitely counted as a good reason for doing stuff. But Aang wasn’t sure whether it was such a good reason to lie to people.

“Well, sifu Iroh told us that Zuko would never betray us,” he pointed out, reminding Toph of the friendly old firebender. “And my friend Bumi said we could trust him, and even Master Jeong Jeong said the Prince of the Fire Nation was nothing like his father, but it’s all super confusing when the Blue Spirit was one of the good guys, and now Zuko’s supposed to be one of the bad guys, so can you just tell me, Toph?”

Toph stuck her big toe in the dirt and wiggled it about for a bit before she sighed.

“I wasn’t lying when I said how Sparky was the Blue Spirit,” she said eventually. “And I wasn’t lying when I said how he was on your side when I first joined you guys, either. But I don’t think it matters right now.”

“What?” Aang frowned. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?”

“I literally mean that I don’t think it matters right now,” Toph said slowly. “Don’t get distracted, Twinkle Toes. Don’t get all up in your head about what-ifs. Don’t give up.”

“But that’s what Zuko’s knife said,” Aang protested. “It said ‘Never give up without a fight’!”

If Zuko was still on their side, that could be really important! And if he wasn’t… well, then at least Aang could figure out what he was meant to do with that knife. He’d been carrying it around this whole time, and he wasn’t even sure why. Katara didn’t want to use it for cooking, and Sokka had his boomerang, and there was no way Aang was going to let Toph swipe around with a really sharp knife.

“If he was on our side when he gave me that –”

“Then what, you little Fancy Dancer?” Toph asked pointedly. “Then nothing changes! You’ve still got a job to do. Worrying about ifs and buts and maybes doesn’t do anything to change that – you’ve still got to meet it head on!”

Aang remembered that Toph had said that back when she’d started teaching him earthbending in Tu Zin. Aang couldn’t remember much of what he’d learned in that Fire Nation school, but he could remember that. He wasn’t sure whether that showed that Toph was a good teacher, or that teachers in the Fire Nation were kind of rubbish.

“That’s what being an earthbender’s all about,” he said, trying to show that he’d been paying attention. “You have to face your problems head on.”

Toph nodded. “You can’t let this distract you,” she told him, a little more gently this time. “I want Sparky to be on our side just as much as you do, Twinkles, but until we know for sure, you can’t waste time worrying about it. You have to stand firm.”

That was really good advice, but Aang figured that wasn’t surprising, coming from sifu Toph, the world’s greatest earthbender. He’d just been about to ask whether Toph could metalbend Zuko’s knife into something cool when Sokka showed up.

Oh, man, Aang had been missing Sokka! Katara’s jokes weren’t as funny, and Toph’s facial expressions just weren’t as goofy. Even Momo had been missing Sokka!

“We really missed you!” Aang almost jumped about from side-to-side, he was so excited to see his friend! “Katara’s been practicing her waterbending for ages, but you weren’t around so we couldn’t talk about how what she’s doing is super cool but also kind of boring, and even Toph was saying earlier that she missed you –”

Ouch!

“Toph!” He whined, rubbing his arm where she’d just whacked him. “That really hurt!”

“So did that lie you just told,” Toph declared, folding her arms as she turned to face Sokka. “I didn’t miss you at all, Snoozles. They missed you or something. I didn't care.”

“Thanks,” Sokka laughed. “That warms my heart. Anyway, I need some help.”

As Sokka told them about the awesome idea he’d had to turn the metal ore in that giant meteor rock they’d seen the other day into a sword, Aang could feel his jaw dropping and his eyes getting wider and wider and wider.

“What do you guys think?” Sokka asked once he’d finished. “Do you think it’ll work?”

Aang looked at Toph before remembering that she couldn’t actually catch his eye. But he thought he knew what she was thinking. If he was right, it was exactly what he was thinking, too.

“You know what, Sokka?” He said. “There’s no reason you can’t do it.”

Chapter 13

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Toph had been about ready to earthbend herself off one of the canyons around Shu Jing to escape Sugar Queen’s painful attempts at witty conversation, but then she would only have ended up in the water, and she couldn’t swim. So then, she would have had to get Splish-Splash to rescue her, which first of all was humiliating, and second of all kind of defeated the point of escaping from her.

Had she been this bad before Ba Sing Se? Granted, their time together before they’d reached Ba Sing Se had been pretty hectic, what with crazy Fire Princesses and stolen sky bison and whatnot, but Toph definitely remembered Sugar Queen being cooler and easier to talk to back then. In any case, she’d been pretty relieved when Snoozles had shown up to distract them all from his little sister’s attempts at being the funny one.

It’s so hot, Momo is shedding like Appa! Like, seriously? That shit was even worse than If you miss him so much, why don't you marry him?

She almost missed the stupid jokes Splish-Splash had been having with Sparky, but she still remembered the heartbeats. The horror.

But Toph hadn’t missed Snoozles when he’d gone off training with Pian-Dude. Because if they were going to get one thing straight, it was that Toph had not missed Snoozles. At all! She had only missed him inasmuch as he had served as a buffer between her and his lame sister. And she wasn’t glad he was back; she was just happy that he’d shown up and asked her to help move that giant meteor up to that Pian-Dude guy’s mansion so he could make a sword out of it.

First of all, that only sounded a little bit awesome, and second of all, earthbending the massive chunk of space rock gave her something to focus on other than how unfunny Splish-Splash was. Those were the only two reasons she was happy he was back!

In any case, when Toph and the others had shown up at the end of the day for Sucker’s big graduation ceremony, Toph had been expecting Pian-Dude to give this big old speech about how everyone had the potential to make an inspiring contribution to others by being true to their authentic selves and committing themselves to lofty goals, yadda-yadda-yadda. Instead, he’d given this big old speech about how Snoozles had sucked when he’d first showed up. The first time Toph had met Snoozles, she’d earthbent him into the sky and he’d landed on his face, so she wasn’t going to disagree with that. But then Pian-Dude had started talking about how, although Sucker had been a bit of a moron, he’d figured things out eventually. Which Toph only slightly agreed with.

“Creativity, versatility, intelligence; these are the traits that define a great swordsman,” Pian-Dude concluded. “And these are the traits that define you. You told me you didn't know if you were worthy, but I believe that you are more worthy than any man I have ever trained.”

This kind of emotional crap made Toph want to barf. She didn’t find it sweet and totally true to Snoozles’ character at all.

At all.

“And so you know why I have to do this,” Pian-Dude said, and then he swung a fucking sword at Sokka.

Sokka dove out of the way, and Toph had been about to metalbend that sword straight through Pian-Dude's junk when Sokka had held his hand up to stop her, Sugar Queen, and Fancy Dancer in their tracks.

“No,” he told them decisively. “This is my fight, alone.”

Oh. Toph got it now. This must have been like that time The Gecko had been smack-talking her costume, saying it looked like she’d gotten it from the theater. Irrespective of whether or not a blind girl making her kuitou headband by herself – without any assistance or anyone to give her constructive criticism – was fair game for smack talking, the idea that The Gecko of all people got to talk smack to her was worth a fight.

If this Piandao dude was Snoozles’ gecko, Toph could respect that. But it didn’t mean that she wasn’t – well, she wasn’t worried about Snoozles. It wasn’t like she cared, or anything like that. But she still felt kind of antsy whenever Sugar Queen let out a gasp, or Twinkles made one of his dumb Go, Sokka! cheers. It was cool when the crowds cheered for the Blind Bandit, but if Snoozles was getting a fan club, the Blind Bandit was definitely overdue one.

“Excellent!” Pian-Dude praised Snoozles for something undoubtedly rather pedestrian, knowing Snoozles. “Using your superior agility against an older opponent – smart!”

Whatever Snoozles was doing to get that sort of love, it involved a whole heap of jumping, rolling, sprinting, dodging, and general physical exertion. Toph had to admit, it was pretty impressive. If she had to run around that much, she’d end up wheezing for breath after about twenty seconds. That was mostly because she only had little legs, but that was besides the point. And his heartbeat was only slightly elevated, too, but she could probably excuse that, considering that he was a bit occupied with some dude who was apparently trying to kill him.

Altogether, Toph was pretty impressed with Sucker’s physical capabilities, but she was never admitting to that out loud.

“Good use of terrain,” Pian-Dude grunted. “Fighting from the high ground!”

Ugh. This sounded like that positive teaching experience Sugar Queen was always trying with Twinkle Toes. Lots of encouragement and praise, kind words, maybe a gentle nudge in the right direction. Pian-Dude kept talking crap about how Snoozles was using his surroundings and being resourceful and shit, but there were definitely points when Toph heard Sucker screaming like a little girl. Not that little girls couldn’t also beat the crap out of people at Earth Rumbles, but the point remained.

Oh, crap!

Sokka must have tripped!

And Pian-Dude had his sword pointed at his chest!

Forget metalbending swords, Toph decided. Nobody messed with Snoozles except her. Time to go back to what she did best – earthbending the crap out of Fire Nation Man!

But just as she’d been about to turn Pian-Dude into Pain-Dude, he swung his sword away from Snoozles, leaving him wide open for an attack.

“Excellent work, Sokka.”

What?

Toph wasn’t quite sure what to do in a situation like this. Was Pian-Dude breaking kayfabe, or something? A quick check with her feet let her know that Twinkles and Splish-Splash were just as confused as she was.

“I think I'm a little old to be fighting the Avatar,” Pian-Dude, also known as the World’s Most Confusing Fire Nation Guy, told them.

 

 

“I'm so excited to spend the weekend on Ember Island!” Ty Lee smiled, leaning forward over the ferry’s railings and extending a leg out behind her to help with her balance. “It's going to be great to hang out on the beach and do nothing!”

As Ty Lee continued to look eagerly out over the sparkling blue waters at the faint speck of land ahead of them in the distance, Zuko couldn’t quite find it within himself to agree with her. He’d been pacing back and forth across the deck for a few minutes before Mai had thrown a miniature sai at his bare foot. He’d taken the hint and sat down on the bench next to her, but he still felt the need to do something. If his right leg kept jittering the way it was, she was probably going to stab him in the thigh next.

He was trying to act like the perfect prince; obedient to the Fire Lord when he got packed off to Ember Island, bland and inoffensive whenever Mai asked him what he was doing. If he couldn’t talk to Uncle and find some way of communicating with Aang, he could at least make sure he didn’t make Azula, or the Fire Lord suspicious. But that involved a lot more lying than he was comfortable with, especially to Mai. He thought he was on… thirty-six? Thirty-eight?

“Doing nothing is a waste of time,” he complained, trying to keep his temper under control. “We're being sent away on a forced vacation – I feel like a child!”

“That probably explains why you’re acting like one,” Mai offered in a dry tone that did absolutely nothing to help Zuko's mood.

“Thanks, Mai,” he said loudly. “I really appreciate you saying that.”

That was either thirty-seven or thirty-nine, Zuko thought to himself as he pushed himself up off the bench to leave. But he wasn’t sure if it counted, because it had obviously been a joke – although now he came to think of it, Mai had probably been trying to make a joke, too.

Agni’s sake.

He ended up on the bridge, where he shouldn’t really have been, but Zuko was quickly learning that very few doors remained shut to the restored Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. Just the doors that he was most interested in; the doors to the capital prison, and the door to Uncle Iroh’s cell, wherever that might have been.

The captain had bowed lowly to him as he had entered, but Zuko had just waved his hand.

“Don’t mind me,” he mumbled. “This isn’t, like… official, or anything.”

“Of course, Prince Zuko, Your Highness,” the captain agreed, giving him another salute.

Zuko debated whether to point out that a salute kind of missed the point he had been trying to make, but he figured it might just make it more awkward. Ever since he’d returned, the servants and the ministers around the palace couldn’t seem to bow low enough to him. He wasn’t sure whether it was because of his rank, or because he was supposedly the one who had killed the Avatar. Quite how killing a twelve-year-old boy was supposed to make him worthy of honor and respect, he wouldn’t ever understand.

Zuko wondered whether his thirteen-year-old self would been willing to do such a thing. How much had he been willing to give up?

He heard the door behind him open and close, and however low the captain had bowed for him, she somehow added another ten degrees as she bowed for Princess Azula.

“Your Highness,” she began, “It is an honor to have you aboard, and to be at your service –”

“You’re right,” Azula cut her off dismissively. “It is. Continue your work, Captain.”

Zuko remembered one evening in Ba Sing Se when Sokka had ranted for half an hour about one particular bastard who’d been determined to find fault in his assam tea with a lychee nut twist. He wondered how long Azula would last in customer service, and had the strangest urge to laugh.

He hoped Sokka was doing okay, and that he’d managed to come up with a good plan for the invasion.

“Do you remember when we came here when we were younger?” He asked his little sister, searching for a happy memory to distract himself from worrying about his friends. “And Mom always took us down to the beach to ride the donkey-yaks?”

“I remember you falling off the donkey-yaks,” Azula answered, and he should probably have been expecting that. “And the only way you would ever stop crying about it would be if we watched the puppet show.”

Zuko let out an awkward laugh as he ducked his head and flushed at the memory. Father had never been very impressed with his inability to control his mount, and even less impressed with how eager Zuko had been to enjoy the uncultured pursuits of the common people.

“I liked it when we got to shout along with the crowd,” he reminisced. “Like we were just normal people at the seaside like everyone else.”

He thought he could see the Captain stifling a smile as she made a note in her logbook. Hopefully she wasn’t making a note of how Prince Zuko had fallen off a donkey-yak when he was seven years old.

That’s the way to do it!” Azula mimicked in a high-pitched, shrill imitation of Punch.

Zuko couldn’t help but chuckle. “I always liked it when Punch got walloped by the catgator.”

“Physical comedy,” Azula agreed. “The hallmark of a well-educated mind.”

“It’s the ineptitude of the unfortunate that makes it amusing,” he tried to explain, remembering how Toph had had launched Sokka into the air in Gaoling.

“I remember,” Azula stated simply. “You always got sad when the animals got whacked.”

“I didn’t get sad,” he grumbled, more for the sake of his dignity than any real commitment to a truthful representation of events. “I just thought it was funnier when Punch got whacked.”

“You got a little sad, Zuzu,” she shook her head. “But I suppose I can see your argument. Certainly, I find you amusing on a near-daily basis.”

Zuko had been about to make a sharp retort when he saw the small smirk on his little sister’s face.

“Remember when Mother used to take us to watch the Ember Island Players perform Love Amongst the Dragons?” He asked instead. He supposed if Zuli could make an effort, he could as well.

“Afterwards on the beach, you and I would reenact the final duel,” he continued as another memory struck him. “I don't get why I always had to be the Dark Water Spirit, though.”

“Clearly, it’s because I made a better Dragon Emperor,” Azula answered blithely, unaware of his sudden amusement.

“Ah,” Zuko tried to stifle a smile as he nodded in as serious a fashion as he could, but he couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. “Yeah, that must be it.”

Azula looked a little bemused by his sudden air of levity. “What’s so funny, Zuzu?”

Zuko shook his head. “Just a funny thing, Zuli.”

He was still laughing to himself as Azula pulled a face and set his shoes on fire before leaving the bridge in a huff.

 

 

“How did you know I was the Avatar?” Aang asked, looking a little stunned as he stood in the middle of Master Piandao’s rock garden. “I’ve got hair, and everything!”

Katara wasn’t sure that was quite the winning Pai Sho tile Aang clearly intended it to be, but Piandao seemed happy to answer it.

“Oh, I've been around a while,” he chuckled, wiping the dirt from his face. “You pick things up.”

Seeing Sokka fighting Master Piandao had been terrifying for Katara to watch, but she remembered how Zuko had told her at the North Pole that teachers in the Fire Nation would sometimes fight their students to see how much they’d learned. It had been the only thing stopping her from charging in headfirst at Piandao to protect Sokka herself.

“But how did you figure it out?” Aang asked again. “I didn’t even call myself Bonzu Pippinpaddleopsicopolis this time!”

“Actually, Aang,” Sokka said, glancing at his new teacher, “Master Piandao’s part of the Order of the White Lotus as well – that’s how he knew who we were.”

Piandao sighed. “You do know what the point of a secret organization is, don’t you, Sokka?”

“Right,” Sokka laughed a little nervously as he rubbed at the back of his head. “It’s secret.”

“Snoozles might not look it,” Toph interjected, “But he’s surprisingly good at keeping secrets.”

Katara remembered that Sokka had managed to keep Zuko’s identity as the Blue Spirit a secret all that time. Spirits, that just made her feel even stupider for not figuring it out for herself. She couldn’t be mad at her brother for being smart enough to figure it out, or for being loyal enough to keep it a secret once he’d done so, but honestly – if Sokka could do it, then why on earth hadn’t she been able to?

And why hadn’t Zuko trusted her to know who he really was?

“Well, the way of the sword is no secret,” Master Piandao declared in a very impressive voice, abruptly bringing Katara back to the present moment. “It doesn't belong to any one nation; knowledge of the arts belongs to us all.”

Katara watched with pride as Master Piandao gave Sokka the sword he had forged from a meteor. She still couldn’t quite believe he’d managed to have such an amazing idea, but that was her brother all over – always finding new ways to surprise her. He was smart, brave, loyal, and all different kinds of intelligent. Except emotionally intelligent, she conceded, but they were working on that.

Even if it had taken a couple of days out of Sokka’s very important schedule, Katara thought they were better off for coming to meet Master Piandao. Now they’d be even better prepared to get back to the important thing – preparing for the invasion, defeating the Fire Lord, and ending the war.

“Sokka, you must continue your training on your own,” Master Piandao concluded his presentation with a warm smile and a twinkle in his eye. “If you stay on this path, I know that one day you will become an even greater master than I am.”

“Thanks, Master Piandao,” Sokka bowed deeply. “But we’ve got our own path ahead of us, just like you.”

“Indeed,” Piandao agreed, before turning to face the rest of them.

“You must be careful,” he told them seriously. “We’ve received word from a White Lotus in the northern Earth Kingdom that an assassin has been hired to find a waterbender who’s been travelling with the Avatar.”

Katara felt all the eyes in the room fall on her. She wasn't sure whether even Appa and Momo, back at their campsite, were staring her way.

“What?” Aang laughed nervously. “What did Katara even do?”

“We’re not sure,” Piandao admitted. “The letter was in some kind of code, but Fat and I think we’ve been able to crack it. Something about a waterbending scroll… and some pirates?”

Katara remembered that time – she’d stolen a waterbending scroll, yes, but only because those pirates had stolen it from her people first! And then they’d come after her and caught her, but…

But then the Blue Spirit had saved her.

“Well,” Toph spoke up decisively, “Even if some dude comes after us, we’ll be ready for them!”

Katara looked at Sokka, who shrugged.

“Master Piandao?” She asked tentatively, not sure if she wanted to know the answer. “Was – was Zuko the Blue Spirit?”

Even Aang and Toph seemed interested in the answer to her question, because they stopped slurping the drinks Fat had brought out for them to hear what Piandao had to say. He looked a little uncomfortable with everyone paying attention to him – Katara thought maybe he was more at ease in a swordfight than with public speaking.

“The Blue Spirit was the name the Order of the White Lotus gave Prince Zuko as he worked to gather information and sabotage the Fire Nation's war effort,” he said finally. “But things have changed since then.”

Right, Katara thought to herself dazedly as they followed Fat through the winding corridors of Piandao’s castle. Things had changed since then.

All these secrets she’d never known, and now they were all coming out…

“So Master Piandao knows sifu Iroh?” Aang asked, waving goodbye to Fat at the ornate front gates. “Does that mean he’ll let him know we’re okay?”

“Maybe,” Sokka said, giving Fat a Water Tribe farewell gesture that was a lot politer than the gestures he usually gave people from the Fire Nation. “But I did tell him Iroh was kind of kooky, so hopefully he’ll leave that part out.”

As they made their way back from Master Piandao’s castle to their campsite, Katara ran through what they needed to do in her head. Before they left in the morning to carry on to the Black Cliffs in time for the invasion, she needed to cook dinner, get the last of the polluted river sludge out of her leggings from Jang Hui, sew up that hole in Toph’s shirt – well, she’d need to convince Toph to let her sew up that hole in her shirt, which was an item on the list in itself –

“Well, at least you got a present, Sokka,” Aang remarked as they walked along. “Like, I know you didn’t get one from Master Pakku at the North Pole, but at least his friend gave you something!”

“Oh, that reminds me!” Sokka snapped his fingers. “Toph, I thought you might like this, since you've probably never had a chance to bend space earth before.”

“Sweet!” Toph gloated, taking the small piece of space rock in her hands. She made it turn a few pretty shapes – a star, a splatter, a circle. “Check this out!”

“Whoa!” Aang said in a suitably impressed voice. “That’s amazing, Toph!”

Katara wondered for a moment whether Toph would be using this to teach Aang how to juggle. He was getting pretty good with his marbles, acorns, pebbles, and lychee nuts – what had he called it, LAMP?

Could you even add space rock to that acronym? What about space earth? That would spell LAMPSE, and you could rearrange that to make SAMPLE, but Katara wasn’t quite sure about that.

“Thanks, Twinkle Toes,” Toph smirked. “It’s always nice to be appreciated.”

Maybe it was best to leave that conversation about anagrams for another day, Katara decided. After all, she still needed to get on with mending Toph’s shirt before dinner.

Notes:

I found this ‘Toph as theater kid nerd’ theory really interesting!

In professional wrestling, ‘kayfabe’ refers to the efforts made by the performers and the industry to maintain the illusion that scripted events are genuine.

Punch and Judy puppet shows are a classic of British culture. I adapted Zuko and Azula's dialogue about reenacting the final duel of Love Amongst the Dragons from The Search, Part Two.

Chapter 14

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Hey, Toph?”

The sun was nice and warm, and Toph was chilling, so she wasn’t in the mood for any of Snoozles’ shit right about now. “What is it, Snoozles?”

“Does this look okay to you?”

Toph could hear Snoozles rustling his paper and scratching a bit with his charcoal stick, which she presumed was either him penning some poetic ode to Fan Girl, or drawing something he called a submarine. Toph didn’t have a clue what a submarine was, but it sounded a bit like the time she’d beaten The Gecko in a submission match at Earth Rumble IV, which had been yet another instance when the Blind Bandit had added to her growing, era-defining legacy as the greatest earthbender in the world.

“Looks great to me, Sucker.”

“Really?” Snoozles asked with a bit of surprise in his voice. “‘Cause I think the torpedoes look a bit weird.”

“Nah, they look fine,” Toph replied, settling back against a sun-warmed dirt mound she’d bent herself as she waited for him to figure it out.

“Do you think they’d look better with some go-faster stripes on them?”

Toph had put quite a bit of work into getting this dirt mound right, because she’d figured she might be waiting for a while. “I don’t know what go-faster stripes look like, Snoozles.”

“Oh, they’re something we put on our canoes in the Water Tribe.”

“That’s probably why I don’t know what they look like,” Toph agreed casually. “Because I’ve never been to the South Pole.”

 “Yeah, neither’s the Mechanist.”

Toph didn’t know anyone called The Mechanist. Was that someone from Ba Sing Se? She’d asked around whether there were any Earth Rumbles there, and she hadn’t heard anything, but maybe Snoozles had heard something different. “Who’s that?”

“Oh, he’s the guy up at the Northern Air Temple that Master Piandao put us in touch with.”

Toph frowned. “I thought that was the Engineer?”

“Yeah, I thought so too,” Snoozles acknowledged, and Toph was a bit relieved that she wasn’t missing something here. “Except Katara said that he prefers to be called the Mechanist.”

“Kind of weird that Pian-Dude got that wrong,” she commented.

“Yeah,” Sucker sighed. “But I’m pretty sure Master Piandao got his name and details from this guy at Master Jeong Jeong’s camp called Chey, and that dude’s got some weird ideas when it comes to names.”

Toph wasn’t sure she wanted to know what counted as weird for a guy who’d apparently gotten himself kidnapped by a spirit in Senlin Forest, but like the Hippo had always said: ignorance was bliss. If that was the case, Toph figured that Snoozles was the happiest guy on earth.

“Aang, I know swimming is fun and all,” she called out to where the Fancy Dancer and Sugar Queen were splashing around in the hot springs. “But do you really think you should be exposing yourself like that?”

“There are walls all around us, Toph,” Sugar Queen’s voice came back to her. “It's completely safe!”

“I hate to burst your bubble, Splish-Splash, but I’m pretty sure I heard that line in Ba Sing Se.”

The water kind of muffled the vibrations of Sugar Queen’s heartbeat where she was standing in the shallows, but Toph could still hear her sharp intake of breath.

Oops. Maybe it hadn’t been the wisest move to remind Katara about Ba Sing Se. She still got kind of jumpy every time Sparky, Princess Blue, or lightning was mentioned.

“But we’re not in Ba Sing Se right now,” Snoozles pointed out. “We’re in the Fire Nation.”

Toph waited.

“Which… is maybe a little less safe than Ba Sing Se had been,” Sucker conceded after a few moments.

There it was.

“Glad you’re able to see reason, Snoozles,” Toph pronounced with no small sense of satisfaction. “Hear that, Twinkles? We’re in the Fire Nation, so quit topping up your tan and start dressing like a Fire Nation kid without any airbender tattoos again –”

“He’s not here, Toph.”

Toph thought she must have misheard that, but her hearing was excellent. “What?”

“Aang’s not here,” Snoozles repeated himself. “There’s, like – a cave over on the other side of the hot spring? He’s chilling out in there.”

Of course he was. Spirits forbid that the Avatar actually remember that he was, you know, the Avatar, and not just some kid that just happened to have some body art. Toph didn’t know what color blue was, let alone what shade of light blue the Fancy Dancer’s tattoos were, but they had better be pretty darn snazzy to risk blowing their cover for. She almost missed Sparky, and not just because if he’d started yelling at Twinkles to cover up, the airhead would have actually done something about it.

At least Hotpants had kept a low profile when he’d been around. Almost too low a profile, because the way Fancy Dancer had been acting, the concept that Sparky was actually Prince Blue Spirit Sparky of the Fire Nation was just too fantastic for words. This, from a monk who got frozen in an iceberg for a hundred years.

“Whatever,” she griped, tipping her head back and getting comfy against her dirt mound again. “If he gets caught by the Fire Nation, it’s not my problem.”

“Aang’s not going to get caught,” Sugar Queen said firmly. “He’s smart enough to keep himself out of plain sight.”

“Like he did back in Chin Village?” Snoozles asked doubtfully. Toph didn’t know what had happened in Chin Village, but she figured it probably proved that she was right, because Toph fucking Beifong was always right.

“We’re here in the Fire Nation, Sugar Queen,” she pointed out, just in case anyone had forgotten. “If Twinkle Toes wants to go spelunking, that’s fine, so long as he does it quietly, and without drawing attention to himself. Can you assure me –” she continued over Sugar Queen’s continued protests – “That the Fancy Dancer can do stuff quietly and without drawing attention to himself?”

Splish-Splash made a bit of a half-hearted mumble and stammered for a bit about how Aang was the Avatar, which Toph was well aware of. They’d already covered that part.

“I’m just saying,” Snoozles said, neatly cutting off Sugar Queen’s attempts to convince Toph that the monk kid was the spirits’ gift to humanity, “I think those go-faster stripes are growing on me.”

“You should get some go-smarter stripes,” Toph muttered. “You’d look better with them covering your ugly mug, too.”

“Oh, come on, Toph, can’t you just be cool for – hey!

Snoozles’ reactions were improving, Toph noted to herself. But Aunt Fanny was still the competent one by a considerable margin.

 

 

When Zuko had been younger, he’d played on the sand with Lu Ten and buried his cousin in sand up to his neck whilst he was asleep. Ten years on, he was pretty sure Lu Ten had only been pretending to sleep whilst Zuko and Zuli had heaped sand all over him, but he’d always been convincing at faking his outrage whenever he’d ‘woken up’.

Zuko felt a little like that now – having to pretend he was asleep, all the while itching to move. He was someone who did things when he was nervous or agitated; he didn’t deal well with forced inactivity.  But the decisions Zuko made when he was nervous or agitated sometimes led to Aang getting shot in the spine with lightning, and he’d pick forced inactivity over that any day of the week.

In the moonlight, he could see the three figures approaching from a way off, but it still took them a while to reach him and his little bonfire.

“You didn’t show up,” Mai accused him, giving him a disappointed look.

Zuko shrugged as he turned back to the fire. “I didn’t say I would.”

“I told you that I wanted to see how people would treat us if they didn't know who we were,” Azula reminded him from the other side of the fire. “That includes you, Zuzu.”

When Zuko and Uncle Iroh had been traveling the Earth Kingdom, they’d had to rush to a small village after Uncle had poisoned himself by drinking tea he’d made from some random forest plant, and a young woman named Song and her mother had invited them home for dinner. When Song had shown Zuko the burns on her legs, he’d been horrified. He’d realized that the Fire Lord was wrong to banish him, but that had been another step on his journey to realizing that the Fire Nation’s war was wrong, too.

“I thought you might have been using the royal we,” he excused himself weakly.

“The majestic plural only applies to the monarch, dum-dum,” Zuli snapped.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he muttered irritably, glaring at the sparks leaping up off the bonfire. “I guess I must have forgotten that after being banished for three years.”

Although Mai looked like she wanted to say something, she just blinked slowly and turned towards the fire. Azula pinched the bridge of her nose between the tips of two elegantly manicured fingers and let out a sharp exhale.

“I can hardly believe I need to explain this to you, Zuzu,” she began in a clipped tone, “But you were invited to a party, not a state banquet. You do still know what a party is after three years, don’t you?”

“Of course I know what a party is!” Zuko seethed.

“Oh, good,” she nodded with a satisfied air. “Then you’ll know it involves socializing, conversation, maybe even the possibility of having fun –”

“I’ve been to parties, Azula, you don’t have to patronize me!”

“Oh, my mistake,” she sniffed. “Of course, you would have been subjected to Uncle Iroh’s famous music nights – I’m sure the time on your ship simply flew by –”

“I went to a birthday party in Ba Sing Se,” he retorted. “I socialized, I talked to people, I had fun. Is that good enough for you?”

“Who’s birthday was it?” Ty Lee asked interestedly. She crossed and uncrossed her ankles as she walked around the bonfire on her hands. “Was it that cute Water Tribe guy?”

Zuko honestly didn’t know what to make of the fact Ty Lee found Sokka attractive. Maybe if he tried hard enough, he could forget he existed in a world where that was happening.

“It was a joint birthday party for Sokka and his sister,” he explained. “We had a poetry night.”

Ty Lee let out a quiet aww at that, but Mai, by contrast, seemed distinctly unamused. “You threw a birthday party for the peasant girl?”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Zuko told her lowly.

“Why not?” Mai challenged him. Her amber eyes flashed. “It’s what she is, Zuko –”

“That’s not all she is!” He snapped. “She’s brave, and passionate, and she cares, Mai, which is more than I can say about you –”

“Oh, wonderful,” she sneered. “I’m so glad to hear that the peasant girl cares. Here’s one for you, Zuko: I don’t.”

“Now, Mai,” Azula cautioned her, giving Zuko a smile that was all teeth and no joy. “The peasant girl has a name – doesn’t she, Zuko?”

Zuko had already named Sokka, so he figured he might as well continue. “Katara.”

“What does it matter what her name is?” Mai asked, a slight edge to her voice.

“I’m sure you don’t need me to explain it,” Azula smirked at the other girl. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Zuko glared at his sister. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well,” she drawled with a self-satisfied air. “You know what they say about the girls from Ba Sing Se…”

“Fuck off, Azula,” he replied flatly, ignoring Ty Lee’s little gasp.

“Oh, Zuko,” she pulled an upside-down face at him. “Did you like that waterbender girl?”

“I don’t see why it matters,” Zuko grumbled.

Azula raised an eyebrow. “That’s not a no, Zuzu.”

“Seriously?” Mai hissed, turning to face him fully. “This is why you’ve been so weird since you’ve been back? Because of some Water Tribe girl?”

Zuko considered lying to her. He’d honestly lost count at this point.

“What’s the matter, Mai?” He asked instead, giving her a sardonic smile. “Don’t tell me you care, all of a sudden?”

The mask Mai kept over her emotions must have been slipping; Zuko could tell, because he could see her wearing it for once. “I don’t.”

“Sure,” he scoffed. “Whatever – must be nice to keep all your feelings bottled up inside –”

“Oh, shut up, Zuko –”

“You’re just a big blah!” He yelled at her, ignoring Ty Lee’s gasp of shock. “You don’t care about anything! And Katara cares, Mai – she fights, she argues, she fucking cares, so tell me why I shouldn’t care about her!”

When he’d finished shouting, Mai looked stunned. It might have been the most emotion Zuko had ever seen on her face.

Ty Lee found her voice first. “She was kind of rude to me when she saw us in Ba Sing Se.”

Of all the responses Ty Lee could have come out with, Zuko hadn’t been expecting that.

“How did you think she was going to react to seeing you?” He asked weakly. “Did you think she was going to invite you to her birthday party? You fucking chi-blocked her!”

“She still didn’t have to be so mean about it! She called me a circus freak!”

“Well, maybe she’s right!”

“Zuko, what is wrong with you?” Mai shouted right back.

What?

“Your temper is out of control! You blow up over every little thing – you're so impatient and hotheaded and angry!”

“Fuck off, Mai,” Zuko muttered, getting to his feet. “Go jump in a river.”

He had only taken a few steps before he could hear someone clapping behind him. As he walked away from the bonfire, Azula’s calm, unaffected voice followed him as he went.

“Well, those were wonderful performances, everyone.”

 

 

When Toph woke Aang and the others up in the middle of the night, Aang wasn’t actually too mad about it. He kept having a dream where food was eating people, and he was honestly getting kind of anxious whenever he saw an egg custard tart these days. They always seemed to be watching him.

“Guys!” Toph hissed at them urgently, “You're all gonna think I'm crazy, but it feels like a metal man is coming!”

“What?” Aang mumbled blearily. “Is this another one of those weird dreams?”

Aang wasn’t actually sure what Toph dreamt about, but he was pretty sure metal men was a weirder dream than food that ate people. Although he supposed it would depend on the food, really. Cabbages that ate people? That sounded terrifying.

He shielded his face from a bright light that someone was shining in his face, but it only flashed across him once before it went dark again. Aang had to blink his eyes a few times before they readjusted to the darkness. The moon was quite bright, even though it wasn’t full, and it was a cloudless night, so Aang could see a guy standing on the edge of the rock walls around their hot spring. His arm glinted weirdly in the moonlight, which might actually have been what Toph was talking about when she mentioned a metal man

The metal man inhaled deeply, and Aang got such a sense of wrongness that he had to jump to his feet.

BOOM

Aang had to earthbend something super fast as the whatever-it-was came towards them. It blasted his rock shield into smithereens and sent him, Katara, Toph and Sokka all scattering backwards.

Holy man-eating cabbages, metal man!

All Aang had been able to sense was this weird feeling in his chi that something was really bad!!! before he’d reacted instinctively. What was that?

Toph bent a couple of rocks up to the metal man to try and knock him away, but Aang heard another few BOOM noises, and they just burst into pebbles and shards in mid-air.

Whoever this was, Aang decided, they had to be cheating. They were making stuff explode with their brain!

There had to be a spirit rule against that. Aang wasn’t sure whether it was Hei Bai or Koh or even the Dark Water Spirit who was in charge of deciding what was fair and what was cheating, but he was definitely going to get to the bottom of this one!

He had to airbend a gust of wind to shield himself and the others from the metal man sending another blast their way, but whatever he was doing, it was so powerful that it knocked him backwards again. He could hear Katara shouting, and then there was another BOOM, and loads of steam and smoke filled the area. Toph earthbent them all a rock ledge to shield them from the worst of the metal man’s attacks, and Appa let out an annoyed roar that told Aang this was not his idea of a relaxing mini-vacation with hot springs.

“This is crazy!” Sokka shouted as he scrambled across to crouch down next to Aang. “How can we beat a guy who blows things up with his mind?”

Exactly! Aang wanted to say. That’s totally cheating! But he couldn’t really say that, not now. They needed to figure out a way to stop the metal man from trying to blow them up before they started lodging formal complaints with the spirits about him.

“We can't!” Aang shouted back. “Jump on Appa – I'll try to distract him!”

Aang didn’t care if that metal man had big muscles and a cool beard – anyone whose historical nickname was going to end up being The Guy who Could Blow Stuff Up with His Mind wasn’t someone Aang wanted to hang out with. He’d been very okay with running off and leaving him behind. He had to keep running out of the hot springs, and then all the way through a rock canyon, and that had been difficult enough without a metal man trying to blow him up. This wasn’t anything like when he’d gone tree-running with The Duke and Sneers! Was this how Hotman Zuko had always felt when he was playing The Floor Is Lava with Azula?

He had to run and hide in a part of the canyon with loads of rock pillars. Sokka was always kind of distrustful of rocks, for some weird reason Aang had never really understood, but Toph loved rocks, and right now, Aang was pretty glad that rocks were around, too, because these rocks were all that were standing between him and an angry metal man who was trying to blast him into the middle of next week.

As the metal man kept making all the rocks go BOOM, no matter how far or how fast Aang tried to hide, he could feel himself getting tired. It was relentless! This guy just wasn’t giving up – no matter how many times Aang doubled back on himself, gave him the slip, went around in a circle, or anything else he tried to do, the metal man was still there, taking a deep breath and making things explode. Aang was starting to feel a bit wheezy from all the dust he was having to breath in as the rocks got pulverized; he had to airbend the air and earthbend the dust so he could breathe properly.

That gave Aang an idea, and he earthbent all the dust into a great big dust cloud, like Toph had been doing in the teashop in Ba Sing Se. It completely blocked him from view. If the metal man couldn’t see him, he couldn’t blast him with his weird mind-explosion powers! It gave Aang the chance to airbend himself away and hightail it back to his friends, and airbend himself up into Appa’s saddle as his big buddy swooped down to catch him.

At least Katara seemed happy to see him when he landed in Appa’s saddle, because she gave him a big hug.

“I'm okay,” he reassured Katara, before giggling a little as Momo jumped up onto his shoulder and gave a little chitter to let Aang know that what he’d just been doing had been super cool.

“Well, that was random,” Toph observed.

 “I don't think so,” Katara disagreed, looking behind them worriedly. “I get the feeling he knows who we are.”

“Oh, slush,” Sokka swore. “That must have been that guy Master Piandao was warning us about!”

“The guy those pirates hired to come after Sugar Queen?” Toph asked. “For some reason you guys still haven’t told me about?"

“Well, we met a bunch of high-risk traders this one time, and they had a couple of exotic curios and this really cool waterbending scroll –” Aang began, but Toph quickly put her hands up in the air.

“Never mind, Twinkle Toes.” She shook her head. “On second thoughts, the way things usually go with you guys? I don’t think I want to know.”

Notes:

Azula references ‘The Girls From Ba Sing Se’, which Iroh sings when he’s trying to entertain that jerk with the swords in 2.4 ‘The Swamp’.

‘It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se/ But the girls in the city they look so pretty/ And they kiss so sweet that you've really got to meet/ The girls from Ba Sing Se!’

Aang’s ‘Holy man-eating cabbages, metal man!’ line was inspired by Robin’s ‘Holy…!’ exclamations in the 1960s Batman TV series.

Chapter 15

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Any last words?” Azula asked, watching on with barely-disguised amusement as Zuko drained the last of his watermelon juice and stood up from the table in Li and Lo’s kitchen.

“What would you suggest?” He asked, crossing to the sink and washing out his cup.

Zuli tsked disapprovingly at him. “A prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice.”

It took Zuko a moment to place the phrase, but he rolled his eyes as he heated his hands up to steam the cup dry. “Not the catchiest, but it’ll do.”

Azula barely batted an eye. “You could do a lot worse than Fire Sage Fukuyama for your last words, Zuzu. It would certainly be better than whatever banal apology you composed after your little tantrum last night.”

If Zuko was to quote Fire Sage Fukuyama, he remembered a line from one of his more satirical works that would perhaps be more fitting.

“‘No circumstance is ever so desperate that one cannot nurture some spark of hope’,” he quoted in return, remembering what Uncle had once told him.

In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength!

He still needed to talk to Uncle Iroh when he got back to the capital. In his banishment, Zuko had always imagined that returning to the Caldera to meet Uncle would go rather differently.

His sister let out an amused scoff. “If you believe that, you’re in for a rather rude awakening when you knock on Mai’s door.”

Zuko didn’t respond as he left his cup on the counter and set off for the hallway, trying to ignore the way Azula’s eyes followed him like an eagle-hawk watching a lemming-vole.

It was probably safe to say that in the wake of his banishment, Zuko had taken his anger out on those around him. Uncle Iroh, Lieutenant Jee, Boatswain Honda, Midshipman Yang… pretty much anyone who had caught him in a bad mood had gotten the brunt of his temper. And because Zuko had been in a bad mood for about a year and a half, that meant that he’d yelled at a lot of people and had a lot of arguments in those eighteen months.

For those eighteen months, life for Zuko had followed a set routine. He would wake at dawn for his firebending meditations with Uncle, and then have two cups of tea; one jasmine, one shōgayu. He would shave his head as a mark of his continuing state of dishonor in the Fire Nation’s eyes, and then prepare himself for the day ahead, trying all the while to convince himself that today might be the day he would seize hold of his destiny. He would remind himself of what it took to be honorable: courage, and faith, and hope.

And then, he would summon up his courage, have faith in Uncle’s advice, and hope that Ensign Takahashi wouldn’t turn him into a pincushion before he could apologize to her for whatever rude and disrespectful thing he’d said the other night.

By the time he was fifteen, Zuko had been inducted into the Order of the White Lotus and found his own destiny, and life on the Wani had become a little more bearable for him and all others aboard. But he’d still been more than a little scared of Taki. Not because of her throwing knives – or, rather, not just because of her throwing knives – but because she knew a lot of embarrassing stories about a nine-year-old Prince Zuko, and had made it fully clear that she was prepared to tell the crew about how His Royal Highness had cried at the Hira’a Acting Troupe’s performance of Love Amongst the Dragons if His Royal Highness kept shouting orders at her without asking nicely.

Uncle wasn’t around for his firebending meditations, the Fire Nation didn’t consider him a failure anymore, and he hadn't drunk shōgayu since he'd come home. But here Zuko was again, after an argument with a terrifying Fire Nation lady, knocking on her door the morning after they’d both shouted themselves hoarse.

The door opened, and Zuko swallowed hard as he was met with a supremely unimpressed Mai.

“What?” Her voice was the poised, collected monotone again. So different to last night.

“I,” he began, before he needed to clear his throat and swallow nervously again. “I apologized to Ty Lee earlier.”

Ty Lee had been much more forgiving than Zuko had deserved after he’d called her circus freak. When he’d gone to speak to her, he’d been fully expecting to have various parts of his anatomy frozen into the middle of next week, but she’d given him a hug and told him that she’d known he hadn’t meant it, and that their talk – she’d actually called it a talk, not a huge argument – down on the beach last night had actually helped her learn a lot about herself. He’d still made her a bowl of apple and mango slices as a breakfast apology, though.

“Good,” his sort of, it’s complicated, maybe ex-girlfriend replied simply. “You were a jerk to her.”

She leaned against the doorway and folded her arms, which Zuko took as a hopeful sign that she wasn’t going to throw a sai at his head. “I think I owe you an apology, too.”

Whilst he’d tried to make a point of avoiding Uncle Iroh whenever that Jin girl had been hanging around Pao’s teahouse in Ba Sing Se, Zuko was pretty sure he didn’t need Uncle to tell him that telling Mai that she was just a big blah wasn’t necessarily the nicest compliment he could have paid her.

“Yeah, you do. You were a jerk to me, too.”

He sighed. This was probably what he got for accusing her of keeping all her feelings bottled up inside. “I’m sorry I yelled at you before.”

Mai sighed too, and Zuko remembered that Taki had been the one to teach Mai how to hold her throwing knives. Apparently, she’d also taught her how to hold a grudge.

“I don’t care, Zuko.”

Right. Because Zuko had said she didn’t care about anything. He probably deserved that.

“I’m sorry I said those things to you,” he ventured. “I know you’re not – you’re not just a big blah.”

“No, I’m not,” Mai agreed, turning around and heading back into her room. It looked like she was in the middle of packing, even though they were only meant to be leaving in the early afternoon.

“But I am hungry, though,” she continued, “So instead of just standing there like an idiot, you can get me a fruit tart from the kitchen.”

Zuko supposed that might have Mai’s way of saying she forgave him, but he wasn’t entirely sure. He also wasn’t sure whether she’d packed up her throwing knives yet, so it was probably safer if he just went and got her that fruit tart.

 

 

Sokka had been asked all kinds of questions in his life. Most of them were of the How could you be so stupid? variety, in one form or another, and those were pretty easy to answer. The Is it more important to look cool, or deadly? questions were a little more challenging; the Are you sure Prince Zuko isn’t pregnant? questions were quite tricky as well. But he’d thought a lot about this question as he’d gone to collect the firewood for the night, and he thought he had a pretty good answer.

“I’d probably want to drink cactus juice-flavored tea,” he eventually decided. “All of the quenchy goodness, but none of the hallucinogenic properties.”

He felt like that was a pretty good answer to Aang’s question as he hauled another log over to add it to their campfire. The sparks rose into the fast-darkening twilight, and he traipsed back to his sleeping back and wriggled into it. That should do for another hour or so, until it was time for bed.

Aang looked excited at his answer, but far from being impressed with his wisdom, Toph merely scoffed. “I thought the crazy space-tripping cactus magic was supposed to be the best part of the Si Wong mini-vacation experience?”

Sokka winced. “Have I mentioned that I’m, again, extremely sorry for subjecting you all to that?”

“Not nearly enough times,” the earthbender muttered, folding her arms. “I was picking sand out of my headband for ages after that.”

“Not nearly enough times,” Katara agreed, giving Sokka that to recall your stupidity exhausts me look she’d learnt from Gran-Gran.

“Well, what about you, sis?” Sokka scowled, tucking his hands grumpily into his sleeping bag. “If you had to make tea out of a random forest plant and drink it to learn something new, what would you want the forest plant tea to taste like, and what would you want to learn?”

“I don’t even understand where this question came from,” Katara retorted. “How did we even get onto that subject?”

“Oh, that was me,” Aang answered, giving an enthusiastic little smile and pointing at his arrow tattoo. “I was thinking earlier, like, ‘How did that guy blow stuff up with his mind?’, and ‘How do you even learn how to do that?’, and so I was thinking, like, ‘What’s the weirdest way he could have learnt how to do that?’, and I remembered how Zuko once told me that sifu Iroh accidentally poisoned himself when he tried to make tea out of some random forest plant, so I was wondering, like, did he have to drink a random forest plant to learn how to bend explosions?”

Sokka was pretty sure that Aang had used his airbending to take an extra deep breath before launching into that sentence. He might even have used his airbending to make that breath stretch further.

“That’s a pretty specific question,” Katara laughed. “I’d probably have to think about it, though – you’ve kind of put me on the spot. What’s yours?”

Aang looked kind of like he’d been put on the spot now too, which Sokka thought was kind of weird. He’d spent so long asking the question, he could have come up with quite a few answers in that time. “Um… can I drink egg custard tart-flavored tea?”

“I don’t see why not,” Sokka encouraged him. “It’s your question, right? There’s no reason you can’t do it.”

Toph snickered, and Aang giggled as he kicked his sleeping bag.

“Then I’d probably drink that,” he decided with a nod. “Or roast duck-flavored tea – I heard it tastes really good, and that way, I’d be able to see what it tastes like without giving up my vegetarianism.”

“Nice loophole,” Katara teased him. “Who’d you hear that from?”

Aang hesitated before glancing at Katara, which told Sokka that it had probably been Zuko who’d told him about the wonders of roast duck, and the little guy didn’t want to say it out loud.

“I really liked the roast duck your parents gave us at your place, Toph,” he said, saving Aang from a potentially awkward conversation.

“You like any food, Snoozles,” she responded.

Medicinal frogs and Aang’s burned soup notwithstanding, Sokka had to admit that was a fairly accurate statement. “That might be true, but I still liked the roast duck.”

“I think I’d probably want to drink some jasmine tea,” Katara pronounced, having apparently decided at last. “And I’d want to learn Southern-style waterbending.”

“That sounds cool,” Aang agreed. “Like, there was that waterbending scroll from the North Pole, right? That’s what got that crazy metal man after us in the first place – it would be pretty ironic if you got to learn Southern-style waterbending after all that!”

Sokka wasn’t quite sure that was how irony worked, but he’d have to think about it a bit more. And he’d also have to ask Aang to clarify what exactly was the ironic part, but he might do that a bit later as well. Asking Aang questions about the inner workings of his mind was always better done later rather than sooner.

“I thought your favorite drink was ginger?” Toph asked, frowning in Katara’s direction.

Katara got a weird look on her face, and her hand peeped out of her sleeping bag to touch her mother’s necklace, but Aang unintentionally saved the day by launching into a rambling monologue about how his least favorite drink had been Guru Pathik’s onion and banana juice, which Sokka could understand completely. The fact that such a travesty was allowed to exist had done more to convince Sokka that the spirits were cruel, capricious beings than anything else he’d seen or experienced.

“Your guru sounds kooky,” Toph pronounced tersely, with her characteristic lack of subtlety. “You should try and put him on to Gramps’ Tieluohan.”

“I don’t know about kooky,” Aang said thoughtfully. “But I think he seemed like the kind of person who’d get on pretty well with sifu Iroh.”

Sokka was pretty sure he got on pretty well with Master Iroh, and from what he’d heard about Guru Pathik, he wasn’t sure whether he appreciated the comparison Aang was making. He’d liked their previous conversation a lot better.

“What about you, Toph? What would you want your random forest plant tea to taste like, and –” he yawned – “What would you want to learn?”

“I’d want Gramps to make my tea,” Toph answered blithely. “Don't really care what it tastes like. And I’d want to learn how to bend metal, because that’s obviously impossible and you’d have to be the world’s greatest earthbender to be able to do something that awesome.”

Toph’s impressive yet terrifying confidence reminded Sokka vaguely of Suki. He would say it was just an Earth Kingdom girl thing, but Takahashi was kind of like that as well. Maybe it was just this innate gift the spirits gave to certain people whose destinies were to intimidate Sokka into agreeing with everything they said.

 

 

There was, at least, one good thing about the Fire Nation at this time of year, Katara thought wearily to herself as she rubbed her eyes and tried hard to blink the sleep out of her eyes. Although they were approaching the beginning of summer, and they only had a few months left until Sozin’s Comet came, at which point the Fire Nation was planning on attacking the Earth Kingdom and ending the war once and for all… well, at least it was nice and warm in the mornings.

Of course, she would much rather prefer to enjoy that warmth whilst being tucked up in her sleeping bag, snoozing contentedly away like a crococat, or maybe a gilacorn sunning itself on a rock. But someone needed to make breakfast, and the chances of that someone being Sokka were zero on a good day – and there was no way Katara was going to let Aang or Toph loose with her pots, pans, and supplies – so she’d gone to sleep last night resigned to waking up bright and early. She’d actually been woken up by Aang shaking her awake at dawn’s first light and announcing that Avatar Roku had come to him in another spirit dream and told him that they needed to get to the Fire Avatar’s home island on the day of the summer solstice. Dawn’s first light was far too bright and early for something like that.

The solstice was in only a couple of days’ time, and Katara still vividly remember the last time Roku had spoken to Aang in a spirit vision, back on the winter solstice. They’d only just gotten Sokka back from when Hei Bai had taken him to the Spirit World in Senlin Forest, and then poor Appa had been forced to fly all the way to Crescent Island so Aang could talk to Roku. It had been an awful couple of days for Katara – her big brother and Aang had gone missing, seemingly forever, and then they’d had to go to the Fire Nation, which had always been a place of nightmares for her.

Rather than dwell on the past, though, she made a start on mending a sleeve Aang must have ripped in earthbending practice. But that was all she was able to make, just a start, before Aang came and joined her where she was sitting a little way away from Sokka and Toph, who were continuing their conversation about teas from last night.

Aang turned to her with a smile. “Hey, Katara! Getting away from Sokka and Toph?”

“More like I wanted to get away from my own thoughts,” she admitted, before quickly changing the subject. “What do you think Avatar Roku’s going to talk to you about this time?”

Aang shrugged as he made a motion towards scratching the back of his head, before frowning as he encountered his dark hair. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I don’t even know how I’m supposed to talk to him, either.”

“Just like last time,” Katara remembered, her heart sinking. “For one of your past lives, Avatar Roku doesn’t seem very helpful.”

“I was thinking after yesterday, at least he’s not making me drink tea made out of some random forest plant,” Aang said brightly. Katara supposed that everyone had their own way of looking on the bright side.

“Do you think he’s going to teach you what roast duck tastes like?” She asked, trying for a joke. Aang smiled a little, but he didn’t laugh out loud or anything.

“He said I’ve got to learn about his history with Fire Lord Sozin if I’m to understand how the war began,” he began slowly, scratching his ear instead of his hair. “But I’m not sure what that would mean.”

“I didn’t know Avatar Roku had a history with Sozin,” Katara said, frowning a little.

“I thought it was kind of weird, too,” Aang agreed, gesturing with his hands. “Like – if he knew Fire Lord Sozin was going to do all these awful things, like attack the Air Nomads and start this awful war, why didn’t he stop him?”

Maybe it was because Sozin had lied about his true intentions, Katara thought viciously to herself. Just like Zuko had lied. He’d been lying to her – he’d been lying to all of them all along, and when his sister had exposed his secrets, he’d turned on them.

“I’m sure you’ll have the chance to ask him that eventually,” she decided. She didn’t want to remind Aang of Zuko’s treachery – to tell the truth, she didn’t want to be reminded of him, either. For all that he’d been a very good liar, she’d been a silly little girl to fall for his tricks.

Just like with Jet. But whilst Jet had redeemed in the end himself by helping them find Appa, there was no way Zuko could redeem himself. He’d made his choice.

“I guess so,” Aang said. “Do you think Avatar Roku’s got an opinion on what his historical nickname should be?”

“I honestly wouldn’t be able to tell you,” Katara said slowly. “Why’d you ask?”

Aang chewed his lip. “I guess I just want to be remembered as a good Avatar, and not, like, Avatar Aang, the Avatar who got frozen in an iceberg for a hundred years, or something.”

Sometimes, Katara forgot that Aang was only twelve years old. She’d waited all her life for the Avatar to return and save the world, and Aang was such a powerful bender, but it was at times like these that she just wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t be worrying about how he was going to be remembered in generations to come. He should be spending his time going penguin sledding, or riding the elephant koi on Kyoshi Island, or even going on those crazy, awful mail chutes with Bumi. But instead, they had to fly to Avatar Roku’s home island to find out what Roku’s past history with Fire Lord Sozin had to do with the war that was raging on around them every day.

“I think you get to decide for yourself what kind of Avatar people remember you as, Aang,” she tried to encourage him. “I think they’ll remember you more for who you are than for anything that’s happened to you.”

But it didn’t seem like her words had quite had the inspiring effect she would have wanted them to have, because Aang looked a little unconvinced.

“What is it?” She asked tentatively. “Did I say the wrong thing?”

“No,” Aang shook his head, still looking pensive as he looked out at the ocean beneath them. “It’s just that Zuko said something pretty similar, once.”

“Oh,” Katara said. “Do you think Avatar Roku ever tried to make tea from some random forest plant?”

It might have been a pretty abrupt change of topic, but Katara didn’t want Aang to be thinking about anything Zuko might have said to him. He would only have been lying, anyway.

Notes:

The quotations Zuko and Azula attribute to Fire Sage Fukuyama are from Niccolò Machiavelli: ‘A prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice’ is a quote from The Prince (published 1532), and ‘No circumstance is ever so desperate that one cannot nurture some spark of hope’ is a quote from The Mandrake (1524).

Tieluohan is an oolong tea.

Chapter 16

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Toph liked earth because earth didn’t mess about. It didn’t tell you one thing and mean another like Gaoling high society, and it didn’t give you one word and expect you to understand all the subtle underlying messages it was giving you in that one innocuous word like all Mistress Ouyang’s poetry did. Earth was what it was, and Toph liked it that way.

The annoying thing about the Fancy Dancer’s Avatar stuff was that you could never be quite sure why things were the way they were. And the way this Avatar Roku dude was apparently making a habit of yanking them off on spirit journeys on very short notice wasn’t doing much to endear him to Toph, either.

“You should meet Hei Bai,” Snoozles had said when she’d complained about that. “You think Roku yanks us off on spirit journeys with absolutely no warning? Try angry panda bears.”

“Zuko once told me that sifu Iroh went to the Spirit World,” Twinkles piped up from where he was sitting on Fuzzy’s head. “And when I asked sifu Iroh about it in Ba Sing Se, he said that he had to fast for three days before he could get there.”

“Master Iroh couldn’t eat for three days?” Snoozles gasped, like that was the part of the story that needed the most attention.

“And he couldn’t drink any tea, either,” Twinkles confirmed before pausing. “I think that might have been the part he focused more on, actually.”

That didn’t surprise Toph in the slightest. When they’d been planning their poetry night at Pao’s tea place, she’d had to play the Toph Beifong card and say that whilst it was admittedly a poetry night, and it was being held at a tea house, she just didn’t think that their patrons would want to hang around for three or four hours listening to poems solely about tea.

But then she’d had to hear pretentious morons recite poems with titles like Your eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad swan, so maybe listening to Gramps ramble on about the smell of oolong or some shit like that for ten minutes wouldn’t have been the end of the world.

“How come Gramps had to fast for three days before he could get spirit visions, but Roku won’t even give you three days’ prep time before you’ve got to go to some island?” She asked, trying hard to forget Pao’s kid and his monotone voice.

“No idea,” the Fancy Dancer admitted. “But Appa’s pretty fast, so we should be able to get there by the solstice, at least. Right, buddy?”

Fuzzy made a noise that even Toph could tell was his way of saying just because I can doesn’t mean I want to, you little airhead, and Twinkles laughed a little awkwardly.

Good, Toph thought to herself. He should feel awkward. At least when these idiots had rocked up to dinner with her parents, Toph had left with them because she’d wanted to, not because she’d had some weird spirit dream that made her get all jumpy.

“What if the Mechanist’s messenger hawk can’t find us when we’re on Avatar Roku’s island?” Sucker fretted.

“What if all the clouds fell out of the sky tomorrow?” Toph asked rhetorically.

“Oh, man, I actually had a dream about that this one time in Taku – ow, fuck, Toph!”

Mistress Ouyang had always told Toph that rhetorical questions were meant more for her to demonstrate a point than for the other person to demonstrate their knowledge, but it didn’t seem like anyone had told Snoozles that. Toph felt that was probably for the best, considering he didn’t actually seem to have any knowledge to demonstrate in the first place.

“It doesn’t matter if clouds start falling out of the sky tomorrow, dumbass,” she instructed him firmly. “Quit worrying about stuff that might not even happen, and quit with the ‘what ifs’ before I give your other arm something to worry about.”

“I know it’s not ideal, Sokka,” Sugar Queen said, “I know you were planning on getting to the Black Cliffs – but our plans can change, remember?”

Snoozles was quiet for a bit after that, and Toph entertained herself by imagining him folding his arms and pouting. In her mind’s eye, he looked a bit like The Boulder after the big guy had been told that he couldn’t give himself a Blue Spirit gimmick as a tribute because Xin Fu didn’t want the Earth Rumble shut down for incitement.

“Fine,” he conceded eventually – and yep, from the sound of his voice, he’d definitely been pouting. “Never mind that I’d just finished color-coding my schedule… but I guess at least once I remake it after this, I’ll be able to work in some times for me to write my letters to the Mechanist.”

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate the effort,” Splish-Splash answered. “And it’s not like we haven’t done this before, right? At least we’re not having to run a naval blockade this time around.”

“True,” Snoozles acknowledged. “Getting flaming boulders launched at us, and nearly falling out of Appa’s saddle – I can do without those on my spirit quests, you know?”

Okay, so Toph was pretty glad she hadn’t been here for that crazy adventure. Fuzzy was nice and all, but she didn’t like flying on him at the best of times. Falling through the air, without any idea of where her element was or how soon she was going to be reintroduced to it? She could definitely do without that part.

“If you were going on a spirit quest, would you rather have to deal with a random forest plant or the naval blockade?” The Fancy Dancer asked. Toph wasn’t convinced it was a question that needed asking, and she wasn’t convinced anyone’s answers would be any good.

“I think I’d prefer the blockade,” Snoozles answered. “At least then you can prep for it, you know? Kind of the whole point of a random forest plant is that it’s random – you don’t know what you’re supposed to be planning for.”

Huh. Annoyingly, that was actually an okay answer. It always weirded Toph out a little bit whenever Sucker showed a bit of common sense.

“Why would you want to risk it, anyway?” Sugar Queen asked worriedly. “Aang, didn’t you say that Uncle Iroh poisoned himself when he tried to make that tea?”

“Uh-huh!” Came the response. “And then he apparently flirted with some lady, and Hotman almost threw up over it!”

Twinkles sounded weirdly enthusiastic about recounting Gramps’ near-death experience, but Toph imagined Gramps would get a kick out of retelling it, too.

“I’d want the weird plant tea,” she decided, just to be contrary. If it was good enough for Gramps, it was good enough for her.

 

 

“I feel like the naval blockade is cooler than the random plant tea, though,” Sokka argued.

“You’re just saying that because you know what you’re expecting,” Toph pointed out. “Imagine if you got some wild poison or whatever in your tea.”

“I’ve already drunk cactus juice,” Katara’s brother shrugged. “And I feel like although the naval blockade wasn’t as weird as a giant mushroom, it was still pretty wild.”

“Not your lame cactus juice,” Toph scoffed. “I mean, like, a genuine deadly-poisonous tea. We’re talking serious danger here.”

Katara groaned. Spirits, if they were going to have another debate about whether coolness was a more important factor than deadliness, she was going to have to forcibly separate them.

“I feel like the danger’s kind of implied because you don’t know what you’re getting,” Sokka dithered. “But you could be getting either zero deadliness, or it could be twice as deadly as a naval blockade, so it’s one of those things where –”

“Is this really what we need to be talking about right now?” Katara snapped, her fraying patience and nerves finally getting the best of her.

“Oh, sorry, Sugar Queen,” Toph drawled, sliding down until she was sprawled out on Appa’s saddle with only her head and neck propped up against the side, and her chin tucked in against her collar. “What do you want to talk about, then?”

Katara didn’t know what she wanted to talk about, but she knew it wasn’t potentially-deadly naval blockades. She’d had to endure one of those already, and unlike Sokka, she didn’t have any desire to repeat the experience.

And she didn’t want to be reminded of the last time Avatar Roku had given them a last-minute spirit quest that had sent them on a mad dash on Appa across the Fire Nation, either. The flight itself had been bad enough, with the blockade and the uncertainty, but when Zhao had turned up and captured them, she’d honestly been terrified.

Katara hoped that this trip wasn’t going to be so bad, but she had to believe that whatever Avatar Roku was going to tell Aang, it was going to be worth it. He was the Avatar, after all, and whilst Sokka and Toph always seemed skeptical of what they called Avatar Stuff, Katara knew that they had to do what Roku was saying. Her Gran-Gran had always told her that the Avatar would save the world, and Katara believed that Aang would do just that.

“We could talk about something else?” Aang offered. “When Zuko and I used to sit up and talk when we were going somewhere on Appa, we’d talk about places we’d been, or all the stuff he and sifu Iroh had gotten up to in the Earth Kingdom.”

“You probably didn’t talk about all the stuff he and Master Iroh got up to,” Sokka pointed out. “If you had, you’d probably have figured out he was the Blue Spirit a lot sooner.”

“That’s not my fault, though,” Aang grumbled. “And sifu Iroh didn’t tell me anything like that when we went to the zoo in Ba Sing Se, either!”

Katara remembered Aang telling her about how he’d somehow organized a zoo in the Agrarian Zone of the city, but she still wasn’t quite sure of the details. “Did you guys have a good time at the zoo?”

“I think so,” Aang said. “I thought he liked the rabaroos, but the elephant mandrill gave him a bit of a scare.”

“Elephant mandrills are pretty deadly,” Sokka nodded. “That’s all I’m saying on that matter.”

 “You might as well have said nothing, Snoozles,” Toph scoffed. “Do that next time, it’ll be easier for everyone.”

“Are we talking about elephant mandrills now?” Aang asked. “I mean, they’re not as deadly as saber-tooth moose lions, but I don’t think they’re as cool, either. Not that they’re uncool, or anything, it’s just that saber-tooth moose lion cubs are super cute –”

“Foo Foo Cuddlypoops was cute, but Mama moose lion was totally lame,” Sokka pronounced flatly, folding his arms. “Plus, that was the worst birthday I’ve ever had. New conversation topic, thanks.”

Katara wasn’t sure whether she could get away with bringing up how she’d needed to give certain people’s bowls an extra rinse out when she was washing up, because she didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, but the others seemed just as uncertain as to what their next topic of conversation should be. Maybe she should try a joke? Okay, so that one in Shu Jing about Momo shedding like Appa hadn’t been great, but she’d been working on a good one to go with Uncle Iroh’s leaf me alone, I’m bushed punchline.

“So,” Aang said eventually, drawing out the sound and drumming his hands on Appa’s reins. “Is it just me, or did the summer solstice come up on us kind of fast?”

“Sure did,” Sokka agreed. “I swear, it’s like it was only the start of the year, like, two months ago. Guess time kind of slipped away from us in Ba Sing Se, huh?”

“Solstice is the middle of the summer, right?” Toph asked. “The longest day of the year?”

“That’s right,” Katara said, glad that they seemed to be having a more comfortable conversation. “The longest day, and the shortest night.”

“That means Sozin’s Comet’s getting closer,” Sokka agreed seriously. “When Fire Lord Ozai’s looking to turn the Earth Kingdom into one big Senlin Forest.”

Ah. Well, maybe the conversation was going to be a little uncomfortable after all. Katara glanced up to Aang, who was biting his lip as he sat up on Appa’s head.

“But if everything goes well with the invasion, we won’t have to worry about the Comet,” she argued. She didn’t want them to start giving the Fire Lord too much credit. “The solar eclipse means that the firebenders will lose their bending on the Day of Black Sun, and Aang can defeat the Fire Lord when he’s at a disadvantage!”

She finished by giving Aang what she hoped was an encouraging smile, and it seemed to work, because his expression brightened up and he gave her a smile in return.

“Sure,” Sokka nodded idly. “Maybe he can give Fire Lord Ozai some random plant tea and see if it’ll stop him.”

That hadn’t quite been Katara’s first thought for how Aang could defeat the Fire Lord and end the war, but it made the others laugh, so she supposed it was a good enough distraction. Aang was the Avatar, so she knew that she would bring balance back to the world – the how was up to him. He was a powerful bender, so he’d be able to figure it out.

 

 

He really should have figured it out earlier, Zuko reflected ruefully to himself as the guards stepped aside to let him enter the capital prison. Azula and her sticky buns, Mai and her fruit tarts – even Sokka and his lychee nuts, on more than one occasion.

The best way to demonstrate your affection for someone was to offer them something that mattered to them, and a lot of the time, that meant the way to forgiveness was through their stomach. Zuko had been trying to bribe the guards with gold for weeks, but coaxing Uncle Iroh into seeing him with a box of jasmine tea had worked at the first time of asking.

Which was a relief, because he was already missing Zuli’s birthday party to sneak down here to the capital prison, and he didn’t want to miss out on the sticky buns.

The guard led him down several dark hallways, and he resisted the urge to hold a flame in his hand to light his way. The guard hadn’t spoken to him when he’d shown up holding a box of jasmine tea; she’d only given him a sharp jerk of the head as she had turned on her heel and marched into the prison. Zuko wasn’t even sure he was meant to be following her, in all honesty, so drawing even more attention to his presence there might not have been a good idea.

“My sister served under the Dragon of the West at Tanggu.”

Zuko stumbled as he walked, and almost tripped into a wall. He was grateful for the darkness as it spared his blushes. “What?”

“My sister,” the guard elaborated, still not turning to look at him. “Corporal Deokhye.”

Zuko honestly wasn’t sure what he was meant to say, so he decided to play it safe.

“Hmm, really?” He asked. “Goodness, imagine that.”

The guard let out a breath that might have been a laugh or a scoff, and Zuko definitely didn’t know what to do in response to that, so he shut up.

“Master Iroh’s been expecting you,” she said simply as they reached the end of the corridor before a sharp corner. “I’m sure you’ll have a lot to talk about.”

“Right.” Zuko swallowed. “Will, uh – will anyone be listening?”

The guard’s dark eyes glittered with something like amusement. “I doubt anyone will want to risk the ire of the Crown Prince.”

Zuko thought that the guards had been quite content to court the ire of the Crown Prince when they’d been refusing to let him into the prison for weeks. It was kind of annoying to think that all that could have been avoided if he’d only tried jasmine tea, but Uncle would probably say there was a lesson in there somewhere.

He stepped forward and rounded the corner, and tried to take deep, calming breaths as he walked towards the cell at the end of the corridor. The tea set he was carrying seemed a lot heavier all of a sudden as he stopped in front of the bars.

Uncle Iroh looked better than Zuko had feared he might after more than a month in Warden Poon’s prison. His hair was long and loose and his beard was unkempt, and Zuko could see that his face was more lined than it had been in Ba Sing Se, but his skin wasn’t bruised, and he didn’t seem injured. When he sat up from where he had been lying on the ground, he did so unhurriedly, but seemingly without any difficulties. He didn’t speak as Zuko sat down in front of the cell bars and laid out his tea set, and his amber eyes watched on as Zuko brought out a flask of water and used his firebending to heat it through.

Zuko knew that the important thing was to use some of the boiled water to warm up the teapot, so he swilled some of the steaming water around the dark brown teapot he’d taken from the palace kitchens this morning before pouring it into a cup he’d brought along just for that purpose.

“We always drank jasmine tea when we meditated, Uncle,” he began. “And you always told me to remember my destiny.”

He popped the tightly-rolled jasmine tea leaves into the teapot and poured in the rest of the hot water before covering it and starting a mental countdown in his head.

“Steep for three minutes,” he spoke again, trying to bridge whatever there was between him and Uncle.

Apart from the bars of the cell, obviously.

“Any shorter than that, and it doesn’t brew well enough,” he continued, “Any longer than that, and turns out bitter.”

“You remember what you have learned.”

Uncle’s voice was low and harshened from disuse, but it still carried with it the authority and command of the Dragon of the West. The last time Zuko had heard that voice addressing him, Uncle had been begging him to remember what he had learned.

And Zuko had made a mistake.

“You know why I had to do it, Uncle,” he began, trying to keep his voice steady. “I didn’t have a choice. I did what I had to do, when no one else would do it, and I did it for the good of the Fire Nation.”

“Forgive me, Nephew,” Uncle returned, in a voice that made it very clear that he did not feel that he was the one who needed to apologize. “But I fail to see what good your actions have done the Fire Nation.”

Zuko still had just under two minutes before he could occupy himself with offering Uncle a cup of jasmine. “I had to try and buy you time to get free, Uncle. When the war is over, you’ll be Fire Lord – I couldn’t risk the future of the Nation if Azula…”

Zuko swallowed hard. If he had sided against Azula in the Catacombs, then Zuli might have taken her anger out on Uncle. The thought of his little sister doing something like that to Uncle was… but after what their father had done to him

“I didn’t have a choice,” he repeated lamely. “I didn’t want to join Azula, and I didn’t want the redemption she offered. Honor has to be true to be meaningful, but… but when you became Fire Lord, you – you could restore my honor, Uncle. You could lift my banishment.”

“I would not become Fire Lord after the war, Prince Zuko.”

Zuko must have misheard that. “What?”

Uncle’s amber eyes bore into Zuko’s. “I never intended to become Fire Lord once Avatar Aang ended the war, Prince Zuko,” he said very deliberately. “That destiny is yours, and yours alone.”

As Zuko gaped at him wordlessly, Uncle rose to his feet and took the few steps across his small, dingy cell to settle again next to the bars. He did so with a regal air – the way the Crown Prince would have moved, authority and assurance – the way he had been born

“I imagine those three minutes are up, Nephew,” Uncle told him, making himself comfortable where he sat. “Perhaps you might pour us some tea before we discuss this matter further?”

Notes:

Zuko’s method for making jasmine tea was taken from this guide.

Chapter 17

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Aang was feeling a little nervous about what Avatar Roku was going to show him in his spirit vision. The last time they’d met, at the North Pole, Roku hadn’t been able to help him find the Dark Water Spirit, and then Aang had needed to go talk to Koh the Face Stealer, and then he’d woken up to find himself surrounded by firebenders as they attacked the Spirit Oasis and killed the Moon Spirit. And the time before that, Roku had told him that the Fire Lord was planning on using the power of Sozin’s Comet to totally wipe out the Earth Kingdom’s defenses and finally win the war. So Aang had really been hoping that this spirit vision would be a bit more encouraging, but instead, it was just plain old surprising.

“You were friends with Fire Lord Sozin?” He asked in disbelief, turning to Roku in surprise as he saw what Roku wanted to show him, which was apparently two young Fire Nation guys practicing their firebending.

“Back then, he was just Prince Sozin,” Roku explained. “And he was my best friend.”

Aang tried to imagine what it would have been like if he’d known his best friend was a prince of the Fire Nation. It felt kind of weird, especially after Zuko had kind-of-sort-of-maybe-but-maybe-not betrayed them all in Ba Sing Se. He watched on as Sozin beat Roku in their spar before a pretty girl walked by in the courtyard of the Palace. She totally blanked Roku, just like Katara always blanked Aang.

Maybe it was the fate of the Avatar for girls to just never care about them at all, Aang thought sadly.

“Love is hard when you are young,” Roku remarked in an absentminded tone, as if he was reading Aang’s mind.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he mumbled morosely.

“Don’t worry,” Roku encouraged him. “It gets better.”

Aang sure hoped so – Katara had said she liked his new hairstyle, but he was kind of hoping for a bit more than that. He watched on as Roku set off on his journey to the Southern Air Temple, where he’d learn to master airbending – hey, wait a minute!

Avatar Roku had known Monk Gyatso?

No way!

And Monk Gyatso had shown Avatar Roku how to go air surfing!

That was, like, the coolest thing Aang had ever seen! Ever!

Monk Gyatso really was the greatest airbender in the world, Aang thought to himself admiringly. “I can't believe you were friends with Monk Gyatso just like I was!”

Avatar Roku chuckled softly to himself. “Some friendships are so strong, they can even transcend lifetimes,” he replied.

Roku had a fond smile on his face as he saw his younger self and Gyatso laughing together. Aang missed his old master so much, but seeing him flying through the air, so free and joyful… he was really happy that Roku had shown him this. The joy, the laughter, the fun, all of it!

As Aang watched on, Roku told him about how he’d gone to the North Pole to learn waterbending, and how it had been especially challenging for him. Aang thought it might have been because it was the opposite of the Fire Avatar’s natural element, but it might just have been because he wasn’t cut out to be a waterbending Avatar, just like how Aang had thought he wasn’t meant be a firebending Avatar before Guru Pathik had helped him figure out his chakras. And hearing Roku talk about his earthbending master, a really buff guy called Sud, was really interesting for Aang. He had a muscles-and-beard combo that Aang thought looked super cool.

“My earthbending master Sud was uncompromising, stubborn, and blunt – and a lifelong friend,” Roku explained as Aang saw Roku’s past self beat Sud in an earthbending race up a mountain.

Aang thought he could probably beat Toph in a race on his air scooter, but in earthbending? He sure had a long way to go before he could do something like that. But it would totally be worth it to see the look on Toph’s face!

“It was bitter work, but the results were worth it,” Roku said. Wow – maybe he really was reading Aang’s mind!

Considering that they were both the Avatar, Aang didn’t think weird spirit mindreading powers were totally out of the realm of possibility. But as he saw the spirit vision of Roku bending all four elements, water, earth, fire, and air, Aang thought that was even more awesome than mindreading powers.

“I guess you got pretty good at firebending after all,” he marveled as Roku made a powerful fire blast. “Prince Sozin probably didn’t know what hit him the first time you practiced together once you got back to the Fire Nation!”

“Prince Sozin was Fire Lord Sozin by the time I returned home,” Roku answered. “But after all these years, he was still my best friend.”

Aang could see as the vision changed that Roku and Sozin were still super close because of how close they were to each other. They were laughing and smiling, and Sozin was clapping Roku on the shoulder with a grin. There were all sorts of people in fancy outfits, and there was an amazing cake with a whole bunch of tiers to it.

“And a few months later, he was my best man,” Roku continued happily, and Aang gasped as he saw a young Roku lift the veil from the face of a really pretty woman who smiled right back at him.

“Roku,” he said excitedly, “It's that girl who didn't even know you're alive!”

Aang didn’t know her name, but that was okay. This was the girl who had completely blanked Roku earlier, but now she’d realized she really liked him!

“Ta Min,” Roku supplied. “I was persistent. When love is real, it finds a way – and being the Avatar doesn't hurt your chances with the ladies, either.”

Aang had seen Avatar Roku spend time laughing and having fun with Monk Gyatso, struggle with learning how to bend his opposing element, and now be a master of all four elements. But seeing that Roku had been patient and persistent, and that the girl he’d liked had finally liked him back, that was the most encouraging part of this spirit vision for Aang.

Katara had never shown him that she liked him like he liked her, but Aang’s love for her was real, and it would find a way. Katara was destined to marry a powerful bender, and being the Avatar meant that Aang was, like, the most powerful bender out there, which definitely didn’t hurt his chances either. All Aang needed to do was trust in love, and be persistent, and things would be okay.

 

 

The first time Uncle Iroh had taught Zuko how to use his bending to heat up a cup of tea, Zuko had accidentally set his drink to bubbling. Losing control like that had been more than a little embarrassing, but Uncle had only remarked that it had made rather a bracing cup.

Now Zuko was trying hard not to ruin his jasmine again, but this time, Uncle wasn’t commenting at all. He seemed content to sip his tea in silence as Zuko gaped at him through the bars of his cell. The small slot in the wall that served as a window didn’t allow much light into Uncle’s cramped accommodations.

“You… want me to be Fire Lord?” Zuko finally managed dumbly.

Uncle took another couple of sips of his tea before he finally let out a sigh and lowered his cup.

“It is not a question of want, Prince Zuko,” he said heavily. “It is a question of need. A retired general is a general still, and if the Dragon of the West were to become Fire Lord, the Earth Kingdom would never accept that the Nation’s ruler truly desired peace.”

“But –” Zuko grasped for the words – “The generals – Bujing and the others, people like Zhao – they’d never accept me as Fire Lord!”

“The Fire Nation is not made up of many men like Bujing or Zhao, Nephew,” Uncle countered. “The siege of Ba Sing Se, the massacre of the Forty-First, the invasion of the North Pole… our people are weary of war, and they grow tired of the senseless violence.”

Zuko hoped so. He'd been hoping for an end to the war for nearly three years. He'd been fighting to end the war for nearly three years. But sometimes, hope wasn’t enough.

“But I was banished, Uncle,” he tried again. “I was named a traitor. The Nation wouldn’t accept me, either!”

“And I am imprisoned as a traitor,” Uncle replied evenly. “So why would the Nation accept me now, Nephew?”

Zuko didn’t know how he was supposed to answer Uncle’s question, so he focused instead on the first statement.

“I was trying to make sure Azula wouldn’t go after Aang,” he tried to explain. “If I could buy time for you to get free, we could have fought Azula off, and then –”

“And then what?” Uncle interrupted, his voice suddenly harsh. “You never think these things through! Avatar Aang would have distrusted you, Miss Katara would likely have killed you –”

“I would have figured something out!”

“No, Zuko,” Uncle shook his head, his yellow eyes clouded over. “It would only have ended badly.”

“I don’t need any of your patronizing moral guidance, Uncle!” Zuko snapped back stubbornly. “This isn’t like that time you caught me with the Blue Spirit mask, and you get to say ‘I told you so’!”

As soon as he said it, he regretted it. No, this wasn’t like the time Uncle had caught a fourteen-year-old Zuko trying to sneak back into his cabin after sabotaging a supply line to the Fire Nation army. This time, Uncle was in a prison cell because of what Zuko had done.

Uncle sighed. It was a put-upon sound of exasperated affection that was painfully familiar to Zuko.

“I know why you put on the mask of the Blue Spirit, Nephew,” he began. “It was so you could pretend, for even a little while longer, that Zuko remained loyal to the Fire Nation.”

Zuko could accept that it sounded a little silly when Uncle put it like that. But he hadn’t known what else to do.

“And I did not challenge you on this,” Uncle continued, “For I saw it as a way of preserving your reputation for your future as Fire Lord. Fire is a proud Nation, Nephew; our people would never accept a Fire Lord who had once fought against them. But you stood up for our people, Prince Zuko. When nobody else would, you did.”

The soldiers in the Forty-First battalion would have been sixteen, seventeen years old – barely any of the five-to-eight hundred soldiers would have been older than twenty. They would have been untrained new recruits from the provinces and the coastal villages; most, if not all of them, would have been peasants.

Zuko’s mother had told him that the peasants of their Nation showed great courage and strength, because they didn’t give up in the face of adversity. She had told him that they had great honor because they had great courage.

“I’m my mother’s son,” he whispered. It was all he knew how to say.

“You are your mother’s son,” Uncle agreed, “But you are your father’s son too, Prince Zuko, and you cannot cover the whole sky with only the palm of your hand. Only by accepting the two sides to your legacy can you make your peace with your destiny.”

“But my destiny isn’t to become Fire Lord,” Zuko protested. “That’s your destiny, Uncle – you were the Crown Prince, it was always meant to be you!”

Before he had turned eleven, Zuko had never expected to be Fire Lord. He’d never expected to be anything other than a minor royal, someone who could serve in the Fire Army like Lu Ten, maybe do well enough to get a few promotions or an honorable discharge before serving the Fire Nation in some other way. He might have served Fire Lord Iroh as a diplomat, awkwardly trying to convince the Water Tribes that their shared values of familial loyalty and responsibility to the collective were enough common ground for them to move past a hundred years of war.

Uncle Iroh had been the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, and then he’d been the Dragon of the West. Zuko didn’t know when Uncle had become the Grand Lotus of the Order of the White Lotus, but it must have been after – after everything changed. And now, Uncle was standing at the back of his prison cell, removing a brick from the wall and holding something wrapped in cloth in his hands.

“We once spoke, Nephew, of how you chose to risk everything because you had the Fire Nation’s best interests at heart. If that is what you seek for the Nation, Prince Zuko, then why would it not be your destiny?”

Zuko could feel Uncle’s arguments beginning to press down on him. He only had one tile left to play.

“You once asked me about my destiny, Uncle,” he reminded the man who had stayed with him for three years whilst he had been banished. “Whether it was my own destiny, or a destiny someone else had tried to force on me.”

“I did, Prince Zuko,” Uncle Iroh acknowledged as he returned to the bars, and slipped that wrapped cloth through them. He looked older and wiser and sadder than Zuko had ever seen him, even when Uncle had come back to the Palace after Ba Sing Se with a scraggly beard and a shaved head to show just how much he grieved and mourned Lu Ten.

“But it’s time for you to look inward and begin asking yourself the big questions,” he continued. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

 

 

Obviously Toph knew that the world hadn’t always been at war. Her knowledge of that time before wasn’t all bedtime stories like Sugar Queen, where her grandmother used to tell her stories about the olden days, a time of peace when the Avatar kept balance between the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation and Air Nomads, yadda-yadda-yadda. History class with Mistress Ouyang had just taught Toph that the Fire Nation had been doing pretty well for themselves, and then Fire Lord Sozin had attacked the Air Temples and invaded the Earth Kingdom, and things had been pretty crappy for the rest of the world ever since.

But from the way Twinkle Toes was recounting that spirit vision Avatar Roku had shown him, all this mess could have been avoided if Roku had just done his job and stopped Sozin from being a complete prick.

“So when Avatar Roku heard that his buddy-boy Sozin was expanding the Fire Nation colonies and taking over the Earth Kingdom, he just… didn’t do anything about it?”

Toph couldn’t see Snoozles’ expression, but she imagined he looked as disbelieving as he sounded.

“Well, he kind of got annoyed when Sozin tried to attack him, and he went into the Avatar State and destroyed the Fire Palace,” Fancy Dancer replied, “But he told Sozin that he was sparing him in the name of their past friendship, and if he stepped out of line again, Roku would do something about it.”

Oh, that was okay, then. Yeah, Toph could picture it now – after Roku had done absolutely nothing about the colonies except throw a tantrum, Sozin would probably have been wetting himself at the thought of what Roku would do if the Fire Nation kept expanding. Gee, the Fire Avatar might even have wagged a finger at him.

“Sozin must have lied to Roku about what he was planning,” Sugar Queen said. “Otherwise, Roku would have done something about it.”

Toph wasn’t quite sure how much plainer Sozin could have made it. By the way, I’ve been pretty interested on invading the Earth Kingdom and establishing colonies there seemed pretty clear to her, and Roku hadn’t done anything about it. When earth looked like it was about to give way, you prepared for rockslides; you didn’t start building on the sand.

But Toph was acutely aware that Fire Princes who made a habit of not-quite-lying were a bit of a touchy subject with these guys, and just for once, she wasn’t interested in having an argument. Much like Avatar Roku, then.

“Well, Roku told me he didn’t see Sozin for twenty-five years, so I’m not sure what he could have done,” the Fancy Dancer said. “But then I guess when the volcano on this island erupted, Sozin must have realized that all his plans for the future were possible if Roku wasn’t around to stop him.”

“Not that he’d done a great job of stopping him in the first place,” Sucker grumbled. “From the sounds of things, he didn’t do anything.”

“Actually, they did tons of stuff together,” Twinkles corrected him. “They practiced their firebending together, and Sozin tried to cheer him up when he was sad that he had to leave home to learn the other elements, and he was the best man at Roku’s wedding to this girl who’d acted like Roku didn’t even exist when he’d really liked her all along, and –”

“And none of that turned out to be a deterrent to Sozin when he wanted to turn the Fire Nation into an empire,” Sucker pointed out.

“You mean, after all Roku and Sozin went through together – even after Roku showed him mercy – Sozin betrayed him like that?” Sugar Queen asked, which Toph felt was a fairly accurate condensed summary of what Twinkle Toes had shared of his little spirit vision.

“That’s so crazy,” Snoozles agreed. “I can’t believe Sozin would do something like that.”

“I can,” Splish-Splash murmured. “First Zuko betrayed us, now we find out Sozin did the same… it's like these people are born bad.”

Okay, hold up.

Sugar Queen might still have been pissed off at Sparky, but from what Toph had been there for – and from what she’d heard about what had been going on before she joined them – Prince Hotpants had been on their side. Whatever had happened in the Crystal Catacombs, Toph wasn’t going to make a judgement call on it without hearing Sparky’s heartbeat for herself.

And besides, even if Zuko had been a sneaky, traitorous, conniving, lying ferret-snake, he wasn’t the only firebender they knew. Gramps had been awesome, and Toph wasn’t going to let Splish-Splash lump Gramps in with all the jerks she’d met and throw mud on his name just because she was pissy with some old Fire Lord who’d died before she was even born!

But just as Toph was about to bend up some dirt and volcanic ash from the ground and stuff it in Katara’s stupid face, Twinkles’ voice came through the annoyed haze in her mind.

“No, that's wrong. I don't think that was the point of what Roku showed me at all.”

“Then what was the point?” Snoozles asked.

“Roku was just as much Fire Nation as Sozin was, right?” Twinkles began. “If anything, their story proves anyone's capable of great good and great evil. Everyone, even the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation, have to be treated like they're worth giving a chance.”

Toph was pretty sure Roku had given Sozin a chance, and he’d ended up choking to death from inhaling poisonous volcanic gases because Sozin had left him to die in a volcanic eruption. I should follow that example seemed like a really dumb lesson for Aang to draw from whatever spirit vision Roku had shown him, all things considered.

“And I also think it was about friendships,” the Fancy Dancer added, almost as an afterthought.

Hmm. Not quite the profound insight Toph would have wanted Twinkles to get from a spirit vision, but she was learning quite quickly that spirit stuff – and Avatar Roku in particular – rarely seemed to be any use. And Roku had known that Gyatso dude, and that had seemed to cheer the airhead up, so it probably hadn’t been an entire waste of time.

And speaking of what Aang had been saying about Roku and Gyatso…

“Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?” Toph asked. If anyone pointed out that she sounded uncertain and-or emotional, she’d end them. The Blind Bandit was neither of those two things.

She felt a warm hand touch hers, and the fingers wiggled their way into hers. Even when he was standing still, Twinkles always had to be moving.

“I don’t see why not,” he said.

“Right.” Toph could feel a small smile flicker across her face. “There’s no reason they can’t, right?”

Notes:

‘Don't try to cover the whole sky with the palm of your hand’ is a Korean proverb cautioning against avoiding the obvious, because you will have to face it one day.

Chapter Text

Back when Zuko had been with the group, the Order of the White Lotus had been able to send them semi-regular gifts of money, boxes of tea, medicines, and on one memorable occasion, a set of dao swords. Sokka could admit that the swords were cool, and he’d developed a taste for jasmine tea – never ginseng, though, that shit was gross – but the money had been the most consistently useful gift by a considerable margin.

Master Iroh had only been able to give Sokka a cursory introduction to the White Lotus’ tricks of the trade before Ba Sing Se had fallen, so he wasn’t sure whether there was any quick way to find a White Lotus member in Fire Fountain City, and he couldn’t very well go around challenging every person on the street to a Pai Sho match, so they needed some other way to make money. In that case, Sokka thought it was a very good thing that they had Toph Beifong on their side. Using her earthbending to win Earth Rumbles was, in his opinion, a very respectable way to make use of her talents – but using her bending to scam a street con artists out of his cash, turning the tables on a sneaky dealer who was trying to cheat his way to a quick coin? Genius!

The Water Tribes would always be the smartest nation, owing to the simple fact that they had Sokka’s Dad – and even his little sister in her more inspired moments, Painted Lady shenanigans notwithstanding – but even Sokka had to admit that the Earth Kingdom seemed to be enjoying a surge of sneaky-smart women like Toph and Suki. The Earth Kingdom did also boast Bumi, and possibly Jet as well, maybe, which lost them quite a few points; but then again, the Water Tribes had Pakku and that utter prick Hahn, so it kind of evened out.

Still, rather than compete, the Water Tribes and the Earth Kingdom were united today in a common goal: to scam the scammers, to con the con artists, and to get as much copper, silver and maybe even gold as they could out of the Fire Nation schmucks. They even had the Avatar on their side as they were doing it, even if Aang still had to wear his headband to hide his identity. All that secrecy and balance and harmony and whatnot; even if Master Piandao might have preferred it if the guys they were conning out of their money weren’t Fire Nation, Sokka was pretty sure this was what the Order of the White Lotus was all about!

It was a bit of a shame that Katara wasn’t very impressed when they made their triumphant return, though. Never mind that Sokka had gone out of his way to try and find sea prunes for his little sister to make into a delicious, Water Tribe snack that they could enjoy together. Okay, so he hadn’t managed to find any, but he figured ocean kumquats were pretty much the same thing, right?

“Where did you guys get the money to buy all this stuff?” She asked bemusedly as Sokka and Toph dumped their shopping with the rest of their bags. Sokka gave Momo an I’m watching you gesture to tell the lemur he’d better not mess with Sokka’s stuff.

“Toph got us money!” Aang explained excitedly as he munched on an apple. “She scammed one of those guys in town who moves the shells around all sneaky-like!”

“She used earthbending to win the game,” Sokka added, chuckling to himself as he remembered the look on the man’s face. “Classic!”

“Ah,” Katara nodded as if all her questions had been answered. And for the purposes of that conversation, Sokka supposed they had been. “So, she cheated.”

“Hey!” Toph raised a finger in the air as she spoke through a mouthful of apple. “I only cheated because he was cheating! I cheated a cheater, what's wrong with that?”

“I'm just saying this isn't something we should make a habit of doing,” Katara answered testily.

Sokka winced at the sound of Katara’s voice. The tone, cadence, pitch – even the way she shifted her weight afterwards, as if she was about to put her hands on her hips but thought better of it – it was like something straight out of Gran-Gran’s guide to pseudo-parental discipline.

“Why?” Toph muttered surlily. “Because it's fun? And you hate fun?”

Katara gasped, which Sokka honestly didn’t see coming.

“I don't hate fun!” She protested, grabbing Momo and sticking him on her head like… honestly, Sokka wasn’t sure what that was supposed to resemble. Some sneaky, untrustworthy piece of headgear that went through Sokka’s bags and stole his stuff.

“See?” She asked, grinning like a manic chi-blocker on too much chi-enhancing cactus juice. “Fun!”

Momo apparently didn’t think this situation was fun, because he jumped off Katara’s head, screeched at her, and ran away. That might actually have been the one time Sokka agreed with Momo in his assessment of a situation. By this point, Aang had finished his apple and gotten to his feet.

“Katara,” he began, in an uncharacteristically solemn voice. “I'll personally make you an Avatar promise that we won't make a habit of doing these scams.”

He even tugged his headband down and pointed at his blue arrow tattoo, which Sokka figured might have been some monk way of demonstrating how seriously airbenders took their promises. But Aang had also promised on his airbender’s honor that their one ride on the mail chutes in Omashu wouldn’t lead to any harm, and the way Sokka remembered it, he’d ended up trapped in jennamite until Aang had made his way through three deadly challenges to rescue him and Katara, so maybe that told him all he needed to know about how seriously airbenders took their promises.

Then again, Aang had made a promise at Master Jeong Jeong’s camp on his airbender’s honor that he wouldn’t mess about with his firebending, and Sokka hadn’t heard any horror stories from Katara about Aang accidentally setting half the northern Earth Kingdom alight, or anything. So he couldn’t see any reason to worry.

 

 

Okay, so Aang had made a promise that he and the others wouldn’t make a habit of scamming people. But as long as they only did it a few more times before they stopped, that didn’t count as a habit, right? And that wasn’t even a lie – that was just a loophole! And by the time they’d finished tricking people in dice games, fooling people into paying them to keep ‘accidents’ from the authorities, and using Toph’s earthbending and metalbending to win a carnival game, Aang figured they’d made enough money that their little loophole had paid off pretty well.

But when they got back to their camp, it seemed like Katara still wasn’t entirely okay with them for the way they were making money. She had an argument with Toph about how she thought Toph was being a wild child and acting out because her parents weren’t around to tell her off. Aang thought that was kind of harsh, but then again, Katara probably didn’t mean it like that. And she didn’t seem too interested in having a massive argument about it either, because she said it didn’t really matter anyway. But it definitely seemed to matter to Katara.

“We have enough money,” she told Toph in an irritated tone of voice. “You need to stop this!”

“I'll stop when I want to stop, and not when you tell me!” Toph shouted back before she stormed away and bent herself a rock tent. All this tension between Katara and Toph reminded Aang of that time when Azula had been chasing after them. He didn’t want Katara to start shouting like she’d been shouting back then, he could tell you that for free.

“Speaking of money, I'm off to spend some,” Sokka announced, getting to his feet and hoisting his sword over his shoulder. “See you guys later!”

Whilst Sokka was off spending money, and Toph was sulking in her rock tent, Aang and Katara practiced their waterbending. Aang didn’t like the way Katara and Toph seemed to be mad at each other, but he hoped that they’d both calm down soon. But that was why he was waterbending with Katara; so he didn’t have to think about that stuff. When they practiced together, they usually streamed the water for a bit to start with before Katara gave Aang a list of bending moves to try, and then they’d go from there, but it sometimes got a bit annoying for Aang when Katara was more focused on him getting the moves right than having fun.

Not that Katara took all the fun out of stuff like Toph was saying she did! Aang wasn’t saying that at all! But when Toph and Sokka came back from town later having apparently done a bit more scamming work, Katara seemed to get pretty mad anyway. Aang wasn’t sure what her problem was, but she couldn’t be that mad, right?

“Well, look who decided to join us,” she grumbled. “Where have you two been? Off scamming again?”

“Yeah,” Toph replied, putting a bag down on the ground with a thud and a clinking sound that made Aang think they’d done a lot of scamming. “We were.”

Katara folded her arms and looked really unimpressed. “And I suppose you don't think what you're doing is dangerous at all?”

“No, I don't.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Toph answered, sounding a bit annoyed. “Really.”

Aang was beginning to get a bit of a bad feeling about this. When Azula had been chasing them, Katara had shouted a lot until Zuko had somehow managed to calm her down. But Aang wasn’t sure his LAMP trick would work here to distract Katara from being mad at Toph.

“Well, then, what's this?” Katara demanded, bringing out a piece of paper and brandishing it in front of Toph.

“I don't know!” Toph shouted. “I mean, seriously, what is with you people? I'm blind!

“It's a wanted poster of you!” Katara told her irately, waving the piece of paper back and forth. “‘The Runaway’! Is that what you're called now? Are you proud of this?”

Upon later reflection, maybe that was the point when Aang should have busted out his lychee nuts, acorns, marbles and pebbles and started spinning them in a circle anyway, because that was when Katara and Toph really started arguing with each other anyway. Toph was mad that Katara had gone through her stuff, and Katara was mad that Toph was being so out of control. It was like watching Sokka and Momo on their worst days, except two master benders could probably have a bigger fight and make more of a mess than Sokka and a flying lemur. Not by much, true, but still.

Aang was pretty relieved when Toph made a move to walk away from the argument, but Katara didn’t seem so happy about it. “Don't you walk away from me while I'm talking to you!”

Toph snorted. “Oh really, Mom? Or what are you gonna do? Send me to my room?”

“I wish I could!”

“Well you can't, because you're not my mom!” Toph shouted, pointing an aggressive finger at Katara. “And you're not their mom!”

Okay, Aang definitely didn’t ask for Toph to point at him and Sokka like they were part of this!

“I never said I was!” Katara said defensively.

“No, but you certainly act like it!” Toph yelled as she stormed off. “You think it's your job to boss everyone around, but it's not! At least when Sparky was around, you weren’t so bad, but now you’re just an annoying pain in the butt, you butthead!

“I don't act that way!” Katara shouted back after Toph’s retreating back, before turning back to Aang and Sokka, who had been trying really hard to not do anything that would get them involved. “Sokka, do I act motherly?”

Sokka looked like Momo had looked when he’d caught the lemur going through his bags. “Hey. I'm staying out of this one.”

Katara turned to Aang next. “What do you think, Aang? Do I act like a mom?”

Oh, man. Not only was Aang now involved, now he had to deal with an angry Katara. And he wasn’t even sure what she was mad about!

“Well,” he stammered, “I, uh –”

“Stop rubbing your eye, and speak clearly when you talk!”

Aang and Sokka both jolted to sit with super straight backs and heels held together with their hands in their laps. “Yes, ma'am.”

When Katara was in a mood, Aang reflected to himself, there was only one way to deal with it. You just had to keep quiet and wait it out until she stopped being mad.

 

 

Katara couldn’t believe what Toph had been saying. Acting like she was some kind of a sourpuss, accusing her of sucking all the fun out of everything, saying she was a – what was that phrase she’d used? An annoying pain in the butt?

Toph was the pain in the butt, not her!

It had always frustrated Katara that the earthbender had seemed to respond better to Zuko than to her, but Toph needed to understand that Katara was just trying to keep them safe! There were all kinds of dangers out there, and the more time Toph, Sokka and Aang spent out there in Fire Fountain City with their scams, the more chance they stood of something bad happening to them.

Katara wasn’t going to stand for anything else happening to the people she cared about!

She had to duck her head under the water and let her frustrations out in one long scream. The bubbles rushed past her face and tickled her eyelashes, and she kept it up until her lungs burned for air.

As she broke the surface of the pool of water in the cave, Katara let her mind run back over the events of the day. Whilst the others had been pulling scams in the city, she had been doing the laundry; she’d gotten pretty good by now at bending the water straight out of the clothes after she’d washed them, leaving them nice and dry. Still, there’d been a pretty persistent stain on Sokka’s tunic, and a few fraying stitches on the hem of Toph’s sleeve, so she’d had to do a bit of work on those.

She’d probably just been frustrated at that and taken it out on the others, she told herself. They didn’t need her being fussy or boring – even though her Momo joke hadn’t worked quite as well as she’d hoped it would, and, okay, she wasn’t the most hilarious member of the group, she still wasn’t the boring one. That was Zuko – well, Zuko wasn’t here right now, but Katara still wasn’t the boring one, because that was…

That was…

Momo?

Argh!!

Katara huffed to herself, and she’d been about to let out one of her very rare cuss words that she saved for especially aggravating situations when she heard voices from the overhanging cliff edge above her.

“So, lemme guess – you brought me out here to tell me that your sister's not as annoying as I make her out to be.”

Toph?

“Nah, she's pretty much a pain.”

And Sokka, Katara realized. And they were talking about her, and how lame she was.

Great.

“She's always got to be right about everything,” Sokka went on, and Katara could practically hear him rolling his eyes, “And she gets all bossy, and involved, and in your business…”

Katara was going to water whip her absolute jerk of a brother so hard –

“Yeah, I don't know how you could deal with it.”

And just wait until she was through with Toph, because she was going to give that young missy a piece of her mind – oh no.

Toph had been right, Katara realized with a thrill of dread. She was acting motherly!

Katara didn’t want to be the boring one!

“Actually,” Sokka said, “In a way, I rely on it.”

“I don't understand,” Toph said, which Katara could agree with. Why would her brother rely on her being annoying, and a pain, and bossy?

Not that she was any of those things, but still.

“When our mom died, that was the hardest time in my life,” Sokka said so quietly that Katara had to strain her ears to hear it. “Our family was a mess, but Katara… she had so much strength. She stepped up and took on so much responsibility. She helped fill the void that was left by our mom.”

“I guess I never thought about that,” Toph mumbled.

Sokka made a choked-off sound that Katara thought might have been… some kind of laugh?

“I'm gonna tell you something crazy. I never told anyone this before, but honestly? I'm not sure I can remember what my mother looked like.”

Mom had had dark hair, Katara remembered. She’d had blue eyes that had always been bright with laughter, and whenever she’d taken her thick parka off in their igloo, she’d always been slimmer than she first appeared. She’d had a chipped tooth that had stuck out whenever she’d smiled, and she’d always smiled a lot.

“It really seems like my whole life, Katara's been the one looking out for me,” Sokka continued. “She's always been the one that's there. And now, when I try to remember my mom, Katara's is the only face I can picture.”

Toph made some sort of noncommittal noise. “The truth is sometimes Katara does act motherly, but that's not always a bad thing. She's compassionate and kind, and she actually cares about me.”

What? Of course Katara cared! How could she not, when Toph was so fierce and strong, but had so much love under all that bravado? The way she was there for Aang, and how she’d drank tea with Uncle Iroh, and how she had always teased Zuko and Sokka… how could she possibly think Katara didn’t care?

“You know, the real me. That's more than my own mom.”

Stunned, Katara sank a little deeper into the water. Oh, Toph… Had she thought…?

Katara had said Toph was acting the way she was because she wanted to act like her parents didn’t exist, and that she wanted to hate her own parents. She’d accused her of missing her parents and not wanting to deal with that.

She’d known Toph’s relationship with her parents had been pretty complicated, but she hadn’t thought it would be like that… and she had said all those awful things…

Thud.

“Ow!” Sokka yelped.

“Don't ever tell her I said any of this!” Toph threatened, in a voice that promised dire and fearful retribution if Sokka didn’t keep his mouth shut.

“Hey,” Katara’s big brother said weakly, “My lips are sealed.”

As Sokka and Toph got up from their spot on the edge of the cliff, and their voices faded away as they talked about the look on that scam artist’s face when Toph had earthbent the stone back under one of the cups they’d been using, Katara had a lot to think about. She knew she should have maybe felt a bit guilty about eavesdropping, but after what she’d heard, she thought she might have a good idea about how she could make it up to Toph for what she’d said earlier about her parents.

And after what Toph had been saying about how Katara wasn’t the fun one, she thought she had a great idea to prove that she definitely wasn’t as boring and uncool as Toph was making her out to be.

Chapter 19

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

When Toph sensed Sugar Queen coming towards her as she and Snoozles walked back into the campsite, she’d been about ready to apologize. She didn’t do that for just anyone, but after what she and Sucker had been saying, about how Splish-Splash was always there for them, she figured she owed the waterbender one. So long as Snoozles was there to subtly clear his throat or something if she said the wrong thing, she figured things would be fine.

But when Snoozles just kept walking, like an especially moronic traitor, that got Toph feeling… not nervous, because Toph Beifong didn’t get nervous, alright? But she might maybe have felt, like, a little bit less confident than she always did. If she said the wrong thing, and Sugar Queen started yelling again, Toph wasn’t down for that.

But even though Sugar Queen’s heartbeat sounded kind of pacey, her feet kept shifting on the ground. And when she opened her mouth, she didn’t sound like she wanted to fight.

“Hi, Toph. Um – I just wanted to, um…”

Oh, dirtballs. Toph knew what this was. This was like that time Sugar Queen had apologized after they’d fallen out when Princess Blue was after them.

Back then, Toph had managed to deal with her emotional awkwardness by talking about the constellations she knew. This time around, she figured she might as well face it head on.

She put her hands up before Sugar Queen could continue rambling on. Nobody needed any of that crap.

“Katara, stop,” she said. Ordered, politely requested, whatever. “You don't need to apologize. I was the one being stupid. These scams are out of control, and I'm done with them.”

There. That was all nice, neat, and tied up with a pretty little bow on top, or whatever the phrase was. Gramps would probably know – he was all about his stupid proverbs.

The fact that Gramps would probably have disapproved of Toph’s scams as well had nothing to do with her deciding she was done with things, either.

“Actually, I wasn't going to apologize.”

Toph blinked. Had she misheard that?

Had she done all that humble crap for nothing? She’d been prepared to apologize, but she’d kind of been counting on Sugar Queen feeling sorry as well!

“I was gonna say… I want to pull a scam with you.”

Toph had definitely misheard that.

“What?” She asked, trying hard not to add the fuck? onto the end. “You want to pull a scam?”

“Not just any scam,” Splish-Splash replied. “The ultimate scam.”

Her heartbeat told Toph she wasn’t lying, and judging from the way Twinkles and Snoozles went crashing into the ground behind her, Toph figured she wasn’t the only one freaking out right now.

Was this some kind of opposites day or something? Had Sugar Queen gone snooping through Snoozles’ stuff as well, and found some cactus juice?

“What do you say, Toph?” Katara asked, putting her arm around Toph’s shoulders. “Just me and you. One last go. You in?”

Toph considered it. Whenever she’d thought about what her retirement as the Blind Bandit would be like, she’d imagined herself standing in the middle of the Gaoling Earth Rumble, maybe after a 30-0 streak, having defeated The Boulder for Earth Rumble XV in front of all her adoring fans. Or maybe it would be after taking a semi-hiatus and getting wrongfully stripped of her titles, before coming back for Earth Rumble XX and proving all the doubters wrong by winning the belt back in a no-holds-barred beatdown. But however it would turn out, she had always known it would be a spectacle worth showing up for.

So she didn’t even have to think twice about this team-up.

“You know I'm in!” She punched her fist into her palm. “Now what's this idea of yours?”

“The plan is simple,” Sugar Queen explained. “This wanted poster says you're worth a lot of money; ten times more than you've made in all of your scams! So I'm gonna turn you in and collect the reward – then you metalbend yourself out of jail, and we're on our way!”

That plan sounded pretty good to Toph. She wasn’t quite sure how they were supposed to sell Sugar Queen as a heel, but she figured they could do something about it. At least they weren’t trying to convince everyone that the Fancy Dancer was a baddie; he was the biggest babyface out there. If Sparky was with them, he’d make the perfect heel, not least because any beef Sugar Queen had with him was legit, but Toph had to work with what she had. In any case, when she went running through Fire Fountain City at two in the afternoon, she only had to let her leg muscles burn for a few minutes before Sugar Queen’s tip-off got the police after her, and she ended up getting caught up in some poxy net.

A net. Honestly. At least The Gecko had used a steel chair that one time at Earth Rumble IV.

“How could you do this to me?” She wailed. Sugar Queen had better respect the angle she was selling here, because the Blind Bandit did not do carpentry. “You betrayed me!”

“You brought this on yourself,” she heard Splish-Splash retort. “I had no choice!”

Ooh, very dramatic. Nice little theatrical edge, too. Maybe Sugar Queen was a bit too gimmicky to work, but Toph figured if there were any Water Rumbles set up, Katara could do a bit of work there.

Toph hadn’t been too worried about the way things were going to go; getting caught would be a bit of a pain, but she’d never had to do a job before and there was a first time for everything. She managed to jar her shoulder as the two dunderhead guards tossed her from the net into a cell, but she consoled herself by remembering that the Blind Bandit paid back what she got, and she even handed out receipts, too.

But although Toph could feel a bit of pain in her shoulder, that was all she could feel. She couldn’t feel any metal bars around her, or any stone – what was going on?

“Hey!” She shouted, scrambling up to her feet. “What kind of cell is this?”

“A wooden one,” the guard replied. Toph could hear her walking away, but she couldn’t feel it.

Oh, slush. Agni damn it. Even monkeyfeathers would do at this point.

Nice and easy, Toph had thought. Nothing like a highspot. Nice and easy – except for one thing. She hadn’t considered the possibility of botching it.

Toph. Fucking. Hated. Wood.

 

 

Everything had been going according to plan. Katara had told the authorities that the wanted runaway was in town and that she knew when she would be around. Then, she’d just waited for Toph to get caught, and okay, she might have been working on her dramatic smack talk a little, but she thought everything had gone pretty well.

But then she’d turned up to the town hall to collect her reward, only to find that someone had been looking for them. It was that metal man that had attacked them at the hot springs – the man the pirates had sent after Katara after she’d stolen that waterbending scroll. That stupid scroll had brought them nothing but trouble, and now, Katara found herself sitting in a wooden cell with Toph, unable to break out.

She’d said that her plans could change, and that was okay, but this was very much not okay!

Sokka was going to be unbearable when he heard about this, Katara thought mulishly to herself as she sat in their wooden cell.

“Wait!” Toph suddenly sat bolt upright. “It's a trap!”

“Really?” Katara muttered. “No kidding!”

She’d been feeling pretty good about her acting skills when she’d been handing Toph over to the authorities, but she couldn’t really feel too enthusiastic about pretending to be surprised at the minute.

“Is that why we're sitting in a wooden cage right now?” She continued, falling back on good old sarcasm. “Gee, how'd you figure out it was a trap?”

“Not for us, Katara!” Toph snapped. “We're the bait! He wants Aang!”

Katara’s eyes widened. Oh, slush.

“The pirates must have sent him after Aang and Sokka, too,” she whispered in horror. “I can't believe I'm so stupid! See, this is exactly why I'm against these scams! I knew this would happen!”

“But this was your idea,” Toph pointed out. Katara hadn’t forgotten that, but she had… maybe been hoping that Toph would have done?

“I know,” she admitted miserably. “I wanted to show that I'm not so motherly.”

She didn’t want to have to admit that she was the one Toph would always find the most boring. Aang was so full of life and joy, and Sokka had such a great sense of humor; even when Zuko had been with them, Katara felt like he and Toph had been so much closer than Katara was with the younger girl.

“I wanted to show you that I can have fun too,” she confessed sadly.

Toph let out a sigh that was so quiet, Katara was pretty sure she could have denied it ever happened. That meant that it was probably a deliberately quiet sigh on Toph’s part, then.

“Katara, you are fun.”

Oh, spirits. Katara was pretty sure there was no way Toph could deny having said that out loud. Things must really have been bad if –

“If nothing else, you're at least fun to argue with.”

That was probably more like it, Katara acknowledged ruefully. “I know your relationship with your parents is complicated. And I shouldn't have said what I said.”

“It's okay. I was really mad when you said that because… well, because, maybe it's true.”

Katara heard Toph sniffle, and she wondered whether the younger girl was crying.

“I try not to think about it, but…”

Oh, Toph.

“When I left, I probably really hurt them…”

Katara couldn’t help the way her arms reached out to pull Toph into a tight hug. Toph’s little hands bunched into the back of her tunic, and maybe Toph was crying, but Katara would never point that out, and not just because Toph would probably punch her if she did.

She wanted to tell the younger girl that everything was going to be okay, but she was pretty sure that if she tried to tell Toph that it would all be alright, or that her parents wouldn’t be mad at her, or anything else like that, Toph wouldn’t appreciate it. She didn’t like it when Katara tried to put things in a positive light just because.

Toph liked it when people were honest with her, which… was probably why she’d liked Zuko. He might not have been honest with Katara, but he’d always been honest with Toph.

“’m sorry I said that stuff about how Sparky was cooler than you.”

As if on cue.

But Katara could almost smile about it, now that she knew she and Toph were okay. “He probably was.”

“But it would actually be kind of cool if he showed up right now,” Toph’s muffled voice came from where she was tucked in against Katara’s tunic. “It sounds like he usually did whenever one of you guys ended up in this sort of situation.”

Katara had to admit, the number of times Zuko had been there to save the day had been pretty high even before she’d found out that he was the Blue Spirit. But she wasn’t weak and helpless – she wasn’t going to be sitting around waiting for the impossibly small chance that Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation was just ambling through Fire Fountain City on his way to the police station. She was determined to break out without needing to rely on Zuko again, but how was she supposed to do that?

“What are we gonna do?” She wondered out loud.

“I don't know,” Toph grunted as she tried ramming the heel of her hand into the wood again. “I wish we had some earth or water. We need bendables.”

“What about your meteor bracelet?” Katara asked in a burst of inspiration. “You can make a saw!”

“I left it back at camp,” Toph admitted, sitting back down with a dull thud. “I was worried they would take it.”

Katara had to bite back a particularly rude cuss word. Spirits, this was bad. And as if things weren’t bad enough, it was so hot in this cell. She had to wipe the sweat away from her forehead with the back of her hand.

Wait a minute…

Yes!

Katara resisted the urge to laugh giddily, but they didn’t have a moment to waste. She leapt to her feet to start running in place.

“Um, Katara?” Toph asked dubiously. “Are you okay?”

“Just fine!” She panted, concentrating on pumping her legs up and down on the spot.

“Well, what are you doing?

Katara felt a surge of triumph as she felt her plan working. “I'm making my own water!”

Uncle Iroh had once said that firebending was the only bending art that the bender had to produce themselves, because it wasn’t a naturally occurring element like water, earth, or air. Katara wasn’t quite sure this proved Uncle wrong, but as she used her bending to scratch away at the wooden cell with her sweat, she wondered whether an eventuality like this had ever occurred to him.

“Katara, you're a genius!” Toph exclaimed, and Katara was pleased to note that she sounded pretty impressed.

“A sweaty, stinky genius!” She continued, and hmm, well, they could discuss that further once Katara got them out of here.

She bent the sweat from her armpits this time, and redoubled her efforts to get them out of there. Toph wasn’t the only bender who could find new ways to bend their element!

 

 

Combustion Man, Sokka thought happily to himself. He had to admit, it sounded pretty good.

Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man had been a bit too wordy, and whilst it had undeniably painted a fairly accurate picture of the guy – much more accurate than the landscape painting Sokka had done for Master Piandao, that was for sure – it had lacked a certain something. Combustion Man? That sounded pretty good, if Sokka said so himself.

Once Katara and Toph had joined him and Aang in the town square, they’d been able to get away from Combustion Man pretty quickly. Toph had been able to stun him with a pebble to the head, and that had done something weird to his ability to blow stuff up with his mind and shoot fire from his brain. With Combustion Man unable to combust stuff, they’d been able to run off and get back to Appa pretty quickly before he’d been able to shake off whatever headache Toph had given him.

Sokka knew that the best way to come up with a fool-proof Water Tribe plan was to know what you were planning for. Now that he knew that Combustion Man was susceptible to head injuries, that could come in handy when they ran into him again.

Katara had gotten a bit antsy when he’d said that, and Aang had said that if might have been a better word to use, but, come on. Sokka was a realist. First Zhao, then Azula, and now Combustion Man – it wasn’t a case of if the bad guys would catch up to them; it was a question of when.

“We should probably let Master Piandao know that the assassin those pirates sent after us is being persistent,” he told the others as they gathered round their campfire for supper. “Once was bad enough, but we only just got away this time. I don’t want to find out what’ll happen if he catches us a third time.”

“You’re right, Sokka,” Katara nodded. “We’ll write him a letter as soon as your hawk gets back.”

Sokka had been kind of worried that his little sister would be opposed to keeping the Order of the White Lotus updated on what was going on; she wouldn’t hear a bad word against Master Iroh, of course, and neither would Toph or Aang, but she was still wary of the secret organization. That was probably fair – after all the messes they’d gotten into over secrets in the past, she probably had a point.

“That’s cool,” he shrugged casually. “So when do you think that’ll – wait, what?

Why in all La’s salty, watery depths was Hawky gone?

“Oh, yeah, we sent your birdy off with a message earlier,” Toph spoke up casually. “They’ll probably be back in a week or so. Just so you know.”

Sokka hadn’t agreed to this! This was just like that time he’d bought that delicious fruit pie from a street vendor in Ba Sing Se and put it in the staff room at Pao’s teashop, only for Momo to steal it before he’d come off the end of his shift! And he’d known it was Momo, the sneaky little lemur, because it hadn’t been Zuko, and the only other guy in all day had been Pao’s kid.

Come to think of it, Sokka remembered that Pao’s kid had been an absolute catastrophe of an employee who’d only avoided being fired because the only thing more rampant in the Lower Ring than corruption was shameless nepotism. Like, it would be kind of hypocritical for Sokka to complain about how Master Iroh had gotten him and Zuko jobs just because, but it was becoming a bit of a concerning theme.

He mentally struck that one crime from Momo’s long list. For all that Momo kept stealing his lychee nuts, and even his sticky bun that one time, at least the winged lemur had never stolen his fruit pie. But Momo had never stolen his messenger hawk, either, which was why Sokka was having this conversation with himself in the first place.

“Seriously, guys?” He whined. “What if I hadn’t been able to send off my final submarine designs to the Mechanist? Or I hadn’t come up with my awesome idea of making armor for Appa?”

“Then Appa wouldn’t get a dope costume for the invasion,” Toph replied, apparently unconcerned about this.

“I think armor’s a little more than just a costume,” Katara pointed out, but she had a smile on her face as she said it. Sokka was glad that those two were getting on again; when things went sour between them, everyone suffered for it.

“But Appa would still look really awesome in the armor, right, Sokka?” Aang checked, looking at Sokka for reassurance. “Even if it’s not just a costume, it’s still a super cool look, right?”

By this point, Sokka wasn’t actually sure that Appa’s costume was even going to exist, because Katara and Toph had sent his messenger hawk off on an unauthorized personal mission that could potentially cripple Sokka’s intelligence reports and delay the updates he was expecting on the Mechanist’s submarines.

Not that he was bitter about it, or anything.

But after Toph’s escapades in the city had gotten them a fair bit of cash, he was planning on buying some leather and metals in the next town they visited. He’d also need some wooden barrels, and a way of attaching the barrels to the armor so that a waterbender could bend as they flew on him – maybe he could add a compartment or two to hold rocks in case an earthbender was there for the invasion, too?

“I think it’ll look pretty cool,” he reassured Aang. “A little bit of gold and a whole lot of crimson – Appa’s gonna look like one cool sky bison.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Toph muttered. “But I’m pretty sure Fuzzy is going to look just as cool to me then as he does now.”

“How come you’re putting him in red and gold?” Aang asked. “Aren’t those Fire Nation colors?”

“That’s the genius part!” Sokka grinned, pleased to have a chance to explain himself. “They’ll see him in red and gold, and they’ll think he’s on their side – and then, bam! They won’t realize he’s on our side until it’s too late!”

“It’s something Uncle Iroh would approve of,” Katara agreed, “All warfare is based on deception.”

Aang frowned. “Didn’t Zuko said that when we were trying to get you arrested for earthbending?”

“No,” Sokka disagreed, “I’m pretty sure he said it when we were dealing with that Captain Yung guy and the Omashu resistance.”

Toph sighed loudly, but Sokka wasn’t quite sure why. Katara had a funny look on her face.

“Azula told me in Ba Sing Se that it was something Uncle Iroh once said,” she explained. “That’s how I remember it.”

Master Iroh hadn’t shared that piece of wisdom with Sokka, but he wasn’t one to pass up wisdom when it came his way. If it took deception to defeat the Fire Nation, that was what they would do. And with Appa’s cool armor, they’d look pretty cool when they were doing it, too.

Notes:

Toph uses a lot of professional wrestling slang here; a ‘heel’ is the villain that the audience is supposed to root against; a ‘babyface’ is a heroic wrestler that the audience is supposed to cheer for; and a ‘carpenter’ is a wrestler who tries make their opponents look as good and strong as possible. Losing a scripted match is called ‘jobbing’, a ‘receipt’ is when a wrestler pays someone back for a strike, and a ‘highspot’ is a risky or dangerous move.

Chapter 20

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Monk Pasang probably wouldn’t have believed it if he’d heard it, but after escaping from Combustion Man, Aang had been looking forward to a nice, quiet evening. He didn’t want any crazy benders with brand-new bending powers he’d never heard of before; he just wanted a peaceful night camped out in the woods, with no craziness whatsoever. When Katara and Sokka had started reminiscing about how they’d sit round a fire in their igloo at the South Pole and tell stories, that had sounded like Aang’s idea of a perfect, relaxing end to his day.

Aang always loved hearing stories. When they’d met those pirates in that Earth Kingdom village, Zuko had told Aang about the time his uncle Iroh had gotten arrested and Lieutenant Jee had needed to bail him out of a jail because Zuko had needed to stay on his ship, and when they’d been able to spend some time together in Ba Sing Se, sifu Iroh had given Aang a bit more of the story. Aang was still pretty sure Iroh wasn’t telling him everything – why had that June lady and her shirshu even been involved in the first place? – but it had definitely been a better story than the one Sokka was telling right now.

“It came into the torchlight,” Sokka whispered, “And they knew… the blade of Wing Fung was haunted!

He jumped to his feet and pointed his sword towards their campfire with a super-dramatic screech that actually sounded kind of painful. Aang looked at Katara and Toph from where he was lying down on his stomach. Katara looked pretty bored, and Toph didn’t seem too scared by Sokka’s story.

“I think I liked ‘the man with a sword for a hand’ better,” he decided.

“Water Tribe slumber parties must stink,” Toph declared in a bored voice. Aang wondered whether he should tell her the story of when sifu Iroh got himself arrested.

“No, wait, I’ve got one,” Katara suddenly got a bit more animated and leaned forward. “And this is a true Southern Water Tribe story!”

Aang figured that even if Katara’s story wasn’t all that great, it would still be better than Sokka’s story, but Sokka seemed a bit skeptical as he sat back down. “Is this one of those ‘a friend of my cousin knew some guy that this happened to’ stories?”

“No,” Katara replied. “It happened to Mom.”

That got Aang’s attention – Katara didn’t really talk about her mom much, so this would maybe be a nice thing for her, to share something about her mom. And if there was a cool story to go with it, that was even better!

“One winter,” Katara began ominously, “When Mom was a girl, a snowstorm buried the whole village for weeks. A month later, Mom noticed she hadn't seen her friend Nini since the storm.”

Aang gulped. This story was already off to a bad start for him. It wasn’t anything to do with Katara, it was just…

Aang just didn’t like stories where people vanished in the middle of storms, okay?

“So Mom and some others went to check on Nini's family,” Katara continued. “When they got there, no one was home. Just a fire flickering in the fireplace. While the men went out to search, Mom stayed in the house. When she was alone, she heard a voice.”

This story was getting a little bit too creepy for Aang’s liking. He’d heard a voice in his head before at the Spirit Oasis, and then the Ocean Spirit had helped Aang destroy the Fire Nation navy at the North Pole. Even if this story didn’t give Aang nightmares, the flickering flashes of disjointed memories he had of that night definitely would.

“‘It's so cold’,” Katara warbled in a childlike voice, “‘And I can't get warm!’ Mom turned and saw Nini standing by the fire. She was blue, like she was frozen. Mom ran outside for help, but when everyone came back, Nini was gone!”

Aang was so scared, he had to use Momo’s ears to cover his face. Momo let him know that he wasn’t very impressed, but Aang didn’t care – this was a super scary moment, so Momo could suck it!

“Where'd she go?” Sokka asked fearfully. At least, that’s what Aang thought he was asking through his chattering teeth.

“No one knows,” Katara answered simply. “Nini's house stands empty to this day, but sometimes, people see smoke coming up from the chimney… like little Nini is still trying to get warm.”

Aang shivered like he was trying to get warm, but the fire was really hot. Katara was scary good at scary stories – Aang had been looking forward to a nice, peaceful evening, and now he was probably going to be having nightmares all night!

“Wait!” Toph gasped, putting her hands on the ground. “Guys, did you hear that? I hear people under the mountain. And they're screaming!”

Oh, man – just when Aang had thought that Katara’s story was the creepiest thing he was going to have to deal with tonight, Toph outdid her by saying that she could hear screaming underground people. And then some old lady showed up and scared the acorns out of Aang!

But then, just when Aang had been about ready to give up entirely on his hopes of a nice, peaceful evening, the old lady had introduced herself as Hama and invited the four of them plus Momo back to her inn. Aang had to tell Appa that she probably didn’t have any sky bison-sized beds, and although Appa hadn’t been too happy about it, he’d been pretty understanding.

When they got to Hama’s inn at the top of a small hill, it was actually a really cozy little place, so Aang was really glad they’d left Appa behind. If he’d tried to squeeze into the inn as well, it might not have gone so well.

“Thanks for letting us stay here tonight,” Katara told Hama as the old lady poured them all some spiced tea. “You have a lovely inn.”

“Aren't you sweet?” Hama smiled as she set her teapot down. “You know, you should be careful. People have been disappearing in those woods you were camping in.”

“What do you mean ‘disappearing’?” Sokka asked curiously.

“When the moon turns full, people walk in and they don't come out,” Hama replied simply, before holding up her teapot with a smile. “Who wants more tea?”

Aang was… so not in the mood for tea after hearing something like that. It seemed like the others were just as enthusiastic as he was, because none of the others wanted some tea. Not even Sokka, who seemed to have really picked up a taste for different teas after all the time he’d spent working in the teashop in Ba Sing Se.

If Sokka didn’t want to fill his stomach, Aang thought, things must be super creepy.

Hama must have noticed that they all seemed really freaked out, because she gave them all a comforting smile.

“Don't worry,” she reassured them. “You'll all be completely safe here. Why don't I show you to your rooms, and you can get a good night's rest?”

Aang was a little happier to hear that. A good night’s rest had been all he’d been after from the start!

 

 

Zuko didn’t recognize some of the turtleducks in his mother’s pond.

Three years later, Quackers and Shelly were still around – if a bit grey around the beaks these days – but there were also some new faces. Zuko had tentatively named a few of them – he’d called the friendly one Chamomile, and the grumpy one Assam, and there was one he’d tried to name Ginseng that had bitten him earlier this morning when he’d tried to coax it towards him with a piece of bread.

He’d probably deserved it, in fairness.

“What’cha reading, Zuko?”

Zuko looked up to his right, where Ty Lee flopped down to lie on the ground next to him. Her head was tilted towards him inquisitively, and her tightly-braided hair swung slightly behind her.

Love Amongst the Dragons,” he replied, setting the scroll down beside him. He hadn’t really been reading it, but he figured it was easier to talk about than why he was struggling to drink shōgayu tea with his morning meditations.

“Oh, my Mom loves that play!” Ty Lee gushed, propping her chin up in her hands as she kicked her feet in the air. “What’s your favorite scene?”

Zuko glanced down at the scroll. “Act Two, Scene Five.”

But now, as I perceive the raging stream;

The roar of all the mighty current’s power –

The herring-salmon still battles against

Onrushing waters, to struggle and fight

In bold resistance of all others’ wills.

So too shall I take heart; no one but me

Shall ever dictate my own destiny.

“I don’t know that one,” Ty Lee confessed easily, letting her shoulders bob up and down in a shrug. “I always thought the Dragon Empress’ speech in the last scene was super romantic, though.”

Zuko nodded slowly. His mother had loved that scene, too.

“It’s the scene where Noren is about to give up after the Dark Water Spirit has cursed him to live in mortal human form,” he explained instead. “But then he sees the herring-salmon swimming against the current, and he becomes determined to defeat the Dark Water Spirit.”

Ty Lee hummed thoughtfully. “If you were going to be any animal, what animal would you want to be?”

Zuko frowned. “What?”

“Oh, don’t worry, you’d still be you,” she assured him with a laugh. “Like, you’d still be Zuko in the animal’s body.”

Aang had sometimes played these games with Zuko, but he’d never been very good at them. Aang had thought it had something about how fun was apparently an alien concept to Zuko, but maybe it was just because he’d had more important things to focus on.

But now, he had nothing much to focus on. “Uh, I’d probably be, um… a lemming-vole.”

Ty Lee tilted her head sideways and gave him an appraising stare. “Why’d you pick a lemming-vole? Aren’t they the ones who always jump off cliffs?”

“They are,” Zuko agreed. Uncle had always said he never thought things through.

But then there was what Uncle had said when Zuko had visited him in prison…

“What animal would you be?” He asked, trying to distract himself. “If you could still be Ty Lee in its body?”

“Oh, I’d be a bear,” Ty Lee answered, with a seriousness Zuko was unaccustomed to seeing in her. It seemed like she’d spent a lot of time considering her answer.

“Do you mean, like… a platypus-bear?” He ventured uncertainly, remembering one particular instance near Makapu.

“Oh, no,” she shook her head with a giggle, shifting up into a handstand, twisting her legs and crossing her ankles. “No, I mean a bear bear – like the Earth King’s bear, Bosco! I’d get to eat all the fruit I wanted, I’d get tons of pets, and I’d get to walk around on all fours all day and no one would judge me for it!”

“You know the Earth King’s bear?” Zuko repeated curiously.

“Oh, yeah!” Ty Lee nodded enthusiastically. “See, we snuck into Ba Sing Se by pretending to be the Kyoshi Warriors, so we were talking to him and the Earth King about how the Kyoshi Warriors might help with the invasion they were planning for the Day of Black Sun!”

Zuko tried to keep his voice level and not lean forward in agitation, but he could feel a prickling tension in his shoulders. “The Earth King told you that he was planning to invade the Fire Nation on the Day of Black Sun?”

“Uh-huh! We were just leaving the meeting when you and I ran into each other,” she explained, giving him a big smile. “Literally!”

He tried not to blush at the memory. “Yeah, I, uh – sorry, again, for almost running into you. And for, um –” he waved his hand feebly – “Yeah.”

Ty Lee seemed to pick up on his embarrassment, because she smiled sympathetically. “And for falling all over me when I chi-blocked you?”

“Yep.” Zuko winced. “That’s the one.”

“That’s okay, Zuko,” Ty Lee reassured him sincerely. “I know Mai was kind of weird about it afterwards, but I don’t think she’s mad at you.”

Zuko doubted that very much. “You sure about that?”

“Well, apart from how you liked that waterbender girl the whole time,” she conceded a little apologetically. “I think she’s still a little mad at you for that.”

Zuko didn’t doubt that at all. Since they’d gotten back from Azula’s birthday trip to Ember Island, Mai hadn’t mentioned their argument on the beach once. It was like she was determined to…

To cover the whole sky with only the palm of her hand.

“That’s good to know,” Zuko mumbled, gathering up his scrolls and throwing the last of his bread roll to the turtleducks. Chamomile quacked happily, but Ginseng turned around and paddled back to the reeds, completely disregarding his offering.

He had to talk to Uncle. If the Fire Nation knew Aang was coming, and Aang and the others didn’t know they were heading straight into a trap…

“Listen, Ty Lee – I’ve actually got to go.”

“Oh, no problem!”

With a neat twist and a flip, Ty Lee was standing in front of him the right way up. The only thing to indicate that she had just turned a perfect half-somersault was that her braid was slightly swaying.

“But I really don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about, Zuko,” she assured him. “Mai promised me she wasn’t mad at me for making you fall all over me like all the other boys always do, and I really don’t think she’ll be mad at you for too long, either!”

“Thanks, Ty Lee,” Zuko replied distractedly. “That’s a real weight off my mind.”

As he sprinted back to his room, uncaring who saw the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation moving in such a hurried and indecorous fashion, Zuko thought that at least he had something to focus on now.

 

 

“People disappearing in the woods,” Snoozles was muttering to himself, “Weird stuff happening during full moons? This just reeks of Spirit World shenanigans!”

Toph was pretty sure the only thing reeking round here was Snoozles’ socks. “Remember that time you just jumped to the conclusion that the spirits were doing crazy shit, and it turned out that it was just your goody-two-shoes little sister?”

“I bet if we take a little walk around town, we'll find out what these people did to the environment to make the spirits mad,” Twinkles said optimistically, completely disregarding what Toph had just said.

Sucker made an approving noise. “And then you can sew up this little mystery lickety-split, Avatar style!”

Toph tried not to sigh too loudly. The Blind Bandit could beat up a whole bunch of bozos at once, but there seemed like there were some things that were impossible even for her. Like talking sense into these two morons.

“Helping people,” the Fancy Dancer agreed happily, oblivious as ever to her clear distress. “That's what I do!”

Toph wasn’t sure a dance party in a cave counted as helping people, but she figured Twinkles had done a pretty decent job with that Fire Nation drill in Ba Sing Se. Even if it hadn’t exactly ended well, it had been good whilst it had lasted. And they were helping that Hama lady with her shopping, so that probably counted anyway.

When they met the old lady and Sugar Queen back in the marketplace, Hama apparently had a couple more errands to run. Toph would have been more than happy just to chill out and relax for the time being, but Snoozles had other ideas. Toph thought that the fact Snoozles had any ideas was a small miracle in and of itself, but that was besides the point.

“Do you know if there’s anyone in town who plays Pai Sho?” He asked Hama, whom Toph could sense shaking her head.

“There aren’t too many people around for an old woman like me to play with,” she lamented. “And those I do play with don’t stay around for too long.”

“This is a mysterious little town you have here,” Sucker said in an accusing tone.

The old lady let out a low chuckle. “Mysterious town for mysterious children.”

Like that wasn’t weird, Toph thought to herself. Snoozles seemed to have the same idea as the old lady went off to be kooky somewhere else.

“That Hama seems a little strange,” he said once they’d gotten back to the inn. “Like she knows something. Or she's hiding something.”

“That's ridiculous,” Splish-Splash disagreed. Toph could hear her unpacking her bags of shopping as she chattered away. “She's a nice woman who took us in and gave us a place to stay! She kind of reminds me of Gran-Gran.”

“But what did she mean by that comment, ‘mysterious children’?” Snoozles asked.

Toph heard a scoffing sound. “Gee, I don’t know – maybe because she found four strange kids camping in the woods at night? Isn't that a little mysterious?”

Toph appreciated Sugar Queen’s attempts at sarcasm, but it didn’t seem like Snoozles did. “Last time we found a bunch of kids in the woods, it didn’t end too well,” he retorted. “I'm gonna take a look around!”

Toph figured that must have been yet another story she hadn’t been around for. She wondered as they made their way through the inn whether there was any chance of a joke about how Sucker was looking hard enough for the both of them, but she was a little too busy listening to his running commentary and holding onto Twinkles’ hand on the wooden floor to talk smack. She wasn’t entirely sure what they were supposed to be looking for in the first place, but apparently a bunch of what Twinkles announced was weird puppets in a cupboard wasn’t it.

“So she's got a hobby,” Splish-Splash said dismissively, over the sound of Sucker’s panicked yelping. “There's nothing weird about that!”

Toph heard a soft click sound. It might have been Sugar Queen shutting the puppets back in the cupboard, or it might have been her sticking her brain away in that cupboard. A hobby was one thing – heck, The Gopher did interior design, and Headhunter’s cupcakes were sublime, but The Hippo had collected ceramic badgermoles, not creepy puppets!

“We shouldn't be doing this,” Twinkles worried as they went into another room. Toph was pretty sure they could have said that about pretty much everything they’d been doing for the past four months, but whatever.

“Maybe there's a key here somewhere,” Snoozles grunted as he fiddled with something in his hands.

Toph waited for a couple of moments before she lost patience and snapped her fingers at him. “Oh, hand it over!”

The little box was wooden, which was probably why Toph had been having trouble figuring out what it was. But her meteor bracelet was metal, and that was why Toph was able to bend it into a key.

Because Toph Beifong was the greatest earthbender in the world. Just so you knew.

“Come on,” Snoozles muttered from behind her, “Come on!”

“This isn't as easy as it looks!” Toph snapped back as she twisted the metal, and then bent an extra groove into the key for good measure. Snoozles couldn’t bend metal, and she sure as dirt wasn’t going to let him bend her ear!

“Guys,” the Fancy Dancer fretted like a giant wuss. “I don't know about this!”

Toph remembered hearing from Sparky that Twinkles had lied to some owl spirit in that library. First off, that was badass. Second, how come he was wimping out now?

“This is crazy!” Sugar Queen decided. “I'm leaving!”

“Suit yourself,” Snoozles answered dismissively. “Do it, Toph!”

Click.

Toph smirked to herself as she popped the lid open. It kind of reminded her of The Hippo’s Money in the Bank match at Earth Rumble III.

“I'll tell you what's in the box.”

Gah!

If Toph hadn’t had Twinkle Toes, Sugar Queen and Snoozles all crowding round her and cramping her style, she would have screamed just as loudly as they did, and jumped maybe twice as high.

Fuck, she hated how she couldn’t see anything through wood! And she didn’t care if that old comb was the last thing Hama owned from growing up in the Southern Water Tribe, that weird old lady was creepy as swamp water, too!

Toph might not have been able to sense anything in the wood, but she still had two working ears, and that old lady hadn’t made any noise as she snuck up on them. Stuff like that gave her the heebie-jeebies, and so did the thought of the stewed sea prunes Hama promised to make them as part of a good old-fashioned Water Tribe dinner.

The sooner they got out of here, Toph decided, the better.

Notes:

The soliloquy Zuko quotes is my own work, but the Earth Rumble fighters’ hobbies were inspired by lyrics from the song ‘I’ve Got A Dream’, from Disney’s Tangled (2010).

Chapter 21

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Any and all reservations Sokka might have had about the creepy old lady who went sneaking about in the woods at night were well and truly dispersed. Not only was she Water Tribe, but she also made five-flavor soup. Hama was all that was good and right in the world.

And she was a waterbender! Sokka hadn’t been expecting to find a waterbender in the Fire Nation, but then again, he hadn’t been expecting an old lady to interrupt their campfire, or for her to turn out to be from the South Pole either.

“I've never met another waterbender from our Tribe!” Katara cried out excitedly.

“That's because the Fire Nation wiped them all out,” Hama stated quietly. “I was the last one.”

Katara seemed about ready to jump across the table and hug Hama, which Sokka really hoped she wasn’t about to do. Apart from the fact that Hama seemed to be old enough that a crash-tackle hug would only end badly, there were four bowls of steaming hot soup on the table, and Sokka didn’t want them sent flying everywhere. It would be a waste of good five-flavor soup.

And he supposed it would be kind of dangerous, too.

He shifted in his seat and cleared his throat awkwardly. “So, how did you end up out here?”

But after hearing Hama’s story about how the Fire Nation had decimated his Tribe in raid after raid, Sokka wished he hadn’t asked. Hama had been captured and put in a prison, and she’d been the only waterbender who’d managed to escape. All those people that the Fire Nation had hurt and killed, all the families they’d ruined…

Sokka’s Dad had always told him that hating someone allowed them a power over you that you should never give them. Sokka wasn’t sure if he hated the Fire Nation, but he sure hated their awful war. What they’d done to his people – what they’d done to his home

“How did you get away?” He asked Hama curiously once she’d finished speaking. “And why did you stay in the Fire Nation?”

“I'm sorry,” Hama shook her head. “It's too painful to talk about anymore.”

“We completely understand,” Katara reassured her, putting her arms around Hama’s shoulders and giving her a comforting hug. “We lost our mother in a raid.”

“Oh,” Hama breathed. “You poor things.”

Sokka looked down at his lap. He didn’t remember much of Mom, but he remembered how quiet Dad had been afterwards. And he remembered how Gran-Gran had started drinking more jasmine tea, and how ginger tea had become more of a rare treat for special occasions after…

Now that Mom wasn’t drinking it anymore.

“I never thought I'd meet another Southern waterbender,” Hama was saying to Katara as Sokka blinked and brought himself back to the present. “I'd like to teach you what I know so you can carry on the Southern tradition when I'm gone.”

The way Katara’s eyes lit up made Sokka remember the times she’d been talking with Aang and Zuko about her bending, and the way she’d been so determined to learn how to bend. Back then, Sokka’s little sister had only been able to drop cold water down his back by accident, but now she was a waterbending master – and she had the opportunity to learn Southern-style waterbending, just like she’d always wanted.

The way Katara’s eyes lit up and her blinding smile spread across her face, she was just as enraptured by the idea as Sokka had thought she would be.

“Yes!” She almost shouted. “Yes, of course! To learn about my heritage – it would mean everything to me!”

“Well, then,” Hama smiled and patted Katara’s sleeve. “We can start tomorrow; once we’ve all had a good meal and a good night’s sleep.”

Hama’s five-flavor soup tasted a little sweeter than the way Gran-Gran made it, but Gran-Gran had always said that every home at the South Pole had their own recipe that they swore by, and that the subtle differences were to be celebrated. Remembering his grandmother’s words got Sokka to thinking. Katara had told him that her last waterbending teacher Master Pakku, had been Gran-Gran’s boyfriend once upon a time, and whilst Sokka was trying very hard not to think about that now or ever again, Pakku had turned out to be a member of the Order of the White Lotus. And Hama had said she played Pai Sho when Sokka had tried to casually ask her earlier whether anyone in the village played. And, okay, Sokka might have thought Hama seemed a little weird at times, but Master Iroh and King Bumi had been pretty kooky in their own ways too, so he was trying not to judge, right?

So after dinner, once Aang and Toph had gone off to bed and Hama had gone off to find a set of waterbending scrolls for Katara to have a read through, Sokka stayed sat down at the now-empty dining room table until Hama returned.

“You’re not stuck to the seat, are you?” The old waterbender asked, chuckling at her own joke. “I didn’t think my five flavors were that bad!”

Sokka gave a polite laugh of his own, because he could be polite when the situation called for it, no matter what Katara said. “Actually, I was just wondering if I could trouble you for a game of Pai Sho?”

“You’re quite a keen player,” Hama observed as she pottered around the kitchen. “I can’t remember anyone from the South Pole being so interested in Pai Sho all those years ago.”

Sokka wondered whether Pai Sho might have become more popular back home if things had gone differently, or whether he might have grown up just as ignorant of it even if the world had been at peace. “I picked up a few things when we were traveling in the Earth Kingdom.”

“Well,” Hama smiled as she set a Pai Sho board down on the table. “It’s been a while since I’ve played, so don’t expect too much from me, young man.”

Sokka took it upon himself to distribute their tiles – Master Iroh had said that the guest had the first move, so he figured that it would be only polite for the guest to set up the board in return. But something made him pause and look up at Hama.

“You, uh…” He managed a confused smile. “You don’t have any knotweed tiles.”

Something flashed across Hama’s face, but it was gone before Sokka could catch it. “They must have gone missing.”

First people, now Pai Sho tiles, Sokka thought to himself; a lot of things seemed to go missing in this little village. Momo was probably going to try using that as some kind of cover to steal Sokka’s food again, but he was onto that little bastard’s game by now.

When Hama set a rock tile down by her gate with the first move of the game, he hid his disappointment well enough. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t a member of the Order, but she was willing to teach Katara waterbending, so she couldn’t be that bad, right?

 

 

“Growing up in the South Pole, waterbenders are totally at home surrounded by snow and ice and seas,” Hama explained to Katara as they made their way out into the countryside. “But as you probably noticed on your travels, that isn't the case wherever you go.”

Katara wondered whether the stories she could tell could even come close to the things Hama must have experienced. It felt kind of self-centered to tell her about the adventures she and the others had had since she’d left the South Pole with Sokka and Aang, especially when she had left of her own free will, whereas Hama had been taken. Taken from her home, her family, everyone she cared about.

But Hama was right – when Katara had been traveling, there had been so many times when she hadn’t just been far away from the snow and ice and seas of her home, but there had also been times when she’d wondered whether there was any water at all to be found.

“I know,” she agreed, remembering the burning Si Wong sands with a shudder. “When we were stranded in the desert, I felt like there was almost nothing I could do.”

Hama nodded as they gently slowed their walking until they were standing still in the middle of a field. “That's why you have to learn to control water wherever it exists.”

“I've even used my own sweat for waterbending,” Katara offered, remembering the way she and Toph had managed to escape from Combustion Man’s trap.

Hama gave her a warm smile. “That's very resourceful, Katara.”

Katara tried not to let Hama see how much her praise affected her. For over a decade, she had thought she was the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. She’d spent all that time wishing and longing for a master who could teach her how to bend, and sometimes that heartsick yearning had made her cry at the unfairness of it all. She’d tried her best to figure out how to bend on her own for years, and then once she had started traveling and she’d stolen that waterbending scroll from the pirates, she and Zuko had finally been able to figure out what she was doing. After that, she had made a lot of improvements with Aang and Zuko, and she had become a master bender at the North Pole with Master Pakku as a stern mentor. But now she had found a waterbender she could learn from in the most unlikely of places – right in the heart of the Fire Nation!

“You're thinking like a true master,” Hama encouraged her. “But did you know you could even pull water out of thin air?”

With effortless poise, Hama was able to suddenly draw water vapor out of the air around her, bending it with an assurance that took Katara’s breath away.

“You’ve got to keep an open mind, Katara,” Hama taught her as she watched on eagerly. “There's water in places you never think about.”

The water coating Hama’s fingertips froze, and Hama was able to fling them towards a tree, sending them thudding into the trunk. If the way Hama had been able to bend that water from seemingly nowhere hadn’t been impressive enough, Katara was left open-mouthed at Hama’s speed and accuracy.

As Hama led Katara further through the countryside, they talked for a little bit about how Katara and the others had ended up here in the Fire Nation. Hama had seemed quite interested in Toph’s metalbending, especially when Katara mentioned how she’d been able to use it to trap Xin Fu and Master Yu when she’d been kidnapped. But as soon as Katara had shared the story, she realized how insensitive it had been to tell Hama a story about being trapped and taken away from the people she cared about. She was glad when they arrived in the middle of a field of red flowers that flooded the countryside with vibrant color.

“Wow,” Katara breathed as she looked around in delight. “These flowers are beautiful!”

“They're called fire lilies,” Hama replied. “They only bloom a few weeks a year, but they're one of my favorite things about living here.”

Katara remembered how Zuko had talked on his birthday about how colorful the fire lilies looked in the summertime. It had been the first time she’d listened to him talking about the Fire Nation; maybe the first time she’d wanted to hear about his home.

She’d hated the Fire Nation for taking her mother away from her, but as she stood here in this meadow, Katara thought that maybe she could understand why Zuko had loved and missed his home for so long. It was beautiful here in the summertime; that, at least, was one thing he hadn’t been lying about.

“And like all plants and all living things,” Hama’s voice brought her back to the present, “They're filled with water.”

“I met a waterbender who lived in a swamp and could control the vines by bending the water inside,” Katara said, remembering old Huu with a strange mixture of fondness and bemusement.

“You can take it even further,” Hama assured her. Her eyes were gleaming, and Katara felt excited at the idea of learning some Southern-style waterbending tips from the old lady. As Hama swept her hands and arms through the air in a quick, darting motion, Katara saw the water from a big swathe of the fire lilies get caught up into the air. As the flowers turned dark and wilted, Hama was able to send the water crashing into a rock, chopping it into neatly-sliced segments.

“That was incredible!” Katara shouted gleefully. She couldn’t think of a time she’d been able to bend with that kind of speed and power!

Pakku had taught her about the theory of waterbending, but to be able to push and pull like that

“It's a shame about the lilies, though,” she acknowledged wistfully, glancing at the sorry-looking black spot in the middle of the field.

“They're just flowers,” Hama reassured her. “When you're a waterbender in a strange land, you do what you must to survive.”

Katara knew that Hama was probably right. If she had lived for so long away from her home, she would probably have come to accept that some flowers wouldn’t be as important as keeping safe. Now that she came to think about it, she really had been incredibly lucky to have her friends with her as she’d traveled across the world. Without Sokka, Aang, Toph, and even Zuko, would she have been okay?

It just showed how strong Hama was, Katara thought to herself. How strong the waterbenders of the Southern Water Tribe were – how strong their people were – that she had been able to survive for so long on her own.

“Tonight I'll teach you the ultimate technique of waterbending,” Hama promised her. “It can only be done during the full moon, when your bending is at its peak.”

Katara bit her lip. “But isn't that dangerous? I thought people have been disappearing around here during the full moon…”

“Oh, Katara.” Hama touched her shoulder briefly and gave her a comforting smile. “Two master waterbenders beneath a full moon? I don't think we have anything to worry about.”

 

 

Aang had said yesterday that helping people was basically what he did, but the main way he helped people as the Avatar was by being the Spirit Bridge between the mortal realm and the Spirit World. But Aang wasn’t actually too sure how to do that, because it tended to be different every time. Sometimes it was by telling Hei Bai about acorns, sometimes it was by sneaking into a Fire Temple on the winter solstice, sometimes it was just by standing in a pond at the North Pole and hearing voices in his head. But what was he supposed to do in this little village?

“At least in the Great Divide I knew why the spirits were kicking me in the butt,” he complained to Toph. “But this has got to be the nicest natural setting in the Fire Nation. I don't see anything that would make a spirit mad around here!”

“A bunch of spirits were kicking you in the butt?” Toph asked amusedly.

“It wasn’t funny, Toph!” Aang told her annoyedly. “It really hurt! I kept thinking that maybe they were trying to make me make the Zhangs and the Gan Jins get along, but I was really trying my best!”

Aang hadn’t seen any flowers in amongst all the ice and snow when he’d woken up from his hundred year sleep, so he wasn’t sure whether they had a version of hay fever at the South Pole. But Sokka seemed to have had some kind of reaction to all the flowers and pollen in the air, because he suddenly broke into a coughing fit.

“I’m sure they knew that, Aang,” he said once he’d finished coughing, and then he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. Aang felt sorry for him – summer in the Fire Nation was hot enough for him, and he didn’t have allergies, or hair that would get sweaty and itchy. He couldn’t imagine how Sokka and even Katara were handling it.

“Maybe the Moon Spirit just turned mean,” Toph speculated. Oh, right – they’d been wondering about why the spirits would be mad enough to make people disappear.

Sokka jabbed a finger at Toph, even though Aang was pretty sure that wasn’t very intimidating to Toph, for all manner of reasons.

“The Moon Spirit is a gentle, loving lady!” He shouted aggressively. “She rules the sky with compassion! And – lunar goodness!”

Aang remembered that Sokka had really liked Princess Yue. Aang had always thought that Yue had been really nice and kind, and that she was the kind of person he’d wanted to be like. And she’d told him not to give up when he’d been about to drown in that storm, which Aang thought was definitely a major point in her favor.

“Excuse me, sir,” he greeted one villager as they trudged on by. “Can you tell us anything about the spirit that's been stealing people?”

“Only one man ever saw it and lived,” the villager replied, “And that's Old Man Ding.”

“Where does Old Man Ding live?” Toph asked, getting straight to the point. Ordinarily, Aang would want to get to know this new and interesting stranger and maybe chat about some other stuff as well, but Toph was all business sometimes.

“Couple of doors down from the blacksmith,” the man answered.

“A blacksmith?” Sokka perked up. “Like, someone who knows about armor?”

But the man was already ambling away, whistling some tune that Aang didn’t know.

Well, that had been fun. Aang had had more cheerful conversations with Monk Tashi.

“What’re you asking about a blacksmith for?” He asked Sokka curiously.

“We wanted to make Appa some cool-looking armor, remember?” Sokka explained, already heading back into the village. “So we’ll need some armor before we can make it look cool.”

As it turned out, Sokka was actually really enthusiastic about getting that leather armor for Appa, and he ended up talking with the blacksmith about tetsu and how it got connected to nerigawa with odoshi for most of the day before Toph finally lost her patience with him and grabbed his ear when it started getting dark. As she dragged Sokka along, Aang could see one man standing in the street and boarding up his windows.

Aang wasn’t sure why he couldn’t just get some shutters, but maybe he was missing something here.  “Old Man Ding?”

He must have startled the man, because he whacked his thumb with his hammer. Oops. Aang could practically see him biting back whatever cuss word he must have been tempted to say.

“Dang blame it,” the man grumbled before turning back to them. “What? Can't you see I'm busy?”

The way this guy was complaining, he must have been an old man, so Aang figured it was Old Man Ding.

Ding complained for a bit about how he wasn’t actually as old as everyone thought he was, and how he was actually young at heart. Aang could understand that – everyone probably thought the Avatar was over a hundred years old by now, but he was still only twelve. Ding was still chuntering on as Aang helped him lift up one of the wooden planks on the ground.

“Well, I'm young at heart,” Ding conceded eventually. “Not ready to get snapped up by some moon monster yet, at least.”

“We wanted to ask you about that,” Sokka interjected, hammering the wooden board into the window frame for Ding.

“Did you get a good look at the spirit that took you?” Aang asked.

“Didn't see no spirit,” Ding replied brusquely. “Just felt something come over me – like I was possessed!”

As the old man told them about how he’d practically been forced to walk into a cave up in the mountain, only to somehow manage to get away from the crazy evil spirit when the sun rose, Aang had to fight hard not to shudder and shiver at the thought of what Ding must have been feeling through it all. To have your freedom taken away like that… Aang couldn’t think of anything worse!

“I just high-tailed it away from that mountain as quick as I could!” Ding concluded his terrifying tale  with an impressive nod.

“Why would a spirit want to take people to a mountain?” Sokka asked. Aang was glad the older boy was looking as scared and nervous as he felt – he knew Sokka was older and more grown-up than he was, so he didn’t feel as terrified if his friend was reassuring him that it was okay to not be okay.

“Oh, no!” Toph gasped, making them both jump. “I did hear people screaming under the mountain! The missing villagers must still be there!”

Aang gulped nervously, but he knew he had to be brave. If the villagers had been taken by some angry spirit, it was up to him, Toph and Sokka to save them. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to do that, but like Yue had said: he couldn’t give up!

“Let’s go!” He cried out, and the three of them set off running for the mountain.

Notes:

Japanese armor was generally constructed from iron (tetsu) and/or leather (nerigawa), connected to each other by rivets and macramé cords (odoshi).

Chapter Text

Whatever was going on underneath this mountain, Toph sensed that there was a massive cave system with an entrance about fifteen minutes’ walk from the village. She figured that would be about ten minutes’ running on her little legs. Holy dirtballs, she needed to get better at this running thing.

Rather than embarrass herself in front of the others by showing off how unfit she was, she earthbent herself and Snoozles along as Twinkle Toes went on ahead with his airbending-assisted running. When they arrived at the cave entrance, Toph was pretty convinced that there was something down in that cave system that they were going to find. She could hear the screaming again.

Toph usually took great delight in rubbing her friends’ faces in it when she was right about something, but for once, she didn’t appreciate being right. If there were people screaming underneath the mountain, they’d be screaming because they were trapped there.

And if they were trapped there, these would be the missing villagers. The ones that had gone missing over the past couple of full moons. So they would have been trapped there since the last full moon, at least.

And Toph really didn’t want to think about that.

“This is the place,” she announced, trying to draw on that Blind Bandit bravado so the others wouldn’t hear how hard she was working not to stammer.

“I can't see anything down there!” Snoozles protested.

If the situation wasn’t so urgent, Toph would have said something like Join the club, dumbass. But if she had to seize Sucker’s hand and drag him after her, so be it.

“That's why you have me,” she told him before she lost her nerve. “Let's go!”

Toph focused on her breathing and her earthbending as she led the others further into the tunnels. If she concentrated on finding her way through the tunnel, she didn’t need to concentrate on the screaming. She could feel heat on her face as they approached a solid metal door – it might have been torches giving off the heat, or something.

She used her metalbending to bust the door down, and she could sense Twinkles and Sucker grabbing stuff off the walls. They must have been torches that they were picking up, then.

As they made their way on through the caves, Toph was pretty glad she didn’t have to see what she was sensing through her feet. There were bodies in the caves, and some of them weren’t moving.

There was a guy standing limply by the side of the cave. He was thin. Really thin, Toph noted uneasily. The kind of thin that you didn’t get when you were eating regularly. The kind that was done by starving someone.

She was trying really hard not to think about how it was a month since the last full moon.

“We're saved!”

Toph jumped as a hoarse voice echoed weakly through the cave. Whoever it was, their voice was croaky.

Either they hadn’t raised their voice in a long time, or… or they’d spent a lot of time screaming.

Toph was just glad that her hands weren’t shaking as she unfastened her meteor bracelet. She needed to do it slowly so it wouldn’t slip through her sweaty fingers, but she eventually had the metal band off her cuff, and she could bend it into the shape of a key to unlock the guy’s shackles.

“I didn't know spirits made prisons like this,” Twinkles was saying. It was a welcome distraction that Toph latched onto with a gratitude she wasn’t ever going to admit to. “Who brought you here?”

Some of the prisoners began to shout, and Toph had to piece together what they were saying as their voices echoed off the walls. She didn’t want to think that it was a good thing that they were shouting, but… at least it meant they were alive.

They’d been down here for months, she remembered again with another shiver.

“It was no spirit!” One of the villagers protested.

“It was a witch!” Another added in a hoarse voice.

“A witch?” Snoozles repeated slowly. “What do you mean?”

“She seems like a normal old woman,” one of the villagers said as Toph tried to unlock her shackles. “But she controls people. Like some dark puppetmaster!”

Toph’s hands had started shaking by this point, and she had to give it several goes before she finally got round to unlocking the cuffs.

Some old woman who had an interest in puppetry? She knew someone like that. Someone who’d been creeping around and sneaking up on her before, and who’d been giving her the heebie-jeebies all along.

“Hama!” Snoozles growled.

Bingo.

“Yes!” The prisoner Toph had freed earlier nodded his head. “The innkeeper!”

“I knew there was something creepy about her!” Sucker hissed.

“We have to stop Hama!” The Fancy Dancer shouted.

They still had a whole bunch of people trapped down here that Toph needed to get out of their cuffs and shackles. She wasn’t sure how many of the bodies she could sense were still alive, and she really didn’t want to have to find out. But if Hama was to blame for this stuff…

Katara was with Hama right now, and Toph knew that they needed to make sure their Sugar Queen was okay. If that meant she had to stay down here in some crazy old lady’s improvised prison and get these people out, whilst the others went to go and find the two waterbenders…

Toph was freaked out, but the Blind Bandit didn’t get scared. She didn’t.

Toph took a deep breath and allowed herself one shiver before she set her feet solid.

“I'll get these people out of here,” she instructed the others, squashing down her fear and snapping another pair of cuffs open to let a young girl slip free with a weak sigh. “You go!”

The Blind Bandit didn’t get scared. And Toph fucking Beifong didn’t quit. If these people needed her to get them free, she wasn’t going to quit on them just because a few of them weren’t moving. And she didn’t need Snoozles and Twinkles there to hold her hand as she did it.

If Sugar Queen had taught Toph one thing, it was that you didn’t turn your back on the people that needed you. No way was Toph backing down now.

 

 

“Can you feel the power the full moon brings?” Hama breathed.

She spread her arms out and breathed deeply. As she stood in the middle of the woods, the silver light of the moon fell on her. Katara could see the veins in her outstretched arms standing out in stark contrast to her pale, glowing skin.

“For generations it has blessed waterbenders with its glow,” the old lady continued, “Allowing us to do incredible things!”

When Hama had brought Katara out earlier, she had been happy to laugh with Katara about Mr. Yao, who seemingly had a thing for her in the market yesterday. But tonight, she seemed… colder. A little less friendly. Katara knew that there were times to joke around and times to be serious, but this didn’t seem like Hama was just being serious. This felt different.

“I've never felt more alive,” the old waterbender whispered.

Katara listened with growing horror as Hama told her exactly what had happened when she had been imprisoned in the Fire Nation for those long years. She had been kept away from all the water in a cage suspended in the air, and whenever she had been given water, she had been bound up like an animal. But as the full moon had risen each month, Hama had used its energy and power to practice when her bending was at its peak. She’d realized that, where there was life, there was water.

Skins filled with liquid, she called it. Bloodbending. Controlling the water in another body, enforcing her own will over theirs.

“Once you perfect this technique, you can control anything,” Hama finished, looking at Katara from the corner of her eye with a twisted smile on her face. “Or anyone.”

Katara had thought earlier that she understood what Hama had been saying – that when you were a waterbender in a strange land, you did what you had to do to survive. But what was the difference between doing what you had to do to survive, and something else entirely?

“But – to reach inside someone and control them?” She began slowly, glancing at the trees in the forest.

Almost unwittingly, she was already assessing how much water she might be able to pull from the roots…

She shook herself free. “I don't know if I want that kind of power.”

“The choice is not yours!” Hama snapped. Katara couldn’t recognize the woman who’d smiled at her earlier and talked about Mr. Yao and his Komodo sausages. “The power exists, and it's your duty to use the gifts you've been given to win this war. Katara, they tried to wipe us out! Our entire culture! Your mother!”

Katara remembered her mother smiling. Mom had told her and her brother to take care of each other. Her favorite drink had been ginger tea, and she had protected the people she cared about.

She closed her eyes. “I know.”

“Then you should understand what I'm talking about!” Hama hissed. “We're the last two waterbenders of the Southern Tribe. We have to fight these people whenever we can, wherever they are, with any means necessary!”

Hama was talking like the whole Fire Nation was responsible for her suffering. Katara had thought like that once – when she’d found out that Zuko was a firebender, she’d looked for any and every reason not to trust him. It had taken a long time before she had realized that the people she thought were her enemies could be her friends, and it had taken that awful experience with Jet for her to realize that the people she thought were her friends could be her enemies.

“It's you!” She whispered, bile rising up in her throat as she stared at Hama in horrified disbelief. “You're the one who's been making people disappear during the full moons!”

“They threw me in prison to rot!” Hama spit down at the ground. The Fire Nation ground, where she’d lived alone all these years. “Along with my brothers and sisters! They deserve the same! You must carry on my work!”

No, Katara thought numbly to herself. She bent to protect the people she loved. To protect the people who needed her.

Not to harm them.

She had been thinking of when Jet had tricked her and Aang into flooding Gaipan, and almost killing… so, so many people. But this – this wasn’t even like what Jet had wanted her to do. Jet had twisted what she had wanted to do with her bending, but this… this was a perversion of her bending itself.

Uncle Iroh had told her not to forget why she fought. But Hama

Had Hama forgotten?

“I won't!” Katara declared fiercely, chopping at the air defiantly and pointing her hand at Hama. “I won't use bloodbending, and I won't allow you to keep terrorizing this town!”

Her hand moved.

No, she thought desperately to herself as her wrist twisted painfully. No, it couldn’t be – she couldn’t be –

She couldn’t move her hand.

But it had moved.

“You should've learned the technique before you turned against me,” Hama snarled.

Katara gasped as her body contorted. She could feel her heartbeat racing, but –

she couldn’t feel her muscles –

but she’d lived fifteen years, she knew her body inside out –

how could she be doing this

“It's impossible to fight your way out of my grip,” Hama promised her even as Katara struggled against the old woman. “I control every muscle, every vein in your body!”

Katara was powerless to resist as Hama sliced and slashed her hands and arms through the air in sharp, clawing movements. Katara’s body moved as if dragged around on strings, hooks yanking her to-and-fro until the old woman grew tired of toying with her and forced her down.

“Stop,” Katara begged, her eyes fixed on Hama’s feet as the bloodbender made her kneel. “Please –”

She gasped for breath as Hama laughed – the tears were burning her eyes – she was trying to fight Hama’s hold on her, but she couldn’t break free –

I’ll remember why I fight, she had told Uncle Iroh. She fought to protect the people who needed her.

With painful effort, Katara’s fingers flexed, and she felt her fingernails dig into the dirt. Her back straightened slightly. The weight keeping her head bowed lifted, and she took a deep breath.

She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t helpless. And she was not going to lose this time round!

“You're not the only one who draws power from the moon,” she gritted her teeth as she rose to her feet.

As Katara set her stance and prepared to fight, she relished the shocked look on the bloodbender’s face. She could sense the water all around them. In the trees, the grass, the air – in their heartbeats.

“My bending is more powerful than yours, Hama,” she told the old woman. “Your technique is useless on me!”

 

 

Sokka’s instincts had told him that Hama was bad news, but he hadn’t imagined anything like this. As he and Aang ran for the forest, he couldn’t help but think of what could be happening out there. If Hama had been making people disappear…

That was his little sister out there.

He could hear loud noises as they ran, like rushing water and waves crashing on the beach. Whatever was going on in the woods, it was featuring a lot of waterbending. As they burst onto the scene, he could see Hama on her knees, and Katara standing over her with what seemed like a whole ocean’s worth of water behind her.

“We know what you've been doing, Hama!” He shouted.

“Give up!” Aang advised her harshly, shifting into a protective stance. “You're outnumbered!”

“No,” Hama muttered, staggering to her feet. “You've outnumbered yourselves.”

Katara’s face turned pale, and Sokka had been about to ask why, when he just started moving.

What the slush?!

His body was moving! And he wasn’t doing anything about it, one way or the other! He couldn’t stop his limbs from moving, but he wasn’t the one making them move in the first place!

A panicked scream bubbled its way up in his chest and clawed its way free of his mouth as he felt himself dragged towards Katara, who was busy trying to stop Hama from whatever it was she was doing.

“Katara, look out!” He yelled as his body drew his sword out and started swinging it around. “It's like my brain has a mind of its own!”

Space sword started whistling as it sliced through the air, and all Sokka could do was watch as his limbs did what someone else was making them do.

He couldn’t protect anyone if he was the one they needed protecting from.

“Stop it, arm! Stop it!”

For once, Sokka was thankful that Katara could drench him in water. All the times she’d dumped slush over his head, but this time, she could bend him away from her with the water.

“This feels weird!” Aang screamed, as Hama continued to jerk him around like a marionette.

Katara managed to freeze Aang to a tree. “I'm sorry, Aang!”

“It's okay!” Aang called out through chattering teeth. Now that Aang was okay, Sokka allowed himself to breath a sigh of relief. He’d grown up at the South Pole; he knew that it was better to be cold than dead – although once Katara had frozen him and his sword hand to another tree, he had to keep forcibly reminding himself of that.

“Don't hurt your friends, Katara!” that crazy old lady taunted his little sister. “And don't let them hurt each other!”

The ice around Sokka’s hand broke away, and he only had the time to think well, that doesn’t fill me with confid before he was hurtling towards Aang with his sword aiming straight for –

NO!” Katara screamed.

The tip of Sokka’s extremely pointy, very deadly sword stopped only a foot or so away from Aang’s chest.

He had his body back.

What the…?

Sokka looked over to Katara, who had her hands raised in the air. Her fingers were splayed out, and her eyes were wide. The tear tracks on her face shimmered as she moved her arms, but her eyes were fixed on Hama.

Why was Hama looking so –

As Hama dropped to her knees, Sokka suddenly realized what Katara was doing.

Footsteps came rushing towards them, and he could hear Toph’s voice calling out for them as she and the rest of the village approached their little clearing.

“Katara!” The little earthbender was shouting. “What’s going on, Sugar Queen?”

Sokka had spent ages forging his space sword with Master Piandao, but some things were more important than that. He dropped the sword on the ground and rushed to stand by his sister as she kept Hama stiffly trapped on the ground.

As the villagers put a set of handcuffs around Hama’s wrists, he glared daggers into her. Instead of coming home to the South Pole, she’d stayed behind to fight her own war. She’d been attacking civilians, just like Jet.

“You're going to be locked away forever,” one man promised the old lady grimly. Sokka recognized him as the prisoner Toph had freed.

“My work is done,” Hama retorted, standing as tall as her hunched back allowed her to. Surrounded by so many people, she looked helpless and alone. But Sokka had seen what she had been able to do in that underground prison cave. Water Tribe or not, there were some things that Sokka couldn’t excuse.

Mom had been a civilian.

“Congratulations, Katara,” the bloodbender called over her shoulder as she was led away. “You're a bloodbender.”

Sokka glanced at his little sister. She hadn’t said a word since her big screaming No! earlier, and her shoulders were trembling.

“’Tara?” He tried tentatively. “You okay?”

And yeah, alright, if anyone else had asked her You okay? after something like that, Sokka would have told them that it was the dumbest thing they could possibly have asked at that moment in time. He’d been about to answer his own question for her and start rambling on or something, but then his little sister had dropped to her knees with a strangled sob.

“Whoa, whoa,” he knelt down beside her and tried to rub her shaking shoulders. “Whoa, Seal Pup, it’s okay, we’re okay –”

But Katara had leaned forward and dropped her head down, and her body was shaking with wrenching sobs. Her breathing came in loud gasps, and she was crying hard enough that her tears fell from her face in visible droplets.

Aang’s face was pale and his gray eyes were wide and worried as he tried putting an arm around her. He was looking at Sokka as if either of them knew what they were supposed to say in this situation.

Even Toph was silent as she stepped from side to side on the other side of Katara and Aang. If she wasn’t saying anything about how much of a jerk Hama had turned out to be, it probably wouldn’t be Sokka’s place to say anything either. But he wasn’t a bender – how was he supposed to talk to his sister about stuff like this? Stuff they’d never even dreamt was possible before tonight?

“Katara, it’s okay!” Aang kept trying to comfort her. “It’s okay, we’re all okay, and none of us got really hurt – it’s okay.”

“I did that –” she hiccupped, gasping and shaking her head. “But I did what I – I didn’t want to –”

Toph suddenly joined them, pushing Sokka slightly as she crowded in to press her face to Katara’s back.

“It’s going to be okay, Katara,” Sokka tried feebly. “Sis, we’re alright…”

“I had to,” she whispered brokenly, closing her eyes and tilting her face up to the moonlight. Yue’s light shone down on her, and the tear tracks running down from her closed eyes glistened. “I had to, but I – Sokka, I didn’t want to –”

Sokka didn’t know what to say, so he kept rubbing Katara’s back until her sobs quietened down. The four of them stayed in that forest clearing for a long time after that.

Chapter Text

“Are you even listening to me right now?”

Zuko turned his head to see Mai staring back at him from where she was reclining on the couch with an unimpressed look on her face. In truth, he hadn’t been listening. He’d been a little distracted.

Whilst Uncle had told him that Master Piandao had met with Sokka, Aang and the others several weeks ago, Zuko’s old swordsmaster hadn’t been able to get in contact with them to let them know that the Fire Lord knew about the invasion. Yoshida didn’t know where Sokka was, and the Wani wouldn’t be able to reach the invasion forces in time to warn them.

So Aang and the others might be heading straight into a trap, and Zuko was helpless to warn them.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “What were you saying?”

Mai rolled her eyes. “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

“Could you repeat it?”

“No,” she responded flatly. “Too much hassle.”

She raised an eyebrow, and the movement made her eye widen just enough for Zuko to be able to spot the amusement in her tawny iris. He much preferred her like this, freer – or as free as Mai ever was – with her emotions and reactions, though it did seem like both were negative more often than not.

“Don’t talk to me about unnecessary hassle,” he grumbled. “I had to ride here in a palanquin. Thirty feet in a palanquin – it would have been faster to walk.”

“What a tragedy,” Mai observed, returning to the altogether more engrossing task of polishing her sai daggers. “I can only imagine how terrible it must be to have people waiting on you hand and foot.”

“You think you’re joking,” Zuko muttered darkly. “I can’t even wash my hands without someone popping up to offer me a towelette.”

“I guess there's some nice perks that come with being royalty,” Mai snickered. “Though there's annoying stuff, too. Like that all-day war meeting coming up.”

“War meeting?” Zuko hadn’t heard about anything like that. “What are you talking about?”

Mai looked surprised that he seemed ignorant of this war meeting, but he wasn’t sure why. Considering how she and Ty Lee had spent the first month or so since he’d returned actively impeding any attempt he made at gathering information, he would have been more surprised if he did know what was going on.

“Azula mentioned something,” she explained. “I assumed you were going, too.”

That cleared things up somewhat. “I guess I wasn't invited.”

“I don’t know why you look so put out at that,” Mai commented as she tested the sharpness of one of the blade’s edges. Apparently satisfied, she took out a cloth and polished it. “At least that means you don’t have to show up.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Well, then, just show up anyway,” she shrugged. “You’re the Crown Prince – who’s going to say no to you?”

Zuko had his doubts about that; the last war meeting he’d been to as the Crown Prince, he’d needed to get Uncle to sneak him in. Now, Uncle was imprisoned as a traitor, and he doubted that the Dragon of the West’s word would be enough to get him into a meeting this time around. He’d need someone else to get him in this time around.

Whilst Zuko didn’t like the way the obsequious royal servants were always offering him fruit, or a foot wash, or – or a head massage, of all things, for Agni’s sake – he knew that Azula, at least, enjoyed the luxury that came with being the Princess of the Fire Nation. When he found her in the royal spa, she looked a little surprised to see him there for a moment before her customary smirk curled up across her mouth again.

“If you've come for a royal hair-combing, I'm afraid you'll have to wait.”

“So I guess there's a big war meeting coming up, huh?” Zuko asked, ignoring her little jibe and getting straight to the point. “And apparently, I'm not welcome there.”

“What do you mean?” Azula sighed, leaning back and closing her eyes as the servants continued to pamper her. “Of course you're welcome there.”

“Oh, yeah?” He challenged her. “I guess that's why no one bothered to tell me about it.”

Zuko had to give credit where it was due; even in the middle of an argument between two royals – between Princess Azula, who bent blue flames, and Crown Prince Zuko, who was rumored to have slain the Avatar – the servants continued to do their job very professionally. They didn’t look away from the Princess’ hair or falter in their ministrations.

“Oh, Zuko,” his little sister sighed. “Don't be so dramatic. I'm certain Dad wants you there; if nothing else, at least you’ll bring good luck.”

Zuko scowled. “If that’s supposed to be a joke, Azula, it’s not very funny.”

“Believe me, Zuzu, I’m well aware of the irony,” Zuli answered loftily. “But it seems that your presence brings the Fire Nation quite a bit of good fortune. With you around, our greatest enemies seem to fall right into our hands, one after the other.”

Zuko vividly remembered the horror he’d felt as he’d seen Aang’s body falling through the air after Azula’s lightning strike. And Uncle Iroh was still in the capital prison. Zuko couldn’t see Uncle being released anytime soon, but he wasn’t sure what that meant for Uncle’s plans. Or for Zuko. If Uncle stayed in prison, then someone else would have to become Fire Lord once the war ended and Father was deposed.

“I don’t believe in fortune,” he ground out through gritted teeth. “And I don’t believe in luck, either. I don’t want it.”

“Well, then, stop acting like a paranoid child,” Azula snapped, betraying some exasperation at last. “You don’t want an invitation, you don’t want luck; for Agni’s sake, Zuko, what do you want?”

Zuko had been asked that question so many times – he’d asked himself that question so many times over the past three years. His answer had always remained the same; change the plan, never the goal. “I want to do the right thing.”

“Yes, well,” Azula sniffed. “As inspiring as that is, perhaps you should start thinking about what that has to do with the war meeting.”

Zuko had always had the best interests of the Fire Nation at heart. It had been what had made him show up to that first war meeting – the one that had brought everything crashing down around him. It was what had made him try that desperate gamble in Ba Sing Se, to buy Uncle time to get away unhurt and try and keep the Avatar from falling into Azula’s clutches. But, as she’d just reminded him, Azula had gotten to Aang anyway.

Zuko narrowed his eyes. If the Fire Nation knew about the invasion, it would undoubtedly come up in the war meeting. Whether he was invited or not, he had to be there. He didn’t have a choice.

 

 

If the Fancy Dancer didn’t quit his dancing, Toph thought annoyedly to herself, he was going to end up with an injury.

Not one of those kayfabe ones, like when Headhunter had ‘gotten injured’ in the build-up to Earth Rumble V because he’d promised his grandma he’d visit, and it had just been bad timing that the only time he could make it out to Yu Dao was during the championships. No, this was going to be one of those legitimate injuries, like the one Xin Fu had apparently gotten at Earth Rumble II; the career-ending one The Boulder had told her about that had made Xin Fu turn to full-time promoting.

They’d gotten to the Black Cliffs four days ahead of schedule, which kind of made Toph want to tell Snoozles exactly what she thought of his timekeeping. That moron had actually thought that they’d need to get up forty-three minutes early and skip out on separate meal and potty breaks – and they were here with time to spare. They should have left Toph in charge of the schedule; she would have made more than a few improvements. And they should have let her pick the route, too.

Well, maybe not the route, she conceded to herself. That stuff with Twinkles’ school had been absolutely ridiculous, and just thinking about Sugar Queen’s stint as the Painted Lady made her want to cry with laughter. Meeting Pian-dude had helped them out and they’d come away from it with an important tip-off about that Combustion Man guy, and though Toph’s scams hadn’t gone so well in the end, they’d been fun whilst they’d lasted.

So when she looked back over the last couple of weeks, Toph could really only see a couple of times when Snoozles’ route had screwed them over. It was just a shame that they’d screwed them over in a really bad way. It kind of reminded her of Sparky, in a way. He’d been on their side, and he’d only really screwed them over in Ba Sing Se – but what a way to do it, huh?

Instead of Sparky, Snoozles’ route had given them that crazy old bloodbender lady, and Toph knew which one she preferred. Crazy old wolfbat had been creeping her out all along, but when Toph had heard how Hama had taught Katara how to bloodbend, and how she’d needed to use that messed-up technique on the old lady to stop Sucker and Twinkles hurting each other?

Toph’s meteor bracelet had taken a bit of a pounding that day, she could tell you that for free.

But, like she was saying, she was thinking of moving on to working Twinkles over. They’d been here for two days already, and in that time, he’d been stressing them all out with his panicking, worrying about the invasion, sweating on whether the Fire Lord was going to be prepared for them, whether he was going to be prepared for facing the Fire Lord. The airhead was even talking about how Toph’s bladder was apparently a matter of the greatest importance for the invasion, because in his dream, they were right in the middle of the invasion, and Toph had to stop to use the bathroom.

Look, Toph knew she was the most important part of the invasion force. Kind of came with the territory of being Toph Beifong. But she seriously doubted that everyone was going to die because of her tiny bladder, as Twinkles had put it.

Still, it could be worse. Snoozles had needed to go climbing for about two hours the other day, ‘cause his dream-self had apparently been too slow at climbing, and the Fire Nation soldiers had caught him. Dude had been complaining about it all morning.

“Didn’t even know I had muscles in that part of my leg…”

“You mean your leg?” Toph asked without opening her eyes.

“Har, har,” Sucker grumbled. “Seriously, you try climbing that cliff. He made me do it, like, ten times!”

Toph would have made him do it another ten times, personally, because she was a firm believer in the saying that pain was just weakness leaving the body. But Twinkles was apparently too distracted to start an alternative career as a fitness instructor. He was just striding back and forth, back and forth, back and forth… Toph was getting a headache just sensing him, and judging from the way Sugar Queen was sitting slumped on the ground, she wasn’t the only one.

“It's like every time I think about how stressed I am, I just end up more stressed,” Twinkle Toes was saying animatedly to Sugar Queen. “I'm like a big growing snowball of nerves!”

“Of course you are,” Sucker said, apparently deciding that this conversation needed his unique wisdom. “That's 'cause you gotta fight the Fire Lord, the baddest man on the planet!”

Baddest man on the planet, Toph mused. That was pretty cool. The Boulder would definitely appreciate that, but it didn’t quite fit his gimmick. Maybe The Hippo would be interested?

“And you’d better win,” Snoozles continued sagaciously, “Or we're all done for.”

Toph had forgotten just how distinctly lacking in wisdom Snoozles could be at times. It was honestly quite impressive. She wasn’t quite sure what Aunt Fanny saw in him sometimes – because Toph definitely didn’t see anything in Sucker, and not just because she was blind, okay, she didn’t like him at all – but then, annoyingly, she remembered that cute poem he’d written for Little Miss Fantastic, and then it kind of made a bit more sense.

When Suki had been around, things had been a lot simpler; she and Sparky had helped keep everyone in line. Whether it was due to Fan Girl’s practical, sensible attitude to getting shit done, or Sparky’s painfully inept attempts at keeping everyone working together as a team, things had somehow always managed to work themselves out. Toph thought they could do with Sparky right now to set Twinkle Toes straight; Sugar Queen had hardly had a moment’s rest these past two days as she tried to keep the airhead from flying off in a panic, and Snoozles wasn’t really helping when he was saying stuff like that.

Splish-Splash gave Sucker a shove with an annoyed huff, which Toph could totally get behind, but then she hauled herself up to her feet to walk over to the Fancy Dancer.

“You know what,” she said as she rested her hands on Twinkles’ shoulders. “I've got just the thing! Get ready to be de-stressified!”

Toph sure hoped Sugar Queen knew what she was doing with this de-stress whatever she had planned. If the Fancy Dancer kept on like he was keeping on, his idea for how Toph might be responsible for his demise might end up being remarkably accurate. Because she was getting pissed off.

 

 

Aang knew that Katara meant well, but her de-stressifying yoga session was actually kind of terrifying. Although de-stressifying sort of rhymed with terrifying, Aang would much rather Katara left the poetry to Sokka, because the heat in that hot spring had really freaked him out. One minute he’d been stretching out and feeling his chi paths clearing, and the next, he’d felt like the Fire Lord was shooting a bunch of fireballs at him!

He came to lying on his back, looking up at the sunlight poking through a natural hole in the roof of the hot spring, and an upside-down Katara who was looking down at him. Ordinarily, Aang would have noticed how impressive it was that she even looked super pretty standing upside-down, in her sarashi cloth wraps and yoga wear, but he was a little preoccupied with trying to reassure himself that he wasn’t suddenly just a pile of cinders and ash with a blue arrow on top.

And hair on top, he reminded himself. He had hair now. Which was weird.

“Maybe your stress is the kind you need to talk out,” Katara speculated as she stood over him.

That had sounded like a good idea when Katara said it, but when Aang went to talk to Sokka about his problems, Sokka wasn’t any help at all! He just wore that weird beard-and-mustache combo he’d disguised himself with when he had been Aang’s dad and Katara had been his mom when they’d gone for that parent-teacher meeting at that Fire Nation school, and rambled on about the “Fire Lord” and “paternal authority” and “archetypal complexes”, whatever those were.

“Why do you keep using those quote marks when you talk about this stuff?” Aang asked after the third time Sokka said “paternal authority”.

“Master Iroh used quote marks when we talked about this stuff,” Sokka answered. “Although, speaking of Master Iroh – how would you describe your relationship with him?”

Aang thought about it for a bit. To tell the truth, he’d quite liked sifu Iroh. He’d introduced Aang to some nice teas, and he’d always given him a free pastry whenever he’d gone to Pao’s Family Tea House. And he’d also given Aang some good advice down in the Crystal Catacombs.

“He always gave me food and good advice,” he said uncertainly. “Is that what we’re talking about?”

Sokka scribbled something down on a piece of paper. “Would you say that he therefore represented a father figure to you?”

“Um…” Aang wasn’t sure what a father figure was meant to look like, considering the monks had raised him and everyone else together at the Southern Air Temple. “I guess so?”

Sokka jotted a few more notes down, and then looked Aang in the eye. “Have you ever felt that Master Iroh stood in the way of your unconscious desires?”

“What?” How was Aang supposed to know what his unconscious desires were? Surely that was the whole point of them being unconscious! “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He was getting a bit annoyed with Sokka always writing stuff down now, but Sokka seemed convinced it was all extremely important. It apparently had something to do with Aang’s “repressed urges” and “neurotic fixations” and whatever. Well, Aang had had just about enough of this!

“Is this supposed to be helping me?” He demanded. “It’s just making me even more stressed!”

“Hey!” Sokka looked offended. “This is straight out of Wang Fire’s doctoral thesis – this stuff is going to revolutionize psychotherapy!”

This stuff wasn’t helping at all! All Sokka was accomplishing here was wasting time that Aang could be using to train and practice. There wasn’t a moment to lose before the invasion, and Aang couldn’t sit around when there was stuff to be done!

“Wang Fire can suck it!” He shouted aggravatedly.

Annoyingly, even that didn’t make Sokka quit. Instead, he just started writing furiously in his notes, muttering something about “phallic fixation” and “repressed libido in the latency phase”. Aang got so annoyed, he ended up screaming into a koala sheep and using its wool to muffle his yelling.

And, somehow, even Sokka’s weird attempts at talking his problems out weren’t as bad as Toph’s rock massage. She claimed all Aang needed was a good back pounding, but after she had finished turning Aang’s back into a mass of bruises, Aang couldn’t help but wonder whether this was just her payback for the time he’d beaten her at Earth Rumble VI. He ached all over, including in places he was pretty sure he’d never felt any sensation before, let alone pain.

When he’d limped back into camp that night, Aang was all ready for sleep and rest, which might actually have been Toph’s plan all along. She kept talking about how a good night’s sleep was the best recovery plan for the elite athletes of the Earth Rumbles, and Aang was definitely ready for a good night’s sleep.

Now that Aang looked back at his last few nightmares, he could appreciate how ridiculous they were. He could almost laugh at them, really. How could Aang possibly have forgotten his pants? He was a really observant guy! There was no way he would have missed the fact that he wasn’t wearing pants.

And who cared about whether or not Fire Lord Ozai sprung a surprise math test on him? Aang didn’t need to know how many a couple of somethings was, and how many a whole bunch of somethings was – history was going to remember him as Avatar Aang, the Avatar who Defeated Fire Lord Ozai, not Avatar Aang, the Avatar Who Could Count Without Using His Fingers.

But when Aang tried to get to sleep, the nightmares just kept coming. They just kept coming, and coming, and coming, no matter how hard he tried to get to sleep. It was like the time Princess Azula and that tank train had been after him and his friends and they hadn’t been able to get away, no matter how hard he tried. Back then he’d tried facing down his fear in the present moment to become free, but that had ended with Azula shooting lightning at him, which wasn’t exactly the outcome Aang was hoping for here.

“Nothing helps,” he told the others miserably at some point after three in the morning. “There's only one thing I can do – I'm going to stay awake straight through to the invasion!”

He could hear Sokka groan, but considering how Wang Fire had been trying to help him, Aang thought that might prove that he was on the right path. Now all he needed to do was find some of that gross chi-enhancing tea to help him stay awake, and he’d be good to go!

Chapter 24

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

When Katara, Toph and Zuko had told Sokka how he’d been acting when he’d been wiped out on cactus juice, Sokka hadn’t been sure whether they were telling the truth or just exaggerating to make him feel even worse about how irresponsible he’d been when they’d been facing a life-or-death situation. He couldn’t remember any of it except a vague image of a massed choir of singing lemurs, which was probably worse than if he hadn’t been able to remember anything at all. But after three days of watching Aang slowly descend into a panicked, sleep-deprived madness, Sokka felt like he was getting an insight into what he’d looked like in the Si Wong Desert, and he didn’t like it one little bit.

Katara was looking rushed off her feet trying to keep Aang from spiraling into a full-blown panic, and Sokka didn’t think he or Toph were faring that much better. It had been bad enough when Aang had almost taken Sokka’s head off when he’d been trying to shoot air blasts at a noodle picture of Fire Lord Ozai he’d tied to a tree, but when he’d started screaming about how he’d known Momo had owned a samurai costume all along, and claiming that the lemur and Appa were having a duel at high noon – which they categorically had not been doing, Sokka had triple-checked and asked Katara to confirm what he thought his eyes were seeing – well, that had been the tipping point for Sokka.

“What are you even talking about?” He asked Aang bemusedly once the airbender returned from jumping in a cold waterfall, muttering something about prison rigs and samurai and crazy mistakes.

“I don’t even know anymore,” Aang admitted, tiredness slurring his words. “I’m pretty sure I thought Momo wasn’t a samurai lemur, but is there any reason he couldn’t be a samurai lemur?”

“Uh…” Sokka wasn’t even sure where to begin with that. “Maybe he wanted to join a choir instead?”

Aang nodded slowly, apparently satisfied. “That makes sense,” he pronounced. “Momo with wings is a Momo who sings.”

Riiiiight

The dark purple bags under Aang’s eyes weren’t filling Sokka with confidence. He was meant to protect the people he cared about, but how was he supposed to do that when he was pretty sure the person Aang needed protecting from most of all was himself?

“How’d your session with Toph go yesterday?” He asked, distracting himself by changing the topic to someone he was pretty sure they all needed protecting from.

Aang pulled a face and heaved a deep sigh before scratching at the back of his head. “Well, she gave me a pounding, and now I’m feeling things I’ve never felt before.”

Sokka must have misheard that.

Please let him have misheard that.

He wasn’t one to judge, and he’d kind of resigned himself to having to give Aang The Talk after Zuko had skipped out on it all the way through the Earth Kingdom, but Aang and Toph were twelve years old, and if they were getting up to that sort of thing the day before they invaded the Fire Nation, that was a step too far for Sokka.

They had stuff they needed to do, but that wasn’t the kind of stuff they needed to be doing!

Wow, he thought absently to himself. With a no-nonsense, practical attitude like that, he was beginning to sound a bit like Suki. Suki would know how to handle giving Aang The Talk, that was for sure.

But it was up to Sokka, he realized grimly. If nobody else was capable of doing it, it was all on him.

“Is that why you were struggling to get to sleep last night?” He asked, broaching the subject in what he thought was a very sensitive manner.

“No,” Aang admitted, sighing deeply. “That was because I was thinking about Princess Azula, and Mai and Ty Lee.”

Oh, slush on a stick.

Sokka was pretty sure that Wang Fire’s theory of repressed libido had a few things to say about that.

Like, Ty Lee had been pretty flexible, and that Mai girl had been super good with her throwing knives. Sokka could appreciate a girl who could handle ranged weaponry, so he couldn’t really fault Aang for finding those two attractive, but Azula?

Sokka was in no way prepared for a Talk with the Avatar about Princess Azula of the Fire Nation!

He’d have been more than happy to talk to Aang about making safe, sensible decisions when he had strong feelings for a girl, but he figured that the safe, sensible decision around Azula was running away as fast as possible. That was a conversation he would be more than happy to leave to… well, maybe not Zuko. Although maybe Zuko deserved having to go through that traumatic experience.

Suki, he decided. Suki would know what to say. Suki always knew what was going on.

“How about you go and have another cold shower in the waterfall, huh, buddy?” He encouraged Aang.

“What?” He whined. “I literally just had a cold shower, Sokka!”

Sokka was sympathetic, but he knew he had to be firm here. If Aang was approaching this stage of Wang Fire’s model of development, he needed a strong male authority figure to guide him through the next couple of months.

And if Aang was thinking about all those Fire Nation girls late at night, he could probably do with a couple of cold showers anyway.

“You should probably start taking a few more showers,” he told Aang, ticking off the benefits as he went. “It’s good for your circulation, it’ll help you focus, and it’ll wake you up too! They’re a big part of Wang Fire’s new treatment program – it’s going to completely change the face of psychotherapy!”

Aang muttered something extremely uncomplimentary about how Wang Fire probably needed to take a few more showers, which Sokka took great offense to, but he did eventually drag himself back down to the waterfall. That gave Sokka the chance to go and find Katara and Toph. They needed to do something about Aang – they needed him fit and ready and raring to go for the invasion tomorrow.

Thankfully, Katara and Toph had come to a similar conclusion, and they’d come up with an idea to help Aang. It wasn’t quite what Wang Fire would have recommended, but Sokka could appreciate the effort. Hopefully, once they’d finished with those koala sheep, Sokka could put the finishing touches on the armor he’d been making for Appa. He had stuff he needed to do, and that was exactly the kind of stuff he needed to be doing.

 

 

As Zuko left the war meeting, he could barely hear the sycophantic well-wishes of Admiral Chan past the ringing in his ears. In the last war meeting he had attended, he had spoken up when no one else had. This time, though everyone else had spoken, he had remained silent.

Perhaps he was learning, he thought to himself. He had learnt a lot in the past three years; what was one more lesson?

He almost didn’t notice Mai, lost as he was in his own thoughts, and he stumbled on the hem of his robes as he tried to stop himself from walking into her where she stood still in the middle of the deserted hallway. Clearly, his reflexes were slipping. He’d once been the Blue Spirit, capable of infiltrating a Fire Nation military base and escaping with every state secret south of Gaoling without leaving a trace of evidence behind; now, he couldn’t even see what was right in front of his face.

Mai raised her eyebrow in mild amusement. “Something on your mind?”

Zuko opened his mouth to speak, but he had to swallow and wet his lips before any sound came out. He settled for nodding his head jerkily. “Something like that.”

That seemed to be enough for Mai, which came as a relief to Zuko. When Azula had been having Mai watch him, she had been keen to extract even the most innocuous details from him. Now that he was apparently no longer considered a threat, though, she seemed happy to let them walk along in silence for a little while whilst he gathered his thoughts.

The Fire Lord knew about the invasion, and he had reacted accordingly. The invasion force would be repelled whilst the Fire Lord commanded his troops from an underground bunker. Once the invasion force had been defeated, it would be child’s play to capture the Avatar.

Even if Aang and the others managed to infiltrate the bunker system and find Zuko’s father, they would be outnumbered by Azula’s Dai Li agents. All the earthbenders needed to do was buy time until the eclipse ended, and then Aang would be at the Fire Lord’s mercy.

Zuko had been at his father’s mercy before, and look how that had turned out.

As they continued walking on their way through the corridors of the Palace, Zuko was aware that Mai kept sneaking glances at him out of the corner of her eye. She walked on his right, which was why he was able to see her doing it. She didn’t ever stand on his left side if she could help it.

Azula had told Zuko that he would need to book a sitting with the court painter, he remembered as they walked down the hallway containing the portraits of the Royal Family. She’d told him to make sure he got Zuko’s good side.

You cannot cover the whole sky with only the palm of your hand. Only by accepting the two sides to your legacy can you make your peace with your destiny.

Zuko had been hoping to make his peace with Uncle’s words, but the war meeting had only made him more confused than ever.

“So how did it go?”

Mai must have decided that he had had enough time to collect himself. Zuko would have preferred a few more days, or maybe even a couple of weeks, but he didn’t have the luxury of time.

“When I got to the meeting, everyone welcomed me,” he began. “My father had saved me a seat. He wanted me next to him. I was literally at his right hand.”

“Zuko, that's wonderful!” The strangest thing was that Mai genuinely seemed to mean it. “You must be happy.”

Zuko slowed to a stop in front of one of the most recent portraits in the gallery. As he gazed up at the oil on canvas portrait of Fire Lord Ozai, Lord of Lightning, Blessed of Agni, the Conqueror, the Unifier, the Chosen, he wondered what his own portrait would have looked like if Agni’s blessed hadn’t burned half his face away.

Agni was a merciful spirit. He protected those of the Nation, and those who did right in his eyes. The Fire Lord ruled by the mandate of Agni, but what did it mean when the Fire Lord didn’t act in accordance with Agni’s will?

“During the meeting, I was the perfect prince. The son my father wanted.”

He closed his eyes and looked down, shutting out the Fire Lord’s golden eyes. He wasn’t sure whether he was hiding or not.

“But I wasn't me.”

That's who you are, Zuko. Someone who keeps fighting, even though it's hard.

“My whole life, I’ve tried to do the right thing,” he said quietly. He paused for a moment, but Mai didn’t make any noise that indicated he should fall silent, so he continued.

“I’ve always had the Fire Nation’s best interests at heart, and I’ve always tried to be honorable in the eyes of the Nation. Even when I was banished, I knew that my honor depended upon capturing the Avatar. It depended upon what I did.”

“But it doesn’t anymore,” Mai disagreed quietly. “The Fire Lord restored your honor – Azula said it herself, Zuko, you’ve restored your own honor. Why do you need to keep worrying about it?”

“Because no one can give you your honor,” he said quietly. “It’s something you earn for yourself by choosing to do what's right.”

Mai was looking away as she reached out to touch his elbow in what she must have meant as a comforting gesture. She patted his sleeve twice, but that was about it.

“Well, you did the right thing by coming back,” she said simply, her lips barely moving as she spoke. Her yellow eyes were hidden underneath her dark fringe. “And it sounds like you got what you wanted in that meeting, so you should be happy, right?”

Zuko should be happy, he knew that. He had everything Azula had told him he would have if he returned home to the Nation. He had his honor back, he even had Father’s… well, even if it wasn’t love, Father at least approved of him. He had everything he’d been searching for three years ago, when he was a thirteen-year-old exile trying to navigate the Western Air Temple with bandages wrapped over the left side of his face.

The depths of the hearts

Of humankind cannot be known.

But in my birthplace

The plum blossoms smell the same

As in the years gone by.

 

 

As Katara looked up at the night sky, she remembered how her bending had always been more powerful at night. The moon called to her; it was the source of her waterbending power. Maybe she was just trying to find a convenient excuse for the way she hated getting up early in the mornings, but after… after they had left that Fire Nation village behind, she couldn’t help but wonder whether there was a reason she always seemed to feel more alive in the moonlight.

Katara shivered. To distract herself, she tried to spot some of the constellations Toph had shared with her. There was the White Tiger, and the Vermilion Bird, but Katara wasn’t sure whether she was spotting the actual constellations that made up the Earth Kingdom’s astronomy charts, or whether she was just trying to look for patterns and coincidences that weren’t there. Did that cluster of stars there really look like a bird’s wing, or was she imagining it? And as for the White Tiger, Katara didn’t have the first idea what that was supposed to look like. Crococats she knew, and tiger seals and tiger sharks were pretty common back home at the South Pole, but a tiger? Just a tiger?

Weird.

Toph hadn’t said anything about whether the Earth Kingdom had a constellation that looked like an otter penguin, but Katara had seen that outline in at least three different places in the night sky tonight. One was waddling, one was swimming, and she thought one might have been having a lie-down. It was probably a little tired after a long afternoon sledding around the ice, she thought to herself. The waning gibbous moon sat right where its eye would be, like it was slowly drooping shut.

Katara was glad it wasn’t a full moon tonight. It meant she didn’t have to think about… that.

She craned her neck so she could double-check that Aang was still snoring gently. She, Sokka and Toph had needed to do a lot of work to construct a bedframe, never mind making a bed of koala sheep wool, but it had been worth it. Katara had never tried her hand at making mattresses before, but there was a first time for everything, and desperate times had called for desperate measures.

But these weren’t desperate times, Katara corrected herself. Desperate had been the time before the Avatar had returned – back before Katara had broken open an iceberg in a fit of anger with Sokka and freed Aang from his hundred-year sleep. Back when the Fire Nation had been waging a war on the Earth Kingdom with seemingly no end in sight but their inevitable victory; back when Katara’s Dad had been away at war, and she had been left back at home with Sokka and Gran-Gran without any way of knowing what was happening to him.

No, these weren’t desperate times. With Aang well on his way to mastering the elements, and the eclipse that would rob the firebenders of their bending tomorrow, this was the perfect time to strike.

“Still awake?”

Sokka’s quiet voice floated over to her, and the night air was still enough that she could hear him as clearly as if he had shouted.

“Yeah,” she replied just as lowly. “You can’t sleep either?”

“I think Aang stole my sleep.”

Katara smiled slightly at the resentful note in Sokka’s voice. “That’s really not how sleeping works, Sokka.”

“You don’t have to tell me how sleeping works,” her brother grumbled. “If there’s one thing I know about – well, if there’s two things I know about, one of them would be sleeping.”

“What’s the other one?” Katara asked, turning her head away so she was no longer looking at Yue in her night sky. “If you say food, or cactus juice –”

“I was actually going to say poetry,” Sokka sniffed. “I’ll have you know Master Piandao said I’m a natural.”

“Sure, Sokka,” she humored him. “Maybe you can write a poem commemorating our victory tomorrow, huh?”

He hummed thoughtfully. “You think we’ll win?”

“What?” She twisted in her sleeping bag so she could look in the direction of her brother’s voice, but even in the moonlight, she couldn’t make out much more than a huddled lump. “You think we won’t?

“I don’t know,” Sokka answered simply. “But I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think we stood a pretty good chance.”

“Of course we stand a pretty good chance,” she argued back, trying not to raise her voice in her irritation. “This is the best chance we’ve had in years! And now that Aang’s mastered the elements –”

“Not all the elements.”

Sokka wouldn’t be able to see the way Katara rolled her eyes, so she made sure he could hear that she was annoyed in her reply. “You know what I mean.”

“Sure,” he conceded. “He’s well on his way to mastering all three of the elements that’ll actually matter tomorrow.”

Katara was a little appeased by that, but the way Sokka seemed intent on chipping away at what Aang was accomplishing was grating on her nerves a little bit. Okay, so Aang didn’t have all the elements mastered, but like Sokka himself had just said, he wouldn’t need firebending tomorrow, and he’d been training for this since the day Katara had met him.  She’d seen his progress. He was smart, and brave, and strong enough to handle whatever the Fire Lord threw at him tomorrow.

“He won’t let us down,” she whispered, maybe talking to Sokka or maybe talking to herself. “He’s the Avatar, he won’t let us down. And you said it yourself, he’s a powerful bender.”

“Powerful enough to take on the Fire Lord?”

That stopped Katara short. The solar eclipse would only last eight minutes – that meant that they needed to get into the Fire Nation capital, make their way to the Royal Palace, and find a way for Aang to confront the Fire Lord, all in eight minutes. She knew it would be dangerous, but like Sokka had said – they wouldn’t be here if they didn’t have a pretty good chance at winning the war once and for all.

“He has to be,” she said eventually. “He’s the Avatar – he has to be.”

As she heard Sokka let out a deep sigh and make himself comfortable, Katara looked back up at the moon. She tried not to think about it, but after…

Now that she knew what it felt like when someone was trying to make her into something she wasn’t, she didn’t ever want to be responsible for making Aang feel that way. She didn’t want to be the reason for Aang’s struggles ever again.

Katara bit her lip. She remembered how General Fong had trapped her to try and push Aang into the Avatar State – he was so young, but it seemed like everyone was trying to put the weight of the world on his shoulders… including her. All she could do was be there for him. She hoped that would be enough.

She stayed awake for a little while longer, until the gentle sounds of snoring lulled her off to sleep.

Notes:

The poem Zuko quotes was written by Ki no Tsurayuki and is taken from the Hyakunin Isshū, a classical Japanese anthology of 100 poems by 100 poets, as translated by Clay MacCauley.

Chapter 25

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Gates of ‘Zulon there,” Sokka mumbled to himself. “So the Pal’ce’z gotta be there… ‘n’das where the F’re Lor’s g’na be…”

He closed one eye and held a thumb and forefinger in between the islands. He figured that the sea serpent and the here be monsters part were just for dramatic effect, right?

Sokka groaned and dragged his hand over his eyes. If they ended up getting eaten by a sea serpent before they even got to the Gates of Azulon, let alone the Fire Nation capital, Bato would be unbearable in the Spirit World. And Toph wouldn’t shut up about it for the rest of time. And if Zuko heard about it, Sokka would forever be known as the guy who never thought things through.

A few fingers wrapped around his hand and pulled it away from his forehead, and he blinked to see Katara offering him a cup of tea.

“I got you some green tea,” his little sister explained. “It’s calming, right?”

As Sokka took a sip of tea, he had to admit that he could do with something to calm his nerves. Aang and Toph were talking about some weird Avatar stuff behind him, and the invasion was…

La’s fins and Tui’s gills, the invasion was today. Today was the day. The day that they invaded the Fire Nation was today. Well, wasn’t that terrific.

“Oh, no,” Katara murmured, eyes going wide. “Sokka, do you think the fog will delay the invasion?”

At Katara’s words, Sokka looked up and stared out at the bay – and frowned. He hadn’t been expecting fog today…

Sokka wasn’t a bender, but he also wasn’t the type of guy who hung around with three, sometimes four of the best young benders in the world for months on end without picking up a thing or two. And after that whole mess in Jang Hui? He knew what it looked like when a waterbender started bending mist.

“No.” He stood to his feet. “That is the invasion!”

Dad must have gotten to the Foggy Swamp after all, he thought to himself as they made their way down to the docks. They were here – the invasion force was here, and they’d brought the swampbenders! Those guys from the Foggy Swamp might have had a pretty alternative approach to clothing, but they’d been enthusiastic about meat, and Sokka couldn’t ask for more than that.

When he saw his Dad standing by one of the ships, looking just as big and tough and strong and Manly as he always did, Sokka couldn’t help but feel like everything was going to turn out okay.

“You made it, Dad!” Katara hugged Dad happily, and Sokka let her have the moment.

“Were you able to locate everyone I told you to find?” He asked eagerly.

“I did,” Dad answered. He sounded a bit out of breath, but from the way Katara was hugging him, Sokka couldn’t really blame him. “But I'm a little worried, Sokka. Some of these men aren't exactly the warrior type.”

Maybe that was true, Sokka acknowledged, but he would have said the same thing about Suki once upon a time. Heck, he’d been even more skeptical of Suki back when he’d first met her on Kyoshi Island, on account of her not even being a man. He liked to think he’d evolved since then.

Come to think of it, why had he even been worried about that sea serpent? Suki had grown up with the unagi; she’d be able to break that thing in half without even breaking a sweat!

Sokka had arranged with Suki before she’d left the Wani with Ensign Takahashi that he’d meet her again on the day of the invasion, but as he looked over the crowds coming off the Water Tribe ships, Suki wasn’t anywhere to be found. Katara was catching up with Tyro, Haru, and Haru’s mustache, and Toph was getting reacquainted with The Hippo and The Boulder – be cool, Sokka, be cool – but he couldn’t see Suki anywhere.

He couldn’t say he wasn’t disappointed, but the day was still young. Besides, the way things went with Suki, Sokka wouldn’t be surprised if they arrived at the Fire Nation Royal Palace to find that Suki had already beaten them there and beaten the slush out of Fire Lord Ozai herself in the meantime.

“This is the Mechanist,” Aang said, introducing Sokka to a guy with some impressive facial hair and some equally impressive eyebrows. From the name, Sokka knew that this was the guy at the Northern Air Temple that he’d trusted to create his submarines.

“Were you able to complete the work on the plans I sent you?” He asked as he shook the Mechanist’s hand.

“Yes, I was,” the Mechanist smiled. Well, Sokka thought he was smiling underneath all that beard. “And I think the Fire Nation will be in for quite the shock when they see them in action today. I have to admit, that girl certainly knew what she was doing when she gave you the means to reach me!”

“What?” Sokka asked confusedly. “What girl?”

“Why, the Earth Kingdom girl who told us about the invasion!” The Mechanist exclaimed. “I couldn’t believe it, she somehow managed to scale the mountain to reach the Temple – simply staggering…”

Sokka frowned at the Mechanist’s words. A girl from the Earth Kingdom capable of incredible feats of sheer awesomeness? That description sounded a lot like…

“Suki?” He asked dumbfoundedly.

“That was her name!” The Mechanist nodded emphatically. “Mind you, that Fire Nation lady she was traveling with was more than a little terrifying –”

Taki? Sokka mouthed to himself.

What the slush?

“At first, I feared that she was in cahoots with War Minister Qin, but when they told us about how they knew the Avatar and Katara, we knew they could be trusted,” The Mechanist continued, apparently oblivious to Sokka’s disbelief. “And they didn’t insist on putting pepper in half our meals, either.”

Sokka thought they might have to come back to that later, but he had something a little more pressing on his mind right now.

Suki was Master Piandao’s Lotus operative in the northern Earth Kingdom?” He asked, wanting to double-check he’d heard that correctly.

“Who’s Master Piandao?” Teo asked as he wheeled himself over to join the conversation.

Slush.

“Yeah,” The Duke piped up from where he was perched on Pipsqueak’s shoulder. “And what’s a Lotus operative, anyhow?”

Double slush. Sokka had to think quickly.

“Uh, Master Piandao’s, uh, just some guy I know,” he explained hastily. “He likes flowers. And I like flowers. We like flowers together!”

That seemed to be good enough for Pipsqueak and The Duke, and although the Mechanic still looked confused, he just shrugged and turned back to chattering away to Teo. Sokka breathed a sigh of relief – that had been a close one.

The last thing he needed to do was give away the existence of a whole secret organization, just because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. That might actually have been more embarrassing than getting eaten by a giant sea serpent.

 

 

In the Fire Nation, honor was something you either had or you didn’t have, and it was important that there be a way for others to be able to tell the difference.

When Zuko had been dishonored, he had been required to shave his head save for the phoenix tail that marked him out as disgraced nobility. When he had realized that he had been wrongfully banished, he had cut off his last link to his homeland and allowed his hair to grow out naturally, but he hadn’t made any attempt at tying it up in a topknot or anything like that. What was the point, when he was exiled with no way of returning home?

Zuko had never been sure whether he had been banished for what he’d done, or for what he hadn’t done. Whether he had been exiled for speaking his mind, or for refusing to fight his father in his Agni Kai. But in both instances, Zuko hadn’t had a choice. He couldn’t let an entire division be sacrificed; he was a loyal son.

As he let down his hair and felt it hang loose around his face, Zuko knew that this time, at least, the Fire Lord would not be making the decision for him. His choice – his destiny – was his and his alone.

He wasn’t very good with his words, so he kept his letters short and to the point. He didn’t know whether Mai would agree with his choice or not, but as he read through what he’d written, he felt reasonably confident that she would understand. He wasn’t sure how Ty Lee would react, but he’d made sure to reassure her that he was doing what he thought was best for his aura, so she would hopefully be at least a little bit supportive.

“Can you make sure these letters are delivered, please?” He asked one of the servants as he walked down the hallway from his room.

He bowed low. “It will be as you command, Your Highness.”

“Thanks, Saitō,” Zuko said awkwardly. “But, uh… it’s not a command if I say please, right?”

“That’s right, brother.” Azula appeared by his side as if she had been there all along. “That’s not a command; that’s a mistake.”

Saitō’s only reaction to Azula’s sudden appearance was to sink into a slightly deeper bow.

“I shall see to it that these letters are delivered to Miss Ukano and Miss Ty without delay, Prince Zuko,” he intoned.

Azula turned to Zuko as Saitō departed, and Zuko was suddenly struck by how his little sister had grown in the past three years. The fat in her cheeks had thinned, and her cheekbones had become more prominent. When an eleven-year-old Azula had flashed her toothy grin, little dimples had appeared in her cheeks, but those smiles had been replaced with smirks now. The left corner of her mouth would curl up, and it was her eyes that flashed with emotion now, as quickly as lightning flashed across the sky. Amusement, or satisfaction, or triumph, or maybe cruelty would shine brightly for a moment before vanishing again.

Zuko had changed a lot during those three years, but so had Zuli. He wondered whether she still pretended to hate bowling the way she had when Lu Ten had first shown them the game.

“Father has asked me to remain in the bunker systems with him, waiting for the invasion force,” his sister told him in a would-be casual tone. Her eyes flickered back to the end of the corridor where Saitō had turned left and exited their field of vision, but she remained standing next to Zuko. “As I understand it, you’ve received no such instructions.”

“Not yet,” he agreed tersely. “But there’s still a couple of hours until the eclipse begins.”

“Goodness knows how you’ll spend those hours,” she speculated idly. “Though it’s possible that you might not even notice any difference when the eclipse begins, Zuzu.”

Once, Zuko had been insanely jealous of his sister’s prodigious talent for firebending, but after Uncle Iroh had taken him to discover the original source of firebending, his envy had slowly receded. He wasn’t quite sure what he felt now, but he knew what his mother would have wanted him to do; she would have wanted him to encourage his little sister – to look after her and look out for her.

“Father wouldn’t have asked you to do something he didn’t think you could do,” he said eventually. He had repeated those words to himself like a mantra over and over again for the first year of his banishment.

“Well, I’m sure the invasion force will be much easier to deal with, now that the Avatar is no more,” Azula pronounced with a small little smirk – maybe it was even a smile? “Something we have you to thank for, brother.”

“No need to thank me,” he answered as calmly as he could. “I didn’t do it –”

“For the glory,” Azula interrupted, her eyes flashing. “Isn’t that the truth of it, Zuko? You didn’t do it for the glory. How patriotic of you.”

“Many seek after glory,” Zuko responded, remembering what Wan Shi Tong had told him. “Few seek after truth.”

Zuli quirked a perfectly plucked eyebrow. When she had been eleven, she hadn’t been able to do that; she’d needed to raise both at the same time. “Quoting the Fire Sages again, Zuzu?”

Zuko had a sudden absurd mental image of the owl-like knowledge spirit dressed in the red robes and elaborate headpiece of the Fire Sages. He stifled a laugh at the thought. “Not quite. But I, uh, did read a good one the other day.”

Azula didn’t say anything, but she merely raised the other eyebrow this time. He took it as a sign that he should continue.

“‘A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent,’” he recited carefully.

“You’ve been reading Fire Sage Fukuyama again,” Azula observed, interest momentarily present in her eyes. “‘He who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation’.”

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for the good of the Fire Nation,” Zuko defended himself. “I know I've made some bad choices, but today I'm going to set things right.”

Azula nodded slowly, her eyes moving across his face. Zuko resisted the urge to turn the left side of his face away from her.

“See that you do, brother,” she told him softly as she began to walk away. “Your loyalty is to our nation first. Anything less makes you a traitor.”

Right, Zuko acknowledged, watching his sister disappear around the corner. If he wasn’t loyal to the Nation, he was nothing more than a traitor.

A traitor like Uncle Iroh.

To have faith in your principles means you must never compromise on them, Prince Zuko.

 

 

Snoozles’ big presentation hadn’t gone so well, but Ice Pops had bailed him out pretty nicely. All very dramatic, extremely inspiring, and Toph was feeling by the end of it that they might actually stand more than a snowball’s chance in a volcano.

“The Boulder dismisses your concern that we lack the proper documentation to enter the Fire Nation!”

Never mind. Everything was doomed.

“Hippo forget his papers!” The Big Bad Hippo wailed. Ugh. Big guy sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

“Fear not, The Hippo!” The Boulder declared. “Though Ba Sing Se demands passports and tickets, The Boulder understands that foreign nationals entering the Fire Nation are not required to carry travel visas. Therefore, The Hippo’s concerns are… ungrounded.”

Toph couldn’t help but scoff at that one. “Your jokes are just as bad as they were when I left, The Pebble.”

“Perhaps,” their resident expert on immigration and customs conceded. “But The Boulder seeks always to broaden his horizons; these days, rather than the amateur trappings of ring psychology, he dedicates his spare time to studying other interests.”

Did he just call it amateur? Toph knew he didn’t just call the noble art of smack talk a carny act.

“Oh, yeah?” She asked. “What’re you learning about now? The first person singular?”

“Not so!” She could sense The Boulder shaking his head and spreading his hands in that emphatic way of his. “The Boulder has recently begun a correspondence course with Ba Sing Se University! He is currently studying for a diploma in human rights law, with a focus on the protected rights of migrant workers within the municipalities of the Earth Kingdom.”

What in the name of Oma’s bastard children?

Toph had clearly missed something here. A few months away from Gaoling, and the whole world turned crazy. Had The Boulder gotten hit in the head with a rock in practice again?

Or was Xin Fu asking him to do some new gimmick? Apparently, The Boulder had auditioned back at Earth Rumble I as some dude who rapped and called himself The Doctor of Vuganomics, but Xin Fu had pretty much nixed that one straight away, much to Toph’s relief when she’d heard about it. They already had one rapper in Fire Nation Man, and even if she was blind, Toph didn’t really want the mental image of a small- to medium-sized cavity when they were talking about earthbenders.

“Guess we’ve come a long way from the times you were throwing up gang signs and spitting about wehrlite,” she decided on eventually.

“The Boulder is dedicated to self-improvement,” The Boulder agreed without even an ounce of the shame Toph would have felt every day of her life if she’d ever had a gimmick like that. “Yet he also cares strongly about improving the lot of all those who seek better lives beyond the place of their birth. For too long, their cries for justice have been left unanswered, but now? The Boulder will be shaking up the bureaucracy!”

Toph waited for him to continue, but he just stood there with one clenched fist held high in the air. Was he… waiting for applause?

“Was that a joke?” She asked uncertainly. “Like… bur-rock-cracy?”

“What?” The Boulder sounded surprised. “No, Blind Bandit, The Boulder was being serious. As serious as the injustices faced by migrant workers! You think systemic oppression is a joke?

Oh, holy Shu, Toph had heard The Boulder using that voice before. If she didn’t act quickly, he’d end up standing on one of the ring posts, loudly proclaiming his support for General Fong like a complete idiot.

“Of course I don’t, shale for brains,” she told him irritably. “I’m all about fighting back against injustice and oppression! I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Sure,” The Hippo agreed amiably. “Here to help!”

It seemed like The Hippo was doing some of his stretches to limber up. Toph sure hoped he didn’t try that whole downward polar bear dog shit again. She hadn’t even been able to see it, and it had looked painful to her when she’d sensed it.

“That’s right!” The Boulder still had his Superstar Face Speech voice on. “Here we are, ready to fight for our Kingdom! Just like the Blue Spirit, the scourge of the Fire Nation, The Boulder is ready to defy the tyrant Ozai –”

“The Blue Spirit?” Toph heard Snoozles snort behind them. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously!” The Boulder answered, and the shift of his body weight on the ground told Toph that he was very serious about this. “The Boulder wonders whether you’ve got something to say about the Blue Spirit, hero of the Earth Kingdom, symbol of hope to the downtrodden?”

Whilst she wouldn’t blame Snoozles if he did have something to say, Toph had to clear her throat before he got the chance. Much as nobody got to make fun of Sucker on her watch except her, so nobody got to mock The Boulder’s little man-crush on the Blue Spirit except her.

“We’ve actually met the Blue Spirit,” she said casually before Snoozles could open his big mouth. “He’s kind of cool, but he was a bit of a grumpy bastard at times.”

The Big Bad Hippo let out a gasp that seemed way too high-pitched for such a big guy, but that was nothing compared to The Boulder’s reaction. He almost took Toph’s shoulders out of their sockets as he grabbed her and dropped to his knees in front of her.

“The Bandit has met the Blue Spirit?” He demanded urgently. “What’s he like? Is he tall? Is he handsome? Did he valiantly defend the Earth Kingdom from hordes of Fire Nation invaders?”

“Oh, Tui,” Snoozles muttered. “Please tell me I didn’t look like that.”

Toph wouldn’t know what Snoozles looked like – apart from the obvious fact that he probably looked stupid on principle – but considering the amount of shit Sparky had put them all through, she figured he deserved this one.

“Yeah, he’s kind of tall,” she told The Boulder before waving a hand in front of her eyes. “Not too sure about handsome, though.”

“Oh, right.” Credit where it was due, The Boulder laughed apologetically. “Sorry about that, Bandit. And, uh – the part where he was valiantly defending the Earth Kingdom?”

“Kind of hard for him to do that for the past couple of months, The Boulder,” she replied. She was trying to keep a straight face, but her ribs were killing her as she tried not to laugh. “He’s actually on maternity leave at the moment.”

Snoozles let out a squawk, and The Hippo let out another, even higher-pitched gasp this time round, but that wasn’t anything compared to The Boulder’s reaction. He hit the floor faster than the last time he’d faced the Blind Bandit for the championship.

Notes:

According to studies, green tea contains various components that can help with stress.

The quotations Zuko and Azula attribute to Fire Sage Fukuyama are from Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince (published 1532).

A vug is a small- to medium-sized cavity inside rock, and ‘Word life’ was the catchphrase of WWE wrestler John Cena in his days as the Doctor of Thuganomics. Wehrlite is an ultramafic and ultrabasic rock.

According to Avatar Wiki, ‘La’s fins’, ‘Tui’s gills’, ‘In the name of Oma’s bastard children’ and ‘Holy Shu’ are exclamations in the world of Avatar.

Chapter Text

Aang had to admit, whilst Sokka’s idea for a submarine that was basically a boat below the surface of the water had sounded pretty crazy, it had actually turned out to be kind of awesome. They’d gotten to the Great Gates of Azulon on the Water Tribe ships without anything going wrong, and although Sokka had been muttering something about a sea serpent, Aang hadn’t seen so much as an elephant koi.

They’d been making really good time until they reached the Great Gates of Azulon, which Hakoda, Katara and Sokka’s Dad, had said was their first major obstacle. But then once the Gates had been raised and they’d been faced with flaming nets that would prevent them from going any further in the boat-ships, they had gone below decks and made their way into the submarines before dropping underneath the nets. As Aang and Appa swam through the water alongside the submarines, Aang entertained himself a little by imagining how confused the Fire Nation soldiers must have been when they had boarded their Water Tribe boats, only to find that they were completely empty. The tables had sure been turned on them!

It kind of reminded him of that dream he’d had last night, where Fire Lord Ozai had been the one not wearing pants. When he’d woken up this morning, Aang had known for sure that there was no way he was going to lose to a pants-less Fire Lord.

He’d been excited to tell the others that everything was going to be okay until he’d remembered that Sokka was doing his whole Wang Fire thing and being weirdly invested in what Aang was dreaming, and after the last few talks they’d had, Aang didn’t think that saying I dreamt I was standing in front of a giant Fire Lord Ozai and he wasn’t wearing any pants would lead to a very productive conversation.

But Sokka had said that there was one major drawback to the submarines, which was that they had a limited air supply. As an airbender, Aang was obviously extremely in favor of there being as much air around as possible, so he was pleased to see the submarines resurfacing after they’d gotten past the Gates. By the time he and Appa had joined them on the water’s surface, he could see Katara, Sokka and Toph stretching on the casing of the submarine.

As he airbent himself over to land on the deck with them, they joined him, and Aang felt like that was a good sign for what lay ahead for them. It was just like when they had all had a group hug when they’d found him after he’d run off and gotten caught in that storm. As long as he had his friends with him, Aang knew he could do this.

“So this is it, huh?” He said to nobody in particular.

Sokka nodded. “Are you ready for the Fire Nation to know the Avatar is alive?”

Aang hadn’t actually wanted the Fire Nation to think the Avatar was dead in the first place, but he was ready now to show them how wrong they’d been. “I’m ready.”

Sokka shook his hand, and Aang thought this must have been what feeling really Manly felt like. Then they had a group hug, just like the one Aang had just been thinking about.

“I hope you kick some serious Fire Lord butt, Twinkle Toes,” Toph said as they broke out of the hug. It reminded Aang of the way Zuko and Sokka had always complained about how they wanted to kick Bumi’s butt, but he figured that Fire Lord Ozai deserved it a lot more than his friend Bumi did.

After they defeated the Fire Lord, Aang was going to go back to Omashu and break Bumi out of that metal prison, and then they were going to ride the mail chutes and eat fruit pies, and Aang wasn’t going to worry about sea serpents or surprise math tests for a whole week.

“Everyone, listen up,” Hakoda called out. “The next time we resurface, it'll be on the beaches. So stay alert, and fight smart. Now, break time's over – back in the subs!”

Toph muttered something about how she hated how the submarines made her seasick, but she used a rude word that Aang wasn’t going to repeat whilst Katara was still standing there, not even in the privacy of his own head. Aang felt kind of sorry for Toph’s stomach, but he was actually kind of dealing with a nervous churning in his own stomach as he stood on the deck with Katara. It was just the two of them, and she looked really pretty, and he really liked her. He’d been just about to start telling Katara how he felt when she started speaking too, and that made it a bit awkward.

“You go first,” he told Katara.

She smiled at him. “We've been through so many things together, and I've seen you grow up so much. You're not that little goofy kid I found in the iceberg anymore.”

Aang couldn’t help blushing, but he was really glad that she didn’t seem to see him as a sweet little guy just like Momo anymore. Did this mean she saw him as a powerful bender now?

“I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm really proud of you,” Katara finished with a smile.

Aang chewed on his lip for a moment as he thought things over. “Everything's gonna be different after today, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is,” Katara agreed.

“What if…” He hesitated, because it was kind of a sucky thing to say, but he felt like he needed to say it. “What if I don't come back?”

If Aang didn’t come back, he would never have told Katara how he felt about her. Oh, man, that would be rubbish! He needed her to know!

Aang had never been very good at poetry, and he hadn’t prepared anything like Sokka had prepared a poem for Suki in Ba Sing Se, but he thought he knew how he should let Katara know that he liked her.

He kissed her. She’d been talking, so it was a little awkward, and he thought his nose kind of smudged hers and he got a little bit of her teeth with his mouth as he kissed her, but he thought he made a pretty okay go of it. It wasn’t quite as nice as the time they’d kissed in the Cave of Two Lovers, but he thought it was quite good all the same.

After the kiss, Katara blinked slowly as she looked at Aang, but he knew now that at least she knew how he felt. He thought that was a pretty good point for him to snap his glider open and fly away.

Now that Katara knew how he felt, Aang felt a lot better about how things were going right now. The nervous churning in his stomach had settled, and he was feeling a lot calmer. In fact, he actually felt kind of hungry. It was a good thing that the Mechanist had given him a cool new glider with a built-in snack compartment.

He opened his mouth and twisted the handle the glider, and munched away happily on… mmm, peanuts!

 

 

Even if Snoozles hadn’t done the best job of explaining the plan, at least Ice Pops had been able to clarify it for everyone. The sooner they got to the Fire Nation capital, and got from the docks up past the battlements to secure the plaza tower, the sooner they could get on with stage two of the invasion. The sooner they got on with stage two, the sooner they could defeat the Fire Lord and end the war.

Sounds like a piece of cake, that Haru guy had said with a bit of a laugh, but Toph wasn’t getting ahead of herself. She wasn’t worried about stage two of the plan – heck, she wasn’t even too focused on stage one at this point. She just wanted to get out of this fucking submarine.

She hated being seasick. She probably owed The Duke a new helmet by this point, after all the puke she’d dumped in this one.

“Everyone in position,” Ice Pops instructed them tersely. “Earthbenders, into your tanks. This is gonna be a rough ride.”

Toph was pretty sure the whole damn journey up until this point had been a rough ride, but whatever. Maybe this was just Ice Pops having some pre-show jitters. Toph had never gotten them herself – part of being the Blind Bandit meant you didn’t suffer from nerves the way second-rate jobbers did – but she could remember one time when Fire Nation Man had lost his cape five minutes before he was supposed to kick off the undercard, and he’d been stressing about it for the whole time.

She wasn’t sure why Fire Nation Man wasn’t here to join the invasion, but if The Boulder and The Hippo hadn’t been able to convince him to join what was looking like the greatest stable in history, it was his own fault for missing out.

Toph had to really reach out to feel the metal in the subs, because the wood wasn’t giving her any help in sensing what was going on. She felt a couple of vibrations as a dull thud rocked the submarine, but it didn’t seem like they were getting sunk. Which, you know, Toph was appreciative of.

“Fire Lord,” The Boulder sung absent-mindedly. “My flame, it burns for thee…”

Absent-minded was probably the best way Toph could think of to describe The Boulder. This bozo was studying for a degree? The Earth Kingdom’s education system must have been real desperate to get the numbers up.

“Less of the Fire Nation anthem, The Pebble,” she instructed him. “Not quite sure that’s the tone we should be going for right now, know what I mean?”

He let out a surprised-sounding cough. “Ah – uh, right. The Boulder retracts his previous statement concerning the allegiance of his heart.”

“Hippo hate Fire anthem,” the other big guy rumbled. “Rap sound… stupid.”

“Fun fact,” Toph said. “The Fire Nation doesn’t actually have a national anthem.”

“The Boulder can only speculate as to the veracity of your claim.”

“The Blue Spirit told me,” Toph clarified. She’d quite enjoyed going round the woods with Sparky and collecting firewood. They’d chatted, it had been kind of cool or something, whatever.

“The Boulder apologizes for doubting the Bandit,” The Pebble said sincerely. “The word of the Blue Spirit is good enough for The Boulder any day.”

“Enough talk!” The Hippo called out. Toph could hear what sounded like him pounding his chest with a clenched fist. “Now, time for Hippo… smash!

Toph could feel the submarine rising through the water – it was a gut feeling, but she knew what was going on. As the sub broke the surface, she only had about a second or two before the metal hulls got smacked by missiles or boulders, or something. Their tank rumbled out onto the ground, and Toph could hear the Water Tribe warriors yelling as they charged out as well.

Geology in the Fire Nation was different to the Earth Kingdom, Toph noted as they forced their way through the Fire Army’s determined resistance. The Earth Kingdom was mainly sedimentary, but there were a whole lot of igneous rocks here. Toph figured that made sense, considering the Fire Nation was a chain of volcano islands, but it definitely made it easier to sense where the battlements and ramparts were.

Whilst The Boulder and The Hippo attacked those security barriers with the rocks they’d brought along specially for the occasion, Toph concentrated on reaching out with her seismic sense to see where the Fire Nation soldiers were coming from, and then bending the ground to hamper them. Blocking their routes, causing the ground to give way underneath them, all that good stuff. She felt the ground shake below her as a massive explosion rang out, and once her ears stopped ringing, she could hear The Boulder and The Hippo cursing. Guess it must have been their rock supply that had gone boom.

As they kept pressing on their way up to the capital city, Toph found that more and more Fire Nation soldiers were coming their way. Tanks, too – she could try and mess with some of them with her metalbending, but she wasn’t sure how these things worked. She could twist a couple of tracks off the tanks, and she took the opportunity to break up a few of the axles she could sense, but she couldn’t just crush the tanks with people inside them.

A well-placed rock there to knock that guy off his feet, opening up a rift in the ground to let those soldiers fall in up to their waists, only to seal it back up around them afterwards; these were the moves she could use at the Earth Rumbles. The only problem with that was that the fighters at the Earth Rumbles weren’t trying to set you on fire as they fought.

They weren’t winning, Toph realized with an unfamiliar feeling bubbling up in her veins and her fingertips. They weren’t losing, because that was – that was inconceivable for the Blind Bandit, but they weren’t winning. There were too many firebenders attacking them from too many angles, and she, The Boulder and The Hippo couldn’t hold them all off.

Where on earth were the rest of the earthbenders? And where in the slush were Snoozles, Sugar Queen, and Ice Pops?

“Listen up, everyone!”

Snoozles?

Toph wouldn’t admit to feeling relief, because that implied that she’d been in, like, distress or something, and that wasn’t remotely accurate. But it was nice to hear that Sucker knew what he was doing.

“I want the tanks in wedge formation!” The big goof was shouting. “Warriors and benders in the middle. We're taking that tower, and heading for the royal palace!”

Toph wasn’t wrong very often, but she might actually have been happy to be proven wrong on this occasion. She’d always thought that Aunt Fanny was the smart one, but Sucker had picked a heck of an occasion to demonstrate that he had a brain.

“Charge!” The Water Tribe boy yelled, and Toph was more than happy to oblige.

Ending a hundred years of war in eight minutes? That sounded like a piece of cake.

 

 

The Fire Army had been using the battlements up on the high ground to attack their invasion force – Toph and the others had been like sitting turkey ducks down there, until Katara had flown up on Appa with Sokka and Dad to take them out.

“You two take out that battlement,” Dad instructed them as they landed up on the high ground. “I’ve got this one. Watch each other's backs.”

Katara knew it wasn’t the reaction she should be having right now, but she couldn’t help but feel thankful for the distraction from… whatever had happened earlier. If she was fighting, she didn’t have to think about it. She just had to protect Sokka and make sure he was okay, and trust that he was going to do the same for her.

As Sokka sliced through the launching machines in the security tower, Katara froze the soldiers to the walls. She wondered for an absurd moment whether she could get away with telling them to chill, but there was probably a time and a place for things like that, and right in the middle of the biggest fight of their lives maybe wasn’t the best time for it…

Still not thinking about it!

She heard an explosion just outside the building that sent tremors through the walls, and she instinctively ducked as they hurried out. She could just catch a glimpse of Dad on the roof of the other battlement before he ducked inside through a window.

Katara knew that Dad was the toughest warrior out there, but she still hated not knowing what was happening as yelling burst out from the battlement tower. She waited with her heart in her mouth until a launcher burst into flame, but then she heard a scream.

As a figure staggered out from the building, she almost didn’t hear Sokka swear next to her over the sound of blood thundering in her ears.

“Dad?” She breathed.

“Dad!” Sokka’s voice was much, much louder as he began running over to their father. Katara could barely breathe as she followed him.

The Fire Nation – Mom – Dad, the people she cared about – she was running through the ice and snow again but she was too late –

“What happened?” Katara demanded frantically, only barely holding herself together as she saw the rips in Dad’s armor and the acrid smell of singed fur. “Dad, what happened?

“Just a little – welcome party,” Dad wheezed as they carefully loaded him up onto Appa’s saddle. Katara resisted the urge to hit him in the head with a water whip – La only knew that the last thing he needed right now was a concussion.

Although it probably would have made him smarter! How could he have been so reckless and stupid?

But if he was joking, it couldn’t be too bad, she tried to reassure herself. Dad was sensible – most of the time – he wouldn’t have done anything to put himself in too much danger, right?

“Let me heal you!” She demanded, channeling every ounce of Gran-Gran’s displeased voice she could into her tone. She thought she could hear Dad gulp nervously as she set to work trying to clear the worst of the soot and ash and – and blood – from his torso.

But the wounds weren’t desperate, and she let out a helpless sigh of relief as Appa landed at a safe distance from the battlefield and the fighting that was raging around them. Okay, so there was some blood, and some burns, but it wasn’t anything life-threatening; it wasn’t anything Katara couldn’t heal, she just needed time…

She hated the way her mind flickered back to Lake Laogai, when she’d been helpless, when there had been nothing she could have done to save Jet.

“How does that feel, Dad?” She asked worriedly as she coated her hands in water and pressed them over his stomach. The waters glowed with a bright blue light as she poured her healing energy into it.

“Little – better,” he managed through gritted teeth. “I need – to get back to the troops.”

Katara watched on with horrified denial as Dad tried to get back up again, only to fall back down with a pained exhale.

“You're hurt,” she told him, fighting back tears. “Badly! You can't fight anymore!”

“Everyone's counting on me to lead this mission, Katara,” Dad argued back, like a stupid, stupid idiot. “I won't let them down.”

“Can't you heal him any faster?” Sokka asked worriedly, as Dad barely managed to stumble halfway to his feet before slumping back with another grimace.

“I'm doing everything I can!” Katara hissed at him. Dad’s injuries were looking bad – she was doing everything she could, but this was hardly the time and place for an extended healing session.

Sokka looked torn for a moment, and Katara could see his expression wavering before something in his face stiffened, and his jaw tightened in resolve. “I'll do it.”

What?

“No offense, Sokka,” she tried to keep her voice steady instead of yelling at him, “But you're not exactly Mr. Healing Hands.”

“No,” he shook his head, scrambling up to his feet. “I'll lead the invasion force.”

“Don't be crazy, Sokka!” She cried. Dad was hurt, he was hurting right now – and Sokka wanted to put himself in the way of that? She wasn’t about to lose anyone else!

“Maybe I am a little crazy,” her older brother admitted, in what was perhaps the only case of understatement Katara had ever heard from him. “But the eclipse is about to start, and we need to be up that volcano by the time it does.”

“You can do this,” Dad said simply. “I'm proud of you, son.”

Tears welled up in Katara’s eyes, but she knew they still had a job to do. They’d have time afterwards for her to yell at her Dad and her brother for being such huge idiots, but right now, they had to do what they needed to do. Just like Sokka was always saying – and now, just like he was doing.

“I still think you're crazy,” she admitted, “But I'm proud of you too.”

With Sokka leading and organizing the Earth Kingdom soldiers and Water Tribe warriors, the tide slowly began to turn in their favor again. The Fire Nation soldiers tried to stop the tanks, but they were relentless; they rumbled on across the plaza and over anything that got in their way. The earthbenders were able to cover the tanks’ progress by launching boulders at the firebenders, and Katara watched with growing excitement as they advanced on the capital.

They were going to win, it slowly dawned on her. They’d reached the Fire Nation capital, stage one and stage two had gone off so well – now all they needed to do was hold on until the eclipse, when the firebenders would lose their powers as they were cut off from the sun; and then Aang could defeat the Fire Lord, the Avatar could restore the balance – they were going to win!

Chapter 27

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Those peanuts had given Aang the energy boost he needed, but he was kind of hoping that the Mechanist’s exploding peanut sauce really was as unsuccessful as Teo had assured him it was earlier. The last thing he needed as he was trying to sneak into the Fire Nation Royal Palace and defeat the Fire Lord was to give himself away with explosions.

Maybe that was how Combustion Man had learnt to blow stuff up with his mind, Aang speculated as he glided down to sneak onto one of the roofs in Caldera City. Maybe it hadn’t been a random forest plant he’d drunk as tea after all – maybe it had been peanuts?

Although Aang was still super curious to learn how Combustion Man had managed to learn whatever weird new bending he could do, he got the feeling that the assassin wouldn’t be very eager to tell him. In fact, he’d probably be more likely to try and kill him, so it was probably a good thing that they hadn’t run into Combustion Man in a while.

In fact, Aang hadn’t run into anyone in a while as he swept through the city with his glider. He’d honestly been expecting more people. But he supposed that if there wasn’t anyone around, that meant nobody else was going to get in the way of Aang defeating the Fire Lord, which was probably a good thing. It also meant that nobody was standing in the way as Aang built up a real burst of speed to break down the big door to the Fire Palace and burst on through!

“The Avatar is back!” He shouted.

Yes! Now the whole Fire Nation would remember him as Avatar Aang, the Avatar Who Wasn’t Actually Dead, as it Turned Out, but was Actually Alive and Ready to Defeat the Fire Lord All Along! It was a bit of a mouthful, but Aang would work on it just as soon as he’d finished defeating the Fire Lord.

Who… wasn’t here. Actually, Aang didn’t think there was anyone here.

“Hello?” He called out confusedly. “Anyone home?”

Aang realized as soon as he’d said it that if anyone was home, they probably wouldn’t have answered him with a Yeah, I’m Fire Lord Ozai and I’m in the third room on your left, or something like that. But as he raced around the Fire Palace, he checked all the rooms he could, not just the third one on his left… and he couldn’t find anyone!

“No,” he cursed, kneeling down on the ground and smacking his hand into the stone floor. “No, no, no! Fire Lord Ozai, where are you?”

He waited, but there was still no voice saying anything like Yeah, I’m Fire Lord Ozai and I’m in the third room on your left.

There was no one here at all! Why wasn’t anyone here?

Sokka and the others would know what to do, Aang decided. They were running out of time before the eclipse, but they still needed to find the Fire Lord before it was too late. He had to dodge a couple of nasty-looking fireballs as he flew back to find the others on his glider, but thankfully they didn’t explode on him, and neither did any of the peanuts he had eaten earlier. When he rejoined the others, he was relieved to see that they were all okay, especially Katara.

He’d been about to try acting all aloof and casual again, just like Sokka had told him to do in Makapu, but then Sokka just started talking before he could do anything.

“Please tell me you're here because the Fire Lord turned out to be a big wimp and you didn't even need the eclipse to take him down.”

Aang didn’t think that was the most helpful thing Sokka could have said at that moment in time, but he was kind of in a hurry right now, so they didn’t have time to argue.

“He wasn't home,” he explained. “No one was. The entire palace city is abandoned!”

Katara’s face turned pale, and Toph let out a really bad curse word that Aang knew she only saved for the really bad occasions. This probably counted.

“They knew,” Sokka said grimly.

Zuko,” Katara spat. “He must have told them what was happening!”

Monkeyfeathers. Aang had really thought that Hotman – that Zuko had been on their side. But if he’d told Azula that they were planning on invading, then he really had been lying to them all along.

Zuko could suck it!

“It's over,” he said sadly. “The Fire Lord is probably long gone – far away on some remote island where he'll be safe during the eclipse.”

“No,” Sokka disagreed firmly, shaking his head. “My instincts tell me he wouldn't go too far. He would have a secret bunker; somewhere he could go and be safe during the siege but still be close enough to lead his nation.”

Toph cleared her throat meaningfully and pointed to herself. “If it's an underground secret bunker we're looking for, I'm just the girl to find it.”

“The mechanist gave me this timing device,” Sokka said, pulling out something that looked to Aang like something you’d use to conduct a painful medical examination. “It looks like we've got about ten minutes until the full eclipse. Ten minutes to find the Fire Lord.”

Ten minutes. Monk Tashi had once complained that Aang could do more damage in ten minutes than Monk Gyatso could do in ten years. At the time, Aang had been a bit offended, even if it was awesome to be compared to Monk Gyatso – but now, he thought he could see where Tashi had been coming from.

“We can still do this!” He decided, looking from Toph to Sokka and seeing the determined expressions on both their faces. “We can still win the day!”

“Wait!” Katara cried out. “If they knew we were coming, it could all be a trap! Maybe we should use the time we have left to make sure we all get out of here safely?”

Aang had almost forgotten that Chief Hakoda had been sitting propped up against a boulder until he cleared his throat. He actually looked kind of comfy – the boulder even had a neat little spot for him to rest his head on.

“Everyone who's here today came prepared to risk everything for this mission,” he said in a voice that was kind of quiet but still super clear. “They know what's at stake. If there's still a chance and there's still hope, I think they would want Aang to go for it.”

“What do you think?” Sokka asked Aang. “You're the one that has to face the Fire Lord. Whatever you decide, I'm with you.”

After what Hakoda had just said, Aang knew what he needed to do. He got to his feet, and tried to make his feet stand extra-firm on the ground. “I've got to try.”

 

 

If nothing else, defeating the Fire Lord would mean that Toph wouldn’t ever have to fly on Fuzzy at speed again. She could feel the jennamite The Boulder had given her before the invasion pushing at her esophagus.

Biology lessons with Mistress Ouyang had taught her that the esophagus was the shíguǎn, which was a two-character word, but fuuuuuck if the way Toph’s stomach was feeling queasy as she jumped off the sky bison wasn’t a three-character classic.

“Do you feel anything down there?” Twinkles asked as she dropped to her knees. She wanted to say Yeah, I feel fucking terrible, but that probably wouldn’t solve anything.

“Yep,” she managed instead, spreading her hand on the ground and reaching out with her seismic sense. Just like the badgermoles had taught her… listen, then listen, and then listen some more.

“There are natural tunnels crisscrossing through the inside of the volcano,” she told the others.

“Anything else?” Snoozles asked eagerly. “Is there a structure somewhere?”

Toph let out a deep breath as she searched further out through the rock. “There’s something big, dense, and made of metal… deep in the heart of the volcano!”

As she used her earthbending to bust a hole open in the rock, Toph wondered for a moment whether diving headfirst into a volcano counted as more weighted towards the super cool, or the super deadly. But that question was quickly driven out of her head by the way Snoozles was singing some shitty tune about a secret tunnel just loudly enough for it to be really irritating.

Toph much preferred using her seismic sense to listen to the earth rather than listen to Sucker, and it was probably proving to be more useful right about now, too.

“This way!” She instructed the others. “That one's a dead end!”

She didn’t quite mean to leave it ambiguous as to whether she was pointing in the direction they should take, or the way that would lead them to a dead end, but she figured that if Twinkles and Snoozles followed her like good sensible little morons, it would be a moot issue anyway, right?

“What would we do without you?” Snoozles asked rhetorically. At least, Toph sure hoped it was rhetorical. Be cool, Toph. Be cool.

She had a cool answer anyway, though. “Perish in burning hot magma?”

Snoozles’ voice seemed weirdly squeaky as they made their way past the aforementioned burning hot magma. “Yeah, pretty much.”

The Fire Lord had definitely picked one of the more annoying places he could have picked for a secret hiding spot, Toph decided after a while. Flying on Appa across the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation had been bad enough, but having to hang onto the High Flyer’s glider as he flew them across a burning hot river of lava – just to reiterate, A BURNING HOT RIVER OF LAVA – instantly took the number one spot on Toph’s list of Absolutely No Fucking Chance, Twinkle Toes moments.

Give her a big metal door over geysers of burning hot magma any day; those were much easier to deal with. She only needed to jab her fingers into the metal, yank them away, and step inside.

“I am so glad we added you to the group!” Snoozles crowed as they made their way into the Fire Lord’s secret bunker.

“Right?” Twinkles agreed. “Sifu Toph’s awesome like that!”

It was nice to be appreciated, but it must have been the heat from that super-hot river of lava that was making Toph’s cheeks red, not anything else.

She could sense some Fire Nation guy coming their way. They weren’t walking very quickly as they ambled along, and Toph couldn’t help but smirk as she and the others jumped out at him. This guy was going to go down faster than Headhunter.

“The Fire Lord's chamber is that way!”

What the – oh, come on, seriously?

Was Toph ever going to get to lay a smackdown on anyone from the actual Fire Nation?

“Down the hall, to the left, and up the stairs!” The giant wuss babbled on. “You can't miss it!”

“Thanks!” Twinkles chirped. “Oh, and I really like your hat, by the way!”

Oh, for the days when faces and heels waited until lights out to be friends again, Toph reflected mournfully. The Boulder and The Hippo might have been morons, but at least they’d been professional morons. They’d never have broken kayfabe like that.

Speaking of two morons, she was here with Snoozles and Twinkles, and she had to really pump her legs to keep up with them.

“There’s a set of metal doors up ahead,” she wheezed. How did Fan Girl make this running shit seem so easy?

Toph was a little bit relieved when they paused and took a few moments when they reached the big metal doors, ‘cause it gave her a chance to catch her breath. She was bent over with her hands on her knees, but Snoozles wasn’t even breathing heavily. Just because he was older and taller and sort of fit and athletic, but whatever.

Meanwhile, Twinkle Toes was standing still. Very still. He wasn’t even doing any fancy dancing. Finally, he was facing things head-on, just like an earthbender should!

“I'm ready,” he said. “I'm ready to face the Fire Lord.”

Toph could have cheered. She’d been about to step forward and do some more metalbending to get them through the door, but before she could make a move, the airhead made a move, and there was an icy gust of wind – that probably froze Toph’s boogers in her nose, Agni’s balls, that had been cold – and she could sense a metal door flying through the air.

Yep, that also worked.

Toph scrambled into the inner chamber after Twinkles and Snoozles. Here they were, and she had a front-row seat whilst Aang gave the Fire Lord the mother of all beatdowns –

“So you’re alive after all.”

Oh, shit.

Back at Earth Rumble III, Headhunter had been booked to fight The Gopher in a submission match, but Xin Fu had screwed The Hippo over for a championship bout with the Blind Bandit, so The Hippo had been put in against Headhunter in a last-minute changeround. Toph had thought she’d left that kind of last-minute switching behind in Gaoling, but apparently not.

“I had a hunch that you survived,” the voice continued. “But it doesn't matter. I've known about the invasion for months.”

Princess Blue, Toph realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach. This wasn’t good.

 

 

The Fire Lord was sitting on his throne and drinking tea when Zuko entered his presence. There was so much right with that scenario, Zuko thought to himself, and yet it was so far from what he had wanted all along.

The Caldera bunker had two chambers set within the sprawling set of tunnels and corridors, and the Fire Lord had chosen to occupy the second for the duration of the eclipse. Between he and Zuko stood the Royal Guards, standing in massed formation between the monarch and the prince.

“Prince Zuko?” Fire Lord Ozai observed, lowering his teacup and narrowing his golden eyes. “What are you doing here?”

Breathe in, Zuko reminded himself. Remember your destiny.

“I'm here to tell the truth.”

The way the Fire Lord settled back on his high-backed chair would have been casual and relaxed, if not for the way his eyes flashed. “Telling the truth during the middle of an eclipse. This should be interesting.”

As the guards filed out of the chamber, Zuko took a deep breath. He didn’t like being underground at the best of times, so far from the warmth of the sun. But as the moon overtook the sun, he reminded himself of Princess Yue’s sacrifice at the North Pole, a land of ice and snow and the darkness of winter. She’d done her duty, and she had done the right thing, and she had done it for her people.

“First of all,” he began, speaking out into the silence, “In Ba Sing Se, it was Azula who took down the Avatar, not me.”

“Why would she lie to me about that?” The Fire Lord’s voice was deceptively mild.

Because Azula always lies, Zuko thought to himself. But this might have been the first time it had worked in Zuko’s favor.

“Because the Avatar's not dead,” he declared firmly. “He survived.”

What?

“In fact, he's probably leading this invasion,” he continued, relishing the mingled shock and outrage on the Fire Lord’s face. “He could be on his way here right now.”

In a flash, the Father Lord was standing tall and imposing, and stabbing his hand out to point at the door.

“Get out!” He hissed. “Get out of my sight right now, if you know what's good for you!”

“That's another thing.” Zuko’s hair hung around his face, and it tickled his right cheekbone. He couldn’t feel any such sensation on the left side of his face. “I'm not taking orders from you anymore.”

“You will obey me,” the Fire Lord threatened him, “Or this defiant breath will be your last!”

 “Think again!” Zuko unsheathed his swords and flipped them round in his hands to level them at the Father Lord. “I am going to speak my mind, and you are going to listen!”

The way Fire Lord Ozai sat down mutely on his throne, Zuko wondered whether his father had finally gained a modicum of respect for a non-bender’s weapons.

“You think I’m not taking any risks, speaking out in the middle of an eclipse,” he began. “But Fire Sage Yoritomo says that a man is honorable in proportion to the personal risks he takes for his opinion. When I spoke out before, I demonstrated my honor – and you banished me for it. You challenged me to an Agni Kai for it. How could you possibly justify a duel with a child?”

“It was to teach you respect!”

A master who refuses to learn is not a master you should learn from, Uncle’s voice echoed in Zuko’s mind.

“It was cruel!” He shouted, saying the words he’d whispered to himself so many times out loud for the first time. “And it was wrong!”

“Then you have learned nothing!” The Fire Lord roared at him.

“No! I've learned everything! The Fire Lord is meant to be honorable, but you banished me for doing an honorable thing. For doing the right thing!”

“You dare –”

“I dared before!” Zuko cut off his father’s words and sliced his swords through the air. “And I’ll dare again now! A Fire Lord with no honor is no Fire Lord at all!”

“I will not hear talk of honor from such a disgrace as you!” the Father Lord snarled. “You were lucky to be born, Prince Zuko! You were born weak! You’ve always been weak! And three years on, you haven’t learned a thing!”

Instead of telling the Fire Lord exactly what he had learned these past three years, Zuko merely shook his head. The Fire Nation deserved an honorable Fire Lord – one who could show them what true honor really was, just as they had shown Zuko.

“After I leave here today, I'm going to free Uncle Iroh from his prison,” he stated, trying to keep his voice calm. “And I'm going to beg for his forgiveness. He's the one who's been a real father to me.”

Fire Lord Ozai scoffed at his words. “Oh, that's just beautiful. And maybe he can pass down to you the ways of tea and failure!”

Zuko had learnt how to make tea from Uncle, yes. But his failures were his own, and he would seek Uncle’s forgiveness for them. And Uncle had never raised a hand to him for his weaknesses, nor had he scorned him for his mistakes.

“But I've come to an even more important decision.”

This was what Zuko had realized after three years. This was what he thought. This was him, speaking his mind. Never again would he chase after an impossible dream; never again would he forget who he was.

“I'm going to join the Avatar,” he told the Fire Lord, “And I'm going to help him defeat you.”

“Really?” The Fire Lord’s mouth curled up in a sneer. “Since you're a full-blown traitor now, and you want me gone, why wait? I'm powerless, you've got your swords; why don't you just do it now?”

“Because I know my own destiny,” Zuko answered. “Taking you down is the Avatar's destiny.”

His destiny. The one he had chosen. Not the one someone else had tried to force on him.

He sheathed his swords, and turned to leave. “Goodbye.”

“Coward!” He heard the Father Lord shout behind him. “You think you're brave enough to face me, but you'll only do it during the eclipse? If you have any real courage, you'll stick around until the sun comes out!”

The Fire Lord's taunts stung Zuko's pride, but he kept his back straight and his head high as he kept walking. He'd heard all that and worse from Zhao.

Don't you want to know what happened to your mother?

Notes:

The Chinese word for esophagus is shíguǎn; the San Zi Jing, or the Three Character Classic, is a classic of Chinese literature from the Song dynasty. However, a ‘three-character classic’ might also be a swear word, as many Chinese profanities consist of three characters.

The quote Zuko attributes to Fire Sage Yoritomi is from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Antifragile (2012) and was previously used in ‘Seventy-two to nil’.

Chapter 28

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Where is he?” Aang shouted at the Fire Princess. “Where's the Fire Lord?”

“You mean I'm not good enough for you?” Azula put a manicured hand over her mouth as she rose from the throne she’d been lounging on. “You're hurting my feelings.”

If they’d had more than eight minutes, Sokka would have said something about trust me, you’ll be feeling the hurt if you don’t cooperate, but they were kind of on a tight schedule right about now.

“Stop wasting our time and give us the information,” he commanded her coolly. “You're powerless right now, so you're in no position to refuse.”

“And stick to the truth,” Toph warned her. “I'll be able to tell if you're lying.”

“Are you sure?” Azula asked, taking a step forward. “I’m a pretty good liar.”

Sokka tensed reflexively. Nobody had to tell him that people could still be dangerous without being able to bend.

“I am a four-hundred-foot-tall purple platypus bear with pink horns and silver wings,” Azula stated clearly and calmly.

Pfft. She could have at least made it difficult, right? Sokka turned to Toph for confirmation. There was no way she could get away with that, right?

Right?

Anything that made Toph look less than confident bordering on arrogant wasn’t a good thing, in Sokka’s mind.

Shit.

“Okay, you're good, I admit it,” Toph snarled, bending a rock cage around the Fire Princess. “But you ought to consider telling the truth anyway!”

Sokka tried to refocus. However Azula had figured out they were coming, they could deal with it later. But for now, they’d trapped Azula…

Toph’s rock trap shattered.

Oh, for Tui’s sake. Azula could already bend blue fire – now she could bend rock, too?

Sokka couldn’t even bend one element, let alone the rules of bending!

“When I left Ba Sing Se, I brought home some souvenirs,” Azula explained, smirking at the stunned looks on their faces. “Dai Li agents.”

As two earthbenders in green uniforms dropped down from the cave ceiling, Sokka mentally amended his previous assessment of the situation to double shit.

Aang and Toph did their best to blast through the stone walls and rock obstacles the Dai Li agents sent their way, but Sokka couldn’t really help out much with that. Being a man was about being where you were needed, and if Sokka couldn’t help with the bending side of things, he could at least help out in some other way.

Divide and conquer, he thought to himself as he threw his boomerang at one of the Dai Li goons. You needed to play to your strengths. Unfortunately, the earthbenders seemed to have the same idea, because one of them brought up an earth wall to cleave the Fire Lord’s secret chamber in two, separating Sokka from the others.

A rock blasted through the wall, leaving a jagged hole behind, and oh boy, that must have been the first time Sokka was hoping that Toph was the one causing property damage.

He took a running jump to catch onto the edge of the hole and haul himself up, and he’d been about to scramble his way through to join the fight when he suddenly found himself staring at black hair, a pair of glittering golden eyes, a smirking mouth, and then a long, pale throat, and then…

Um.

Uh.

Safe, sensible decisions, Sokka reminded himself.

He’d probably have been staring into space blankly for a little while longer if a Dai Li agent hadn’t taken the opportunity to come diving through the hole as well. Sokka wasn’t sure whether he preferred this second interruption or not, but at least they were on the move again.

“I can't pin her down!” Aang shouted as they ran through the tunnels. “She's too quick!”

As they continued chasing after Azula, Toph managed to overpower another of the Dai Li agents. So now it was just the three of them and Azula. Sokka thought they were making pretty good time as they sprinted through the rock tunnels; usually, it took them a lot longer than this to get the upper hand on Azula –

Triple shit.

“Wait!” He screamed, skidding to a halt in his tracks. “Aang! Toph! Stop attacking! Don't you see what she's doing? She's just playing with us – she's not even trying to win this fight!”

“Not true,” Azula called out from her spot, only a couple of yards ahead of them. “I'm giving it my all!”

Yeah, right. If Azula was giving it her all, Sokka was a four-hundred-foot tall purple platypus bear with pink horns and silver wings.

Toph let out a frustrated noise. “You're trying to keep us here and waste all our time!”

“Um, right,” Azula scoffed. “I think your friend just said that, genius. And since you can't see, I should tell you – I'm rolling my eyes.”

“I'll roll your whole head!” Toph shouted.

“She's just baiting you again!” Sokka snapped, his mind racing. How long had they spent fighting Azula? How long did they have left?

“Okay, so what do we do?” Aang looked confused. “Just ignore her?

“We don't have a choice,” Sokka said firmly. Someone had to lead, and they needed to get to where they needed to be. “We just have to get out of here and find the Fire Lord on our own somehow.”

“It's a trap,” Azula warned them as they began to walk away. “Don't say I didn't warn you.”

Ignore!” Sokka yelled, slashing his hand out without breaking stride.

“It’s your funeral,” Azula called out in a bored voice. “And I wouldn’t count on the Blue Spirit showing up this time around, either.”

Sokka spun around. “What are you talking about?”

“Please,” Azula sneered, flipping her hair away from her face. “I’m not nearly as much of a dum-dum as my brother. Once it became clear that the Blue Spirit was travelling with the Avatar, it was child’s play for me to figure it out.”

The thought flashed through Sokka’s mind that Zuko hadn’t told her. She must have figured it out on her own.

“No one’s coming to save you, Avatar,” the Fire Princess continued, a triumphant smile spreading slowly over her face. “No Zuzu, no fat old uncle, no Earth Kingdom girls playing dress-up –”

Sokka barely realized that he had lunged for Azula before Toph let out a warning shout, and suddenly Azula’s hand was pinned to the wall of the tunnel with a rock shackle. He heard a clattering noise as something fell to the ground, but he relished the pained hiss Azula let out as he grabbed her shoulder and slammed her back into the rock wall.

“Where’s Suki?” He screamed, digging his fingers around her armored shoulder pads and sinking his nails into her tunic. “And don’t you dare lie!

“Sokka, she won't talk!”

Aang was tugging at his back and trying to tap him on the collarbone, but Sokka wasn’t listening. First the Prince, now the Princess – they’d just been screwing with them all along – bastards, ashmakers, they couldn’t be trusted –

BOOM

“Oh,” Azula’s eyes flashed, and for a moment Sokka could have sworn they’d turned blue. “Sounds like the firebending's back on.”

 

 

The Fire Lord had banished Zuko and never told him why. He’d lived with his questions for so long that he’d sometimes wondered whether he had given up on ever finding answers. But for all that Zuko had made his peace with the uncertainties he felt around his own story, he would freeze and burn and rise from the ashes a thousand times before he gave up this chance to find out what had happened to his mother.

“What happened that night?” He demanded.

“My father, Fire Lord Azulon, had commanded me to do the unthinkable to you, my own son.” Fire Lord Ozai’s golden eyes suddenly darkened. “And I was going to do it.”

You went and did it anyway!, Zuko wanted to scream at him. But if he spoke out of turn this time around, he would never know what had happened.

“Your mother found out, and swore she would protect you at any cost. She knew I wanted the throne, and she proposed a plan. A plan in which I would become Fire Lord and your life would be spared.” The Father Lord’s smile held a wicked, dark kind of joy in its corners. “Your mother did vicious, treasonous things that night.”

Fire Lord Azulon had died suddenly. Fire Lord Ozai had been crowned just as abruptly. Zuko had woken up that morning as third in line to the throne, and had ended the day as the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, crying and retching as he sat alone by the turtleduck pond.

“She knew the consequences and accepted them. For her treason, she was banished.”

If he tried hard enough, Zuko could still remember the look on his mother’s face as she had pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and turned away from him. Her footsteps hadn’t made a sound as she had walked away that night, but Zuko would never forget the last words she had said to him.

Zuko, please, my love, listen to me. Everything I've done, I've done to protect you.

He wouldn’t have been able to describe the emotions he was feeling in that moment if he had a thousand lifetimes to memorize Love Amongst the Dragons, and a hundred more to learn the Hyakunin Isshu. “So… she's alive?”

“Perhaps,” the Father Lord said noncommittally. “Now I realize that banishment is far too merciful a penalty for treason. Your penalty will be far steeper.”

Zuko suddenly felt his inner flame grow warmer. The embers in his spirit crackled to life, and his fire burned a little brighter. The eclipse must have ended. His connection to his element was back again.

But if he could firebend again, then that meant the Fire Lord would be able to –

The lightning bolt was so powerful that Zuko barely had time to stretch his hand out and catch it before he was sent stumbling back several feet from the impact of the blast. For those few faltering steps, he could feel the cold fire screaming down his arm, sending every hair on his limb up on end.

But he’d done this before, back when Azula had struck for Aang. He knew what he needed to do.

Zuko poured every last piece of his power, his motivation, and his passion into channeling the lightning and redirecting it to where he wanted it to go. His root was strong, and his control was steady. He had time to feel the electricity searing its way through his body, burning and freezing simultaneously, and as he released it back at the stone floor below the Fire Lord’s feet, the sudden absence of energy left him feeling hollow for the faintest moment.

But he didn’t have time to stick around and see what had happened. As the rock exploded in a flurry of fragments and debris, Zuko was already running.

He needed to make sure Uncle was safe, he told himself. Just like in Ba Sing Se, but this time, instead of running after Fire Nation royalty, he was running to stay ahead of Fire Nation royalty. If the Fire Lord gave the order, and it was carried out before Zuko got there – or if Azula got there before he did –

Zuko gritted his teeth and dug in to try and find some deeper reserves of speed and stamina. Just like the North Pole, racing to try and get there before the Fire Nation beat him to it. Aang and Uncle, the people the world needed if they were to end this war. Zuko wasn’t sure what his part was going to be, but he needed the two of them to be safe if he was to find out.

When once the Crown Prince had been turned away at the prison gates, today Zuko didn’t even have to pause before bursting through the doors and hurrying down the corridors of the prison. He could recognize some of the guards, but they didn’t seem too interested in stopping him, for which he was thankful. If they’d tried to get in the way, he might have just carried on straight through them.

He rounded the blind corner to Uncle’s jail cell at a sprint, almost slamming into the wall as he ran. His legs almost gave out on him as he tried to regather whatever momentum he had lost, but then he almost collapsed again as he saw the mangled bars, fallen stonework, and cowering warden scattered across the corridor.

Lightning. Nothing made that kind of chaos in the Fire Nation except lightning.

So that meant – Azula

“Uncle!” Zuko screamed, scrambling over to grab Warden Poon by his collar. “Where’s my uncle?

“He's gone!” Poon babbled, mumbling to himself as if in a daze. “Busted himself out… never seen anything like it… like a one-man army…”

Zuko almost sobbed with relief as he dropped the warden back to the floor. He’d been too late to rescue Uncle, but he hadn’t needed rescuing.

Would he have stayed in the capital? In the Fire Nation? Zuko hadn’t heard anything from the Wani beyond what Yoshida had told him, about being on their way to the South Pole with supplies for the Southern Water Tribe as they approached midwinter, but it was possible that Yoshida had been sending him misinformation because the Order of the White Lotus still didn’t trust him…

Zuko mentally shook himself out of his daze. All this could wait. There was a time for thinking things through, but this wasn’t it. If Uncle Iroh found out that he had faced down the Fire Lord and rejected hakkō ichiu, only to get captured because he’d been dawdling around afterwards, he would never let Zuko hear the end of it.

 

 

The Fire Nation had been busy in the past few months. Whilst they’d been preparing for the invasion, the firebenders had been preparing for them. Katara wasn’t sure whether the war balloons were looming so large in the sky because they really were that big, or whether it was her fear making them look bigger than they were. As Appa landed, she looked to Aang for reassurance, but the Avatar couldn’t do anything more than shake his head. Disappointment and bitterness felt like freezing-cold icy water that soaked through Katara’s skin, bones, and heart.

“It was all a trap!” Sokka told her grimly as he and Toph climbed down out of Appa’s saddle. “Azula knew we were coming, and she'd plotted our every move!”

So they’d failed, Katara thought heavily to herself. Everything they’d been working towards had been in vain. But that couldn’t be right – they’d been winning, she’d seen it herself. They couldn’t have failed!

“We've just got to get to the beach as fast as we can,” Sokka continued as Dad limped over to join them. “If we can make it to the submarines, maybe we can get away safely.”

“They've got air power, but so do I,” Aang declared fiercely, snapping his glider open again. “I'm going to do what I can to slow them down!”

Katara wasn’t sure what in La’s name was going on with Aang today, but she couldn’t just turn her back on him when he needed her help. She and Appa set off behind him, but it seemed like every time she sliced through a hot air balloon with her waterbending, or Aang used his glider to puncture a balloon, two more took their place. With his heavy armor, Appa wasn’t able to dodge as many fireballs as he had when they’d been running Zhao’s blockade on the winter solstice, and Katara had to bend the water in the wooden barrels into shields to protect them both and deflect the flaming boulders. But if she was too busy doing that to attack the balloons, what use were they up here?

“We can't keep them all back!” She called out to Aang. “There's too many of them!”

“Let's join the others!” She heard his faint voice, and she was more than happy to agree with that course of action. Judging from the way Appa seemed to move more forcefully in a straighter and more direct line towards the invasion force, he was in a hurry too.

Katara could see the earthbenders creating rock shelters over the retreating fighters to protect them from the bombs being dropped from the balloons. But the balloons weren’t sticking around to bombard them, she noted confusedly. They seemed content to drop their bombs as they passed overhead, but they were continuing out to sea. Why were they just passing by?

“Why aren't they turning around to attack us again?” She asked in bemusement. Something wasn’t adding up here.

“They're heading for the beach,” Aang frowned, before his face suddenly turned white. “They're going to destroy the submarines!”

“How are we all going to escape?” Sokka asked, and that, more than anything else, made Katara feel dread. Sokka was their plan guy – if he didn’t have any ideas, then what were they meant to do?

“We're not.”

What?

Katara turned around to see Dad limping towards them, being supported by Bato. Whatever Sokka said in response, she couldn’t hear it. If Dad was giving up…

But they couldn’t give up, she told herself desperately. They couldn’t. Not without a fight!

“With the Avatar we could still win – on another day,” Dad was saying. “You kids have to leave. You have to escape on Appa together.”

“What?” Katara scrambled forward, her fingers reaching out to grasp at Dad’s shoulders. “We can't leave you behind! We won't leave anyone behind!”

“You're our only chance in the long run,” Dad told her softly. “You and Sokka have to go with Aang somewhere safe. It's the only way to keep hope alive.”

Dad’s blue eyes were soft in his lined face, but the corners were tight with pain. She should have tried harder to heal him, maybe then they could have been able to fight, they could have stood more of a chance…

“The youngest of our group should go with you,” Bato told them. “The adults will stay behind and surrender. We'll be prisoners, but we'll all survive this battle.”

“I've got some experience with the Fire Nation prisons,” Tyro said as he came up to stand with Katara and Dad. “It's not going to be easy, but we'll get by.”

“They're at the beach already!” Sokka reported with an audible gulp. Aang swallowed too, but even if that had been audible, it was drowned out by the sounds of explosions from the beach.

Sokka’s mouth moved as his eyes screwed up shut, but Katara was pretty sure that whatever he was saying, it was some sort of creative curse word. She didn’t want to hear that; not right now.

Not when the Fire Nation was going to take her Dad away from her again.

As Haru, Teo, and The Duke clambered up into Appa’s saddle, Katara stood in silence. As they wished their family and friends goodbye, she could only hear the angry cries of the firebenders who were quickly advancing on them. Sokka stood by her, and she wondered what he was thinking, but she couldn’t ask him. She didn’t have the stomach to hear what his response might have been.

They’d been winning, and now everything was ruined. And Dad and Bato and all the warriors of their Tribe were going to have to surrender to buy them time to get away.

She was so tired of having to be protected when everything went wrong.

She felt a warm weight on her shoulder, and looked up to see Dad standing in front of her and Sokka. His other arm was reached out for Sokka’s shoulder, too.

“We lost today,” he told them in a quiet, firm voice. “But we've never been this close. We tasted victory, and that counts for something.”

Katara wished she could agree with him. But if this was victory, it tasted awfully bitter. She could only hug him as tightly as she could and try and press every ounce of love she could into Dad’s armor, hoping that it would somehow guard him and keep him safe from whatever happened next.

“Thank you all for being so brave and so strong,” Aang told the warriors they were going to have to leave behind. “I'm going to make this up to you.”

But as Appa set off with a low groan, and Aang said they should be safe for a while at the Western Air Temple, Katara knew that it wasn’t Aang who had to make anything up to the warriors. He hadn’t been the one to let them down. He hadn’t lied to them; he hadn’t given them false hope. He wasn’t the one who’d told the Fire Nation they were coming.

If Katara ever saw Zuko again, she promised herself, she would make him sorry he had ever hurt the people she cared about.

Notes:

Hakkō ichiu was a Japanese political slogan supporting the divine right of the Empire of Japan to “unify the eight corners of the world”.

Chapter Text

When Aang and his friends had reached the Western Air Temple, the last thing Aang had wanted to do was talk about what they were supposed to do now that the invasion had failed. Teo had wanted to explore the Temple and see how it was different from the Northern Air Temple, and Haru and The Duke had been happy to join him.

Aang had been just about to go with them so he could tell Teo that one of the big ways this Temple differed from the Northern Air Temple was that it didn’t have tons of stupid ugly metal piping all over the place, but Katara had said that they needed to talk about some things with Sokka and Toph, and Aang had only been able to watch as the others ran off – or wheeled themselves off, in Teo’s case.

“Why can't I go?” He complained, feeling like he was kind of being singled out here for no good reason.

“We need to decide what we're going to do now,” Katara explained. “And since you're the Avatar, maybe you should be a part of this.”

Aang had to hide his dismay when he heard that. One of the things he really liked about Katara was that she never made him being the Avatar into a really big deal like Monk Tashi or Monk Pasang used to do.

He didn’t get why the others couldn’t just be okay with having no plan! The way Aang saw it, having no plan meant they had freedom, which was obviously a good thing. And if they didn’t have a plan, then they didn’t have to worry about their plan suddenly changing on them, or their plan falling through. But Sokka did like making plans, and Katara wasn’t an airbender like Aang, and Sokka had always said that Aang shouldn’t try and change people into being something they weren’t.

“Fair enough,” he said eventually, although he wasn’t too happy about it. “So, what's the new plan?”

“Well, if you ask me, the new plan is the old plan,” Sokka said simply. “You just need to master all four elements and confront the Fire Lord before the comet comes.”

All four elements? Aang wasn’t so sure about that. He’d been okay with learning the three elements he would have been able to bend on the day of the eclipse, but four elements? Aang might not have been great at math, but he knew the four elements: air, water, earth, and fire – and the last time he’d tried learning firebending, things hadn’t gone so well.

“Oh, yeah,” he mumbled. “That's great, no problem. I'll just do that.”

“Aang, no one said it's going to be easy,” Katara tried, but that just made Aang feel even worse.

Didn’t she understand how awful Aang had felt when he’d accidentally burned her? He’d been so freaked out, he’d had to use spark rocks to light their fires every time they needed to cook stuff until they’d reached the North Pole! And now she just wanted to throw him back into firebending again? What if he burned her again? Aang loved Katara, he couldn’t even imagine doing that to her!

He needed to find some way to make her see that he couldn’t learn firebending, but how? If he said he didn’t think he could learn firebending, Sokka and Toph would just say there’s no reason you can’t do it, like that solved anything.

That was it, Aang realized. There was a reason he couldn’t firebend!

“Well, it's not even going to be possible!” He cried out. “Where am I supposed to get a firebending teacher?”

Katara suggested that they could look for Jeong Jeong again, but there was no way Aang was going to learn from Jeong Jeong. He hadn’t taught Aang anything useful, and he’d been all you must learn control, or else you will be consumed. But as far as they could tell, Aang and the others hadn’t found any firebenders who could teach him useful firebending knowledge apart from sifu Iroh, and they didn’t know where he was right now.

“Oh well,” he said, trying to sound disappointed but probably not sounding too disappointed. “Guess we can't come up with anybody. Why don't we just take a nice tour around the temple?”

The Duke had asked whether Aang wanted to play a game of The Floor is Lava, but Aang had kind of already had to play a real-life game of The Floor is Lava when he’d flown Sokka and Toph across that lava river on his glider, and he didn’t really want to have to think about the invasion right now. Or about anything to do with the Fire Nation. That included firebending, fire flakes, and even math tests. Actually, Aang just plain didn’t like talking about math tests in general.

Annoyingly, though, Katara and Sokka kept trying to talk to him about learning firebending. They sure were persistent – even when Aang was flying on his glider. Aang was pretty sure Toph would have been banging on about firebending as well if she hadn’t been hunched over in Appa’s saddle with a queasy look on her face. It made Aang feel kind of bad for her, but why were they even flying around on Appa in the first place?

“Aang, can we talk about you learning firebending now?” Katara called out after him.

Oh, right. That was why.

Stupid firebending could suck it!

“What?” Aang called back, pretending he hadn’t been able to hear her. “The wind is too loud in my ears!”

Sokka opened his mouth as if he was about to repeat what Katara had said at a louder volume, but Aang was too quick.

“Check out this loop!” He shouted out to Katara, doing a super cool trick with his glider to show her how cool airbending could be. No firebending required!

“Aang!” Sokka yelled. “I think we should be making some plans about our future!”

Ugh. Aang had been kind of hoping that his cool trick would have made Katara say something like that, especially after they’d kissed at the invasion. But he couldn’t really say that right now in front of Sokka and Toph, because that would be awkward. It was probably going to be awkward anyway if he just pretended he couldn’t hear Sokka as well, but if he started talking about how he and Katara had kissed in front of Sokka and Toph, that would be super awkward as well.

“Okay,” he told them as he brought his glider in to land on the Temple courtyard. “We can do that while I show you the giant Pai Sho table. You're gonna love the all-day echo chamber!”

He could tell that the others didn’t seem too happy with the idea of spending all day in an echo chamber, but he wasn’t too happy with the idea of firebending, so that was that. Aang figured that if they needed to have a plan, they could start with his plan for the day before they began worrying about stupid firebending.

 

 

All in all, Sokka didn’t think he’d be recommending Aang’s guided tour of the Western Air Temple to any other prospective tourists he happened to bump into on his way. His ears were still ringing from that Tui-damned echo chamber as he woke up the next morning.

The Pai Sho table would have been cooler if he’d had someone to play with, but it seemed that for all that Toph had been best buddies with Master Iroh, she’d never actually learnt the rules of the game. Sokka wasn’t quite sure how Iroh had somehow found the time to induct him into a secret society but hadn’t had the time to teach Toph how the rhododendron tile worked, but that was besides the point. Katara knew how to play, but she’d been a bit preoccupied with trying to get Aang to sit down with them all and talk about how he felt about the invasion – and Sokka wasn’t sure whether that Monk Gyatso dude had ever taught Aang how to play Pai Sho, but he hadn’t been able to ask, because Aang had been a bit preoccupied with trying to avoid sitting down with them and talking about how he felt after the invasion.

Which, to be fair, Sokka could understand. Talking about emotions was kind of unmanly, and you had to pick the right time and place. An all-day echo chamber was decidedly not the right place for them all to have a sit-down and unpack how they were feeling after they’d missed perhaps the best chance they were ever going to get to end the war.

Great. Now Sokka was bummed out, and he hadn’t even had breakfast yet. Still, on the bright side, breakfast was always guaranteed to improve his mood. There was a lesson there, Sokka was sure of it, but he couldn’t quite figure it out. That wasn’t an issue, though – he always did his best thinking after breakfast.

As he heaved himself out of his sleeping bag like a drunken tiger seal flopping about on the ice, Sokka could see that Aang, Toph, and the three Earth Kingdom boys were still asleep around the burnt-out remains of their fire from last night. Katara was sat by a cooking pot, staring down at two spark rocks in her hands and half-heartedly striking them against each other to try and light a fire under the pot.

Had Katara gotten any sleep last night? Sokka honestly wasn’t so sure; his little sister had dark circles under her eyes, and her hair looked like Momo had gone searching for lychee nuts in it. She was blinking slowly as she fumbled the spark rocks, and her shoulders slumped as she watched them spin out of her hands and skid across the floor.

When Sokka had been working in the Pao Family Tea House, most of their customers for the early morning rush had been students at Ba Sing Se University, and they had often asked for a shot of chi-enhancing tea along with their matcha or oolong blends. Sokka didn’t think he had anything like that to hand right now, but the way Katara was looking right now put him in mind of the group of Cultural Anthropology majors who had showed up during what had apparently been a particularly brutal finals week.

He scooped up the spark rocks and crouched down next to his little sister, who only blinked at him like a drowsy crococat as he struck a spark and set a flame going.

“You’re up early,” he observed conversationally. Conversationally in this instance meant that he was talking quietly, but that was mainly due to the lingering effects of that all-day echo chamber.

“Someone’s got t’be,” Katara mumbled, rubbing sleep from her eyes with a slow hand. “Breakfast isn’ makin’ isself. ‘N’ spark rocks…” She trailed off with an almighty yawn. “Take forever.”

“Can’t you just heat up the water using your bending?” Sokka asked, before he had a better idea. “Or can’t you just get Aang to light it with firebending?”

That would be a pretty good way for them to get a feeling for where Aang was up to with his firebending, right? If Sokka and the others could see how much Jeong Jeong had taught Aang, then maybe they could try and see where they could take the bending theory and moves that Aang had already learnt. It wouldn’t be anything close to the firebending Aang could learn from a master, but they didn’t have a master for him to learn from, and if he was being honest, Sokka didn’t think they had time to find one. It would be difficult – maybe darn near impossible for two earthbenders, three non-benders, and a waterbender to help Aang learn firebending with little to no prior knowledge of firebending, but… there was no reason they couldn’t do it, right?

Right?

Maybe not, a little voice in the back of Sokka’s head whispered, but the Water Tribe warrior in him told that voice to shut up and start adapting to the current situation.

“Nuh-uh,” Katara shook her head slowly. “Aang told me Jeong Jeong didn’t really teach him any firebending. Just how to breathe properly.”

“Great,” Sokka grumbled as the spark rocks finally caught and set a couple of scraps of paper alight below the cooking pot. “So you guys spent all that time at Jeong Jeong’s camp before you got to the North Pole, and you didn’t even learn anything. What was the point of that total waste of time?”

“I learnt I had healing powers,” Katara disagreed. “So it wasn’t a total waste, right?”

Katara had learnt healing from Jeong Jeong? That was weird to imagine. Sokka couldn’t imagine how a firebender could help Katara learn that she had such an uncommon talent. But then again, she’d learnt quite a bit from – from that bastard Zuko.

“How did Jeong Jeong help you figure that out?” He asked curiously.

Katara suddenly seemed to jerk awake, because she shook her head a little quickly.

“That doesn’t matter right now,” she said, getting to her feet and smoothing down the creases in her dress before pinching the cuffs of her leggings. “What matters is helping Aang learn firebending.”

Sokka had to admit it, Katara was right. After the invasion had failed, what mattered now was that Aang needed to learn how to firebend before Sozin’s Comet came and the Fire Lord used its power to end the war once and for all. That was what mattered right now. Not what had happened with Jeong Jeong, not what had happened at the invasion, not what had happened to Suki.

Not knowing where Suki was or whether or not she was okay was really bumming Sokka out. Breakfast was always guaranteed to improve his mood, true, but maybe he’d have double portions today, just to be on the safe side.

 

 

Toph was getting tired of how the Fancy Dancer was trying to duck them when they tried to talk to him about firebending.

The Blind Bandit had dealt with this kind of thing before, of course – part of being the undefeated, undisputed champ meant that the smaller players wanted to fight you, and that was always fun, but then when you started negotiating with the other big players, oddly enough, they always had other things to be doing. Xin Fu had been trying to organize a fight with the champ of the Omashu Earth Rumbles before Toph had left, but they’d been giving all sorts of stupid excuses. Claiming they couldn’t fight because they already had a fight lined up with a guy in the northern Earth Kingdom, fair enough. But ducking a fight because they had a Pai Sho tournament that weekend that they just couldn’t miss? Bullshit. Just say you were too much of a coward to put your belt on the line in a title unifier, and move on.

So Toph knew what was going on when Twinkle Toes started talking about exploring the Temple to see whether there were any random forest plants around that they could try and make tea out of.

“And because we’re so high up, I bet it would take ages for stuff to hit the ground if we airbent it over the side,” the Fancy Dancer was saying. “Do you think I could hit something on the other side of the canyon if you gave me a target?”

“Probably, Aang,” Sugar Queen tried. “But what if we tried to incorporate that sort of thing into your training?”

She wasn’t going to get anywhere with that attitude, Toph thought to herself. What was the point of asking if the Fancy Dancer could just dance his way around answering?

“I could probably hit something with a boomerang, even,” Aang chattered on. “Remember when I could hit that tree left-handed, Sokka? When you were telling me not to make people do stuff they might not want to do?”

“Do you think you could hit a tree if you tried firebending at it?” Snoozles asked. Toph gave him a few points for directness, but he lost marks for the passive-aggressive question.

This was getting ridiculous. Twinkle Toes was apparently even more unwilling to learn firebending than he had been when Toph had shown him how to be an earthbender. And he’d wanted Toph as an earthbending teacher.

“Why don’t you want to learn firebending, Twinkle Toes?” She asked bluntly. Sometimes, the direct approach was the best approach. Kind of the whole point of launching boulders at someone to knock them out of the ring, really.

“What?” Twinkles laughed a little awkwardly. “Of course I want to learn firebending!”

“Liar,” she accused him. “I can sense your heartbeat, remember?”

“Well, you couldn’t tell when Azula was lying,” Aang argued. “So how come you can tell when I’m lying?”

“Because I can tell when your heartbeat changes,” Toph ground out. “Princess Blue’s heartbeat doesn’t change; I can’t read her. But yours does, so I can tell when you’re lying, Twinkles – just like you’re doing right now!”

“Toph, Aang doesn’t have to learn firebending just yet if he doesn’t want to –” Sugar Queen began, but Toph stamped her foot so the ground shifted a little under her ankle. Not enough to twist it or roll it or anything, just enough that she had to stumble a little and break off.

“When we were out in the desert, Zuko told me that this Jeong Jeong dude had a saying,” she continued as if Splish-Splash hadn’t interrupted. “I figured it’s kind of appropriate right now.”

“We’re not interested in anything Zuko had to say,” Sugar Queen said coldly, straightening back up. Toph noted with a bit of amusement that even though she was unhurt, she was leaning pretty heavily on her right foot and being a bit tentative with her left.

“You weren’t saying that when Twinkle Toes was getting all inspired by that knife of his,” she retorted. “Never give up without a fight, and all that.”

“Well, that was before we realized that he was a lying, no-good, traitorous –”

“Just because you don’t like someone, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them,” Snoozles said placatingly. “Like with Master Pakku, right?”

Toph was pretty sure that grinding noise was Splish-Splash’s teeth. “Fine. What did Jeong Jeong say, Toph?”

Nice to hear that Sugar Queen could see reason after all. Not that Toph could see reason, or anything at all for that matter, but whatever. “Regroup, refocus, return.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Twinkles pointed out. “I’m not returning to the Fire Nation. Like, that would be a super dumb idea if we just went straight back after the invasion failed!”

“Right,” Toph agreed. It sounded like she was conceding a point, but Toph fucking Beifong didn’t ever concede. The Blind Bandit had won more I Quit submission matches than anyone else in Earth Rumble history.

“No, we can’t return,” she continued. “Yeah, the invasion failed. It sucks, Twinkles, I know it does. But instead of moping around and feeling sorry for ourselves, this is when we’ve gotta get up and go again! This is when we’ve got to regroup, refocus –”

“And return,” Snoozles said tiredly. “Yeah, we get it, Toph. But in case you hadn’t noticed, that regrouping part kind of implies that things didn’t go so well. Well, spoiler alert, they didn’t.”

“Thanks for explaining that, Sucker,” Toph waved her hand impatiently. “I’d completely forgotten… none of that. Mind explaining what that’s got to do with anything, though?”

“It means we’re going to have to try something new,” Snoozles replied. “And we’re going to have to come up with a new plan.”

“You said the new plan was the same as the old plan!”

“Yeah, but we still need to come up with a way of accomplishing it.”

Bullshit, Toph wanted to say. She knew Snoozles liked his plans, but planning a plan was taking things too far.

“And we don’t have to come up with it right away,” Splish-Splash butted in. “We can take some time to recover.”

Just because Toph was younger than these guys, it didn’t mean she was stupid. “What happened to never giving up without a fight, huh?”

“Well, that’s not me, Toph!” Aang burst out at her suddenly. “That’s Zuko! It’s Zuko’s stupid knife, and that’s Zuko’s stupid saying, and I don’t care what Zuko has to say, because he’s a sneak!

“I don’t care if Zuko’s a sneak, Aang!” Toph shouted right back at him. “I care about you! And I get that it sucks, okay, but you’ve still got a job to do! You’ve still got to stand firm and do it! You’ve still got to learn firebending!”

“I do know firebending! Jeong Jeong taught me how to firebend, okay? Watch!”

Toph had been about to yell Watch how, exactly, you fucking moron?, but then she heard a whoosh, and she felt the heat, and then she felt –

MOM HELP IT BURNS MOMMY HELP MY FEET I CANT SEE MOM

Chapter Text

“I’m so sorry, Toph,” Aang kept saying miserably. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to get so mad at you – firebending always gets me all emotional, like I can’t control what I’m feeling –”

“Shut the fuck up, you stupid airhead,” Toph gritted her teeth as Katara and Sokka dipped her feet into the fountain in the middle of the courtyard. “I swear, as soon as I’m out of here –”

She broke off with a hiss as Katara set about trying to heal her burnt feet.

When Aang had lost control of his firebending, Katara had been powerless to stop what was about to happen. She had been frozen with horror as Toph had fallen over, screaming in pain.

It was a bad burn, and Katara bit her lip as she kept working at the little earthbender’s toes. It wouldn’t be anything permanent, thank the spirits, but Aang was a powerful bender. It would take a few healing sessions over a couple of days for Toph’s feet to be okay.

“You need to be more careful, Aang,” she tried to keep her voice gentle at the despondent look on his face. “I know you don’t want anyone to get hurt, but that’s twice now this has happened. You have to make sure that you’re able to control your firebending.”

“Twice?” Toph asked, turning her blind eyes to frown at something a little to Katara’s left.

Katara winced with compassion and sympathy. Without her sensing feet, Toph really couldn’t see at all like she was used to seeing.

“Is this something I wasn’t here for?” Toph continued, and Katara’s heart dropped into her stomach.

“I’m wondering that myself,” Sokka said in a cold voice. “Katara? When did this happen, exactly?”

Too late, Katara realized what she’d just said. Sokka hadn’t been there for the time Aang had accidentally burned her when he had been practicing his firebending.

“Oh, this was ages ago!” Aang laughed nervously, shifting on his feet and glancing at Katara. “This was, like, before we even got to the North Pole, so it’s kind of –”

“I didn’t ask you, Aang,” Sokka snapped, and Aang instantly fell silent. “Katara? When did this happen?

Katara couldn’t speak. She couldn’t tell Sokka what had happened – he’d be furious. But Sokka was a smart guy. It wouldn’t take her big brother long to figure out what it meant that Katara had discovered she had healing powers around the time Aang had been learning firebending.

And so it proved.

Toph let out a yelp as Sokka abruptly let go of her arm, and Katara had to move quickly to stop her from toppling into the water. But that meant she was helpless to stop Sokka from tackling Aang to the floor. There were a few scuffling noises and a painful sounding whack of a body part hitting the ground.

“You burned my sister?” Sokka bellowed, as Aang let out a cry of pain.

“Sokka, let him up!” Katara shouted panickily, looking at the way Sokka was twisting Aang’s arm with horror.

“I’m sorry!” Aang yelped. “Sokka, I swear, I didn’t mean to – ow, Sokka! Let me go!

“What just happened?” Toph yelled. “Katara, what’s going on?”

“You gave your airbender’s honor!” Sokka was yelling at Aang.

“Sokka, you’re hurting him!” Katara screamed. “Let him go!”

Sokka, watch out!

Katara barely had time to realize that she knew that voice before a dark blur flashed in front of her.

Suddenly, there was a whooshing sound, and Katara couldn’t help the way she screamed. The air around them was filled with blistering orange-white fire everywhere – she couldn’t see anything but the flames, she couldn’t feel anything but the heat –

BOOM

A huge explosion and a storm of rocks, pebbles, shale and dust shook the Temple.

Toph let out a high-pitched scream and grabbed onto Katara’s tunic violently enough that she almost pulled her into the fountain with her. Whether she was coughing up water or dust, Katara’s eyes were streaming as she looked over to where Sokka and Aang… had been?

Toph’s fingers were shaking around her shoulders, and Sokka was swearing loudly, and Aang let out a cry of pain as he landed on his rear by the fountain, but Katara could only see the dark-haired Prince of the Fire Nation as he stirred the flames higher.

“What happened?” Toph demanded, snapping her out of her daze. “What the fuck just happened?”

“Was that Azula?” Aang asked, scrambling to his feet and casting his head wildly around. “Did she find us? We only just escaped! That’s gotta be cheating!”

“It’s not Azula,” Katara managed. “It’s –”

Sokka!

“That’s Sparky’s voice,” Toph said faintly. “So does that mean Sparky’s –”

“Sokka, you fucking moron!” Zuko demanded, turning his head back towards them. His red-scarred burn made his furious scowl seem utterly enraged. “What are you waiting for?

Sokka let out an offended noise. “What the slush are you talking about, you jerkbending bastard –”

Katara could see a figure moving through the flames; a large, muscular man with a beard… and the glint of metal along his arm?

“Combustion Man?” Aang gasped, apparently coming to the same conclusion. “What’s he doing here?”

“What do you think, Twinkle Toes?” Toph snapped. “A better question would probably be how he got here in the first place!”

But Katara didn’t have time to spare trying to wonder how he’d managed to follow them here. If Zuko and Combustion Man were working together, that would be one thing. She wouldn’t have been surprised if that had been the case. But what was Zuko doing? His wall of fire meant that Combustion Man couldn’t see where they were to get a clear shot at them – why would he willingly make it harder for himself? And turn his back on them at the same time?

But even if Combustion Man couldn’t attack them through the flames, it worked both ways. Katara wouldn’t be able to attack Combustion Man with her waterbending, so she’d have to think of some other way to bring him down. And then there was still Zuko to deal with, too.

She’d promised that she’d never use that power again, but if it was to protect the people she cared about…

“Throw – Jet – Ba Sing – !” Zuko was screaming at Sokka, but it was hard to make out the words through Combustion Man’s explosive bending. “– on, Sokka!”

“What’s he saying?” Toph asked confusedly, but not for the first time, Katara had absolutely no idea what Zuko and Sokka were talking about.

“What happened in Ba Sing Se that we weren’t around for?” She asked.

Another BOOM rocked the Temple and they all ducked instinctively.

“Oh!” Sokka snapped his fingers. “You remember when you guys showed up at Pao’s teahouse with Jet, and Zuko and I were all, ‘Fuck that guy, he showed up and trashed the place’?”

“Oh, yeah,” Aang remembered. “That was so weird.”

“Right?” Sokka nodded vigorously. “Well, anyway, when Jet showed up, I eventually ended up hitting him with my –”

Sokka!

“Oh, fuck off,” Sokka muttered, unstrapping his boomerang and closing one eye as he hefted it in his hand. “I swear to Tui, I can’t believe I missed this guy.”

 

 

Aang was having the weirdest sense of almost déjà vu. It wasn’t quite the same as when he, Katara and Sokka had found out that Zuko was a firebender, but it was still pretty close. Instead of Zuko using his firebending to light Katara’s cooking fire, Aang had accidentally burned Toph’s feet, and instead of Katara hitting Zuko with a frying pan, Sokka had hit Combustion Man with his boomerang.

Actually, now Aang thought about it, there wasn’t much about this situation that resembled the time they’d found out that Zuko was a firebender, but Aang had been very confused on both occasions, and everyone had been mad at Zuko on both occasions, so they was probably similar enough.

“What are you doing here?” Katara was yelling at Zuko.

“I’m here to help,” he answered, just like he had done when they’d had a similar conversation the night after they’d left Omashu. “Oh, and I can teach Aang firebending, too.”

“Yeah, nice try, buddy,” Sokka said, taking up a defensive position in front of Toph and levelling his space sword at Zuko. “But there’s this pattern where you try and help and things go wrong. It gets a little suspicious after a while.”

Aang could see that Zuko was looking at the sword with a bit of a nervous look on his face – oh, right, Zuko hadn’t been with them when Sokka had made that sword with Master Piandao. Aang wasn’t sure whether he would prefer having Sokka threaten him with a boomerang or a space sword, but he thought he might actually prefer it if Sokka was mad at Zuko, not with him.

When it had come out that Aang had accidentally burned Katara back at Jeong Jeong’s camp, Sokka had been so angry at him that Aang had genuinely been really scared. His shoulder still hurt where Sokka had wrenched it, but his butt really hurt from where Zuko had thrown him backwards out of the way of Combustion Man’s attack.

“I can understand why you wouldn't trust me,” Zuko said steadily, “And I know I've made some mistakes in the past.”

“Like when you sold us out to Azula?” Sokka asked angrily.

“Or when you betrayed us in Ba Sing Se?” Katara shouted.

Zuko held up his hands quickly. “I meant not telling you who I was. I didn’t do any of that!”

“Oh, sure,” Katara scoffed. “Then maybe you can tell us how the Fire Nation knew about the invasion before we even got there!”

“Azula, Mai and Ty Lee snuck into Ba Sing Se disguised as the Kyoshi Warriors,” Zuko explained. “King Kuei told them about the invasion.”

“I’ve had it up to here with Earth Kingdom monarchs,” Sokka was muttering. “First Bumi doesn’t tell us what we needed to know, and now Kuei tells the other side something they really didn’t need to know!”

Aang had to admit, Sokka had a point. Bumi hadn’t told them that Zuko was actually Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, or that he was the Blue Spirit, or even that he was a firebender. But to be fair, Bumi hadn’t told Aang that he was royalty, either. When Aang had asked him about it when he’d seen him in Omashu, Bumi had just said that he’d always been royalty, but he’d just pretended he wasn’t so that Aang would be his friend.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Zuko asked Aang. “You once said that if I was on your side, that was more important than what I am or where I come from. You know I have good in me.”

Now that Aang thought about it, he probably wouldn’t have trusted Zuko if Zuko had just come straight out and said Hi, I was told to capture you by my dad the Fire Lord. Aang and his friends hadn’t had any reason to believe that they could trust Zuko back when they’d found out he was a firebender, but they had still said that he could keep travelling with them.

Aang still wasn’t sure they could trust Zuko now, after that whole thing where he may or may not have betrayed them in Ba Sing Se, and that other whole thing where he may or may not have been the person who’d told Azula about their invasion plans. But at least this time round, things weren’t quite the same as when he, Katara and Sokka had found out that Zuko was a firebender. This time, they had Toph with them.

“Toph?” He asked timidly, because she had been really mad at him when he’d accidentally burned her feet. “Can you tell if he’s telling the truth?”

Toph popped her head out from behind Sokka and scowled at a spot about three feet away from Aang. That just made him feel even worse about how he’d burned her feet.

“Gee, I don’t know,” she drawled. “I couldn’t tell when Azula was lying, could I? I might just be completely incapable, mightn’t I?”

Aang could see that he had a lot of work ahead of him if he wanted to make things up to Toph. He was probably going to have to cool her food down for her at every mealtime for the next week, at least. But the monks had always told Aang that he should try to be truthful and kind when he spoke, and he hadn’t really been truthful to Toph at all. And he hadn’t really been all that kind when he’d been yelling at her, either.

“I’m really sorry, Toph,” he mumbled awkwardly. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you, and I shouldn’t have tried showing off and firebending to try and prove a stupid point. Can you tell us if Zuko was telling the truth? Please?”

Toph still didn’t look happy with him, but at least she relented and put her unburnt hands on the floor. That was already way more forgiving than Aang would have expected from her.

“Tell a lie,” she instructed the firebender boy, who looked momentarily taken aback.

“Um… well, my real name’s Lee.” He began uncertainly. “And I’m, uh, I dunno. I’m part of a traveling circus.”

He finished with a small shrug, but even without the shrug, Aang wouldn’t have thought he sounded particularly convincing.

Toph nodded, apparently satisfied that Zuko’s heartbeat did whatever heartbeats were supposed to do when someone lied. “And now tell the truth.”

Zuko looked kind of nervous, but he coughed and stood up a little straighter before he began. “Aang, I’m sorry – I’m so, so sorry for how things went wrong in Ba Sing Se, but I swear, I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I wasn’t trying to betray you, and I didn’t tell Azula about the invasion. I know my destiny is to do the right thing, and all I want to do now is play my part in ending this war. I give you my word, I’m on your side. I’ve been on your side all along.”

 

 

Whatever Azula had said to the others, Zuko wasn’t surprised that it had been a lie. But when Toph announced that he was telling the truth, the way Sokka sat down heavily enough on the edge of the fountain to nearly fall in made Zuko think he wasn’t the only one who was relieved that Toph deemed him trustworthy.

That brief reprieve didn’t last very long, though, because suddenly, Aang was seemingly determined to get every answer he could out of Zuko. He’d been trying to protect Aang from Azula in Ba Sing Se, and he’d been trying to keep a wall of fire between them so Azula couldn’t attack him. He’d been trying to buy time so Uncle could get free and they could all leave together. He hadn’t left the Fire Nation with them because he’d been busy trying to get Uncle out of prison. He’d followed them to the Western Air Temple in a war balloon. He hadn’t come to see them immediately because he’d been practicing his apology. A badgerfrog had been involved. He’d arrived in time to save Aang and Sokka from Combustion Man because he’d heard shouting and come to investigate.

Yes, he’d been Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation. He hadn’t told them he was royalty because he didn’t want them to hate him. Yes, he supposed that meant he had pretended he wasn’t royalty so they could be friends. No, not like Bumi. Their situations weren’t even remotely comparable. He was nothing like Bumi, Aang.

Yes, Bumi had known who he was. Yes, Zuko had been the Blue Spirit. He’d dressed up as the Blue Spirit for the first time a couple of weeks after he’d told Uncle that he thought the Fire Lord had been wrong to banish him. No, he hadn’t learnt that the Fire Lord was wrong by drinking some random forest plant. Uncle Iroh had poisoned himself a couple of months after that realization, actually.

Yes, Zuko had rescued Aang from Pohuai Stronghold. Yes, he’d been at the prison rig, he’d saved Katara from the pirates, he’d been in Omashu when Azula and the others had tried ransoming Bumi. No, the thought of turning on Aang and siding with Azula and the others in Omashu hadn’t occurred to him. Nor had it been on his mind in Tu Zin.

Uncle Iroh had taught him how to redirect lightning by studying waterbenders. Zuko honestly didn’t know which waterbenders Uncle had learnt lightning redirection from. No, he’d never heard of any waterbenders living in the Fire Nation.

He tried not to let on how relieved he was when Sokka stepped in and told Aang that they could probably stop there. Katara took the opportunity to step towards Toph in the fountain and take another look at her burnt feet – Zuko wasn’t sure how that had happened, but he’d had a sick, uncomfortable feeling in his stomach until Sokka had reassured him lowly that they weren’t going to scar.

“Katara’s gotten pretty good at healing,” he muttered as he led Zuko through the Temple to where he would be sleeping. “Practice makes perfect, I guess.”

Zuko wasn’t sure what Sokka meant by that, but he still vividly remembered seeing Azula striking Aang down with lightning in Ba Sing Se. Maybe he didn’t want to know.

“So, here you go,” Sokka said, gesturing vaguely at the room once they arrived. “Home sweet home, I guess. You know, for now.”

“Sure beats camping,” Zuko offered, trying to make conversation.

“Yeahhh,” Sokka drew out the word as he drummed his fingers on the frame of the door. “So… unpack. Lunch, soon. Uhhh… welcome back?”

Zuko tentatively looked back and tried to smile at him to set him at ease, but it seemed like Sokka was just as unsure as to how this was supposed to work as he was, because he was already heading back out the door and out to the corridor.

Zuko supposed that was understandable; the first time he had joined Aang, Sokka and Katara, it had taken ages for them to trust him, and he was under no illusions that things were even more complicated this time round. Even so, hearing Sokka mutter to himself that this was really, really weird kind of stung. It seemed Zuko had a lot of work ahead of him to make it up to the others.

He carefully pulled a painting of Uncle Iroh out from his bag, and took a moment to look at it. He’d never known Uncle without gray hair and lines etched deep into his face, and this painting was no exception. The twinkle in his eyes, and the patient, determined look on his kind face… those, too, Zuko recognized.

I’ll make it up to you, Uncle, he promised. You’re the most honorable man I know.

As he sat on his sleeping bag and looked at the painting, he became aware of a blurry flash of blue out of the corner of his left eye.

Katara looked different, Zuko noticed as he hurriedly got to his feet. Her brown hair wasn’t in loopies and a braid anymore; now it cascaded down her back in waves, and the beads she’d used to tie her loopies off in Ba Sing Se were threaded through her hairline. Her forearms and palms were wrapped in navy.

She looked different. Not stronger, not more beautiful, because she had always been strong, she had always been beautiful, but different.

She looked… angry. Zuko’s inner fire seemed to turn cold for a moment as she glared at him with icy blue eyes.

“You said you were on our side all along,” she repeated his words back to him in a mocking voice. “No, Zuko. You were lying all along.”

For a moment, Zuko was back in the Crystal Catacombs of Ba Sing Se, with Katara screaming at him as tears streamed down her face. Whatever emotions she had been feeling in that cave lit by green crystals seemed hidden now behind a glacier’s cold.

“So let me tell you something right now,” she told him lowly as she approached him. “If I find out you’ve kept one thing back from us, you’re done.”

She halted in front of him – close enough to reach out again, to touch the left side of his face. She’d had been so gentle. Zuko might not have been able to feel her hand on his ruined cheek, but he had felt her thumb on his lips.

Though he had barely felt it, he hadn’t forgotten. But she didn’t reach out this time.

“No more lies. No more secrets. I’m not going to let you hurt him again.”

She turned and walked away, and Zuko was helpless to stop her.

“Katara, please, I’m on your side,” he tried desperately. “I’m on Aang’s side! You can trust me – Katara, you know me!”

Her footsteps halted just as she’d been about to leave. For a moment, he thought he’d gotten through to her.

“No, Zuko. I don't.”

Katara’s voice was a whisper as she walked away, but her words echoed louder than the door that slammed shut behind her.

“I don’t know you at all.”

Chapter 31

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Aang had been ready to give Zuko the same tour of the Western Air Temple that he’d given the others, but Zuko had said that there was somewhere else they needed to visit instead, just the two of them. That had made Katara kind of antsy, and she’d gotten really antsy when Zuko had said it was a place in the Fire Nation, but Toph had sensed Zuko’s heartbeat and reassured them all that he was telling the truth when he’d said it would be a good thing for Aang to go there before he started learning firebending, so here they were on Appa.

Aang hadn’t thought he’d be returning to the Fire Nation anytime soon, but seeing as Toph had said he’d be returning and now he was, maybe Toph just knew stuff he didn’t. So now he and Zuko were flying on Appa in kind of an awkward silence whilst they both tried not to think about how Zuko hadn’t been with them for the past two months because of what had happened in Ba Sing Se.

“Did you like the all-day echo chamber at the Western Air Temple?” Aang tried to make conversation. Zuko had told him that he already knew his way around the Temple pretty well after he’d come here when he was thirteen. That must have been when he was still searching for Aang, which was a pretty weird thing to think about.

“I didn’t actually pay too much attention to the Temple,” Zuko replied. “But I think Uncle Iroh quite liked the giant Pai Sho table.”

Aang would have liked to imagine sifu Iroh spending ages happily playing Pai Sho with huge pieces, but the pieces in the room were so big that you kind of needed to be an airbender to be able to move them, or at least an earthbender.

Sifu Iroh played Pai Sho with King Bumi, right?” He asked. “That’s how they know each other?”

“I’m actually not sure how they got to know each other,” Zuko answered with a slight frown. “Kind of like a chicken-goose egg-and-spoon race.”

Aang tried to figure out what Zuko meant by that. It sounded like a proverb, so he figured Zuko had probably gotten the proverb wrong. He’d done that a few times before.

“Do you mean like how they maybe knew each other through the Order of the White Lotus before they started playing Pai Sho together?” He asked slowly, “Or did they like Pai Sho first, and then one of them got the other involved in the Order?”

“Exactly,” Zuko agreed. Aang felt pretty good about himself after that.

“So you knew King Bumi because you were part of the Order of the White Lotus?” Aang had asked Zuko a lot of questions yesterday, but he still had loads of questions today, too.

“Yeah,” Zuko nodded as Appa flew over a pretty cloud. “That’s why he and Uncle wanted me to come with you; so the White Lotus could help you reach the North Pole and learn waterbending from Master Pakku.”

That made sense to Aang, but he knew that couldn’t have been all Zuko had been expecting to do when he joined Aang and his friends in Omashu. Otherwise, why would Zuko have hung around after they’d reached the North Pole and Aang had started learning waterbending?

“So I learnt waterbending from Master Pakku, who’s a member of the White Lotus,” he ticked it off on his fingers, “And I wanted to learn earthbending from Bumi, who’s also a member. Was I supposed to learn firebending from you ‘cause you’re a member of the White Lotus, too?”

Zuko frowned in confusion. “Didn’t you already learn some firebending from Jeong Jeong?”

Aang tried not to look really guilty. His time with Jeong Jeong hadn’t taught Aang much except that he couldn’t really firebend without showing off, which he didn’t think was a lesson he’d liked learning. “I don’t think Jeong Jeong was the right teacher for me.”

Zuko seemed to accept that answer, or maybe he just didn’t want to push Aang to talk about it. Aang wasn’t sure whether that was because he was trying to be sensitive or whether it was because Zuko was just as unsure as Aang felt about how they were supposed to be acting around one another right now. It was all just a bit awkward, that was all.

Aang decided to deal with this awkwardness like he usually did, by talking about lots of stuff until they found something that they both wanted to talk about.

“Not that Master Jeong Jeong was a super sucky teacher,” he rambled on. “Like, if he was a member of the Order of the White Lotus, he probably wasn’t that sucky, because he was trying to help me, so that’s cool. And he wasn’t actually the worst teacher I’ve ever had.”

Zuko’s right eyebrow creased in a bit of a frown, but his left eye didn’t have an eyebrow, so it kind of stayed the same. “Are you talking about Master Pakku?”

“Well, Master Pakku wasn’t great,” Aang conceded, “But at least he actually taught me some stuff. Like, I had this one teacher in the Fire Nation, Miss Kwan, who definitely wasn’t right for me.”

Zuko’s frown got a bit deeper. “Who’s Miss Kwan?”

“Oh, right – you weren’t there for that part.”

Aang remembered just after he’d said it that Zuko hadn’t been there for that part because that part had been after Ba Sing Se. Oops.

“Well, I kind of ended up going to a Fire Nation school for a few days,” he explained so they could try and move past the uncomfortable silence. “And she told us loads of alternative facts about the Air Nomads, and I couldn’t dance, and she made us take a pop quiz, and I didn’t know any of the answers!”

Zuko was quiet for a few moments as Appa flew along, but this silence didn’t seem like an awkward or uncomfortable silence. It just seemed like Zuko was trying to process the idea of Aang in a Fire Nation school. Aang remembered it had taken Sokka a while to get his head around it, too.

Aang also remembered that one of the questions in the pop quiz had been especially confusing for him. He didn’t know much about Fire Nation spirits, or historical Fire Nation royalty, so he’d been completely stumped on this one. Actually, Zuko might have been able to help him with this one.

“Zuko?” He asked.

“Hmm?” Zuko started as if Aang had startled him out of some super deep thoughts. “What was that?”

“Which spirit cursed the Dragon Emperor and made him turn into Noren?”

At first, Aang was a bit confused as to why Zuko was laughing so hard. But by the time Zuko had finished explaining the plot of Love Amongst the Dragons, and how the Dark Water Spirit wore a blue mask when the play was performed, and where the Blue Spirit’s name had come from, it made a lot more sense.

Oh, man – the next time Aang saw Bumi, he was totally going to kick his friend’s butt!

 

 

“How does that feel?” Sugar Queen asked, tapping Toph’s foot a few times before setting it gently back in the fountain water. “Can you sense anything from that?”

Sure, Toph wanted to say. I can sense that Twinkle Toes is in for a world of pain as soon as he and Sparky get back.

“Good as new, Sugar Queen,” she said instead in a cheery voice, before Splish-Splash could get the idea that Toph Beifong required sympathy, or anything lame like that. “Twinkles is a moron, but he didn’t do anything too bad.”

The Blind Bandit was the toughest competitor the Earth Rumbles had ever seen; it would take more than a couple of hot feet to keep her down. Okay, so the Fancy Dancer’s impromptu firebending display had been more than just a little painful, but he’d apologized and he’d spent the last few days doing Toph’s laundry, so that was the end of it.

To be fair, Sparky might have been the one doing the laundry, ‘cause he’d been doing quite a bit around the Western Air Temple this morning before he and Twinkles had gone off to some Fire Nation island. Whilst Sugar Queen had been healing Toph’s feet, Sparky had been cooking breakfast. As it turned out, this was another thing Gramps had been right about – fried squidtopus tasted pretty good if you sprinkled a couple of fireflakes on top.

Sparky was clearly under the impression that because squidtopus was an aquatic foodstuff, it was a Water Tribe delicacy. His blatant attempts at sucking up to Snoozles and Sugar Queen with food apologies were so painfully obvious that even Toph could see what he was trying to do. Annoyingly, they’d been one of the only things she could see after Twinkles’ little stunt.

“Seriously, Katara,” she said, dropping the nicknames to really show how serious she was being. “I’m fine. By the time Twinkles and Sparky get back from wherever they’re going on Fuzzy, I’ll be more than ready to pay the Fancy Dancer back for his little stunt.”

“The Sun Warriors,” Sugar Queen replied. “That’s where Zuko said they’re going. To learn firebending from the original source.”

Toph thought the Sun Warriors was a pretty cool name for a stable, so she wasn’t quite sure why Splish-Splash sounded so disapproving. “Well, you can’t go wrong learning from the original masters. I learned from badgermoles, and not to brag, but I think I turned out pretty good.”

“Badgermoles taught you how to earthbend?” Sugar Queen repeated incredulously. “How?

Toph smiled as she remembered what it had been like to feel a raspy, prickly tongue licking her cheek. Five minutes later, she’d been riding one of the badgermoles around without a care in the world.

Even at four years old, Toph Beifong had been awesome.

“They were blind just like me,” she explained as best she could to a sighted waterbender, idly kicking her feet back and forth in the water. “So we understood each other. I was able to learn earthbending not just as a martial art but as an extension of my senses. For them, the original earthbenders, it wasn't just about fighting. It was their way of interacting with the world.”

“No, I didn’t mean that badgermoles can’t teach you how to earthbend,” Sugar Queen said, still with that confused tone to her voice. “What I meant was more… I didn’t think they’d want to teach you how to earthbend. I always thought badgermoles were huge, ferocious beasts.”

What? Toph had literally been licked by a badgermole! She’d called them Lěi, and she hadn’t heard any objections, so she’d kept calling them Lěi for the next couple of years.

“Who told you that?” She asked, offended on behalf of her friend. “Whoever they were, they were talking out of their –”

“Zuko said it once,” Sugar cut her off. “In Omashu.”

Hotpants had thought badgermoles were ferocious beasts? Maybe Snoozles had been right about him being a fucking moron all along.

“Sparky must have been at the cactus juice if he thinks badgermoles are ferocious,” Toph grumbled. “When they get back, I’m gonna kick his butt for chatting smack like that.”

Sugar Queen mumbled something under her breath that Toph didn’t quite hear. It was probably all in her head, but whilst her feet were out of commission, she felt like her other senses were a little dulled as well. Dirtballs, she was going to kick Twinkle Toes’ butt so hard, it would make her match with Fire Nation Man at Earth Rumble III look like a light warm-up.

Well, for the Blind Bandit, every match was a light warm-up, but that wasn’t the point right now. “Didn’t quite catch that, Sugar Queen.”

“I said it doesn’t surprise me that Zuko was lying,” Splish-Splash said clearly. “He always does.”

Toph resisted the urge to sigh, because Sugar Queen had healed her feet up pretty nicely. But she was getting a little tired of this same old story.

“Sparky wasn’t lying, Sugar Queen,” she reminded her dully. “He wasn’t trying to betray anyone, and he didn’t tell Princess about the invasion, remember? Twinkles and Snoozles made sure of that during their little game of Twenty Questions the other day.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, Toph!” Splish-Splash snapped back at her, and Toph couldn’t hep the way she startled at the sudden venom in her voice.

Sheesh, alright, calm down there, Sugar Queen!

Katara must have realized that she’d startled Toph, because when she spoke again, her voice was quieter and softer. Toph appreciated that a heck of a lot more than all the cloying there, there crap she’d been giving her earlier.

“I’m talking about how he lied to us about who he was all that time.”

Toph had figured out who Sparky was inside five minutes of their first conversation; it really hadn’t been that hard. But clearly Sugar Queen had been living a pretty sheltered existence down at the South Pole – although to be fair, they probably didn’t get regular updates on how Fire Nation politics were going, all the way down there.

“He didn’t hide it from all of us,” she pointed out. “And he wasn’t trying to pull a fast one or anything, Sugar Queen. He was just trying to protect Twinkles, you know? He had to keep it on the down low.”

Would Toph have preferred it if Sparky had just come out and told them who he was? Absolutely. Did she understand why he’d kept it a secret? Absolutely. Like he’d said, if anyone was going to respect someone wanting to keep their secret identity a secret, it was Toph Beifong.

She waited with her feet in the water for Sugar Queen to reply, and then she kept waiting for a little while longer. She might have been there for a good fucking while if that Haru dude’s voice hadn’t come across to her.

“Hey, Toph. Do you know where Katara is?”

Toph sighed, and kicked half-heartedly at the water. Well, wasn’t that just fucking fantastic.

 

 

Sokka came across Katara scrubbing at a pair of Toph’s pants like they had personally offended her, which probably wasn’t too far from the truth in his eyes. He’d already wedged Aang’s flute in a crack between two flagstones and started using it for boomerang practice.

“So,” he began, deciding to jump straight to the point. “You were just never going to tell us that Aang burned you, huh?”

Katara paused for a moment with her arms in the water up to her elbows before she closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. Like she was mad that they had to have this conversation. “And you were just never going to tell me that Zuko was the Prince of the Fire Nation, huh?”

The fact that she was even trying to compare the two situations almost sent Sokka right back to throwing boomerang at Aang’s flute. He’d been chipping away at it all morning, hitting the top of the flute as it became progressively shorter and shorter. It was surprisingly therapeutic; as a matter of fact Wang Fire, the world-renowned Doctor of Psychology, was recommending it as a form of stress relief.

“They’re not the same and you know it, Katara,” Sokka told his sister angrily. “Zuko wasn’t doing anything to hurt you or Aang, and the fact that he used to be Fire Nation royalty didn’t matter anymore. If Zuko had done anything to make me think he was going to hurt you, I wouldn’t have just covered it up and not told you guys!

“And Aang didn’t mean to hurt me, Sokka!” Katara argued back, drawing her hands out of the water and bending the water off to leave her arms dry. “It was an accident! And he didn’t hurt you or Zuko, and he stopped learning firebending from Jeong Jeong when Zhao attacked and we had to leave, so I didn’t think it mattered anymore either!”

Sokka didn’t appreciate his own words being thrown back at him like that, like some – some boomerang. He’d had a very good reason for not telling Katara and Aang about who Zuko really was – he’d already given Zuko a Water Tribe promise that he wasn’t going to tell the others that Zuko was the Blue Spirit who had shown up at Pohuai Stronghold to rescue Aang and get Katara’s necklace back to her. If Fire Nation royalty were the bad guys, the Blue Spirit was definitely one of the good guys, and Sokka wasn’t going to out Zuko as one of the bad guys if he couldn’t balance the scales by pointing out that he was one of the good guys, too.

The only reason he’d broken that promise had been because he’d thought it had no longer been valid. When Katara had pretended to be the Painted Lady in Jang Hui, Sokka had jumped to the entirely reasonable conclusion that Zuko had given her the idea of dressing up as a spirit and messing with the Fire Nation, and therefore, if Zuko was letting people know he was the Blue Spirit, Sokka could freely tell them, too.

Except Zuko hadn’t told Katara he was the Blue Spirit. She’d came up with the idea of dressing up as a spirit and messing with the Fire Nation all by herself, entirely independent of any outside influence. Because the spirits hated Sokka, and they wanted to mess with him.

Sokka was Manly enough to admit that he was getting a little off-topic here.

“Are you saying that makes it okay?” He asked, wanting to get right up close to Katara, look her in the eye, and attempt to convey just how deadly serious he was about this. “Katara, he burned you, and all you’ve got to say about it was ‘It was an accident’?”

“Well, you’ve clearly got something to say about it, Sokka,” she retorted, now bending the water out of Toph’s pants. “Why don’t you just come out and say it?”

With an effort, Sokka tried to rein his temper back in. Katara was his sister. She wasn’t hurt. Aang was a good kid. He’d clearly been really shocked and upset when he’d burned Toph. Aang didn’t want to hurt anyone, he just…

He didn’t think things through, and when things didn’t go his way, he tried to cover it up instead of telling them about it. The first instance had happened when he had hidden the map to Dad and the other warriors’ location, and the second had happened at the North Pole when he’d merged with the Ocean Spirit. And here Sokka was, six months after the fact, only now hearing about the time Aang had burnt Katara with a new firebending move he’d never tried before.

Aang just kept doing the same things over and over again, Sokka thought miserably to himself. Because he didn’t learn from his mistakes. He seemed a lot like Zuko, in that respect, which didn’t fill Sokka with confidence for how the Avatar’s firebending lessons were going to go.

“I know Aang’s just a kid, Katara,” he said slowly, trying to remind himself that a twelve-year-old Sokka had been the biggest idiot south of Omashu. “But he’s got to learn that his actions have consequences to them. And he can’t learn that if you keep protecting him.”

“Of course he understands that his actions have consequences to them,” Katara said annoyedly, turning her head to scowl at him from where she was kneeling down and folding up Toph’s pants. “You weren’t there, Sokka – you didn’t see how awful he felt after he’d hurt me! But I wouldn’t have learnt how to use my waterbending to heal if he hadn’t accidentally burned me.”

Sokka wanted to tell Katara that they had literally been on their way to the North Pole so she and Aang could learn waterbending when Aang had made them stop at Jeong Jeong’s camp so he could try firebending, and that Yugoda had seemed like a really intelligent, extremely capable bender who would probably have been able to teach her how waterbenders could heal without having to resort to drastic measures. But Katara was doing the laundry, and Sokka could see his socks in the pile over by the fountain. If he pushed his luck and she got annoyed, Sokka was looking at wearing his unwashed, dirty, smelly socks for the next week.

Some victories, Sokka decided as he left Katara to get on with the laundry work, just weren’t worth the effort. Kind of like the taste of victory Dad had been talking about in the Fire Nation capital.

Notes:

‘A chicken-goose egg-and-spoon’ is Zuko’s attempt at the proverb ‘What came first, the chicken-goose or the egg?

In the Fire Nation play Love Amongst the Dragons, the Dragon Emperor is bound to mortal form by the Dark Water Spirit and forced to adopt the alias of Noren.

Lěi is a Chinese name meaning ‘Mound of Rocks’ or ‘Great’.

Chapter 32

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Fire Lord Sozin started the tradition of hunting dragons for glory,” Zuko explained as he and Aang followed the Sun Warriors’ chief along the winding path towards the Sun Temple.

When Zuko had first come to the Sun Ruins, he had been intimidated by the leader of the Sun Warriors. He’d been fourteen years old, and Isao had towered over him even without the feathered headdress. The large man’s face paint had given him a frightening appearance, and Zuko had tried to cover up his nerves with bravado until Uncle had placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Isao had been very complimentary when Zuko had played his tsungi horn at their evening meal, and things had gone a little better after that.

“They were the ultimate firebenders,” the Sun Warriors’ chieftain continued where Zuko had left off. “And if you could conquer one, your firebending talents would become legendary, and you'd earn the honorary title Dragon.”

“The last great dragon was conquered long before I was born,” Zuko added. “By my uncle.”

“But I thought your uncle was…” Aang hesitated. “I don't know. Good?”

“He is,” Zuko acknowledged with a rush of pride. “But he had a complicated past. General in the Fire Nation, remember?”

General Iroh had won a major victory for the Fire Nation at the Battle of Tanggu in 76 ASC, Zuko had learnt from Master Ryōma, his history and theology tutor. The earthbenders had possessed the tactical advantage by taking up a position on the higher ground, but the Dragon of the West had purposely weakened and spread out his right flank in the hopes of enticing as many enemy units to that side of the battlefield as possible. The right flank was to hold its ground, forcing the earthbenders to commit more and more troops to that flank, and when the majority of the Earth Kingdom’s troops were engaged on the right, the rest of Iroh’s forces would storm the high ground in the center, smashing the earthbender’s resistance and breaking their line.

All warfare is based on deception, Uncle had once told Zuko. Zuko had thought that Tanggu was a tactical masterpiece until he had heard General Bujing’s plans for the Forty-First.

When Uncle Iroh had first brought him to meet the Sun Warriors, a fourteen-year-old Zuko had been shocked to see that they sported the same shaven-headed phoenix tail hairstyle that he, the banished Prince, wore to symbolize his state of dishonor. But much as the dragons had shown him that the Fire Nation had lost sight of the true meaning of firebending, so too the Sun Warriors had shown him that the Nation had lost sight of what honor truly was. Under the watchful eyes of Ran and Shaw, Zuko had cut off his topknot, renouncing his status in Fire Nation society and abandoning his royal status for the life of a peasant. He had loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore he would die in exile.

The return of the Avatar had given Zuko hope for his own return, but he hadn’t thought that he would be returning here, to the Sun Ruins. He certainly hadn’t thought he would be returning as the Avatar’s firebending teacher.

Uncle Iroh had always said that destiny was a funny thing, but Zuko didn’t think Aang would appreciate the funny side of things right now. For all that the Avatar had often teased Zuko about how he had no sense of humor, Aang looked a little queasy as the Sun Warriors stood around them at the gathering point. Not that Zuko could blame him; he’d been in Aang’s position once. He wasn’t nearly as good a public speaker as Uncle, but he could remember the gist of what Uncle had said, and he tried to put it into his own words as best he could.

“I am Zuko,” he began. “And I have returned to the cradle of knowledge, older and wiser than I was when my eyes were opened to the truth of firebending. And I have brought with me a student, one far more deserving than I of knowing that truth. Aang has a pure and honorable heart, and he seeks only to do the right thing. I know my people have distorted the ways of firebending, to be fueled by anger and rage. But I ask that Aang might learn the true way, the original way. Let his bending be untainted by the sins of those who would use fire only to consume and destroy.”

Zuko was pretty sure he’d gotten that last part wrong – it sounded more like Master Jeong Jeong than Uncle Iroh. Maybe he should have talked more about balance and harmony, or said something about how firebending was… like ginseng tea, or something.

But his little speech had also sounded pretty good, if Zuko did say so himself. He wouldn’t have gotten callbacks to the Ember Island Players, but he thought it had been a decent enough example of oratory rhetoric, so maybe it would have impressed his old tutor Mistress Sakamoto.

“If he wishes to learn the ways of the Sun,” Isao replied, “He must learn them from the masters, Ran and Shaw.”

“Ran and Shaw?” Aang whispered to Zuko, gulping slightly. “There are two of them?”

If the Avatar was surprised by that, Zuko thought to himself, he couldn’t wait to see how he’d react when he met the masters. But he couldn’t do anything more than try and smile encouragingly at Aang. He couldn’t interfere, but he refused to look away. He’d be there for Aang, just like Uncle had been there for him.

“When you present yourself to them,” Isao intoned as he stepped towards them, “They will examine you.”

If it was possible for Aang to look even more nervous, that seemed to have done the trick. “You mean, like… they’ll make me take a pop quiz?”

“I mean that they'll read your heart, your soul, and your ancestry,” Isao said firmly. He seemed to tower over Aang as Zuko looked on. “If they deem you worthy, they'll teach you. If they don't, you'll be destroyed on the spot.”

Aang bit his lip and looked towards Zuko. Isao looked towards him too, and Zuko thought that was his opportunity to speak.

“You can do it, Aang,” he said with as much conviction as he knew how to put into his voice. “I know you can; you’re a talented kid.”

As the nerves on Aang’s face settled into determined resolve, Zuko felt his inner fire roar with approval. He had spent years struggling to master even the most basic forms before Uncle had taken over his training. First he’d memorized the basics, then the masters had helped him to realize the truth, and then he had seen his bending reach soaring new heights. But now, as he locked eyes with the Avatar, gold and gray, he had never wanted to firebend so much as he wanted Aang to understand for himself.

 

                                                                                         …

 

For nearly three years after the warriors of the Tribe had left to go and fight the Fire Nation, Sokka had been the only guy at the Southern Tribe with permanent teeth. Either the other male figures at the South Pole had been young enough to have baby teeth, or they’d been old enough that their false dentures had been made out of whalebone. So when Aang had showed up, and once Sokka had gotten past the part where he had, you know, come out of an iceberg and also possibly been a Fire Nation spy, he’d been so happy to have someone around who was roughly his own age that he’d even been able to forgive the little monk dude for being a vegetarian. Things had been a bit more complicated when Zuko had joined them, but eventually, Sokka had turned around one day and found that the grumpy jerkbender was probably his best friend.

The thing was, Sokka was a guy who appreciated his male friendships. Katara was the best little sister in the world, and he could talk for a long time about how awesome Suki was in oh-so-many ways, but there was something about Manly Men being Manly together that spoke to something in Sokka. Whilst Aang and Zuko were away with the Sun Warriors, Sokka had been feeling a little adrift, so to remedy this, he’d gone to look for Haru, Teo, and The Duke.

By a happy coincidence, they’d been looking for him, too; apparently, the fact that Fire Nation royalty was just casually hanging around the Western Air Temple with them was enough to make them just the slightest bit jumpy. So Sokka had been able to reassure Haru and the Duke that Zuko was still the same Lee guy who had been relatively inoffensive when he’d been around in Beihe and Gaipan, and he’d managed to reassure this Teo guy that the reason Sokka and Zuko hadn’t gone to the Northern Air Temple with Katara and Aang was because Zuko had been kidnapped and they’d had to pay a ransom for him, not because Zuko had been making nefarious plans with War Minister Qin.

“Trust me, Teo,” he said in his best Dad voice, “There’s no way Zuko was making any plans at that point, never mind nefarious ones.”

I still can’t believe my Mom fancied the Prince of the Fire Nation,” Haru mumbled absently to himself. “It sounds so weird when you say it out loud.”

“Believe me, buddy,” Sokka replied tiredly, “That doesn’t even make the top ten. Your Mom fancied the Blue Spirit.”

“What?” Haru frowned, before his eyes widened. “No way.”

“Way.” Sokka confirmed. “Zuko was the Blue Spirit.”

“Lee was the Blue Spirit?” The Duke repeated confusedly. Sokka thought the kid still hadn’t quite grasped who Zuko actually was, but to be fair, they were all probably having a bit of trouble with that these days. “But Jet said that the Blue Spirit was a hero! He really liked the Blue Spirit, and he hated Lee!”

“Maybe he was talking about a different Blue Spirit?” Teo theorized.

“What, like the Dark Water Spirit?” Sokka asked sarcastically. Okay, maybe the sarcasm was a bit uncalled for, but he was still mad at Bumi even now.

“No, like a different Blue Spirit,” Teo explained. “You were saying that Prince Zuko was the Blue Spirit, right?”

“Right,” Sokka confirmed, still a little unsure as to what the big confusion was here. “But he quit early last winter.”

And again in the springtime, he added in his head. He’d been pretty confused to see the Blue Spirit in Omashu, after Zuko had been pretty adamant he couldn’t continue being the very recognizable Blue Spirit after Pohuai Stronghold, but Sokka could appreciate that even the Blue Spirit would be less recognizable to Princess Azula than her own brother.

“Well, there must have been a new Blue Spirit after that,” Teo said. “Because the Blue Spirit was definitely attacking a Fire Nation military base in the western Earth Kingdom only a couple of weeks ago.”

“I heard about that from Pipsqueak,” The Duke chimed in, looking pleased that he had something to contribute. “He called it… Pohuai Stronghold?”

“That’s it,” Teo nodded. “And they were spotted in Yu Dao, too.”

What the slush?

Okay, Pohuai might have been Zuko, but Sokka knew they hadn’t gotten anywhere close to Yu Dao.

Did Zuko know that someone was stealing his idea? Someone other than Katara?

“How did you hear about that?” He asked Teo.

Teo looked down and rubbed the wheel of his glider. “When those two women came to get my Dad to join the invasion force, part of what convinced him was that the Blue Spirit was working so hard to destabilize the Fire Army in the Earth Kingdom.”

Part of Sokka wanted to examine every inch of Teo’s super-nifty gliding wheelchair contraption, but Aang had said that the Mechanist had made it for Teo himself. Sokka knew what that meant; he would have punched anyone who tried to take a look at his boomerang without his permission. Maybe he’d have a chance to ask Teo in private later.

 “That’s what my Dad said when he agreed to fight,” Haru spoke quietly. “Dad always said that when he was imprisoned on the prison barge, what kept the prisoners going was knowing that even though they couldn’t fight back, at least someone could.”

Sokka tried very hard not to think about how Haru’s father was probably back in some Fire Nation prison right now. That would just lead to thinking about how Sokka’s Dad was probably in some Fire Nation prison right now, too. At least Teo had given him something else to think about.

When Sokka and the others had been talking with Master Piandao about how Prince Zuko had been the Blue Spirit, Piandao had said things had changed since then. Sokka had thought that Piandao was just talking about how the White Lotus couldn’t be sure of Zuko’s loyalty after what had happened in Ba Sing Se – he hadn’t realized just how much things had changed.

“Well,” Teo said, breaking the contemplative silence, “Whoever this new Blue Spirit is, I’m pretty sure it can’t be wilder than who the last one was.”

“Maybe it’s Jet?” The Duke asked hopefully. “I haven’t seen him since he left our treehouses to go to Ba Sing Se.”

Sokka remembered when Zuko had tried to throw him off the scent by pointing out that Jet could have been the Blue Spirit, because he hadn’t been around at the same time as the Blue Spirit and he fought using swords. It was crazy how long ago that seemed.

Sokka still had a lot of mixed feelings about Jet, and he couldn’t see the Freedom Fighter surviving what had happened to him in Ba Sing Se. But with the way The Duke was looking up at him so hopefully, Sokka couldn’t really find it within himself to dump cold water on the fire.

“Maybe,” he said, as cheerfully as he could. “That would be kind of awesome, wouldn’t it?”

 

 

Aang had been pretty nervous dragons about presenting himself to the firebending masters Ran and Shaw, but after he dragons had carried his piece of the Eternal Flame up to them without any mishaps, he’d thought dragons they’d be at least a little impressed dragons with him for doing so well. But then he’d found out that Ran and Shaw were ACTUAL REAL LIFE DRAGONS, and, well, that had been so incredible that Aang had been left feeling a little small and insignificant and a lot humbled as Ran and Shaw had breathed their fire and shown him how amazing firebending could be.

“Their fire was beautiful!” He confided wonderingly to Zuko and Isao, so excited he could barely stand still. “I saw so many colors – colors I’d never imagined! Like firebending harmony!”

“Yes!” Isao agreed, giving Aang a warm grin. “They judged you, and gave you visions of the meaning of firebending, just like your friend.”

Aang turned to Zuko, who gave him a small smile. His mess of dark hair looked so different to Isao’s shaved head and ponytail, but they had the same golden eyes. Aang remembered sitting at a campfire in the Earth Kingdom with Zuko early in the morning after they had found out that Zuko was a firebender, when Zuko had told him about firebending, and spirit, and passion.

“Uncle Iroh brought me here when I needed to learn what firebending could truly be,” Zuko explained. “I wanted you to understand that firebending can be beautiful before we started.”

Aang had to admit, there had been a part of him that hadn’t wanted Zuko as a firebending teacher before they’d come here. But then he’d met dragons.

Part of him wondered if they’d let him ride them, and part of him wondered if they’d try to eat him if they said no and he tried anyway. And a part of him that sounded a lot like Sokka thought that would be even cooler and deadlier than if they’d just let him ride them in the first place. He mentally filed that thought away in the part of his brain dedicated to the unagi and blindfolded mail chutes.

Sifu Iroh never told me anything about the meaning of firebending,” he said wonderingly. “He said that when it comes to the energy of bending, firebending’s no different to any other bending.”

“Iroh was the last outsider to face the masters,” Isao explained. “They deemed him worthy and passed the secret onto him as well. Now that you have been deemed worthy, you too may know the true meaning of firebending.”

So sifu Iroh had lied to protect the dragons so that no one else would hunt them, Aang thought to himself. Kind of like what Zuko had been trying to do in Ba Sing Se, only way more successfully.

Aang had been kind of mad at Zuko about all that, but now that Zuko had shown him actual real life dragons and helped him understand what true firebending was, he felt like he could finally forgive Zuko for what had happened. Even though things had gone wrong in Ba Sing Se when Zuko had been trying to protect Aang, Aang couldn’t really blame sifu Hotman for what Azula had done. That wasn’t very fair.

But Aang couldn’t believe that there were still dragons around! When he was a kid, Aang’s friend Kuzon had gotten involved with some high-risk traders and had needed to do some haggling for a dragon egg, but Aang was a pretty observant guy, and he’d definitely noticed a shortage of dragons now, a hundred years later. It was so awesome that they weren’t all gone! It gave him renewed hope that the airbenders weren’t all gone, too. Aang was still so confused about how he felt about being the last of the Air Nomads, but he wasn’t confused at all about how much he loved and missed Monk Gyatso.

When Aang had met Huu in the Foggy Swamp, Huu had talked to Aang about the people he’d lost, the people he’d loved, the people he’d thought were gone. He’d said that they weren’t really gone, that Aang was still connected to them. He’d also said that pants were just an illusion, which Aang had been kind of skeptical about, but Aang had been doing a lot of thinking after his dream where Fire Lord Ozai hadn’t been wearing pants – not that he was ever going to admit that to Wang Fire – and he was thinking there might be more to Huu’s wisdom than he’d first thought there was.

Once, Aang might have thought what Huu had said, about how the people he’d lost weren’t really gone, had meant that the Air Nomads weren’t all gone, that maybe Aang wasn’t the last airbender. He remembered being so excited to maybe find other airbenders at the Northern Air Temple, and how crushingly disappointed he’d been when it had turned out that Teo and the Mechanist and the others hadn’t been airbenders. But then Guru Pathik had shown him that even though the Air Nomads were gone, their love for Aang hadn’t left this world. It was still inside his heart, and it was reborn in the form of new love. For Aang, that new love was Katara. He knew he loved her, but since he’d hurt Katara, he’d been too afraid and hesitant to firebend. But now he knew what fire really was: it was energy, and life.

Zuko had once told Aang that if he wanted to learn to firebend, he needed to know what fueled him – what drove him and inspired him. Aang hadn’t been sure what inspired him at the time, and when he’d tried learning firebending from Master Jeong Jeong, he’d maybe been so focused on firebending that he’d forgotten that he was an airbender, the last of the Air Nomads. Aang still wanted to remember that he was an airbender, so he wanted his firebending to be inspired and fueled by the fact that he was an airbender. He knew that was a bit weird, but he figured that if Guru Pathik could tell him that different kinds of energy could be swapped around and all be energy together, Aang could have the same approach to his bending, right? There was no reason he couldn’t do it, after all.

So, Aang thought to himself. So.

If Aang was the Avatar, that meant he could bend all four elements. But sifu Iroh had told him that the Avatar didn’t just bend the four elements; the Avatar bent the energy for all four elements. And the thing about energy that Guru Pathik had told Aang was that love was a form of energy. Monk Gyatso had never really told Aang anything about the energy of airbending, but Aang thought Gyatso might like his new idea about how he was going to bend.

This was how Aang was going to remember the Air Nomads, he promised himself. This was what he was passionate about. This was how he was going to honor his teachers and remember his people when he bent.

Aang was going to bend with love.

Notes:

Isao is a Japanese name that can mean ‘brave’, or ‘meritorious’. Iroh’s battleplan at Tanggu is based on the French army’s tactics at the Battle of Austerlitz.

I took this interpretation of Zuko severing his topknot from atlaculture’s post on Tumblr.

Chapter 33

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sokka was looking up at the evening sky, but he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at.

There was the moon, obviously. Kind of hard to miss it as they moved towards sunset; with the sun setting in the west, it was the largest and brightest object hanging high in the sky right now. Even on the cloudy nights, it seemed like the Moon Spirit was always on Sokka’s mind in some form or another.

He’d loved Yue, and he knew he was always going to love Yue, but… she’d done the right thing. She’d done what she’d had to do to protect the people she cared about, and that was a comfort for him. And she hadn’t blamed him; she’d told him that she’d always be with him. He felt pretty close to her at times like these.

He still missed her, though. And he missed Suki, too – in a different way, obviously, and one that he wasn’t quite sure how to explain. Maybe he could just let some Earth Kingdom poem he'd read in Ba Sing Se explain it instead.

I lift my cup and invite the bright moon along

And together with my shadow we make three.

Azula might just have been lying, he told himself. She’d seen Suki in Ba Sing Se, and Sokka had told Ty Lee that he was kind of involved with Suki, so she’d probably overheard that, or heard it from Ty Lee, and then she’d just used it as a way to try and buy time until the eclipse was over. It was just her way of trying to mess with the enemy. Suki was smart, and capable, and super awesome, and she’d totally be okay. Sokka knew she didn’t need him to protect her, and he’d known she could handle herself from the moment she’d beaten the crap out of him when he’d turned up at Kyoshi dojo and called her training session a dance lesson.

He hoped that whatever the sky was looking like wherever she was right now, the sunset was looking really pretty for her.

Hopefully Yue would be okay with Suki, and she wouldn’t be hurt by how Sokka felt about her. But something told Sokka that Yue would have wanted him to be happy. Besides, if she had a problem with Suki, she’d probably have told Suki she had a problem with her by now.

Oh, slush, what if Yue told Suki about how lame his fishbear carving had been? Or Suki told Yue about how dumb he’d been when he’d first showed up on Kyoshi Island?

Sokka stifled a shudder as he looked up at the darkening sky. Bato smack talking him in the Spirit World for all eternity was one thing, but a Yue and Suki team-up – spirits, that was an altogether more terrifying prospect. More terrifying even than a whole massed choir of deranged flying lemurs and erupting volcanos and angry spirit panda bears.

“Something on your mind, Sucker?” Toph’s quiet voice came from his left.

“Huh?” He twisted from where he was lying down on top of his sleeping bag. “What was that?”

“Your heartbeat went kind of jumpy for a minute there,” Toph elaborated as she made her way over to him. “Figured something might be going on.”

Well, that was sort of embarrassing. Sokka wasn’t really sure he wanted to tell Toph what he’d been thinking about, but she’d be able to tell if he was lying.

“I was just thinking about Suki and my first girlfriend,” he explained.

Toph let out an appreciative noise as she earthbent herself a little stone seat to perch on. “Oh, really?”

“Not like that, you little brat,” he muttered, rolling his eyes so hard it actually kind of hurt. “Just about how they’re doing right now.”

“Fan Girl’s gonna be doing fine,” Toph assured him. “You weren’t there when we were taking out that drill in Ba Sing Se – she was badass.”

“I know that,” he said easily. Maybe a little proudly. Suki was awesome. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t worry about her, you know?”

“Sure,” she acknowledged. “Is that why you were thinking about your first girlfriend?”

Sokka sighed, and looked up again. If he looked really hard, he could maybe make out a couple of the brighter stars. “Maybe a little bit. I was just looking at the night sky, really.”

The little earthbender let out a thoughtful noise, and Sokka heard a rattling noise that might have been her earthbending a few pebbles or something.

“You know that some of the star maps in the Earth Kingdom list over one and a half thousand stars?”

Sokka hummed absently at the little titbit of information. “That right?”

“Yeah. And there’s, like, two hundred and fifty-seven constellations out there.” Toph cleared her throat and made an obnoxious sniffing noise. “And there’s the Twenty-Eight Mansions, and the Four Symbols.”

Toph’s voice was determinedly casual, like she was refusing to make a big deal out of anything. Sokka found he appreciated that a little bit. He could hear a slight whistling noise that he associated with Aang’s stupid marbles trick. Was she earthbending some pebbles really quickly or something?

“What’re the Four Symbols?” He asked. “I feel like I’ll probably remember them more than if I try to remember twenty-eight weird names, or something.”

“Are you sure?” Toph asked, with an audible smirk in her voice. “You’re sure you won’t forget three of them before I’ve even finished listing them?”

Sokka had to laugh at that one. “Oh, fuck off. Come on, hit me.”

“You sure about that?”

He winced. “It’s a figure of speech.”

“Just checking,” Toph snickered to herself. “Okay, so – you’ve got the White Tiger, the Black Tortoise, the Azure Dragon, and the Vermilion Bird.”

Sokka almost nodded to show that he was listening, but caught himself just in time. “Okay. Four Symbols, four animals. Got it.”

“And there’s three –” Toph broke off as she frowned – “Did you hear that?”

“What?” Sokka was instantly on edge. “I swear to Tui, if we’ve got to deal with another metal man –”

“No,” Toph shook her head as she stood up. “It sounded like Appa!”

Oh, good. Sokka instantly relaxed. Of the two animals Aang kept bringing along everywhere with them, Appa was definitely his favorite. And if Appa was here, that meant that Aang and Zuko were back from their little trip to the Sun Warriors.

“Wonder how they got on?” He wondered out loud as he got up to his feet.

“Who knows?” Toph shrugged. “Probably found some huge, ferocious beasts and learnt firebending from them.”

Half an hour later, as Aang and Zuko performed some weird dance they’d apparently learnt at the Sun Ruins, Sokka reflected sadly on the fact that he’d thought Toph had been joking.

 

 

As Aang and Zuko demonstrated the firebending form the Sun Warriors had taught them, the Temple was quiet except for the two firebenders’ movements, their occasional huffs of exertion, and the crackle of the fire in the center of the room that they had settled down in to eat dinner. Katara could already see that Aang felt a lot more confident in his firebending now that he and Zuko had gone to see the Sun Warriors – every so often, there would be a little puff of smoke as he moved a little too enthusiastically or a little too quickly through his forms.

But whilst Aang was paying a lot of attention to his stances, the movements he was making from one to the next were quick and jumpy, like the flames leaping up in the campfire. Maybe it was just how Aang always moved as an airbender, full of energy and freedom, but Katara wondered whether it was just because he wasn’t sure how to move between the stances. Just like she had struggled at first when she was figuring out how to translate the illustrations on the waterbending scroll into actually being able to bend the water whip, until Zuko had helped her figure it out.

He had told her that Uncle Iroh had showed him a firebending set called Leaping Dolphin Fish, and he had needed to be more fluid and less rigid as he’d moved through the set. Whilst Aang’s firebending seemed to be a little unpolished at times, Zuko moved with purpose through this set of movements, his steps never faltering and his forms always poised. Katara might have hated him before, and she still didn’t entirely trust him even after Sokka and Toph had assured her that he was on their side and he had returned safely with Aang from the Sun Ruins, but she had always known he was a powerful –

No. He’d hidden who he was from her, even after he had told Sokka and Toph, and she couldn’t forgive him for that. And just because he was a powerful bender, that didn’t mean anything; Aang was a powerful bender, too. But after what had happened at the invasion, Katara was trying very hard not to think that way about Aang.

They were in the middle of a war, for spirits’ sake! What was the matter with her?

“With this technique the dragons showed us, Zuko and I will be unstoppable!” Aang beamed as the two firebenders moved into their final stances, leaning towards each other with outstretched arms. The others applauded politely, and Zuko must have been in a good mood, because he reached out to close the space between his clenched fists and Aang’s, and lightly bump their knuckles together.

“Yeah, that's a great dance you two learned there,” Sokka called out sarcastically, and the moment was abruptly shattered. For a moment, Katara thought Zuko was going to swear at her brother just like he always did, and her fingers itched to hit him with a water whip.

Just to teach him not to do it again, she told herself. That was all it was. It wasn’t their thing anymore like it had been in Gaoling, and she didn’t want it to be. She didn’t.

“It's not a dance,” the Fire Prince said instead, and Katara had to reluctantly set her waterskin back down. “It's a firebending form.”

“Uh-huh,” Sokka drawled, walking his fingers through the air. “We'll just tap-dance our way to victory over the Fire Lord.”

“It is a sacred form,” Zuko stressed with exaggerated frustration, narrowing his eyes at Sokka, “That happens to be thousands of years old!”

“Oh, yeah?” Katara said doubtfully. “What's your little form called?”

Zuko seemed to wilt under her glare, and he looked down at his feet. “The Dancing Dragon.”

Katara didn’t know what any of the Southern Water Tribe’s bending forms were called. She’d thought she’d come up with a move of her own, and she’d always called it streaming the water, but Aang had told her that Master Pakku knew that move and had called it something different. The Southern Tribe passed down their knowledge in stories and tales around campfires; that had been how Gran-Gran had told her about the Avatar. But as the Fire Nation had raided their Tribe over and over again, the keepers of that treasured knowledge had been taken away one by one. By the time Mom and Dad had realized that Katara was the first waterbender born at the South Pole in years, Southern-style waterbending had been lost.

Katara had always hoped that somehow, maybe, miraculously, there would be some way of rediscovering her people’s history. But as the war had dragged on all through her childhood, and their proud Tribe had seen their heritage and culture whittled away, she had almost forgotten how to hope.

When they had found an old waterbender in a Fire Nation village, her hopes had come rushing back in a flood, a torrent, an avalanche of dreams she’d almost forgotten. But after what Hama had taught her, Katara couldn’t help but wonder whether Southern-style waterbending had been distorted and corrupted, just like firebending. Only how was she supposed to know what Southern bending was supposed to be, without anyone to teach her?

For a moment, she felt like she was back at the river bank in the Earth Kingdom, trying to bend a water whip without any way of knowing whether she was doing it right or not.

“You okay in there, Sugar Queen?”

“Huh?” She blinked at Toph’s interruption. “What?”

“Twinkle Toes was asking you a question,” the earthbender explained, pointing in Aang’s general direction. “Did you catch it?”

“Sorry, Aang,” Katara apologized. “I must have drifted off there. What did you say?”

“I was just saying that I told Hotman –”

Don’t call me that –”

“ – that I told sifu Hotman about the time I went to a Fire Nation school when we were flying on our way to the Sun Ruins,” Aang continued, doing an impressive job of turning a blind eye to Zuko’s irritated scowl. “And I was wondering whether you thought that dance party could have done with a bit of the Dancing Dragon to go with the camelephant strut?”

“I think this little party could do with some food,” Sokka said in a pointed voice. “Zuko, can you go get some dinner cooking whilst I have a quick chat with Aang about firebending?”

Normally, Katara would be annoyed at how Sokka was interrupting, but she was too relieved that she was saved from answering Aang’s question to complain.

Would she have wanted Zuko with them as they’d regrouped after Ba Sing Se? Katara wasn’t sure there was a right answer to that question.

 

 

Aang couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t at least a little nervous when Sokka led him through the Western Air Temple to the fountain out in the courtyard. They hadn’t talked since Sokka had tackled Aang to the ground and pulled his arm up behind his back because he’d found out about that time when Aang had accidentally burned Katara at Master Jeong Jeong’s camp. But then Zuko had arrived, and then Combustion Man had attacked them, and things had happened kind of quickly after that, so Sokka hadn’t been able to continue twisting Aang’s arm out of his socket.

Aang was quite grateful for that, because he’d needed his arms to repair the courtyard ground with his earthbending after Combustion Man’s attack, because Katara had banned Toph from bending until she was all healed up after… after Aang had burned her feet. Toph had been kind of annoyed about that, but Katara had reminded Toph that she’d set the same rules for sifu Iroh after Azula had attacked him in Tu Zin, and Toph had had to admit that if Gramps could (mostly) keep to the rules, so could she.

Aang was kind of hoping that if Katara could forgive him for accidentally burning her, so could Sokka. But Sokka had said that he wanted to talk to Aang about firebending, so he was pretty sure that that was what Sokka wanted to talk to him about, not anything to do with his trip to the Sun Warriors.

“Sokka?” He ventured.

Sokka didn’t even turn around as he kept walking towards the fountain. “What.”

Aang gulped. He had half a mind to just run away and maybe hide behind Zuko or something if Sokka was in that kind of mood, but Toph kept telling him that he had to stand firm, so maybe that was what Aang needed to do here. Monk Pasang had always told him to be brave and own up to his faults, instead of bending himself an air scooter and zooming away.

“I’m really sorry for burning Katara, Sokka,” he began. “I swear I didn’t mean to. I burned Katara, and after that, I never wanted to firebend again. But now I understand how easy it is to hurt the people I love, so I promise to be more careful now. I’m really sorry for making you worry about her.”

He hoped that Sokka understood that he was really, really sorry.

Sokka sat down on the edge of the fountain and looked at Aang for a couple of moments that felt like a couple of hours, and Aang tried not to fidget. Eventually, Sokka let out a deep sigh.

“I’m not mad that you accidentally burned Katara, Aang,” he said quietly, before he frowned. “Well – I guess I am, a little bit. But that’s not the main thing I’m angry with you about.”

Aang had thought that would have been the main thing, but if Sokka had a list of things he was mad at Aang about, that was even worse. He gulped nervously and tried to remember what Toph had said about facing his problems head on. If Sokka had a problem with him, this was their chance to try and work it out.

“Zuko said it right before we left,” Sokka continued, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. In the moonlight, Aang could see that he looked kind of tired. “‘Don’t mess about with fire, or someone could end up getting hurt’. That’s what he said. And you gave me your word that you won’t mess about with your firebending.”

“I know I did, Sokka,” Aang mumbled. “And I know I promised Zuko I’d be serious and I’d focus when I was learning from Jeong Jeong, but –”

“You didn’t just promise, Aang,” Sokka cut him off impatiently. “You gave your airbender’s honor. And you still messed about, and someone ended up getting hurt. Katara ended up getting hurt, Aang. My sister.”

“And I honestly didn’t mean to!” Aang cried out, but then he tried to keep his voice quiet so that the others won’t overhear them. “I wasn’t trying to mess about at all! But Jeong Jeong was just teaching me all the boring stuff like breathing and stance and stuff, and I just wanted to try something cool – like you and I talked about in Omashu!”

Sokka let out a deep sigh, and rubbed his hands over his face. He was scowling in between his fingers as they dragged along his eyes, but at least he wasn’t yelling at Aang.

“What Master Jeong Jeong wanted to teach you first was probably more important than what you wanted to learn first, Aang,” he said eventually. “There are some things you need to learn, even if you don’t want to learn them.”

Aang knew all about having to learn stuff he didn’t want to learn. He’d had to learn that the Fire Nation had attacked the Air Nomads, and that he was the last airbender. He’d had to learn that not everyone who said they were on his side, like Jet and General Fong, were telling the truth. And he’d had to learn that stewed sea prunes existed, and what onion and banana juice tasted like. But he’d also learnt the true meaning of firebending, and that the dragons weren’t all gone. So maybe the lessons he would be learning would be better this time around.

“Now that I’ve got Zuko as my firebending teacher, I know that I need to be more sensible and more careful when I’m firebending,” he told Sokka as honestly and as bravely as he could. “And I think that if I try anything too advanced before I’m ready, Zuko will be there to stop me before I can hurt anyone, and to help me be more sensible the next time. And I promise I’m going to listen to him, Sokka.”

Sokka still didn’t look convinced, but Aang didn’t know how to convince him.

“Water Tribe promise,” he tried, holding a finger up to his forehead and trying to sketch what he vaguely remembered the Mark of the Trusted had felt like on his arrow tattoo.

Sokka was quiet, and Aang began to feel tears building up behind his eyes. If he didn’t believe Aang, was he going to just never trust him again? Or did he think that Aang was making fun of his Mark of the Trusted? If he thought Aang didn’t care about his Water Tribe promises, was he going to break his promise that he’d stay with Aang?

“Come here.”

Aang swallowed, but he stepped forward to join Sokka at the fountain. Sokka stood up from the stone fountain basin and looked at him with really serious blue eyes.

“You’re doing it the wrong way round,” the Water Tribe boy explained, dipping his thumb in the water. “This is how you do it.”

Aang let out a shaky breath as Sokka traced his wet thumb over his forehead. His thumb must have slipped, because Aang’s cheeks felt all wet with what must have been fountain water. That must have been why Sokka’s tunic was so wet after he gave Aang a big Water Tribe hug, too.

Notes:

Sokka quotes from Peter Harris’ translation of ‘Drinking alone under the moon’, a poem by the Tang poet Li Bai (701-762).

Chapter 34

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sokka and Aang had made a Manly promise that they’d symbolically wash their hands in the fountain to signify that they were leaving their conversation and their grudge behind, so Sokka had been feeling pretty good when they returned to the others. His mood was only improved by seeing that Zuko was already hard at work on dinner, chopping up vegetables and tossing them into a saucepan he was continually stirring. Every so often, he’d check on a cooking pot behind him. Sokka wasn’t sure what magical alchemy Zuko was doing to turn root vegetables and cereal grain into delicious dinner, but if it was anything like the noodle soups Zuko had been making when they were travelling through the Earth Kingdom, Sokka wasn’t going to complain.

“Hey,” he greeted the jerkbender lowly as he huddled next to him. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

If Zuko was confused by Sokka’s presence, Sokka couldn’t really blame him. He didn’t usually pay such close attention to the preparation of dinner; he preferred to focus his efforts on the consumption thereof. But there was a first time for everything, and Sokka was always up for trying new things.

“Sure,” Zuko eventually decided, giving the rice a quick stir. “What's up?”

Sokka got straight to the point; it was a strategy that seemed to work well with Zuko. “If someone was captured by the Fire Nation, where would they be taken?”

“What do you mean?” Zuko frowned as he bent the cooking fire a little higher. “Who was captured?”

“When the invasion plan failed, some of our troops were taken,” Sokka explained. “I just want to know where they might be.”

Zuko chewed on his lip as he contemplated the food. Sokka contemplated the food and couldn’t wait to start chewing. He had his last bit of seal jerky in his bag, maybe he could go and get that and sprinkle a bit in his vegetables and rice… mmm, perfect!

“My guess is they were taken to the Boiling Rock,” Zuko said, rudely interrupting Sokka’s reverie.

“What's that?” He asked absently, still a little distracted by the delicious meal he was looking forward to having. What was he even asking about, again?

“The highest security prison in the Fire Nation.”

Oh, right, yeah.

Or maybe another reaction would be more appropriate.

Oh, slush, no.

“It's on an island in the middle of a boiling lake,” Zuko continued, misinterpreting the way Sokka’s eyes had widened. “It's inescapable.”

Island prison. Boiling lake. Inescapable.

Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. No doubt, no doubt, no doubt.

“So where is this place?” Sokka asked, trying to act as if he wasn’t inwardly regretting pretty much everything that had happened since they’d arrived at the Black Cliffs.

As Zuko’s eyes narrowed at him over the cooking pot, and Sokka wanted to tell him to concentrate more on dinner than on his face, but he was worried that would just make the jerkbender even more suspicious. “It's in the middle of a volcano between here and the Fire Nation. You guys actually flew right past it on your way here.”

That was all Sokka needed to know.

“Thanks, Zuko,” he patted him on the shoulder, giving him a cheery smile. “Just knowing makes me feel better.”

“Fuck off, Sokka,” the jerkbender replied, hefting a ladle in his hand and picking up a bowl. “Touch me again, you’re getting a portion with no meat.”

A threat like that wouldn’t normally be serious enough to make Sokka give Zuko a wide berth for the rest of the evening, but he had his reasons for keeping his distance. Sokka needed to be smart about this, so he just sat down in the corner and quietly ate his Komodo chicken and noodles stew without drawing attention to himself. He even did his own washing up instead of just giving his bowl to Katara like he usually did.

So all in all, as he snuck away later that night, Sokka was feeling like he’d done a pretty decent job of not drawing attention to himself through the evening. He’d even managed to avoid tripping over Momo as he’d tiptoed over to Appa. Sure, Appa let out a sleepy grumble as Sokka climbed up his side, but considering he’d need the sky bison’s help to get to the Boiling Rock prison in the first place, Sokka felt like waking Appa up was kind of unavoidable.

“I guess Aang’s not the only one who needs to learn what subtlety is.”

The sound of that jerkbending bastard’s voice made Sokka flinch so violently he fell off Appa with a dull, muted thud.

Stupid sneaky Zuko!

Sokka was a little preoccupied with trying to rub his chest and restart his heart as he collected up the stuff that had fallen out of his bag. He heard what sounded like a slight breeze, and Zuko was suddenly right there next to him, holding a handful of – hey, those were Sokka’s lychee nuts!

“Fine, you caught me,” he grumbled, trying not to snatch the lychee nuts back. “I’m going to rescue my Dad. You happy now?”

“I'm never happy,” Zuko replied flatly. Yeah, Sokka wasn’t going to argue there. He’d pegged Zuko’s two defining characteristics as angry and grumpy all the way back in Omashu.

“Look, I have to do this,” he argued. “The invasion plan was my idea, it was my decision to stay when things were going wrong. It's my mistake, and it's my job to fix it. I have to regain my honor. You can't stop me, Zuko!”

“You need to regain your honor?” Zuko hissed, reaching out an arm to block Sokka’s path back to Appa. “Believe me, I get it. I'm going with you; we’ll take my war balloon.”

Sokka considered it. On the one hand, it had been Sokka’s invasion plan that had failed, and there was a part of him that felt like that made it his job to set things right. But on the other hand, Zuko had been the Blue Spirit. Whoever the Blue Spirit was now, Zuko had been the Blue Spirit once, and that meant he had a heck of a lot more experience breaking into secure compounds, busting people out of Fire Nation prisons, and generally messing with the Fire Nation than Sokka did.

And Sokka did like the idea of learning how that war balloon worked.

“Alright, fine,” he eventually muttered, gathering his stuff up again and shoving them back into his bag. “But I’m in charge.”

“That’s fair,” Zuko agreed. “It’s your idea.”

“You bet your fireflakes it is,” Sokka grumbled as they began walking in the direction of Zuko’s war balloon. “And I’m leaving them a note so they don’t think you’ve betrayed them all again.”

“I appreciate that.”

“And so help me, if you make me wear a theater mask as we do this, I swear to Tui I’m going to stab you with my space sword.”

 

 

Toph didn’t really do dreams the same way everyone else seemed to do dreams. At night, she’d just kind of lie down and close her eyes, and wait until she fell asleep. Then the next thing she knew, she was awake, and she just supposed that meant it was morning.

Over breakfast in the mornings, Snoozles would sometimes loudly recount a dream he had; the last one had been about a tower made out of whalebone and golden fans, which Toph had kind of zoned out for because she didn’t know what whalebone or golden were supposed to look like in the first place, and she didn’t really care what Snoozles was thinking about anyway. Twinkles would occasionally talk about how he’d had some dream where this or that happened, painting vivid descriptions of pink-and-blue people-eating cabbages or whatever, but like she said, Toph didn’t really do dreams. She just woke up and got on with her day.

So when she woke up and got on with her day today, she’d been ready to turn a deaf ear to whatever Snoozles was rambling on about this time. What was it going to be – a cake that asked you to eat it? It was going to have to be good to top what he’d been going on about last time, when he’d ranted on for a full twenty minutes about a choir of kleptomaniac lemurs.

Toph had been pretty sure the collective noun for lemurs was a conspiracy, not a choir, but when she’d said this, Snoozles had fucking flipped his shit and started throwing his boomerang at Momo. The whole point of a boomerang flying through the air meant that Toph couldn’t sense where he was throwing it, so she’d quickly put a stop to that, but she was pretty relieved to sense a distinct lack of warring lemurs and weirdly-paranoid Water Tribe morons today.

Not only that, but apparently Snoozles and the lemur had turned over a new leaf, because Sugar Queen was saying that she’d found Momo holding a letter from her brother this morning.

“What does it say?” Toph asked.

“‘Need meat. Gone fishing. Back in a few days. Sokka and Zuko.’” Sugar Queen supposedly read out. “One more thing – ‘Aang, practice your firebending while I'm gone. Do twenty sets of fire fists and ten hot squats every time you hear a badgerfrog croak. Zuko.’”

It took quite a bit of effort for Toph not to snigger at the aw, man! the Fancy Dancer let out at that one.

“Nobody else has homework!” He complained.

“Nobody else is learning firebending, Twinkles,” Toph pointed out. “Don’t get too into it, though; we’ve got earthbending training later, don’t forget!”

Twinkles grumbled for a little bit, but Toph could sense him doing the hot squats, so she figured that was good enough. At least this little fishing trip would give her a chance to get the Avatar working on earthbending without him getting distracted by his precious sifu Hotman.

“They must have gone off in Zuko’s war balloon,” Splish-Splash said in a decisive tone that Toph didn’t often hear from her – but, hey, the Bandit was working on that.

“Doesn’t matter much what it is,” Toph shrugged. “If it flies, I hate it.”

Fuzzy complained a bit at that, but Toph wasn’t going to budge. If the spirits had meant for her to fly, they’d have given her two working eyes and a glider, or something. She was pretty happy being grounded.

“I don’t know much about the balloons,” Sugar Queen fretted. “Only that the Mechanist came up with them and made them for the Fire Nation.”

“Didn’t he also make those submarines Snoozles was working on?” Toph asked. She remembered Sucker rambling on about those go-faster stripes at the hot springs, before Combustion Man had attacked them. That conversation had been even dumber than the ones about multicolored cabbages.

Still, if the Mechanist had decided to join the invasion force after working with the Fire Nation, Toph had to admit: that was one heck of a heel-face turn. Even better than Headhunter’s storyline from autumn two years ago through to Earth Rumble IV in the summer. It wasn’t quite as good as Sparky’s, but it was pretty cool anyway. Not that Toph was going to say anything that complimentary of Hotpants out loud to Splish-Splash this early in the morning.

“I didn’t even know he was working with the Fire Nation,” Sugar Queen said. “He seemed like such a nice old man when Aang and I went to visit the Northern Air Temple.”

“Teo said he didn’t know – his Dad was working with the Fire Nation,” Twinkle Toes’ voice came over from where he was still doing his hot squats. “He said the Mechanist – said he was doing it – five hot squats! – because if he didn’t – the Fire Nation was going to destroy everything – and he was doing it – to protect Teo – ten hot squats!”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Sugar Queen said. Toph could sense her folding her arms and turning to look away. “How could Teo be proud of his father when his inventions were being used for murder?”

“That’s what – Teo said too,” the Fancy Dancer panted. Toph could sense him hopping about; he must have moved on to the fire fists. “He said – it was because – although his Dad made the weapons – at least he joined – the invasion – in the end.”

“Right,” Toph agreed. “He made a mistake, but he tried to do the right thing in the end, and that’s what counts. Right, Sugar Queen?”

Katara sighed, and Toph heard a scrunching sound that might have been her crinkling up a piece of paper. “What time’s your earthbending lesson today, Toph? Aang and I should probably fit some waterbending in as well.”

Toph didn’t feel disappointed, but she did feel a bit like she’d made an effort and it hadn’t succeeded. It was an unfamiliar sensation for the Blind Bandit, undefeated Earth Rumble champion.

Ah, well. Sorry, Hotpants. She’d given it a go, at least.

 

 

“‘Gone fishing’?” Zuko repeated dubiously. “That’s what you decided to go with?”

“Well, I didn’t have much time to think of an excuse,” Sokka huffed.

Zuko rubbed his temple wearily. He could feel a headache coming on. “So why didn’t you just tell them the truth?”

Okay, when he repeated that question back to himself, he could accept that he probably deserved the unimpressed look Sokka gave him.

“Tell you what,” the Water Tribe boy drawled. “Let’s just skip ahead to the part where you answer that question, huh?”

Zuko took the opportunity to send a fireblast into the engine. It was easier to focus on the stuff that needed doing around the war balloon than to look Sokka in the eye and tell him that he’d been a coward.

“I know I should have told them sooner,” he said quietly, keeping his eyes focused on the flames in the coal-burning engine. “But I was going to tell them.”

Sokka scoffed. “Sure you were.”

“I’m not lying, Sokka.” Zuko closed his eyes and gripped onto the locking mechanism for the engine hatch for support. His firebending was probably heating up the metal underneath his fingers, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “I’ve never lied to you.”

“That’s not true.”

Zuko’s head jerked up.

Sokka’s eyes were a cold, icy blue. “You’ve lied to me before.”

For a moment, Zuko was legitimately worried for a moment that the Water Tribe boy had somehow managed to trick him into coming with him because he had been planning his revenge all this time.

If he’d done so, Zuko couldn’t even be mad – those were some incredible acting skills. He’d do a good job with the Ember Island Players, that was for sure.

“What?” He asked nervously, racking his brains. “When did I lie to you?”

Zuko couldn’t think of a time he’d lied to Sokka. After Sokka had figured out who he really was, he’d actually been the one Zuko had been the most honest with, in a weird way.

“Back in Pao’s tea shop,” Sokka continued. He seemed to hesitate for a moment before he went on. “Toph and I both knew you were lying when you said you didn’t notice anything about Katara, ‘cause it was so obvious that you liked her.”

Of all the directions this conversation could have gone in, Zuko hadn’t been expecting that one.

What?” He managed a travesty of a laugh. “Are you kooky, or something? You think I liked Katara?”

Yeah, okay, even he had to admit that even if the Ember Island Players were desperate enough to accept Sokka, there was no way they would take Zuko on as a second alternate for the Noren part. Even if he did know Noren’s soliloquy about the determination of the herring-salmon off by heart, but that was entirely beside the point.

“Me? Me like Katara? Me, liking Katara –”

“And you said I needed to learn what subtlety is.” Sokka settled back against the railing. “Cut the bullshit, Zuko. I know you like my little sister.”

“I don’t like Katara,” he protested feebly, refusing to quail under Sokka’s stare. “I don’t!”

“Two for two,” Sokka deadpanned, folding his arms over his chest. “Look, buddy, this is just as awkward for me as it is for you –”

“I seriously doubt that –”

“But I guess if we don’t talk about it now, we’re never going to talk about it –”

“That sounds great! Never talking about this, like, ever again –”

“– And when I tried to talk to you about it in Ba Sing Se, you were saying that I should just come out and say it,” Sokka finished, loudly enough that he overcame Zuko’s desperate resistance. “So this is me coming out and saying it. I know you like Katara.”

This was not a conversation Zuko wanted to be having in an enclosed space thousands of feet in the air, but he couldn’t really see any way out of it.

“I was going to tell her the truth,” he began, but Sokka was already shaking his head.

“It’s a bit late for that now, buddy,” he interrupted flatly. “After she blew up a factory in Jang Hui, I figured you’d already told her you were the Blue Spirit and given her the idea in the first place. Boy, was I pissed off when I found out, lemme tell you.”

“Katara blew up a factory?” Zuko asked weakly.

“I hate that you sound impressed by that,” Sokka grumbled. “But, yeah, I told them all that you were the Blue Spirit after that, so you’ve kind of missed your chance on that one.”

“Not that one,” Zuko sighed. If Sokka was going to be honest and upfront with him, he might as well be honest and upfront with Sokka. “I was going to tell her I was Prince Zuko. And that – that I liked her.”

“Oh.” Sokka blinked, apparently taken aback. “Well… uh – you mean, like, liked her liked her?”

“Like that,” Zuko confirmed. “For a while, actually.”

“Oh.” Sokka repeated. “So, like – since before we got to Ba Sing Se?”

Zuko wondered what it said about Sokka that he was apparently more focused on how long Zuko had liked Katara than how he had been about to tell Katara that he was the banished Prince of the Fire Nation.

He also wondered what it said about him that he was absolutely willing to break into a Fire Nation prison with Sokka, but he wasn’t willing to tell him how long he’d fancied his little sister.

“Since before we got to Ba Sing Se,” he repeated, nodding his head.

“So you two were –” Sokka expelled a forceful gust of air and pinched his brow – “So you two were giving me oogies all that time, and you didn’t tell her?

Zuko remembered all the times he had decided against throwing Aang off Appa, and hoped that Sokka would demonstrate the same patience.

“When I was sneaking round Ba Sing Se to try and find Appa, I saw a fountain in the Lower Ring. I was going to tell her there.”

He could still see the way the candles had given off a soft, golden glow underneath the moonlight. If he’d told her there, Katara would probably have used the fountain to freeze him where he stood. But at least then she would have known.

“The firelight made the water sparkle,” he mumbled, aggressively looking down at his feet and nowhere near Sokka’s general direction. “I was thinking I could take her there, and – I dunno. Tell her. But then…”

He trailed off, but Sokka had been there for what had happened next. “Then Azula showed up.”

Zuko swallowed hard.

“Then Azula showed up,” he agreed dully. “And she told Katara first. And now she hates me.”

Sokka’s blue eyes weren’t cold anymore. They were sympathetic, and if anything, that was worse.

“That’s rough, buddy.”

Notes:

A group of lemurs is called a ‘conspiracy’.

‘Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. No doubt, no doubt, no doubt.’ – Brooklyn Nine-Nine, 3.1 (2015).

‘Stupid sexy Flanders!’ – The Simpsons, 11.10 (2000).

Chapter 35

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Apart from a few nervy moments when their war balloon had decided to stop working and plummet into a boiling lake, sneaking into the Boiling Rock had actually been fairly straightforward. Zuko had gotten them both uniforms, and Sokka had been feeling pretty good about their chances until they’d been called out to the prison yard to deal with a scuffle with the rest of the guards.

He should have remembered from working in Pao’s Family Tea House that even if you were working undercover as part of a larger mission, you still had to do actual work. He had been picked out to deal with a troublemaker called Chit Sang and take him to the cooler, and he’d arranged with Zuko to meet back in the yard in an hour. It was only an hour, sure, but Sokka had dealt with the rush hour in the mornings at Pao’s. He knew how long an hour could be.

“It sure looks cold in there,” he mumbled to the other guard as they stood watch outside Chit Sang’s cooler cell, just for something to say. The sooner this hour dragged by, the sooner he could get on with trying to find Dad.

“That's why we call it the cooler,” the guard replied with smug satisfaction. “He won't be firebending there.”

Standing watch with that guy for an hour was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of Sokka’s life. The way these smug, uncaring jerks clearly relished the power they held over other people reminded Sokka of that guy on the Beihe prison rig.

Maybe you just had to be a certain kind of person to enjoy a job like this, Sokka reflected as he made his way back to the yard. A certain kind of jerkbending asshole.

“Hey there, fellow guard. How goes it?”

Sokka knew that voice. It didn’t belong to an asshole, but it did belong to a jerkbender.

“Zuko?” He asked incredulously. Because, come on, seriously? How goes it?

This dude had gotten into Pohuai Stronghold?

“Shh!” The prison guard with Zuko’s voice hissed, motioning to him to keep his voice down. “Listen, I asked around the lounge. There are no Water Tribe prisoners.”

Then Sokka had failed, he realized with a sinking feeling. They’d come all this way for nothing.

“But they did have two prisoners that sounded a bit unusual,” Zuko continued, lifting up his visor. “A couple of weeks ago, just before the invasion, an Earth Kingdom girl and a Fire Nation woman were brought in together.”

Sokka frowned. Why did that sound familiar? An Earth Kingdom girl and a Fire Nation woman?

No way. It couldn’t be.

But if it was…

“What if it’s Suki and Taki?” He asked lowly. “Do you think it’s them?”

“I don’t know,” Zuko admitted. “But there’s an easy way to find out, right?”

Sokka had to agree with that. “What rooms are they in?”

The Earth Kingdom girl was on the second floor, the second door on the left, and Sokka had to use his whalebone dagger to pick the lock on the door as Zuko kept watch. His heart was in his mouth as he slipped into the cell. He would have swallowed it back down when he saw the girl lying on the bed with her hands behind her head, but his mouth had gone dry all of a sudden.

As Suki sat up on her bed, Sokka had to wonder, oh, man, had she always been this beautiful? With her red hair, and blue eyes, the sharp tilt of her chin, and the way her folded arms made her biceps look pretty sculpted…

“What is it?” She spit. “Did I do something wrong?”

“You mean you don't recognize me?” Sokka asked sarcastically, folding his own arms and only flexing a tiny bit in the process.

Suki narrowed her eyes as she looked away. “You people all look the same to me,” she muttered bitterly.

“Oh?” Sokka thought he could have a bit of fun with this. “Then maybe you'll recognize this.”

Honestly, Sokka had just meant to have a bit of fun – just puckering his lips and making a nice smoochy-smoochy noise. He hadn’t quite expected to find himself flying upside-down through the air and smashing into the door, crashing into the ground, and having his helmet fall off and roll away.

There was probably a lesson in there about not getting too close to a woman who’d been frowning and looking away from you whilst sounding more than a little bit pissed off, but Sokka would consider that lesson once his ears stopped ringing.

“Okay,” he wheezed. “Maybe I should have led with the poetry.”

“Sokka! It's you!”

Suddenly, Sokka found himself with an armful of Suki, with her face buried in his neck and her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders and her face buried in his neck. Okay, that was more like it. But he’d barely had time to begin enjoying this altogether more pleasant reunion when Suki pulled back, leaving him feeling strangely bereft, yet not unmanly.

“Sokka, you’ve got to be careful,” she said in a rush, roughly dashing tears from her eyes. “There’s this assassin, he’s a bender – Sokka, if you run into Head Blasting Beard Guy, you’ve got to be careful!”

That was why Sokka loved Suki, he thought to himself. He knew he could get distracted pretty easily, especially by how awesome Suki was, but because she always knew how to get him focusing back on the important things.

But seriously, Head Blasting Beard Guy? That was the worst nickname Sokka had heard since – yep, never mind, focusing back on the important things now.

“We’ve already handled Combustion Man,” he reassured Suki as they got back to their feet. “We got your message through the Order of the White Lotus. What about the other Kyoshi Warriors, though? Are they here?”

“No,” Suki shook her head, looking relieved all the same. “Taki and I managed to find out that they’re in another, lower-security prison somewhere in the Earth Kingdom – but the Fire Nation captured us before we could try and break them out.”

“Then how’d you end up here?” Sokka asked. “Did they single you out because you’re their leader?”

To his surprise, Suki looked a little nervous as she shook her head.

“Actually, Sokka, they didn’t arrest me because I’m one of the Kyoshi Warriors,” she bit her lip. “I’m here because… well. I’m kind of the Blue Spirit?”

Maybe Bato should have given Sokka the Mark of the Hard of Hearing, because he must have misheard that. There was no way Suki had actually just said that she was the Blue Spirit that had been going round the Earth Kingdom for the past few months.

There was no way that Suki had been the one to convince Teo and the Mechanist to join the invasion and inspire Haru and Tyro to fight for the Earth Kingdom.

There was no way that Suki had been dressing up as a weirdo spirit and messing with the Fire Nation.

La’s depths and Tui’s stars, Sokka hadn’t drunk anywhere near enough cactus juice to be dealing with this right now.

“Well,” he managed faintly, and he couldn’t even be mad at how unmanly and squeaky his voice was, “You’re way more awesome than the last one.”

 

 

It was a good thing for Sokka he’d been keeping a lookout, Zuko thought annoyedly to himself. Not so great for him, but at least Sokka’s little reunion with Suki had gone fairly well, up until the point when a prison guard had shown up and gotten suspicious at how Zuko had been lurking outside a female prisoner’s cell in the middle of a deserted corridor. Not that he could blame them, with a set-up like that, but it was just typical of Zuko’s luck that he would be found by the one Fire Nation guard outside the capital who wanted to actually do the right thing in a situation like that.

Sokka had needed to intervene in the ensuing struggle and pretend to help the guard overpower Zuko – at least, he sincerely hoped it had been part of an act – but after that, it had been pretty inevitable that Zuko would be found out to be an imposter. He’d been forced to changed into an inmate’s outfit, cuffed, and led up to an interrogation room by about six armed guards to face the warden.

Zuko had just been trying to remember whether any of the government ministers in charge of criminal justice or legal affairs played Pai Sho when the door opened and a man in a high-ranking uniform stepped in.

“Well, well, well,” he observed, walking over to Zuko with his hands behind his back and a cold look on his face. “I never thought I'd find you in here, Prince Zuko.”

Shit.

Zuko tried to play dumb. A small voice in his head that sounded a lot like Sokka muttered that it probably wouldn’t be too hard for him. “How did you know who I am?”

“How could I not?” The warden scoffed. “You broke my niece's heart.”

Double shit.

“You're Mai's uncle?” Zuko swallowed, abandoning his pretense. “I never meant to hurt her.”

“Quiet!” The older man snapped at him, bringing a clenched fist up threateningly. “You're my special prisoner now. And you'd best behave! If these criminals found out who you are, the traitor prince who let his nation down…”

His eyes flashed vindictively. “Why, they'd tear you to shreds.”

Zuko had never let the Nation down. He was loyal.

“So what's in it for you?” He asked sullenly, slumping back in the chair and biting back his vitriol. “Why don't you just tell my father to come collect a reward?”

“Oh, in due time, believe me,” the warden assured him coolly. “I intend to collect.”

Triple shit, Zuko thought dully to himself. They were working on borrowed time here – now that Zuko’s identity was out there in the open, they had to get out of here.

Thankfully, Sokka was able to find him once he’d joined the rest of the prison population, and Zuko saw with relief that Takahashi and Suki were with him. They didn’t look so happy to see him until Sokka assured them that he was on their side, but things seemed to go okay after that, which was another welcome relief.

As Taki filled him in on everything that had happened since the fall of Ba Sing Se, relief quickly turned to something more like surprise, and then from surprise to confusion. Zuko was pretty sure there was a word somewhere in the dictionary to describe the mixture of flabbergasted bewilderment and outright disbelief he was feeling, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember it. Maybe the Earth Kingdom had a word for it.

Taki being part of the White Lotus, he could just about wrap his head around – Uncle had always been very impressed with her chrysanthemum tile trick play, and she’d always been a tough fighter, so it wasn’t utterly beyond the realms of possibility. But Zuko had more than a couple of questions, if he could just get his mouth to work.

Suki was in the Order? And she’d had been the Blue Spirit? And she’d been captured? And Sokka was looking at Zuko like he was about to faint?

Except that last one was more a statement of fact than a question, really.

“Zuko?” Suki snapped her fingers at him. “Lee? You okay in there?”

“I’m great,” he managed weakly as he struggled to put the pieces together. “Never better.”

“You’re looking a little peaky there, captain,” Taki observed concernedly. “You sure you haven’t been drinking again? Can’t have you hungover if we’re planning on breaking out.”

Right, Zuko tried to concentrate on that part. Breaking out of an inescapable Fire Nation prison. Kind of difficult, but nothing the Blue Spirit couldn’t handle.

Blue Spirits, he amended.

What the slush.

Sokka cleared his throat. “I think I have an escape plan,” he said. “I checked out the coolers again, and the point of them is to keep firebenders contained, right?”

“Sure,” Taki nodded. “They’re completely insulated and sealed to keep the cold in. So?”

Sokka grinned triumphantly. “Well, to keep the cold in, it also has to keep the heat out, right?”

Suki sighed. “Just get to the point, Sokka.”

“It's a perfect boat for getting through the boiling water!” Sokka explained, beaming at them like he’d just given them a plan that wasn’t completely suicidal.

“The cooler as a boat?” Zuko asked slowly, glancing nervously at Suki, who seemed just as troubled as he did. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Sokka replied. “I’m the plan guy, remember? It’s what I do.”

That didn’t exactly fill Zuko with confidence; he still vividly remembered the time Sokka had come up with a plan to ransom a baby for King Bumi. Back then, Sokka had accused Zuko of never thinking things through, and not caring if his plans worked out or not. Zuko had been about to accuse Sokka of not thinking his plan through, and state in no uncertain terms that Sokka’s plan definitely wasn’t going to work out, but Taki beat him to it.

“We'll roll the cooler into the water and just float with the current,” she nodded. “It'll take us straight across. As long as we don't make a sound, no one will notice.”

What?

That wasn’t beating Zuko to it at all! That was – oh, for Agni’s sake.

If these had been the kind of plans Taki and Suki had been coming up with, no wonder they’d gotten caught.

“But how are you going to get the cooler out?” Suki asked.

Three years aboard the Wani had given Zuko a sixth sense for when Ensign Takahashi was planning to make mischief. It usually started with her grinning at him like a tiger shark looked at a penguin fish.

“Leave it to me,” she smirked. “Firebending’s prohibited, right? Come on, Zuzu – let’s see how sloppy you’ve gotten since your last spar with Jee.”

Well. If Taki was going to be using that childhood nickname in front of Sokka and Suki, Zuko was all too happy to toss a fireball at her feet. It got him sent to the cooler, but he thought the sound of the surprisingly high-pitched squeak she’d made as she’d jumped out of the way was well worth the trip.

 

 

Katara had already let Aang push waterbending training back by an hour as he explored the Western Air Temple, but she thought that because they’d be practicing a more complicated move today, they should probably get started. Before the invasion, she’d been planning on teaching him how to draw water up around his arms in a localized version of the octopus form. As she’d practiced with Zuko, she’d noticed how he could hold his fire around his hands as he fought, and she’d adapted it to her own bending – but because water was a more fluid element than fire, she’d realized that she could extend her reach on the water from her hands further up her arms, all the way to her shoulders. She’d been planning on going through the basics of the form with Aang today, but it seemed that he’d gotten distracted.

“Aang?” She called out, tapping her heel against the stonework as she looked up to where he was perched on top of a giant Pai Sho tile. “Don’t forget, we’ve got waterbending training now!”

“Sure thing, Katara!”

Aang kicked his heels against the engraving on the side of the tile. Katara thought it was a rose tile, but she couldn’t be sure; a hundred years of weathering had left it pretty faded.

“Just let me finish this game with Haru, and I’ll be right there,” Aang continued, using his earthbending to move a jasmine tile three spaces to the left from his home gate. Katara wasn’t a Pai Sho expert by any means, but she was pretty sure Uncle Iroh had told her that the jasmine tile started the game at the home gate.

Still, Sokka kept talking about how Pai Sho helped you with adapting and improvising, which Katara supposed were probably good skills to have in handy for waterbending practice. Water was the element of change, after all.

Then again, Sokka had said he and Zuko were going fishing but had been silly enough to leave his fishing rod behind, so maybe Katara wasn’t going to trust her brother’s judgement just yet. She’d spent all morning poring over the message once she’d smoothed out the crinkled letter, but she hadn’t been able to find any hidden message to indicate that Zuko had kidnapped her brother, or anything like that, and so she’d had to reluctantly conclude that the boys really had just gone fishing.

But if they needed meat, there were forests around the Western Air Temple that were probably full of animals. So why would they have needed to take Zuko’s war balloon on a trip? And why had they left Sokka’s fishing rod behind? She knew Zuko didn’t think things through, but Sokka was a planner, and a fishing rod was kind of an essential item to take with you on a fishing trip, right?

“Just make sure you don’t take too long,” she told Aang, giving Haru a warning look to let him know that she wouldn’t be impressed if he let Aang draw this out for much longer. “I know you’ve been doing your fire fists and hot squats, but you can’t let your waterbending get sloppy just because you’re focusing on firebending right now.”

“I know, Katara,” Aang nodded, but his eyes were concentrating on the rock tile as he bent it across to cancel the harmony Haru had set up between his white jade tiles. “I won’t even be ten minutes, okay?”

Katara was getting a growing suspicion that Aang would definitely be taking every one of those ten minutes, and that he might even end up taking longer to finish his game with Haru. And if Haru won, he might want a rematch. She’d thought Toph was being a bit harsh this morning when she’d set allocated times when Aang could hang out with Teo and The Duke in between earthbending sessions, but maybe she’d had the right idea.

Katara could probably have asked Sokka to draw up one of his dumb schedules if he’d been here; it would have been helpful for Katara, and maybe Sokka would have been able to make other people’s schedules line up with hers so she had some help with the laundry she needed to make a start on before dinner. But Sokka wasn’t around, and neither was Zuko.

Maybe Zuko would have been able to keep Aang in line. As much as Katara hated to admit it, Aang had always seemed to respect him a lot more when he gave Aang orders and told him to do stuff, as opposed to when Katara did it. Maybe it was because he was Fire Nation royalty, and he was just naturally better at telling people what to do than she was, she thought resentfully to herself.

But neither of them were here, and she couldn’t help but feel worried about them. Yes, she admitted grudgingly to herself, both of them. It was like the time they had gone off to Uncle Iroh’s ship to sort out the ransom they needed to pay that bounty hunter, and she had been worrying about them the whole time.

Aang’s waterbending training, the laundry, the cooking, worrying about Sokka and Zuko… Katara felt like she was being pulled in all different directions at once. She knew it was important that things got done around their group – and spirits only knew she wasn’t going to leave The Duke or Toph in charge of her cooking pots and pans unsupervised – but most of the time, it just meant more work for her.

“I’ll come and get you in a bit, Aang,” she tried again, but Aang just nodded distractedly as Haru moved a wheel tile over to the top-left quadrant of the board.

“Uh-huh, that’s cool, Katara,” he called back. “I’ll be there in ten minutes!”

Katara decided to give Aang twenty minutes this time before she’d come back and check up on how he and Haru were getting on. Twenty minutes meant she could make a bit more headway with the laundry than ten. It also meant that Aang could probably start another game with Haru if this one ended quickly enough, but that couldn’t really be helped.

Maybe once Sokka and Zuko got back from wherever it was they’d disappeared off to, they could get some sort of stupid schedule going.

Notes:

Zuko’s absent-minded ‘Maybe the Earth Kingdom had a word for it’ is my little nod to the common idea that the German language has a word for everything, as this article explores.

I took the rules for Pai Sho from this Wikihow article.

Chapter 36

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Uncle Iroh had taught Zuko how to use his breath of fire to warm himself in extremely low temperatures, so the cooler wasn’t quite as bad as he’d feared it would be. The main problem was that the novelty of being stuck in a cramped space and staring at the same four walls had worn off about twenty-four seconds after he’d taken out the screws keeping the cooler bolted to the wall.

To pass the time, he played a game in his head that Uncle had introduced him to. You started with a tea, let’s say… ginseng, and then you took the last letter of that tea and tried to think of a tea that began with that letter – so, genmaicha, which then led you on to aracha, and so on and so forth. He’d gotten stuck on N for the third time when the door to the cooler cracked open.

“I can take you back to your cell if you've learned your lesson,” Sokka offered, and even if Zuko couldn’t see his expression through his faceguard, he could hear the humor in his voice.

“Yes, I have.” Zuko allowed himself a smirk of his own as he breathed out one final flame to remind his fingers what warmth felt like. “Completely.”

Sokka seemed to get the message, because he tipped his visor up and nodded seriously. “I got Suki and Taki out of their cells a few minutes ago. They'll be waiting for us at the shore.”

Zuko had been ready to scramble to his feet and run down to the shore, if only to get out of this Agni-damned freezer, but he had barely started rising to his feet when he heard voices echoing down the hall.

“Someone's coming!” He hissed, grabbing Sokka and yanking on his collar. The cooler door shut before Sokka’s yelp of surprise could be let out into the corridor.

“Yeah,” a deep voice was chattering away, getting louder as they approached the cell. “New arrivals coming in at dawn.”

“Anybody interesting?” A higher-pitched voice asked.

“Nah, just the usual. Some robbers, a couple traitors, some war prisoners…”

The guards went on to say something about a pirate, but Zuko didn’t care much about catching it. Judging from the stunned look on Sokka’s face, neither did he.

“War prisoners,” Zuko found his voice, but he was probably only saying what Sokka was already thinking. “It could be your father.”

“I know,” Sokka mumbled. He was looking down hard at his feet.

“Well, what should we do?” Zuko pressed, shifting his weight to try and keep warm. “Are we going ahead with the plan, or are we waiting another night?”

“I don't know!” Sokka snapped, tearing his helmet off and running a hand through his hair until it caught on his warrior’s wolftail. “Is it right for me to risk Suki's freedom – all of our freedom – on the slim chance that my dad is gonna show up?”

Zuko honestly didn’t know what the right answer was. He’d joined Sokka on this trip because he’d figured Sokka would want some help getting out of the Boiling Rock, but he hadn’t really come with any idea of what to do when it came to sticking around at the Boiling Rock.

“It's your call, Sokka,” he offered. Sokka had trusted him enough times in the past, and look how that had turned out. Maybe it was Zuko’s time to trust Sokka’s judgement for a change.

Sokka, for his part, was quiet as they lifted the cooler out and hauled it as quickly as they could towards the shoreline in the evening twilight, although that might have been because the cooler was heavy and they couldn’t afford to waste any breath on talking.

“Took you guys long enough,” Taki commented as they made their way towards her and Suki on the shore. “Run into any trouble?”

“Not yet,” Sokka replied, retrieving his blue tunic from underneath a rock. “Trying to keep it that way. Everybody in the cooler, let's go!”

“Are you sure you want to go?” Zuko asked, figuring that he should probably check one last time before they committed to something they couldn’t take back. “You heard the guards; your father might be amongst the prisoners arriving tomorrow.”

“Your dad?” Suki gasped. “Oh, Sokka –”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sokka cut her off. His voice would have been firm, except for how it wavered on that last word. “We can’t risk everything on ‘might be’. You guys have to go on ahead – it’s too risky for you to stay.”

What?

Zuko and Suki both chorused the word, but whilst Zuko’s tone was one of disbelief, Suki’s was one of outrage.

“I'm not leaving without you, Sokka!” She said fiercely. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do – you’re just trying to protect me again, aren’t you?”

“Suki, I’m just trying to keep you safe –” Sokka began, but Suki grabbed the tunic he’d just shrugged on and pulled him closer to her.

“Don’t tell me to leave you behind,” she told him lowly, but her voice was shaking like her hands as they grasped tightly at his shirt. “Isn’t that what you said? ‘That we may learn to ask, and not demand’ – that’s what you said, Sokka –”

Suki’s words were cut off as Sokka dragged her into a rough hug, and Zuko had to awkwardly turn away and try not to listen to what they were saying to each other. Something about this felt a little too personal for him; he felt like an intruder. Taki looked just as uncomfortable as he did when their eyes met in an excruciatingly embarrassing moment of mutual awkwardness, so Zuko quickly occupied himself with looking down at his feet until Sokka and Suki broke apart.

“We’re going to stay here, and see if my Dad’s one of the prisoners arriving tomorrow,” Sokka said thickly. Zuko tried not to notice the redness around his eyes. “You guys should go.”

Zuko looked at Taki, whose impassive face wasn’t giving anything away. Zuko figured that probably meant it was his call.

“I'm staying, too,” he found his voice as he held his hand out to Sokka. “You didn’t leave me on my own when we had to leave Jeong Jeong’s camp. I’m not leaving you now, Sokka.”

Sokka looked at his outstretched arm for a long moment, before sighing and firmly clasping his forearm in what Zuko remembered to be a Water Tribe gesture of solidarity. They might have stayed there for a little while if Taki hadn’t cleared her throat. All three of them turned to look at the Fire Nation woman, who was still standing by the cooler.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Taki said through gritted teeth, her fingers flexing as they held the edge of the cooler in a white-knuckled grip. “But I’m pretty sure this was not the plan.”

“Maybe not,” Zuko acknowledged, giving her his best Cryptic Pai Sho Smile. “But your plans can change, and that’s okay.”

Far from being impressed with his wisdom, Taki stared at him as if he’d grown a second head. He supposed, after the number of times he’d given Uncle that same look, that was fair enough.

 

 

“Gooooooooooood morning, earthbending student!” Toph shouted, relishing the way the Fancy Dancer’s heartbeat went up faster than the Gaoling bookmakers’ odds on an Earth Rumble fighter facing the Blind Bandit.

Sugar Queen and Fuzzy both sounded like they were complaining about the interruption to their beauty sleep. Most days, Toph would be happy to start talking smack about how Sugar Queen sounded like Appa and probably looked like him too, but she was in a good mood today. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, the yadda-yadda-yadda, all the rest of those cliches that sighted people always used. Who gave a shit if the sun was bright enough to hurt your eyes, or the sky was one shade of one color as opposed to another? You might as well make the most of today, no matter what your senses told you.

Speaking of which, Toph could sense through her feet that the airhead still wasn’t getting up out of his sleeping bag.

“Come on, Twinkle Toes,” she tapped her foot impatiently. “Get your butt out of bed. I’ve got a special lesson plan for you today, and I’m not waiting another three hours like some people for you to show up!”

That seemed to pique the Dancer’s interest. That was the trick with Aang, Toph thought to herself – you just needed to mix it up a little, offer something new, and appeal to his natural curiosity. She knew it was effective because it was basically what he and the others had done for her when they’d rocked up and asked her to join their little group.

“Today, we’ve got Hairu with us,” she announced once Twinkles arrived at their little earthbending cavern a little way into the cave systems surrounding the Temple.

“Hairu?” Mustache Guy repeated. “Seriously?”

“Is there a problem?” Toph asked in her best I’m A Beifong Heiress, Peasant voice. She hadn’t been able to do much nickname-wise with Haru, but she figured it was better than Fuzzface.

“Nope,” the Fuzzface in question sighed. “Nope, no problem at all, Towkay.”

That was more like it, Toph thought to herself. Finally, someone who understood exactly who was in charge around here.

“You’re gonna have a little spar with Hairu,” she told the Fancy Dancer, wiggling her toes in anticipation of what should be a good bout to watch with her feet. “And then the winner gets to face me. We’ll mainly be focusing on your footwork and your seismic sense, but I’m not gonna judge you if you want to get busy with the boulders –”

“Um, sifu Toph Miss Beifong?”

Okay, Towkay was one thing, but that was just obsequious. Still, Toph was a generous and benevolent earthbending sifu, and Gramps had talked about how we honor our masters by remembering their lessons that one time. By that measuring standard, Twinkles was by and large a good student, so Toph figured she could let it slide just this once.

“Yes, pupil Aang Fancy Dancer?” She said, folding her arms.

“Well, when sifu Hotman took me to see the dragons –”

Oh, great, Toph immediately thought to herself. Here we go.

Just wait until Twinkles met badgermoles. Dragons weren’t shit compared to badgermoles.

“And I figured out that I want to bend with love,” the Fancy Dancer was saying. “So I don’t think I can spar with Haru if I’m supposed to love people when I bend?”

What the fuck was this supposed to be? Toph was just asking Twinkle Toes to bend, and he was talking about love?

Gross.

“Thanks, Aang,” Hairu said. “I love you too, man.”

“Yeah, that’s real nice of you, Fuzzface,” Toph said impatiently. “But, uh – why are you telling me this, Twinkles?”

“Well, so I decided that I want my bending to be motivated by love,” the Fancy Dancer said, scuffing the ground with one shoe. “And, I dunno, I don’t see how trying to hurt someone is loving?”

Toph groaned under her breath. Why was the Fancy Dancer trying to get all emotional and shit right now? She wasn’t asking for any Ruthless Aggression like Xin Fu always did – she just wanted him to have a quick spar, that was all!

Aang was going to have one rude fucking awakening if he went up against the Fire Lord with that attitude, but Toph figured that she could leave that particular pep talk to Sparky.

She wanted to politely inform the Fancy Dancer that the point of sparring wasn’t to injure each other, but to test and develop your skills. Unless you were going up against The Gopher – that bastard went hard no matter the scenario; every training session was like a title fight with him, and Toph honestly respected him for that. He wasn’t a great fighter, but he was a battler.

That was kind of where Twinkle Toes was at right now, right? There was no way the Blind Bandit was ever going to quit, and there was zero chance an earthbending student of Toph Beifong’s was going to quit. Sure, the invasion had kind of been a bit of a disaster, and the Fire Lord had wiped the floor with them, but this was basically like the first few rounds of the semi-legendary fight at Earth Rumble IV where The Hippo had been beating the crap out of The Boulder for the first few rounds, and The Boulder had somehow managed to pull it back and defeat The Hippo with a flying lariat and then a double superkick to the chin. The crowds had gone wolfbat-shit crazy after that.

One flying Stone, one lying prone, the Boulder had called it, in one of his snappier pieces of smack talking. The crowds at the Earth Rumbles had always loved an underdog who refused to quit, and that was the kind of attitude Toph was trying to instill in Aang, if only he’d get with the training program.

“Fine, Twinkles,” she conceded with as much good grace as she could manage. “Then Hairu and I are gonna spar, and you’re gonna keep your eyes on our footwork. You’d better watch carefully and take notes for the five seconds it’s gonna take me to win this bout.”

As it happened, she managed the win in four, but at least Twinkles had caught enough to realize that if he kept on putting all his weight on his back foot when he was starting an earthbending move, that wasn’t going to be doing him any favors going forward. It sure as dirt hadn’t done Fuzzface any good, that was for sure.

 

 

Sokka’s instincts were never wrong. Okay, sure, so they’d been a little shaky about the Blue Spirit, but his initial gut reaction that the Blue Spirit was awesome had been validated eventually. It wasn’t the Blue Spirit that Sokka had originally been talking about, but that wasn’t the point, it was the principle of the matter, okay? Sokka’s instincts had been right, and not just about the Blue Spirit; they’d decided to stay behind in the prison last night, and when the gondola bringing the new prisoners in had arrived this morning, Dad had been amongst the prisoners who had stepped off!

Dad’s hair was a little longer, and his beard looked a bit bushier, but all that proved to Sokka was how Manly he was. Even the prison uniform and the cuffs showed off how this was someone who messed with the Fire Nation, like a total badass. He’d even been able to mess with the warden as he got hustled into the prison and made to line up with the rest of the new arrivals.

“Your Dad seems cool,” Taki observed, as they watched the warden stumble over the chain of Dad’s handcuffs.

“He is,” Sokka agreed. “The coolest.”

“You should go and talk to him before the rest of us,” Suki encouraged him. “Make sure he’s okay, and tell him what’s going on!”

The warm smile Suki gave him as she squeezed his hand told Sokka that she was almost as relieved that Sokka’s instincts were right as he was. As he met her gaze and gently squeezed back, he remembered what she’d told him last night.

A partnership, she’d whispered in his ear as they’d stood by the boiling lake. Equals. She had echoed back to him what Sokka had said in the poem he’d written her. A partnership of equals – and here they were, hand in hand.

“I’ll come find you guys,” he promised them. Zuko looked tense, but he nodded all the same. Taki just shrugged.

“Don’t take too long,” she replied. “We can all catch up once we’re out.”

Right, Sokka thought to himself as he fumbled with the keys to the cell the prison guard had told him the Water Tribe prisoner was being held in. That was why they were here – to get out.

Dad was sitting on his bed with his elbows resting on his knees as Sokka slipped inside the cell, but he raised his head and narrowed his eyes as Sokka came in.

“Thank goodness you're okay,” Sokka began, but he couldn’t get any further before Dad was suddenly on his feet with a clenched fist hovering in the vicinity of Sokka’s throat.

“If you take one step closer, you'll see just how okay I am,” he snarled, and hoooohhhhh boy, monkeyfeathers, Sokka had to get out of this Fire Nation prison uniform before Dad decided he was someone to mess with!

“Dad!” He said hastily, flipping up his visor. “It's me!”

“Sokka,” Dad breathed. Sokka could see him blinking hard. “My son.”

Sokka pretended he didn’t see the tears in Dad’s eyes as they hugged. Not because it was unmanly, because Dad was never unmanly, but because remarking on it would probably be a lengthy conversation and they’d have more time for that once they were out.

“You know, Sokka, you should be more careful with that guard outfit on,” Dad commented once they stepped out of their slightly-longer-than-it-needed-to-be-but-still-super-Manly hug. “I almost punched you in the gut!”

Sokka let out a quiet laugh as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I ran into that problem earlier.”

“Is anyone out in the corridor?” Dad asked lowly. Sokka could tell that now that their Manly reunion was done with, Dad was back to business like a real leader should be. “We don’t want to be overheard.”

“Nobody’s out there,” Sokka reassured him, but he double-checked all the same. Yep, still all clear. “So where's Bato? Where's everyone else from the invasion?”

Dad sighed. “The others are being held at a prison near the Fire Nation palace. They singled me out as their leader and sent me here – but before I left, I met some young women who said they knew you. The –” he snapped his fingers a few times with a frown on his face – “The Oshinama Fighters?”

“You mean the Kyoshi Warriors?” Sokka guessed.

Dad nodded. “That's right.”

Sokka nodded too. “Their leader Suki is here, and she's going to escape with us.”

“Good,” Dad said fervently. “We'll need all the help we can get.”

Sokka had to laugh nervously at that. “Well, about that, Dad… you know how I said Prince Zuko was on our side?”

Dad was a smart guy, so it didn’t take him any longer than three seconds to put the pieces together. When he did, he stepped back and folded his arms across his broad chest. With the furrowed brow and the pursed lips, Sokka would have been concerned if not for the thoughtful gleam in Dad’s eye. It was the same gleam he’d had when he and Sokka had been planning the invasion plan aboard the Wani.

This wasn’t Dad’s Angry Papa Polar Bear Dog face. This was Dad’s Wise Old Orca Wolf face.

“So he’s here too?” Dad asked eventually. “And he’s on your – our side?”

“Toph was able to confirm it,” Sokka said earnestly, taking a seat next to Dad on the bed. “I know you said it was crazy back on the Wani, Dad, but like she said, she can sense heartbeats, and –”

“I don’t need to trust Toph’s judgement when I trust yours, Sokka,” Dad cut him off firmly. “If you’ve talked with him, and you can still say he’s on our side, that’s good enough for me, son.”

Aw, shucks. Now it was Sokka’s turn to have tears welling up in his eyes. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Speaking of trusting your judgement,” Dad smiled slightly, “Do you have a plan?”

Right. Getting out of here. They could catch up at length once they were out.

Sokka sighed as he leant forward and rested his chin on his crossed arms. “We had one, but it had to change. I don’t know if there's another way off this island.”

“Sokka,” Dad said firmly. “There's no prison in the world that can hold two Water Tribe geniuses.”

Just the sound of Dad’s confident voice told Sokka that things were going to be alright. But the warm weight of Dad’s hand on his shoulder gave him the encouragement he needed to keep looking.

“Two Water Tribe geniuses,” he agreed. “And two Blue Spirits. This place doesn’t stand a chance.”

Dad looked a bit confused at that – oh, right, Sokka hadn’t told Dad yet!

“Oh, yeah, by the way, the Blue Spirit’s here,” he explained as casually as he could. “Both of ‘em.”

Dad’s elbow slipped off his leg, and he almost fell over onto his bed. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. Then opened it again, then shut it again.

“Well,” he said weakly. “Just wait until Bato hears about this one.”

Notes:

Genmaicha is a Japanese tea consisting of green tea mixed with roasted popped brown rice. Aracha is a Japanese green tea.

‘Towkay’ is a Chinese nickname; it’s Hokkien for ‘boss’.

In 2002, the World Wrestling Federation changed its name to World Wrestling Entertainment and separated their Raw and Smackdown! brands. ‘Ruthless aggression’ was a marketing tagline for this new era of pro wrestling; it’s more widely known in-ring as one of John Cena’s catchphrases.

Chapter 37

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Even in prison, Suki would never have forgiven herself if she’d let her standards slip. But without access to a dojo or a gym, she’d needed to get creative with her workout routine over the past few weeks; planks, handstand push-ups, squats, lateral side splits, triceps dips against her bedframe, whatever she could manage. But now, it looked like all that work was paying off, and she was feeling good about their chances.

With Sokka and his father coming up with a plan, Zuko’s firebending, Taki’s ranged fighting, and her skills in close combat and tactical mind, Suki could actually see them getting out of here. Things would have been easier if Taki had managed to get her fans back for her, but she’d only been able to bribe – by which Suki had heard threatened – one of the guards into sneaking some of their personal effects back from processing for them.

“Including the mask?” Suki had wanted to know. If the Blue Spirit was seen orchestrating a Fire Nation prison break, that would do wonders for the resistance’s morale.

“Not the mask,” Taki had admitted bitterly. “At least we’ll have the Pai Sho stuff and the ginseng.”

Quite why Taki had such a fondness for ginseng, Suki simply could not fathom, but for the first fortnight or so that they had been in prison together, Taki had been suffering what Suki could only describe as withdrawal symptoms. Suki would have thought that drinking a dozen cups of Koh’s piss a day was worse than the Boiling Rock, personally, but they’d agreed to disagree on ginseng after the first week travelling together, and she wasn’t going to start that argument again.

As the door to her cell opened, she quickly dropped down from her handstand push-up and turned her tumble into a roll, springing up in the middle of the room so she wasn’t backed into a corner. She’d raised her hands, but when she saw blue eyes and a goofy smile set in the middle of a dark-skinned face, she instantly relaxed.

“Sokka!” She allowed herself a quick moment of relief before bringing herself back to concentrating on the plan, and not the shape of his mouth. “What's going on?”

“We’ve got a new plan to get out of here,” Sokka confirmed. His blue eyes were alight with excitement, and Suki couldn’t help but feel a rush of anticipation herself.

“Does Zuko know?” She asked. “Have you been able to find him?”

Sokka gave a slight wobble of his hand, which Suki took to indicate that Zuko was vaguely aware that something was afoot. “I went to his cell to try and talk to him, but a couple of guards showed up before I could tell him anything. We should be meeting up in the yard in about an hour’s time for the break.”

“The break?” Suki asked, her mind abruptly jarred from appreciating how the dark colors of the prison uniform suited her boyfriend quite nicely. “We’re breaking out of here in an hour?

Sokka nodded. “My dad and I came up with the plan together. People already know that Zuko’s here, so we need to get out of here as soon as possible. The longer we’re here, the riskier it gets for him, and for us.”

Suki noted that her boyfriend was back to being best friends forever with Zuko, just like back in Master Pao’s tea house. They’d been like two matching tessen back then, and it seemed that whatever had happened down in the Crystal Catacombs whilst Suki, Sokka and Toph had been in the Earth Palace hadn’t broken their bond. She supposed that meant she only owed Zuko three ass-whuppings now, rather than the five or six she’d had in mind as she’d travelled through the Earth Kingdom with Taki. Zuko was just lucky Taki had already talked her down from ten.

“We can’t wait until tonight,” Sokka continued, reaching out to place his hands gently but firmly on Suki’s shoulders. “And if we take the cooler across the water in broad daylight, we’ll be sitting turtleducks. So we're going to commandeer the gondola, and we're going to take a hostage with us so they won't cut the lines.”

Suki bit her lip as she rested her hands on Sokka’s. She allowed herself one slow drag of her thumb over his knuckles before she shook her head and slipped his warm hands off her shoulders. “We'll never make it onto the gondola. There's too many guards.”

Sokka’s mouth ticked up in a confident smirk. “My dad already thought of that – he said we'll need a distraction. That's why we're going to start a prison riot.”

Suki tried to see the plan in her mind’s eye. The riot was doable. If they could get the guards to leave their posts, they could make their way through the prison. That part of the plan seemed workable. They could get to the gondola, fine. But what happened next?

“Okay,” she said stubbornly. “Let's say by some miracle this all works and we make it on the gondola. The warden will still just cut the lines, even if we have a captive!”

Sokka grinned triumphantly. “Not if the warden is the captive!”

Okay, Suki conceded. That made sense – but did Sokka really need to wiggle his eyebrows and do that little shimmy? Was that a Water Tribe victory dance, or something? Suki would have to ask him to remind her why she liked him, exactly, but she’d save that conversation for later.

They both started and half-turned towards the cell door as they heard noises coming from the corridor. Sokka glanced back at Suki, and his mouth opened slightly before he closed it again and shook his head. “I have to go.”

Suki understood that it wasn’t quite the same as the time she’d told him that she needed to go to the Earth Kingdom to search for her battle sisters, but it still sounded an awful lot like a goodbye she wasn’t ready to hear. She hugged him tightly before she could talk herself out of it.

“Be careful,” she instructed him as she let him go. “If you get hurt without me, I’ll kick your butt.”

“We can kick everyone else’s butts when the riot starts,” he promised as he shut the door behind him. “Although I’ll definitely kick more than you.”

Suki almost laughed at the thought, but she instantly resolved to beat Sokka’s total by at least five. Good thing she’d been keeping up her training.

 

 

When two guards had barged into Zuko’s grimy little cell, he’d thought it might just have been two rookies looking to taunt the dishonored prince. But when they had yanked him to his feet and bundled him out into the corridor, only to march him along to Agni only knew where, it had become clear that this wasn’t Zuko’s lucky day.

He was shocked. Shocked, honestly.

“What are you doing?” He demanded, futilely trying to tug his arms free from the guards’ firm grasp. “Where are you taking me?”

He let out a grunt of pain as the guards brought him to an open door and hurled him into a chair, and he glared at them as he tried to cradle his suddenly-aching shoulder. “I didn't do anything wrong!”

“Come on, Zuko,” a voice he hadn’t been expecting to hear drawled from behind him. “We all know that's a lie.”

Zuko had to scramble not to lose his balance and topple over the arm of his chair as the dark-haired girl stepped out of the shadows. He thought he heard a faint breath of laughter, but when he looked back at her, her eyes gave nothing away.

“Mai,” he managed breathlessly. “How did you know I was here?”

“Because I know you so well,” she replied simply.

Zuko frowned. Mai knew him well enough to predict that he’d go to the Western Air Temple, take the Avatar to the Sun Ruins she maybe didn’t even know about, start teaching the Avatar firebending, put the Avatar’s firebending lessons on hold to join Sokka on a prison break, get caught on the prison break, and end up here?

He had to think that seemed unlikely, even for Mai. “But how –”

“The warden's my uncle,” she spat, rolling her eyes with uncharacteristic gusto. “You idiot.”

Oh, right.

Yeah, Zuko had to admit, that made a little more sense.

Agni damn it all.

“The truth is, I guess I don't know you,” Mai continued, holding up a tightly-furled piece of paper with a familiar crimson twine around it. “And it seems like you don’t know me, either. Seriously, Zuko? Fire Sages? Poetry?

Zuko had been trying to be sensitive, but just like when he’d been practicing with Ensign Takahashi’s throwing knives, it seemed he hadn’t quite hit the mark. “I was just trying to explain –”

“You were trying to explain?” Mai let out a disbelieving laugh, and Zuko had to hastily duck as she threw the scroll at his head with some velocity.

“You sent me a letter telling me you’d decided to leave the Fire Nation and join the Avatar!” She shouted, balling her fists up by her sides. “Thanks to you, I had to spend a week trying to explain to my parents that I wasn’t an accessory to treason!”

Stop!” Zuko ground out, standing to his feet. “This isn't about you! This is about the Fire Nation!”

Thanks, Zuko,” Mai’s hand twitched, and Zuko wondered for a moment whether she had learnt any rude gestures at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls. “That makes me feel all better.”

“Mai, I never wanted to hurt you,” he tried to make her understand. “But I have to do this to save my country!”

“Save it?” Mai repeated incredulously. “You're betraying your country!”

“That's not how I see it.”

“No,” Mai agreed coolly, folding her arms as she looked away. “But then again, you and I don’t see things the same way. Do we, Zuko?”

Zuko had to admit it – they didn’t. They weren’t the same people they’d been three years ago. They didn’t see things now the same way they had back then, but… but it wasn’t even that, was it?

Mai had been born into a noble family, and she had grown up into a noble young lady. She had needed to behave, and sit still, and not speak unless spoken to. She had grown up with expectations and requirements. The Royal Fire Academy for Girls was only for the upper-class elite, and it taught its students that preparedness carried the day. You didn’t get accepted into the Academy if you were a troublemaker, and you certainly didn’t stay there for long if you didn’t plan your every day with a precision that accounted for everything.

But Zuko’s destiny was to do the right thing, even if that meant speaking out of turn. To do what had to be done, not what he was expected to do. To do what nobody else was willing to do, even if that meant taking a stand against what everyone else believed in.

And as for being prepared and thinking things through… well. Zuko thought that kind of said it all.

He and Mai didn’t see things the same way, but Zuko knew one thing they had in common.

“Taki’s here, Mai,” he dared to risk it. “That’s why I’m here with Sokka. We’re here to get her out.”

If Zuko hadn’t been looking for it, he would have missed the way Mai’s right eye twitched. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying, Mai.”

There was no way he could miss the way Mai’s foot stepped backwards.

“She was part of my crew until she left,” he continued, refusing to give up. “She’s in here now, and if you don’t let me go, she’s going to stay in here.”

Mai tensed, and Zuko’s eyes flicked towards the door as he heard running footsteps.

The cell door was still open. If he could just distract her –

“Ma'am, there's a riot going on! I'm here to protect y-aargh!

Zuko grabbed the guard as he rushed into the cell, and threw him across the room. He barely kept his balance as he staggered along, but Zuko wasn’t hanging around to see whether he crashed into Mai or not.

Mai was fast, but nearly two years as the Blue Spirit and a traitor prince meant that Zuko was faster. He slammed the door shut and twisted the locking mechanism just in time.

Mai could have let out an enraged snarl or slammed her fists against the door, but the Academy looked down at such uncouth displays of emotion. She only narrowed her eyes at him, and Zuko had to admit that, yeah, he kind of deserved that.

He set off running. Sokka had said they were meant to meet in the yard in an hour’s time, and Zuko wasn’t sure how much time had passed. As he ran through the prison, he could hear a growing hubbub of noise – shouts and yells, and something he was pretty sure was an explosion or two. He didn’t know if the floor was shaking under his pounding footsteps.

Agni damn it. What the fuck had Sokka managed to do now?

 

 

Sokka had arranged with the others what time they needed to be in the prison yard, and now that they were getting to that point, he’d managed to get one of the guards to let the prisoners out into the yard. The guard he’d politely asked to open the cell doors had been a little unwilling to do so, on account of the prison apparently being in the middle of a lockdown, but a firm voice, a general air of businesslike competence, and just the smallest hint of coercion was enough to get the job done. Pretty soon after that, Sokka had been able to join Dad, Suki and Taki in the courtyard. There was just one small thing he couldn’t quite figure out.

“Why have you got a random bag?” He asked dumbly, staring at the sack Taki was holding in her hand. Taki just stared him down in silence for a few seconds until Suki broke the silence.

“Is that really the biggest issue at hand right now?”

Sokka cringed. Okay, so that probably shouldn’t have been the first question he’d asked, but, come on, give him a break – this was only Sokka’s second prison break! Well, okay, maybe his third, if he counted the one in Ba Sing Se – but still, three prison breaks did not a habit make!

“Right,” he admitted a little sheepishly. “What’s next, Dad?”

“We need a distraction to get out of here,” Dad said decisively. “We have to start a riot.”

Sokka watched with eager anticipation as he stepped up to a shaven-headed dude with biceps bigger than Sokka’s head, and gave him a hefty shove.

“Hey!” The tough guy complained in a surprisingly deep voice for such a whiny hey. “What'd you do that for? That hurt my feelings!”

Dad blinked. Perhaps he was as confused by this distinct lack of awesomeness as Sokka was. Had Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe just failed to achieve what he’d set out to do?

The world fell further out of balance every day!

“Aren't you mad at me?” Dad asked with a slight frown.

“Uh,” the prisoner scratched his shaven head. “Well, normally I would be, but I've been learning to control my anger.”

Suki rolled her eyes. “Go wild, Hansuke. We’re trying to start a riot.”

“Oh.” The prisoner brightened up. “Well, gee, Suki, why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

It couldn't have been more than five seconds between the first yell of RIOT! and the first fireworks, and one of the prison watchtowers couldn’t have lasted more than eight seconds after that before it came crashing down.

They really should have made it out of whalebone, Sokka thought absently to himself. Or possibly snow. At the very least, they should have gotten a Water Tribe architect to make it a bit more structurally sound.

“Impressive,” Dad nodded approvingly. As well he should – Suki was awesome.

“No kidding,” Taki agreed. “You should have seen her when we went up against – hey!” She ducked a fireball. “Watch who you’re bending at!”

Sokka would honestly have been too intimidated to look twice in Taki’s direction after the death glare she’d aimed in the general area of the rioting masses, but he supposed common sense kind of didn’t get involved in a prison riot, because he was pretty sure he heard someone shout back I think you mean whom I’m bending at!

Sokka figured it was their funeral if they wanted to piss Taki off. He’d been about to ask the others whether they’d seen Zuko anywhere when some jerk bumped into him and nearly sent him flying.

“Watch it!” He grumbled, but his irritation quickly died away when he saw which jerk had knocked him in the back of the head.

“Sorry,” the dark-haired intruder mumbled, before he paused and cocked his head at Taki. “Wait – is that my bag?”

“Sorry, Zuko,” Taki replied without a hint of apology in her voice. “Figured I had to grab it. Seemed kind of important at the time.”

Sokka figured that answered his previous question. He’d had a similar experience in Gaoling.

“Good,” he clapped his buddy on the back. “We're all here. Now all we need to do is grab the warden and get to the gondolas!”

Suki nodded, and her faith in Sokka’s plan made him feel a lot more confident in his plan.

“And how do we do that?” Zuko asked.

That was just typical of Zuko, Sokka thought resignedly to himself. The guy just didn’t have any faith in him. Of course he wouldn’t trust Sokka to have a plan to grab the warden.

But the plan was so simple! All they had to do was… was… uh, if they did this… and then they did that…

Okay, just give him a second here…

“I'm not sure,” he admitted in a slightly squeaky voice.

Zuko groaned and shot him an extremely grumpy glare. “Did you even think this through?”

Oh, no, he didn’t.

“Don’t you dare!” Sokka reared back and pointed a finger at Zuko. “You’ve got some nerve, you jerkbending –”

“Never mind, guys,” Taki drawled. “I think Suki’s taking care of it.”

Sokka’s head spun around on his shoulders so fast, he wondered whether it was just going to spin right on off his neck. “What?

Suki made running over the heads and shoulders of rioting prisoners look as easy as running on the most even ground Kyoshi Island had to offer. Although, having said that, Sokka knew that Kyoshi Island was pretty rocky and hilly, so maybe that explained a lot. But, still, he couldn’t quite come up with an explanation for how Suki was able to jump up and turn two flips and a spinning somersault onto the prison tower before taking out three guards before they’d been able to do more than bend a single, wildly inaccurate fire blast at her.

“Holy mother of Agni and all her wacky nephews,” Zuko said dumbly from Sokka’s right.

“Couldn’t agree more,” he answered weakly.

“Fuck this,” Taki’s voice interrupted his lovesick admiration. “I’m not letting her take all the credit!”

Oh, slush, that was right – Sokka was meant to be having a tally going!

But by the time Sokka, Dad, Zuko and Taki had ran up three flights of stairs and caught up to Suki, they were only just in time to see her slam the bound-and-gagged warden against a wall. The triumphant glint in her eyes made Sokka go instantly weak at the knees. Or, actually, that might just have been all that running. Yeesh.

“We’ve got the warden,” she called back to them. “Now let’s get out of here!”

“That's some girl,” Dad wheezed, puffing out his cheeks as he sucked in the air. If Dad had found those stairs as difficult as Sokka, that just told Sokka that those had been the most dangerous and most difficult flights of stairs in all the four nations.

“Tell me about it,” he agreed.

Notes:

Some of Suki’s exercises were taken from these articles. A tessen is a Japanese war fan.

The door sign of the Royal Fire Academy for Girls bears a slogan, according to which ‘preparedness carries the day’.

Hansuke is a Japanese name meaning ‘a very helpful friend’; ‘Holy Mother of God and all her wacky nephews’ is a loosely-translated quote from the Firefly episode ‘Our Mrs. Reynolds’ (2002).

Chapter 38

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It was a tense standoff as their little group made their way across the roof until they reached the gondola’s landing bay. Sokka’s father had a tight grip on the warden’s collar, and judging from the angry noises coming out from behind the strip of cloth Suki had wrapped around the warden’s mouth, their hostage wasn’t too happy about the situation. Zuko wasn’t too happy about it either – he’d thought the Avatar had needed to learn what subtlety meant, but compared to Sokka, Aang was a veritable paragon of stealth and finesse.

He was pretty sure he was going to have to shave his head again after this.

He kept a watchful eye on the guards as they inched towards the gondola – Sokka, Suki and Taki were capable fighters, but they were non-benders, so he’d need to be the one to block and fight off the fire attacks. He tried to keep his focus and not turn around as he heard someone opening the doors to the gondola.

“Everyone in,” Suki ordered tersely.

As the others scrambled in, that seemed to be the signal for the guards to rush towards them. Zuko had to work the controls quickly if he wanted to get the gondola moving, and he kicked the handle a couple of times for good measure, driving it into place and snapping the end off with a loud crack. He didn’t have any time to admire his handiwork –

Handiwork? Footwork?

Whatever.

He turned and ran towards the departing gondola, charging towards the moving carriage with as much speed as he could manage whilst dodging and weaving to avoid the fire blasts coming his way. As he leapt into the air, he reached out a hand – and Sokka was there to catch him, grabbing his forearm and hauling him into the gondola with a grunt.

“What was that all about?” He panted, looking back at the broken lever.

“I'm making it so they can't stop us,” Zuko explained, nodding to himself with satisfaction as he saw how the guards had gathered around the useless mechanism.

“Smart thinking!” Sokka smirked, before frowning slightly. Yeah, it sounded kind of weird to Zuko, too.

“We're on our way!” Suki grinned with a satisfied air. “Couple more minutes, and we’ll be gone-dola.”

Zuko didn’t like to doubt his turtleducks before they scratched, but it seemed like Suki was right. Compared to how things had gone when he’d had to break Aang out of Pohuai, this had been… almost serene.

“Wait!” Sokka’s father frowned as he looked back towards the prison. “Who's that?”

Zuko’s heart sank as he joined the Water Tribe warrior at the window to stare down at the two new arrivals standing down below them. One was wearing a lot of pink, and the other was wearing deep red armor.

Of course things had been going too smoothly, Zuko thought to himself as he met Azula’s narrowed golden eyes.

“That's a problem,” he answered, watching Zuli and Ty Lee set off running for the edge of the platform. “It's my sister and her friend.”

Azula launched herself into the air with a blast of blue flames and clipped a set of handcuffs onto the cable line, and Sokka’s father let out a low whistle. “I don’t suppose she’s another one who’s secretly been on our side this whole time?”

Zuko winced at the pointed glares both Sokka and Suki sent his way. If they got out of this, he could see himself hiding behind Taki for the rest of the journey back to the Western Air Temple.

Actually, never mind. Taki probably wanted to kill him, too.

“I’ll take the chi-blocker,” Suki said in a determined voice.

“Her name’s Ty Lee,” Zuko offered, recalling the time he’d caught her off guard in Omashu. “She’s got a weak chin.”

“I know her name,” the Kyoshi Warrior cracked her knuckles. “Time for her to learn who I am.”

Zuko helped Sokka scramble up onto the top of the gondola, before Suki gave him a boost up of his own. He got there just in time to deflect a sizzling fireball away from Sokka, sending it out to dissipate over the water. Azula didn’t have any witty comments for him as he defended his friend from her attack this time around. She only smirked at him before launching a kick his way, sending an arc of blue fire at the two of them.

But Zuko wasn’t as conflicted about fighting her as he had been in Tu Zin. This time, he met her challenge with conviction, blocking her attacks and advancing towards her, giving Sokka the opportunity to stay on his shoulder and move in with his sword – where had he gotten a sword from? – to attack when he saw the openings that worked for him.

Azula grunted as she rolled away from one of Sokka’s strikes, and lashed back with a blast that Zuko had to twist his body harshly to avoid. He heard Ty Lee yelp out Azula’s name from behind him, and a high pitched squeal. The fact he wasn’t sure whether Sokka or Suki had made that noise was probably more embarrassing for them than it was for him.

“Cut the line!” He heard the warden yell from inside the gondola.

Shit.

Zuko couldn’t help letting out an embarrassingly high-pitched yelp of his own as the gondola ground to a halt. As he stumbled on the swaying cable car, Azula darted towards the safer space at the center of the roof. Sokka let out a shout of panic as he tumbled towards the edge of the gondola, and Zuko’s left ankle let out a twinge of pain as he lunged towards his friend. Sokka grabbed onto his hand like his life depended on it –

Okay, Zuko acknowledged as he hauled Sokka back up to his feet. Maybe not the best choice of words, all things considered.

“They're about to cut the line!” Ty Lee cried out. She was perched on the cable and looking down at the gondola station.

Zuko turned to see the soldiers working away at severing the cable line with an enormous saw. If they cut the line, the entire gondola would go plummeting into the boiling lake. The warden had clearly decided that stopping their escape was worth his life. But they couldn’t risk the life of the Fire Princess, surely?

“Then it’s time to leave,” Azula declared. Zuko could only watch helplessly as she blasted herself up into the air on two streams of concentrated blue fire from her hands, landing on another gondola heading back towards the prison.

Double shit.

So the guards didn’t have to worry about the Fire Princess when the line was cut. Azula wasn’t going to be on their gondola when they went plummeting. No wonder she looked as smug as Momo after the lemur had found Sokka’s stash of lychee nuts.

“Goodbye, Zuko,” she called back, as Ty Lee turned an elegant backflip over the cable mechanisms to join her, not a hair out of place on either of them as they passed by their hijacked gondola.

“Triple shit,” Zuko muttered to no one but himself.

 

 

Sokka and Zuko looked to be frozen with horror as the other gondola drew away from them. They might have been worried that Princess Azula might fire on them now that they were sitting turtleducks, but Suki knew better. Why would Azula waste her effort on them now?

“Back inside,” she said decisively. If the line was cut and the gondola fell into the water, it would be better if they were inside when it happened.

If they were outside, they might fall off and be burned or boiled alive; if they were inside, maybe they’d survive the immediate impact. The choice was pretty stark, but it was what they were working with. The boys seemed to register the urgency in her voice, but Suki still kept a careful eye on Azula and Ty Lee as they ducked back inside. Once she was satisfied they were out of range, she hopped back in herself.

“They're cutting the line!” Zuko informed the others. “The gondola's about to go!”

Taki swore, but Suki was used to that by now. By the time they’d reached Pohuai Stronghold, Suki had been more concerned if Taki wasn’t swearing profusely at every little thing that irritated her.

Hakoda only looked grim. “I hope this thing floats.”

“That won’t help us for long,” Zuko answered, glancing down at his boots nervously. “This gondola’s metal.”

Oh, for the love of Kyoshi’s extraordinarily large feet.

Zuko was right. Even if they survived the fall, they’d be cooked alive in the metal box.

“Can we get up onto the cable?” Suki asked, but she already knew the answer. If the line was cut, the cable would lose its tension. They wouldn’t be able to scale far enough along the cable before it fell into the lake as well.

“Uh, guys?” Sokka called with an urgent edge to his voice, pressing his face to the glass. “You might want to take a look at this!”

As Suki and the others joined him, with Hakoda and Taki between them herding the warden along, Suki tried to see what was happening through the steam fogging up the glass. The prison guards seemed to have given up sawing through the last of the cable, so why was the cable still there? They should have cut it by now. Why were the guards standing so close to the wall?

Because they’re stuck there, Suki answered her own question. Pinning opponents with stiletto throwing knives had been one of the first things Taki had taught the new Blue Spirit.

“Who’s that?” Sokka asked, as they watched the dark-haired girl dodge the guards’ fire blasts and extend her arm out in retaliation. Even from this distance, Suki could see the flashes of sunlight reflecting off the blades as they flew towards the guards.

“No way,” Zuko breathed. Two more guards dove to the floor to escape the shuriken being thrown their way. “That’s –”

“Mai,” Taki whispered. Then, before Suki could stop her, she’d bolted for the window, hanging out with her fingers clinging onto the sill. “Mai! Agni damn it, Mai, what are you doing?

It had always stung Suki’s pride to think that she hadn’t been as good a knife-thrower as Taki’s first student. Apparently, she’d been a natural.

Watching Ukano Mai now, Suki could see what Taki had meant.

“Taki, get back!” Zuko shouted, grabbing Taki’s shoulders and trying to pull her away. “Don’t get too close to the – ungh!

Taki had caught him with a flailing forearm and sent him stumbling back. Sokka took a hasty step backwards of his own as Taki continued to yell.

“I’m coming back for you!” She screeched. “Mai, I’m coming back! I swear to fucking Agni, if any of you bastards touch her –”

As the gondola set off again, Suki had to bend her knees to absorb the sudden movement, but Sokka wasn’t so lucky. She winced sympathetically as her boyfriend lurched forward into the glass with a bump.

“Dupid goddulla,” he complained, covering his nose. “Dis iz ebben worse den Omadu!

As they watched Ukano Mai fight off the guards attempting to undo her hard work, Suki tried to pay attention, crowding close to Sokka’s window and winding it down so she could get a clearer view. Now that she recognized the name, Suki could also recognize some of the moves Taki had taught her as they’d made their way through the Earth Kingdom.

And that must have been the move Taki had been telling her about, the one Mai had made up on her own when she was nine years old. When she’d realized that she knew how to do something her mentor didn’t, Taki had said, she’d shown off her new talent all day.

Suki tried not to make awkward eye contact with anyone else in the gondola as Taki continued to shout increasingly creative threats at the prison guards. When they reached the other side of the lake, there was a huge collective sigh of relief as the gondola scraped along the ground to come to a halt at the top of the hill.

As Taki kicked the door open with a furious yell, everyone scrambled out except for Hakoda, who took the opportunity to throw the warden down onto the floor and dust his hands down.

“Sorry, warden,” he said coolly. “Your record is officially broken.”

Suki would have been happy to stay and add her own bit of cool post-adventure repartee, but there was a time and a place for that sort of thing. Time to leave, she decided, setting off at a run behind Sokka, Taki and Zuko.

“Well, we made it out,” she shouted. This time, at least, she was pretty sure of it. “Now what?”

Being a leader since the age of thirteen meant that Suki wasn’t entirely comfortable with looking to other people for the plan, but Taki had known more about Fire Nation military strategy and tactics than she had, and she’d had to listen to her when they were planning the Blue Spirit’s next moves. And, even if it had taken a few marked swerves here and there, Sokka’s plan had gotten them out of the Boiling Rock. It didn’t matter who came up with the plan, as long as the plan came up with the goods. She figured that maybe she could rely on other people now and then.

“My sister was on that island,” Zuko responded, half-turning his head as he nonchalantly sidestepped an awkward-looking rock. “She must have come here somehow.”

Suki wouldn’t go so far as Sokka’s muttered show-off, but she had to admit, the Blue Spirit’s reputation for agility and speed wasn’t just talk. Still, the Kyoshi Warriors had a reputation of their own, and Suki had already beaten Lee in a couple of fights when he and Mushi had shown up on Kyoshi Island.

“Then that’s our way out of here,” she said, speeding up to overtake Zuko and leaving Sokka in the dust.

 

 

Aang wasn’t ever going to admit it to Katara or Toph, but when he and the others had seen a great big black and red airship suddenly pop up in the canyon the Western Air Temple looked out over, he might have said a teensy-tiny swear word in his head, just a little bit.

He wasn’t sure whether Katara would be more disappointed with him for his bad language, or whether Toph would be more impressed, and he didn’t really want to find out, so he’d just kept quiet whilst they worried and speculated about whether this was some evil Fire Nation person who wanted to hurt them, or whether it was some maybe-good non-Fire Nation person, potentially from the Order of the White Lotus, who wanted to help them. He sure hadn’t thought it would be a mixture of non-Fire Nation people from the Order of the White Lotus and Fire Nation people from the Order of the White Lotus, but he guessed that was what Sokka and Zuko counted as these days. He was just glad Zuko didn’t count as an evil Fire Nation person anymore. In fact, Sokka looked more like an evil Fire Nation person in that smart uniform he was wearing – where did he get that?

Actually, where did they get a massive airship from, too?

“What are you doing in this thing?” Katara asked in disbelief. They had so much in common, Aang thought happily to himself. “What happened to the war balloon?”

Zuko let out a small chuckle as he and Sokka exchanged a grin. “It… kind of got destroyed?”

Aang thought that sounded pretty awesome. “Sounds like a crazy fishing trip!”

“Did you at least get some good meat?” Toph asked. Aang tried not to let his distaste show; if Toph liked meat, that was for her to decide, and he wasn’t going to judge.

“I did!” Sokka replied, and Aang could almost see the seal jerky in his eyes. “The best meat of all – the meat of friendship, and fatherhood!”

Honestly, that did not sound like great meat to Aang. That sounded even worse than stewed sea prunes, he thought to himself with a shudder.

Every day, he became more and more convinced that being a vegetarian was the way to go. Being here at an Air Temple was bringing back all kinds of awesome memories about the times he and Monk Gyatso had experimented with all kinds of crazy vegetable meals, tofu burgers, fruit pies, and hang on a second, why were Suki, Hakoda, and some scary-looking lady coming out of the airship?

And why were they all wearing the same outfit as Zuko?

Wait, did you get a special outfit if you all ate meat together?

That could be kind of cool!

“Dad?” Katara gasped, rushing towards Hakoda. Aang thought she might have been crying as she ran past him.

“Hi, Katara,” Hakoda rumbled as he caught her in a tight hug, and, okay, Aang thought that was really sweet. Katara was holding onto her dad like she was never going to let him go, and oh, now Aang totally got why she and Sokka had been so upset when Aang had hidden the map to their Dad!

Aang had already apologized to Katara and Sokka for that, but now he felt like he had to do it again, because watching Katara crying with happiness as she hugged her dad, he really understood what he’d made them miss out on. He felt his heart get all warm and fuzzy as he saw how much it meant to her. He wondered if Toph was sensing what he was seeing through her feet, and what she was making of it.

“How are you here?” Katara asked once she finally stepped back and looked up at Hakoda with a real shining look of happiness in her face. “What’s going on? Where did you go?”

Sokka grinned and shrugged. “We kind of went to a Fire Nation prison.”

Aang gasped, and Katara went What?! and even Toph went huh in a thoughtful voice, so it really was a wow!!!!! moment.

Aang had so many questions! Sokka and Zuko had gone to prison? Had they broken out? Was that where they’d found Suki and Hakoda and that scary-looking lady? Was that where Sokka had gotten the uniform from? Had they stolen the airship? Did they have any more of those cool matching outfits?

But as Hakoda laughed and pulled Sokka into the embrace, so that all three of the Water Tribespeople were hugging each other, Aang thought that this might not be the right time to start asking those questions. He was just super happy to see how much Katara, Sokka and their dad loved each other.

In Ba Sing Se, sifu Iroh had told him a bit about how the four nations were pretty different from each other, but that they all had their good points. Aang knew that the Air Nomads had their good points, but he’d been pleasantly surprised to find out that Master Iroh knew about how the monks had detached themselves from worldly concerns and found peace and freedom. They’d had a great time laughing about the time Aang’s friend Samten had snuck a baby winged lemur into his room, only to come back a few hours later to find that they had eaten all of his lychee nuts and puked all over his pillow. Iroh had told him that it reminded him of a similar story, and now Aang was just waiting for the right time to tell Zuko that he knew all about what had happened to all the sticky buns at Hotman’s fifth birthday party!

But sifu Iroh had also told Aang that the people of the Water Tribe had a deep sense of community and love that held them together through anything. As he watched Katara, Sokka and Hakoda hug each other, Aang felt so happy that they understood the importance of love. It really was the most wonderful thing in the world, he thought to himself. It wasn’t just another form of energy – it was what kept you going when things were hard, just like when Aang had been so hurt and upset on the way to Ba Sing Se about how the sandbenders had kidnapped Appa.

Back then, Aang had thought that he’d needed to hide his emotions and cut them away so that he couldn’t be swayed by them. But now that he knew that he could channel his love into his bending, he could see that his love for his friends was more important than it had ever been before.

Notes:

‘Don’t doubt your turtleducks before they scratch’ is Zuko’s attempt at the proverb ‘Don’t count your chickens before they hatch’, meaning ‘don’t assume what’s going to happen before the outcome is guaranteed’.

Chapter 39

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Toph hadn’t been worried about Snoozles and Sparky, and any loser airbender who said anything otherwise was a straight-up liar. Just because she hadn’t known where they’d been, just because they’d been missing with no way of contacting them for four days, that didn’t mean she’d been, like, concerned for them or anything. But if she had been concerned for them, she would probably have been a bit pissed at them now for making her worry for nothing.

Sure, they’d gone to a Fire Nation prison in the middle of a boiling lake, and Sucker’s retelling had made it sound like things had been a bit dicey for a minute there, but that whole deal with the gondola could have been easily avoided if they’d just taken a metalbender along with them to help them bend their way across the cables. Oh, but where could they possibly have found someone of such matchless talent and unsurpassable skill?

As it had happened, though, Hotpants and Snoozles hadn’t ended up needing the Blind Bandit’s help. Not because they’d been capable and competent enough on their own to get through things unscathed – fuck no, Toph wouldn’t trust those two to win a Money in the Bank match if you gave them the briefcase, the key, and a ten-minute head start – but because they’d had Fan Girl, Ice Pops, and some Fire Nation woman who seemed a lot more legit than Fire Nation Man had ever been.

“Suki said that you and Master Iroh got on pretty well,” the Fire Nation sailor told her without preamble as they came across one another in one of the Temple’s many corridors.

Taki, Sucker had called her. There was a reason Toph came up with the nicknames, that was all she was saying. But she was stuck with Taki now; a true tragedy for all concerned, in many ways.

“Gramps and I were pretty tight,” she replied. “I don’t remember him saying anything about you, though.”

She realized as soon as she said it that it might have sounded a bit rude. Kind of a Oh yeah, I’m the Blind Bandit. Who the fuck are you? sort of thing.

“Kind of wish he had, though,” she added hastily, trying to sound a bit nicer. The Bandit didn’t really have much practice sounding nice, but Toph was trying to get on with people now that she had regular, actual friends and shit.

“I’m a little offended he didn’t,” Taki said. “I was his only decent Pai Sho partner on the Wani – fuck knows what he would have done without me.”

“Can’t believe you lived on that rust bucket for three years,” Toph told her honestly. It set her teeth on edge just thinking about all that corroded metal.

“Yeah, it was kind of shit for a while,” Taki acknowledged, leaning her shoulder against the wall as she folded her arms. Toph thought she probably looked pretty badass. “But then Zuko started going off all the time to do top-secret White Lotus shit – that fucking everyone knew about, by the way – so unless Master Iroh said we had somewhere to be, we pretty much got to do what we wanted. So the last year’s been pretty cool.”

Toph couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Chilling out with Gramps? Laughing at Sparky’s complete inability to keep secrets? Swearing without Sugar Queen letting out long, disappointed sighs?

Why hadn’t Toph been able to join these guys, instead of the morons she’d been stuck with?

“I guess that sounds kind of cool,” she said, trying not to sound too enthusiastic. The Blind Bandit had a reputation to maintain. “If that’s your thing, or whatever.”

The Fire Nation woman let out an irritated noise. “I mean, Master Iroh made us all do a team bonding day when I joined the crew, and it was probably the worst thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. But go off, I guess.”

After all the team bonding Toph had been forced to endure, she knew where Taki was coming from. “Worst thing you’ve ever had to do in your life, huh?”

“Maybe not,” Taki allowed. “This one time, I had to bail Master Iroh out of jail.”

Toph must have misheard that, but Taki’s heartbeat told her she wasn’t lying. “You what?”

“Well, he’d already gotten in trouble before, and Jee was being all, ‘I got him out last time, you fucking go get him’. So I went and bailed him out.”

Gramps had been arrested? Twice? Oh, man, Toph was going to ask him all about this the next time she caught up with him.

She might have to bribe him, but the Beifong fortune could cover Da Hong Pao. Probably.

“That Jee guy didn’t seem like he swears,” Toph remarked as she debated whether Gramps would settle for tieguanyin. She’d thought Smokey was a bit of a hardass, personally.

“He’s got a bit of a temper if you piss him off. Kind of like Zuko.”

Taki sniggered at some memory she presumably had of Smokey and Zuko. Toph hoped it was of Jee beating the fuck out of Sparky, but from what she’d sensed of Smokey’s heartbeat and the way he favored his left leg when he walked, it had probably been the other way around.

“Is that what you were doing all last year?” She asked. “Just pissing Jee off?”

“Not just Jee. Zuko, too, when he was around. And Sokka, when he showed up that one time.”

That sounded like yet another incident that nobody had yet thought to mention to Toph. “That’s not very impressive. Sucker’s pretty easy to piss off.”

“Well, I pissed Master Iroh off a couple of times, too. I think that takes a bit of talent.”

Toph had to admit, that was pretty impressive. Gramps had never seemed mad about anything. “How’d you manage that?”

“That’s actually what he asked me whenever I cheated him at Pai Sho,” Taki said casually. “That’s what pissed him off.”

Toph could hardly believe her ears. “You can cheat at Pai Sho?”

After spending so much time with Gramps, the idea seemed… almost blasphemous.

She didn’t need to interpret the vibrations through the stone to sense Taki’s shrug. It was right there in her voice. “You can cheat at anything if you try hard enough.”

Don’t get Toph started. Oh, the stories she could tell. Where had this Taki person been when Toph had been scamming those grifters in Fire Fountain City?

As a matter of fact, where had Taki been all Toph’s life? Seriously, she’d been stuck with Mistress Ouyang’s hopelessly restrictive lesson plans and tutorials on how to be an elegant lady of high society when she could have been learning how to be the Blue Spirit?

“Can you adopt me?” She asked, only half-joking.

Taki scoffed, and it sounded a bit like Sparky’s laugh. “Fuck off.”

Kind of rude, but Toph wouldn’t have expected anything less from a kindred spirit. “So is that a ‘Yes’ or a ‘Maybe’?”

 

 

For the first time in three years, Katara had the opportunity to sit down with her Dad and… just talk. These past few days, they’d been talking about anything and everything they wanted to talk about. About what life had been like at the South Pole after all the warriors had left; about Dad’s time fighting the Fire Nation in the southern seas; about some of the crazy things Sokka had gotten up to over the past three years. The time he’d gotten two fishhooks stuck in his thumb had made Dad sigh deeply and roll his eyes, which had actually been Gran-Gran’s response too.

And, okay, they’d also talked about some of the things they didn’t want to talk about, but needed to anyway. They’d talked about how Katara had struggled with growing up without Dad, and how it had hurt so much when he had always been there, but then suddenly, he’d been gone. They’d talked about how worried Dad had been when he’d heard from Bato that his kids were in the Earth Kingdom all of a sudden, travelling with the Avatar and a boy named Lee who may or may not have been pregnant.

That part certainly caught Katara by surprise. “You thought Zuko was pregnant?

She tried, she really did, but she just couldn’t understand how Dad might have come to think such a thing. Had he graduated from ice wine to something stronger? Cactus juice, maybe?

Dad, for his part, only sighed and rubbed his chin, mumbling something about how everyone made it sound like such an unreasonable conclusion. Apparently, Toph had had a similar reaction when he’d told her.

“I’m not sure how I was meant to know Zuko wasn’t pregnant,” he pointed out evenly. “I didn’t even know Zuko was Zuko. And when I found out – spirits, Katara, I was just about ready to swim La’s depths and cross Tui’s skies to get you away from him.”

Katara knew what he meant. After Azula had gleefully told her who Zuko really was, the Fire Princess had bundled her into the Crystal Catacombs and Katara had been left alone with her panicked thoughts, her mind filled with a jumbled mess of confused images of the banished Fire Prince who’d been sent by the Fire Lord to capture the Avatar.

At the time, Katara had been terrified of what Zuko could have done. And he could have done it at any time – he could have stolen Aang away in the night, or killed Sokka when her brother had least expected him to turn on them, or he could have… he could have done anything to them.

But now, she could only see that he hadn’t done anything. But… he hadn’t told them, either. He’d only admitted to Sokka and Toph what they’d already figured out for themselves. And he hadn’t told Katara anything.

He’d trusted the others, so why hadn’t he trusted her?

“I didn’t know who he was either, Dad,” she admitted. “He only told me who he really was when…”

When he’d been thrown into the Catacombs with her. When she’d screamed at him. When she’d told him that the Fire Nation had taken her mother away from her.

When she’d offered to heal his scar. When he’d betrayed her. When he’d pretended to betray her.

“When he couldn’t hide it from me any longer,” she settled on. It was the truth, but it was still nowhere near the whole truth. That pretty much summed it up, she thought miserably to herself.

Dad looked at her for a little while, and Katara got the feeling that he was trying to look for some hidden meaning in her words. Apparently, he was better at listening for what people weren’t saying than she was.

“Prince Zuko risked an awful lot in joining Sokka and breaking Suki, Takahashi and myself out of that prison,” he began. Now, Katara was feeling like he was the one choosing his words carefully. “But I don’t want you to think you should have to forgive him on my account, Katara. I’m not the one he kept secrets from.”

Katara knew that. She also knew that what Sokka and Zuko had done had been incredibly brave. But that was what made it so confusing.

“I just hate that everyone else has forgiven him so easily,” she confessed miserably. “He was keeping so many secrets, and it’s just like – like nothing even happened, Dad! Like he wasn’t pretending all along!”

“Forgiveness isn’t just given, Seal Pup,” Dad said quietly, putting his arm around her and pulling her closer. “It’s earned. Your brother’s close with Zuko, and he tells me that Zuko’s apologized, and that’s good enough for me. But I’m not the one he was keeping secrets from, Katara –” his face and voice hardened – “And I’m not the one who ended up fighting Princess Azula in Ba Sing Se because of him. And if you can’t forgive him for that, that’s your choice to make, and yours alone.”

Katara let out a slow breath, and she let her head fall sideways to rest on Dad’s shoulder.

Since Zuko had joined their group again, she hadn’t felt like she wasn’t allowed to forgive him, what with Toph telling her he’d never actually lied to them, and Aang talking about how great his sifu Hotman was, and Sokka… well.

Sokka had always trusted that Zuko was still on their side, but Katara had been too hurt to allow herself to trust her brother’s judgement. To trust him. But for Dad to tell her that she didn’t need to forgive Zuko, well… she thought she’d maybe needed to hear that.

For Dad to say something like that, it made her feel like he trusted her judgement.

“Thanks, Dad,” she whispered, and she felt him press a kiss to the top of her head.

“I love you too, Seal Pup.”

They sat there quietly for a little bit until The Duke came along to find them and tell them that the others were gathered in the same place they usually ate in.

“Sokka told me to tell you that we’re about to eat,” The Duke said, glancing back over his shoulder and shifting on his feet. Katara thought he probably wanted to head back as quickly as possible so he could get a good portion.

“It smells really good,” the boy added, and her suspicions were confirmed. “Lee made noodle stew with dumplings.”

“Lee?” Dad asked confusedly, before his expression cleared. “Ah, right – thanks, Wolf Kit. You can tell him I said you can have one of my dumplings, okay?”

“Sokka already said that,” The Duke said with a smile on his face.

“Sokka said you could have one of his dumplings?” Katara asked despite herself. She hadn’t known her brother to voluntarily relinquish food, ever. “Did Suki make him do that?”

“No,” The Duke shook his head. “Sokka said that you said he could have one of your dumplings, Mister Hakoda.”

Katara had to giggle at the look on her Dad’s face, even as he sighed and told The Duke that, well, if he’s just giving his dumplings away now, The Duke might as well have one of them for himself. Maybe Sokka had broken Dad out of jail, but she was pretty sure Dad could still put Sokka in time-out.

 

 

When Master Iroh had started inducting Sokka into the Order of the White Lotus in Ba Sing Se, Sokka had struggled with the pass codes. He wasn’t sure why it mattered that people kept on clinging to the ancient ways as opposed to the old routines, or why someone was knocking at the guarded gate rather than the locked door, but Sokka was always eager to learn, and he’d been determined to be a good student. He’d found the wordings difficult, but he’d found the Pai Sho stuff much more interesting – Master Iroh had declared that he’d taken to Pai Sho faster than any prospective Lotus he had ever had the pleasure to introduce to the game.

Sokka had been pretty sure that had been a compliment until Iroh had admitted that the only Lotus he had ever actually introduced to Pai Sho had been Zuko. According to Iroh, it had taken Zuko a long time to be able to finally beat him, but once he’d gotten that first win under his belt, he’d progressed steadily. Sokka had been eager to play Zuko and determine who was the better Pai Sho player, but the small matter of Azula overthrowing the Earth King in a coup had put a stop to that.

Zuko had always said that hard work beat talent when talent didn’t work hard, but they’d never actually gotten to test that theory, either in Pai Sho or in a sparring match. The theory became kind of a moot point with Suki, who was both extraordinarily talented and extraordinarily hard-working. As Sokka watched his super awesome girlfriend absolutely bury Zuko with a white lily and rock tile combo that blew his white dragon play completely out of the water, he figured that it didn’t really matter who the better Pai Sho player was out of him and Zuko; they would just have been playing for second place anyway.

“Taki taught me that one,” Suki explained as she smugly tapped each of the tiles she’d formed harmonies with on her winning last move. Sokka counted twenty taps before he gave up and just accepted Suki’s superiority.

“I thought you were in prison for kicking the Fire Nation’s butt as the Blue Spirit?” He asked. “When did you guys have time to go and buy a Pai Sho set?”

“We didn’t,” Suki replied. “She just stole Zuko’s when we left the Wani.”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest,” Zuko grumbled, resetting the board so they could play again. “She’s been trying to get it off me for ages. This one time, she tried taking it in part payment for teaching me her favorite trick play. I didn’t even ask her to teach me it!”

“Oh, you mean the one with the chrysanthemum tile?” Suki grinned. “Yeah, that one’s pretty sweet.”

Master Iroh hadn’t taught Sokka anything to do with the chrysanthemum tile, or even the flowers in general. They’d mainly focused on the element tiles and the white lotus tile, and Sokka didn’t like feeling like other people knew some obscure niche knowledge that he didn’t. “What’s this about the chrysanthemum tile?”

“Oh, it’s quite good when you’re moving into the endgame,” Suki explained with a glint in her eye. Zuko seemed to catch her drift and quickly scattered a few pieces across the board; a wheel tile, two knotweeds, and a rock tile. Then, he added two jasmine tiles, a white lily, a white jade, and two rhododendron tiles to complete the board.

“You use the rhododendron?” Suki asked, looking between the board and Zuko.

“It can move up to five spaces at a time,” Zuko replied defensively.

“So can the white jade tile,” Suki pointed out. “And that’s a white flower tile, so when you’re playing Yu Dao rules, you can use it in the east and west gates on the board, too. Why not use that?”

Zuko scowled. “I learnt from Uncle that you should never use white jade if you can avoid it.”

Sokka wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that, but he was more interested in the chrysanthemum than the white jade this time round. “Uh, guys? Chrysanthemum?”

“Oh, right,” Zuko paused to pop a boat tile in the north-eastern quadrant for good measure before clearing his throat. “So, the first thing you’ve got to do is play your chrysanthemum tile, uh, two or three spaces away from an element tile. Taki always says two, but Uncle says three.”

“Two’s probably safer, actually,” Suki chimed in. “Three leaves you open for a white lotus counter.”

Sokka frowned. “Don’t you use the white lotus tile for the –”

“The White Lotus Gambit,” Zuko nodded. “Right. But you can play the Gambit and then move the tile up to two spaces in any direction on each turn after that.”

Huh. Sokka hadn’t known that. But he figured it made sense; unless the white lotus tile guaranteed you a one-turn win, the tile needed some other purpose, right?

“So two tiles is better?” He checked, just to make sure.

“For now, anyway,” Suki allowed. “Okay, so you’ve got a chrysanthemum; the next thing you need is a white dragon tile, and a wheel tile.”

Suki and Zuko did their best to walk him through the process, but Sokka honestly couldn’t see it. Sure, using the wheel tile to spin the chrysanthemum and trigger the white dragon tile was smart, but wouldn’t it be better to use the boat tile on the white dragon instead? That way, you could move the chrysanthemum over from a gate to one of the quadrants for an easy harmony.

He voiced this theory to Suki once Zuko had left to make dinner, but Suki only shrugged and said it was just a cool trick play. Even so, Sokka’s mind was still on the Pai Sho board whilst he was eating his annoyingly delicious stew and dumplings. It was a good trick play, but if your opponent used their knotweed tile to cancel your white dragon, that could be difficult to work around. Maybe if you set the rose tile down in your opponent’s gate… that might work…

Red flower tiles, white flower tiles, element and accent tiles, special tiles – Sokka couldn’t stop thinking about them all night. They went whirling around his head like someone had just played the wheel tile and sent them whirling round the board. They were as stubbornly rooted in his mind’s eye as the rock tile, which couldn’t be captured or moved. They were creeping into his thoughts like the knotweed, and whenever he tried counting koala sheep to send himself to sleep, they butted in like the boat tile, which you could only play on other tiles to take their place on the board. Eventually, though, Sokka was so exhausted that he fell asleep into a dreamless slumber mercifully free of chrysanthemums, white jade, or white lotus tiles.

It felt like he’d only just closed his eyes when he was woken up by a loud explosion.

Notes:

Da Hong Pao and tieguanyin are two extremely expensive oolong teas.

According to this WikiHow article, there are four quadrants on a Pai Sho board, called ‘gardens’; two white, and two red. White Pai Sho tiles can only pass through a red garden, and red tiles can only pass through a white garden. There are also four red-colored ‘gates’ on the board facing north, east, south, and west; you and your opponent face each other over the north and south gates. Yu Dao rules are my own invention.

Chapter 40

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Perhaps the thing Suki found most concerning about being woken up by a surprise Fire Nation attack was that this wasn’t the first time – or even the third time – it had happened to her. She was practically used to it by this point, sliding out of her sleeping bag without any real change in her breathing or heartbeat. Her ears were still ringing from the explosions that had woken her up as Aang came running in from the outside yelling something about Fire Nation airships.

Not a good start, Suki thought to herself. Whilst the Rough Rhinos had been able to capture her and Taki by virtue of their superior numbers, they hadn’t had anything like multiple airships and bombs.

As Aang airbent the doors of the temple shut, explosions continued to shake the room. Taki and Hakoda were helping Teo into his wheelchair, and Haru was ushering The Duke to the back, nearer to the corridor, but Katara was standing still in the middle of the room –

What happened next happened too fast for even Suki to process it. She didn’t know what had happened; she just knew how it had begun and how it had ended.

The ceiling gave way, and a cascade of rock came crashing down into the middle of the room. Someone gave a shout from behind Suki, and she could have sworn something moved out of the corner of her eye. Then, suddenly, Zuko was skidding across the ground meters away, twisting his body to protect Katara from the debris as falling rocks thudded into the ground where Katara had been standing only moments ago.

“What are you doing?” Katara yelped.

“Keeping rocks from crushing you!” Came the slightly-winded reply.

“Okay, I'm not crushed,” Katara shouted, wriggling out from underneath Zuko and scrambling to her feet. “You can get off me now!”

As Suki ran with Katara to the far side of the chamber, Toph and Haru had already been hard at work using their earthbending to create a tunnel through the earth.

“Come on!” Toph shouted. “We can get out through here!”

“Come on, Appa!” Aang was jabbering away frantically at Appa as he tried to pull on the sky bison’s reins. “Let’s go!”

Suki wasn’t sure what Appa’s response was, but it sounded like a cross between a yowl and a screech that she wouldn’t have expected from a creature that size.

“To Koh with this,” Zuko spat. “Go ahead – I’ll hold them off!”

Suki had a bad feeling about what he might have meant by that, and an even worse feeling when Sokka blanched and started waving his hands in an animated fashion.

“Oh, no, buddy! No, no, no – and, yep, he’s gone,” he sighed as Zuko started running back towards the airships. “Why do I even bother?”

“What are you doing?” Aang cried out as Taki swore, and they all ducked instinctively as an explosion sent another section of the ceiling crashing down.

“I think this is a family visit!” Zuko yelled back as he sprinted for the doors. “Someone grab my bags!”

Aang looked dismayed, but Suki could see that Hakoda was taking a firm hold of The Duke whilst Haru pushed Teo along. The important thing was to get everyone out of here – they couldn’t wait around for Zuko to come back.

“Come on!” Sokka shouted. “We've gotta get out of here!”

“I’ll get the bags,” Suki offered, doubling back to the campsite. She had to dodge a few chunks of rock that fell from the ceiling as she went, but it wasn’t anything she hadn’t done before on Kyoshi’s obstacle course.

She grabbed Zuko’s bag – he’d been summarily pissed off when he’d found out that Taki had swiped it, but Suki had thought he was a backstabbing weasel-stoat at the time, and she’d figured their need had definitely been greater than his – but she had to leave the sleeping bags behind. She didn’t have time to grab them, but she and Taki had camped out in the open before, and she was sure they could handle it again. By the time she had hurried back to the others, Aang, Sokka and Katara were all trying to make Appa follow Toph, Haru and the others into the tunnels, but it didn’t seem to be working.

“I can't get him to go in there!” Aang explained anxiously. “Appa hates tunnels!”

“Aang, there's no way we can fly out of here,” Katara pointed out, glancing nervously back to where they could still hear bombs exploding outside.

“We'll have to find a way!” Aang protested, giving another yank on Appa’s reins.

Sokka sucked in a breath and glanced between Hakoda, Taki, and Aang. “We need to split up. Take the tunnel and get to the stolen airship –”

“No!” Katara shouted, chasing over to her father. “The Fire Nation can't separate our family again!”

Hakoda swallowed. “It'll be okay.” He put his hands on Katara’s shoulders. “It's not forever.”

With the tight hug Katara gave her father, it didn’t seem to Suki like she wanted to be torn away for a moment, let alone anywhere close to forever. But as Suki watched Katara let her father go, Sokka was taking Suki by the hand as well. She turned to say goodbye, but Taki was already taking hold of Teo’s wheelchair.

As she watched the others disappear down the tunnel Haru was bending, Suki hoped against hope that this would turn out better than the last time she’d said goodbye to her friends.

Toph thumped her closed fist on a wall. “I can clear that away, and we can fly out through there!”

Suki shook her head to clear it and refocus. “There's an awful lot of fire in that general direction.”

“We'll get through,” Aang said, with what Suki thought was commendable optimism. “Let's go!”

Sokka cursed and muttered something about the Mo Ce Sea, but Suki couldn’t see what that had to do with anything right now. Actually, as Toph bent a shield of rocks in front of Appa to protect them from fire blasts and bomb attacks, Suki couldn’t see anything much.

“We’re okay!” Aang cheered, twisting around on Appa’s head. “Great work, sifu Toph Miss Beifong!”

Toph grinned as she cracked her knuckles, causing the rock to fall away into the canyon. “Thanks, Twinkles. Always nice to be appreciated.”

“Credit where it’s due,” Suki agreed, reaching out to touch Toph’s hand gently. “Sokka – can you see Zuko anywhere?”

But as she asked, she could already see flashes of orange and blue on top of one of the airships. The blue must have been Azula, but the orange would have been someone fighting against her – and the only person Suki could think of who'd find themselves in that sort of situation would be Zuko.

Great. Fighting on top of a gondola was crazy enough, but an airship?

Suki knew it wasn’t a competition, but even so!

 

 

Katara grunted as she deflected a couple of fire blasts with her waterbending, and Aang had to earthbend flying rocks and debris away from them. He was getting pretty used to the Fire Nation interrupting his mornings by now, but it still sucked majorly.

“Fly Appa down beneath them!” Sokka instructed him as they circled around the looming airships. “We can catch him as he jumps!”

“Uh, guys?” Suki called, her eyes wide as she looked up at the airship. “I don’t think we have to worry about him jumping!”

Aang couldn’t have been the only one who also looked up, but he might have been the only one who didn’t swear when he saw two small red specks falling through the air. Even Toph managed it, which was pretty impressive for someone who couldn’t see.

That was Zuko and Azula falling through the air!

Monkey-monkey-monkey-monkey-monkey-monkey-monkey-monkey –

Possibly to their deaths!

Fffffffffeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!

“Aang!” Sokka screamed right in his ear. “We need to go after Zuko!”

Aang let out a straining noise as he pulled on Appa’s reins to send them into a dive. Toph was yelling as Suki took a tight grip on her shoulder, and Aang’s eyes were burning as Appa plunged through the cold morning air, and Zuko was still falling to what could possibly be his very imminent death –

But Katara managed to swing Zuko into the saddle as Appa swooped in, and okay, maybe Suki had to quickly lean in to block Zuko’s tumbling body from crashing into Toph, but he was safe! As they watched Azula use her firebending to carry herself over to the sheer rock face on a stream of blue flames, jamming her hairpin into the rock to slow and eventually stop her fall, Zuko’s shoulders slumped. Aang didn’t know whether it was out of relief or disappointment.

All he did know was that they had to get out of there, like, yesterday. Thankfully, Appa seemed to have much the same idea. They flew onwards all day until the sun started setting, and then they found a quiet part of the Earth Kingdom countryside where they could set up a campsite and gather round a fire for the evening.

Today, Aang could safely say, had not been a great day. He’d been woken up by explosions, and at the risk of sounding like Sokka, he was really hungry – he hadn’t eaten all day! The destruction of the Western Air Temple was kind of sad too, but he couldn’t care too much about that if they were all still alive. He was more relieved that his friends were okay.

“Kind of crazy that as soon as an Earth Kingdom girl shows up, Princess Blue shows up,” Toph said, breaking the tired silence. “First it was that tank train thing the week I joined, and then it was when Fan Girl got us to Ba Sing Se, and now this time around.”

“It’s probably because she knows we’re the biggest threats,” Suki replied from where she sat next to Sokka. “We’re the competent ones.”

“What do you mean, competent?” Zuko asked annoyedly, gesturing to the sack lying by his feet. “I asked you to get my stuff. This isn’t my stuff!”

“Uh… is it not?” Suki let out an awkward laugh. “It’s the bag of stuff Taki stole from you. That’s what you meant, right?”

Zuko stuck his head in the bag and let out what sounded like an inarticulate yell of frustration. Aang could sympathize – he’d done the same thing with that koalasheep when Sokka had been being really annoying as Wang Fire.

“I wanted my bag!” He said annoyedly once he’d removed his head from the bag. His face was slightly red, and his hair was sticking up at the back. “The one I brought with me when I left the Fire Nation! The one with all my shit in it – with my fucking dao swords!”

Oh, wow. That made it – what, three pairs of dao swords now that Zuko had lost when he was travelling with them? Sokka’s boomerang came back every time he threw it away, but it seemed like the complete opposite happened with Zuko’s swords – he brought them along, and then they went away!

Aang resolved not to let Zuko touch his stuff anytime soon, or ever. He wasn’t taking any chances with his new glider.

“What’s this bag got in it?” He asked interestedly. Maybe there was some cool or useful stuff in it anyway!

Zuko muttered to himself as he rooted through the bag. “A box of ginseng tea, my Pai Sho board, and half a bag of fireflakes.”

“Oh.” Aang felt a bit disappointed. None of that seemed particularly cool or useful.

“At least you got one bag of stuff back,” Sokka said to Zuko with a shrug. “Remember that time when we were camping, and Aang bent all our stuff away down a river?”

Now that Sokka had forgiven him for burning Katara, Aang was pretty sure that was just a normal comment and not a mean comment. That confidence let him let out a little giggle at the memory of Sokka’s annoyed face back then.

“Oh, yeah,” he smiled happily. “And now we’re camping tonight, too. It really seems like old times again, doesn't it?”

Zuko let out a grudging chuckle as he set the bag back down on the ground. “If you really want it to feel like old times, I could, uh…”

He trailed off and frowned, but Aang wasn’t too surprised by that. Hotman wasn’t very good at jokes.

“You could always get yourself kidnapped again?” Sokka suggested dryly after a few moments of awkward silence. “Suki’s here, so the Blue Spirit could come and save your jerkbending butt for a change.”

Oh, man – Aang had to literally hold his sides as Toph snorted and Suki giggled. That only confirmed that Sokka was the funny one! Only Katara and Zuko seemed unamused, which was actually pretty much like old times again, just like Aang had been saying.

“Fuck off, Sokka,” Zuko rolled his eyes. “I’m pretty sure –”

But whatever Zuko was sure of, Aang couldn’t quite make out through the fierce spray of water that blasted into his face and sent him toppling backwards onto his backside.

As Katara stormed away, Aang couldn’t help but feel like he’d missed something.

“What’s with her?” He asked confusedly.

Zuko was scowling as he pushed his hair out of his face. “I wish I knew.”

Make that two things he’d missed, Aang amended as he watched Zuko follow Katara out of their little camping site.

“What’s with him?” He asked, still completely lost.

As Toph let out a loud hah!, Suki gave Aang a small smile and shook her head. Sokka just let out a deep sigh and buried his face in his hands.

“I wish I didn’t know,” he answered, his voice muffled by his fingers. Aang was pretty sure that made three things he’d missed.

 

 

As Zuko made his way across the grasslands towards the edge of the cliff, he was reminded of the time Master Piandao had taken him out from Shu Jing to the Matengai Cliffs for his training when he was ten years old. Maybe he’d enjoyed Piandao’s painting lessons a little too much; he’d gotten ink all over his fingers and all the way up his sleeve. It had taken him ages to get his hands clean, but the robes had been ruined because he didn’t know how to get the stains out.

Uncle Iroh had taught him how to do his own laundry when they were travelling in the Earth Kingdom, but Zuko was feeling a little like that ten-year-old boy again now. He’d made a mistake, and however hard he tried to make it right, he just didn’t know how.

Katara was sitting on a rock and looking down at the water stretching out to the horizon as he approached her. The full moon was shining down on the ocean, and Zuko took heart from Princess Yue’s example. She’d shown courage, and faith, and hope; just like Zuko had needed to when he’d made apologies in the past.

He didn’t have any fruit tarts to apologize with this time around, but from the way his face was smarting from Katara’s water whip, he thought that might have been a good thing. Most likely, she probably would have just thrown them back in his face, but it still wouldn’t have hurt as much as the way her teeth drew back as she saw him drawing nearer, or how she rose to her feet to turn her back on him.

Even when your hate

Makes me stain my sleeves with tears

In cold misery,

Worse than hate and misery

Is the loss of my good name.

Zuko sighed, and tried to pitch his voice loudly enough to reach her, but quietly enough that the others wouldn’t hear him back at the campsite. “Katara, please.”

She didn’t give any indication that she’d heard him, so he took another deep breath and followed her through the grass. He was only a couple of meters away when she spoke again.

“Don’t come near me.”

Zuko stopped. He didn’t know how to talk to this cold, hurting Katara. In the past, he would ask if she wanted to talk about what was bothering her, or whether there was anything else she wanted to talk about instead, maybe. But he didn’t think she wanted to talk at all, so maybe that wasn’t an option right now.

He dared to take another step closer, but Katara’s eyes snapped up to meet him and pin him in place.

“I’ve already said it once,” she spit, a bright light shining in her eyes. “Don’t come near me.”

Zuko felt his inner fire grow a little colder as he remembered the last time she’d said those words to him. When they’d been trapped together in the Crystal Catacombs by Azula; when she’d confronted him about how he’d been keeping who he was a secret.

So this wasn’t just about tonight, then. This was about who he had been, what he had done, and the choices he had made to hide those things from her and the others.

But he had chosen to come back. Aang had forgiven him. Sokka and Toph too – Agni’s sakes, even Suki wasn’t holding it against him anymore. It was enough for them, so why wasn’t it enough for Katara?

“This isn't fair.” He finally allowed himself to say it. “Everyone else seems to trust me now. What is it with you?”

As Katara stiffened and grasped at her heart, Zuko wondered whether the light he’d seen in her eyes had been a tear, or a burning fire.

Everyone trusts you because you didn’t lie to them, Zuko!” She screamed, flinging her hand out to the sea. “You lied to me!

Katara’s hair was longer than it had been in Ba Sing Se, or maybe it just looked that way, freed from the confines of a braid. Her face was a little thinner – had she been eating enough? Had she been getting enough sleep?

How much had Zuko missed because he had made the wrong choice?

“When you sided with Azula, you said you didn’t have a choice!” Her eyes were crococat-like slits as she looked at him. “I thought you’d betrayed me! I thought you’d betrayed all of us!

He had made the wrong choice, but he had been trying to do the right thing. “I was just trying to protect you –”

“Protect me?” Katara shouted back at him. “Protect me? What, by making me fight Azula? A lightning-bender?

Back in the Catacombs, Zuko had been left reeling by how Aang and Katara seemed to suddenly know all about what he’d been desperate for them not to know. And then Azula had taken Uncle captive, and he couldn’t risk her hurting Aang as well. He’d needed some way of keeping Azula occupied whilst he tried to buy Uncle Iroh time to get out of the Dai Li’s crystals.

But Katara hadn’t known what he was planning, because he hadn’t told her.

He’d been too cowardly and ashamed to tell her anything.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly. “Katara, I’m – I’m sorry. For everything.”

Zuko was desperate for her to understand, but it didn’t seem to be working. As she stormed towards him, he could only thank Agni that she wasn’t holding a frying pan this time around.

“You don’t get it, do you?” She hissed, stepping up to him with clenched fists and a shaky voice. “You don’t just get to apologize, and – and suddenly everything’s okay! Like you weren’t pretending all along!”

Zuko closed his eyes to try and block out the condemnation in her eyes, but that only meant that he was confronted with the memory of how her face had looked in the light of those green crystals.

“What can I do to make it up to you?”

“You really want to know?” Her words came out in a vicious half-sob. “Hmm, maybe the Blue Spirit could take back Ba Sing Se in the name of the Earth King, after Prince Zuko helped to conquer it! Or – I know! You could bring my mother back!

She didn’t wait for him to reply, but Zuko didn’t know what his response might have been if she’d stayed around instead of pushing past him. He could only look up at the moon and remember a poem Uncle had recited that one time when music night had fallen on the same day as the Festival of Cold Foods.

Like a driven wave,

Dashed by fierce winds on a rock,

So am I: alone

And crushed upon the shore,

Remembering what has been.

Notes:

Matengai Cliff is a popular tourist spot on the Kuniga coastline of Nishinoshima, one of the Oki Islands of Japan.

The first poem Zuko quotes was written by Lady Sagami; the second by Minamoto no Shigeyuki. They’re both taken from the Hyakunin Isshū.

Chapter 41

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

At least one good thing had come from Azula’s surprise sneak attack on the Western Air Temple, Sokka reflected as he lit the first candle with spark rocks and used it to light the others. He and Suki could finally get some alone time.

As it turned out, having Dad and a terrifying and overprotective Fire Nation sailor around had made it a bit difficult for Sokka to get properly reacquainted with his super-smart, super-hot, crazy-awesome girlfriend. They’d had a few nice walks around the temple in the evenings, and they’d had a couple of very nice goodnight kisses, but Taki had seemed to have a sixth sense for when things were about to get interesting, and a special talent for interrupting.

He was pretty sure she and Toph had started teaming up by the third night, Sokka thought annoyedly to himself as he sprinkled the last few rose petals across the floor. But now he had his own tent, with all the privacy that entailed, and there weren’t any annoying earthbending prodigies or hypercompetent knife-throwers around tonight, either.

As he heard the rustle of the tent flap opening, he took a final moment to slip a rose into his mouth. “Well, hello –

Oh, slush on a stick.

Well, this was embarrassing.

Sokka was suddenly super glad he hadn’t begun with Ah, the Blue Spirit. I’ve been expecting you. Because although this was a Blue Spirit, it was decidedly not the one he would want seeing him in his underwear.

“Uh, Zuko!” He babbled on, coughing up the rose petals he’d accidentally inhaled. “Yes! Why would I be expecting anyone different?”

Zuko looked extremely discomfited and disturbed to be walking in on Sokka in a state of undress, which Sokka thought was completely unfair. How come Zuko got to act like he was traumatized by this sudden and deeply unpleasant turn of events?

Sokka was the one who’d been expecting some Suki time, only to end up stuck with Zuko! Which was super unfair, by the way, because he’d never interrupted Zuko’s time with the girl Zuko liked – yeah, okay, noooooope, not going there.

Yikes, that gave him the oogies just thinking about it.

“So what's on your mind?” Sokka asked, just to get out of his own mind for a moment.

“Your sister,” Zuko replied bluntly, because of course that would be the case, why had Sokka expected anything different. “She hates me!”

“Still?” Sokka frowned. “Even after we broke Dad out of the Rock?”

Zuko groaned and hung his head, dragging his hand across his chin. Sokka was pretty sure Zuko still wasn’t Manly enough to need to shave, but seeing Zuko do something like that made him paranoid. Zuko was three months older than him, after all…

He squinted and breathed a sigh of relief when he couldn’t see any stubble on Zuko’s jaw. Those three hairs Sokka had cut off at the Black Cliffs still reigned supreme.

“I actually think it’s got something more to do with your Mom,” Zuko said eventually, dropping his hands back into his lap. “I know this may seem out of nowhere, but I want you to tell me what happened to your mother.”

“What?” Sokka resisted the urge to cover his own lap with his hands. “Why would you want to know that?”

If he drew attention to his underwear, that would only make it more awkward. It was also kind of awkward keeping eye contact with Zuko in this situation, but if he kept eye contact, that at least meant Zuko wasn’t staring at his goolies.

“Katara mentioned it before when we were imprisoned together in Ba Sing Se,” Zuko explained, something flickering over his face. “And again just now when she was yelling at me. I think somehow she's connected her anger at that to her anger at me.”

Oh, man. The day that Mom had died… it wasn’t a day Sokka liked to remember. It had started with Katara accidentally-on-purpose splashing him with freezing cold water, much like every other day at the South Pole. But then the black snow had started falling.

“Many of the warriors had seen the black snow before, and they knew what it meant,” he recounted the story to Zuko. “A Fire Nation raid. We were badly outnumbered, but somehow, we managed to drive them off. As quickly as they came, they just left.”

Sokka had thought he’d done his part, throwing his boomerang and scaring off the invaders. That was what men did, right? Even at eight years old, they defended their homes and protected their families. But that hadn’t been how it had happened, had it? Sokka hadn’t defended his home. And he hadn’t been able to protect his family.

“I was so relieved when it was over,” he said quietly, swallowing down the pain. “But that's because I didn't know yet what had happened. I didn't know we had lost our mother.”

Zuko’s face was open and sympathetic. Sokka knew they hadn’t really had too many, like, emotional talks before. But he thought that although Zuko had started this one pretty terribly, he was at least a good listener.

“Can you remember any details about the soldiers who raided your village?” Zuko asked quietly. “Like what the lead ship looked like?”

It seemed like Sokka was always on the verge of forgetting Mom entirely. He couldn’t remember her face like Katara could; he couldn’t remember her voice. He just remembered that she’d liked ginger tea. He didn’t know whether it would be better or worse if he had just forgotten her entirely, but…

But he didn’t think he’d ever be able to forget what those red flags looked like.

“Yeah,” he answered hoarsely. “Sea ravens. The main ship had flags with sea ravens on them.”

“The symbol of the Southern Raiders.” To Sokka, they had only been the symbol of the enemy, but they at least seemed to mean something to Zuko. “Thanks, Sokka.”

“No problem,” Sokka assured him, getting up and ushering him towards the tent flap. “Thanks for stopping by!”

This day had started off lousy, and it had ended in much the same fashion, Sokka thought to himself annoyedly as he bundled Zuko out of the tent. He’d had been expecting Suki to turn up for some fun times, only to end up with Zuko coming in and spoiling the mood by making Sokka feel uncomfortably aware of his own mortality.

He dreaded to think what Wang Fire would have to say about this one in the revised and updated fifth edition of the good doctor’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

 

 

Katara had endured what had seemed like hours of tossing and turning until she had eventually managed to exhaust her racing mind and fall into an uneasy sleep. But even in her dreams, she still saw Zuko’s face. He was resentful out on the cliffs as she yelled at him; he was smiling softly at her as he sat down at a table at the teashop; he was frozen in the Crystal Catacombs as her hand rested over his scar. She woke up blinking back tears that were already freezing on her cheeks.

After her awful night’s sleep, the last thing Katara wanted to see as she stepped out of her tent was a firebender with sleepy golden eyes and messy dark hair. He was sitting on a rock, but she knew if he were to stand up, he’d be a little over a head taller than her.

Her anger made her spiteful. “You look terrible.”

He blinked slowly in the sunlight, and Katara struggled not to compare him to a sleepy crococat. “I waited out here all night.”

“What do you want?” She muttered, taking her comb out and beginning to tug it through her hair.

Probably to give some half-hearted apology for yesterday, she thought bitterly to herself. But she didn’t want his apologies. She wanted him to be honest with her, she wanted him to tell her the truth, she wanted to know why he’d been happy to tell Sokka and Toph but not her, even after everything they’d been through, he hadn’t told her

“I know who killed your mother, and I'm going to help you find him.”

Katara’s hands shook so hard she nearly dropped her hairbrush, but the sheer intensity of the emotions she felt made her clench her fist around the handle instinctively. It was hatred and outrage, but it was also fear and excitement too. It would be impossible for her to describe everything she was feeling in that moment, but she knew one thing.

She needed to face him.

When she went to see Aang later, the airbender was feeding Appa hay by the armful. Katara would have found it impossibly endearing on any other day.

“I need to borrow Appa,” she told him plainly.

“Why?” He asked, turning to face her with a carefree smile on his face. “Is it your turn to take a little field trip with Zuko?”

Zuko was trailing behind her with their bags, and when Sokka looked up from the flower bracelet he was making and saw them, he pulled a face at Zuko and turned straight back to fiddling with the bracelet. Zuko let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like a fuck off behind her, but for once, Katara couldn’t care less about whatever profane language he and her brother were using.

“Yes,” she answered Aang. “It is.”

He blinked, and his gray eyes turned a little more serious. “Oh. What's going on?”

“We're going to find the man who took my mother from me.”

“Sokka told me the story of what happened,” Zuko informed Aang and Sokka, who’d gotten to his feet by this point. “I know who did it, and I know how to find him.”

“Um,” Aang fiddled with a few straws. “And… what exactly do you think this will accomplish?”

Katara could hear the disapproval in his voice, but she tried to remind herself that Aang hadn’t been there when the Fire Nation had attacked his people. She couldn’t blame him for not understanding how she felt about the man who had taken her mother away.

She shook her head, and bit down on her lip to try and stop herself from arguing with him. “I knew you wouldn't understand.”

“Wait!” Aang cried out, spreading his hands in an appeal to her. “Stop – I do understand! You're feeling unbelievable pain and rage. How do you think I felt about the sandbenders when they stole Appa? How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation when I found out what happened to my people?”

Katara could barely speak.

She had been there when Aang had found the sandbenders. She’d seen him go into the Avatar State. She’d held her boy as he wept bitter tears over Appa – but she hadn’t dared to tell him what he was feeling, or what his emotions might accomplish. As if he could help what he felt – as if she could help what she felt.

But before she could even say the words, Zuko was already speaking.

“She needs this, Aang,” he stated in a surer, firmer voice than she might have been able to manage in that moment. “This is about getting closure, and justice.”

“I don't think so,” Aang shook his head, glancing at Katara. His eyes were sympathetic, but his jaw jutted out stubbornly. “I think it's about getting revenge.”

Katara understood why Sokka and Zuko swore now. They swore when they heard people say things like that.

“Fine!” She snapped back. “Maybe it is! Maybe that's what I need! Maybe that's what he deserves!

“Katara,” Aang said quietly. “You sound like Jet.”

Katara had always hated the look of disappointment in Aang’s eyes. But this time, it wasn’t because she felt like she’d let him down, but because she felt like he was letting her down.

Why couldn’t he understand that she needed this?

“It's not the same!” She argued, turning away from Aang so he couldn’t see the way his words had affected her. “Jet attacked the innocent. This man – he's a monster!

“Katara,” Sokka began, stepping towards her and raising his hand appealingly, “She was my mother too, but I think Aang might be right.”

“Then you didn't love her the way I did!”

Katara regretted her outburst as soon as she saw her brother stop in his tracks, his hand still outstretched and his eyes shining with hurt. But she couldn’t take the words back before Aang was already speaking again.

“The monks used to say that revenge is like a two-headed rat viper,” he said slowly, nodding to himself as he spoke. “While you watch your enemy go down, you're being poisoned yourself.”

Zuko scoffed. “Leave the proverbs to Uncle, Aang. In the meantime, we’ll leave with Appa.”

“So you can go and find this man?” Aang’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think so.”

Katara’s fingers itched to close around her mother’s necklace, but she didn’t think she’d be able to touch it and trace the carved etching of her people’s symbol without breaking down into tears.

“Now that I know he's out there…” She shook her head and closed her eyes. “Now that I know we can find him, I feel like I have no choice.”

“Katara,” Aang said in that same patient voice, “You do have a choice. Forgiveness.”

“That's the same as doing nothing!” Zuko snapped impatiently in return.

“No, it's not!” Aang argued. “It's easy to do nothing, but it's hard to forgive!”

His gray eyes were looking imploringly at Katara, but she couldn’t agree with him. Aang was the Avatar, but he wasn’t…

He hadn’t ran into their home to see her mother

“It's not just hard,” she managed, turning away from Aang. “It's impossible.”

 

 

Toph wasn’t sure what had gone down with Twinkle Toes, Sparky, Snoozles and Splish-Splash earlier, but the Fancy Dancer had been more of a Grumpy Monk at earthbending practice. And not the kind of grumpy that made him more of an earthbender, either; the kind that made Toph think he had what Snoozles called his ‘sad lemur face’ on. All the progress they’d been making with his seismic sense in the last couple of weeks seemed to have taken a huge backwards step, and if there was one thing the Blind Bandit didn’t do, it was take a backwards step.

So she went to talk to Sparky about it, because Twinkles just kept rambling on about that Hooky dude in Ba Sing Se, and some stuff in Gaipan that Toph hadn’t been around for – for real, something Toph hadn’t been around for might as well have been the story of her fucking life with these bozos – and Sparky told her what they’d been arguing about. Katara’s Mom, the Southern Raiders, and Twinkles not letting Splish-Splash and Sparky take the Fuzzball along.

“Katara’s still determined to go and find the Southern Raiders,” Sparky concluded once he’d finished explaining the situation to her. “I can’t imagine Aang coming round – he’s just going to keep repeating what the monks told him until his face is as blue as his arrow – so we’re probably going to have to sneak out.”

“Sneaking out to kick Fire Nation butt,” she commented. “Just like old times for the Blue Spirit.”

Sparky huffed a laugh, and she sensed him shrugging. “Can’t let Suki and Taki have all the fun.”

Toph could remember Twinkles saying that he was usually motivated by having fun, but she couldn’t see him being too impressed if Splish-Splash and Sparky tried turning that argument on him this time around. She couldn’t see anything much, but whatever.

Toph didn’t really do complicated, so she wasn’t about to get into the whole ethics debate. But she did, unfortunately, care about Sugar Queen – whisper it, or she would fucking end you – so she figured that was probably a good place to start.

“Yeah, Fan Girl had a sidekick when she was going out as the Blue Spirit, didn’t she?” She mused out loud. “You getting one of your own, Hotpants?”

“That’s not what this is,” Sparky replied tersely. “I know it seems, like – but I’m not in charge here, Toph. This is Katara’s journey, not mine.”

“But it’s a journey you put her on the path for,” Toph pointed out. “Wherever she ends up, that’s on you. You know that, right?”

“I know a lot about the journey. But…” His voice dropped off before he cleared his throat and came back strongly. “It’s her choice. Not mine. Not Aang’s.”

“You’re sure about that?” Toph paid close attention to his heartbeat this time. “You sure it’s not just so she’ll like you again?”

Sparky’s heartbeat jumped a little at that, and he didn’t say anything to begin with. But the thing about Toph Beifong was that she was pretty good at waiting and listening. Now that earthbending practice was out of the way, she could wait here all day for an answer. From what Sparky had been saying about sneaking out, he was on a time limit.

Eventually, he let out a heavy sigh. “You know Uncle Iroh’s gone to the Spirit World, right?”

Toph hadn’t known that, actually, but it didn’t surprise her. She didn’t think there was anywhere Gramps wouldn’t go if there was the chance he could find a rare oolong there. “Okay.”

“Well – he was trying to find his son. My cousin. He died, he’s – he’s dead now. And, uh… when he told me about it, I wanted to know if I could go to the Spirit World, too.”

Toph hadn’t known dai-xiānshēng Iroh had had a kid.

“To see your cousin?” She asked uncertainly. “Were you – were you close?”

Zuko let out what might have been a chuckle. “I mean, I really liked him. Everyone really liked him, he was… yeah. He was Lu Ten. You know?”

Toph didn’t know the name, but Sparky was saying it the same way The Boulder had always talked about the Blue Spirit. Like they were all that was good and pure in the world, or something like that. “He sounds kind of cool.”

“He was. The coolest. But, uh – yeah. I actually, um. I wanted to go see my Mom.”

Toph hadn’t known about Sparky’s Mom. But she hadn’t known anything about a guy named Lu Ten, either. She knew about the Fire Lord, and she knew about the Dragon of the West, and she even knew a bit about the Fire Princess now that she’d been travelling with these guys for a bit, but she’d never really heard anything about anyone else in the royal family.

Judging from the way Sparky’s heartbeat was going right about now, she didn’t really think now was the right time to ask about his Mom.

“What did Gramps say when you asked whether you could go to the Spirit World?” She asked instead.

“He said, uh… ‘One cannot coax flames from ash, nor catch the smoke on the breeze’.”

That sounded a lot like Gramps, Toph thought to herself. Wise, profound, and more than a little bit kooky. She kind of wanted to have another tea ceremony with him. Maybe he’d want to talk about that Lu Ten guy, or maybe he’d just want to drink his tea. She’d be cool with either.

“And I spent years wondering what had happened. To Mom. Or what I’d say when I could – when I could speak my mind to the person who took her away from me. And when I did, it was like… like I could finally stop trying to catch smoke on the breeze. You know?”

Toph figured if something had ever happened to her Mom, she would have wanted to go to the Spirit World, too. Maybe the Southern Raiders wasn’t so much of a journey after all.

“Just bring her back safe, Sparky,” she told him quietly. “Wherever you guys end up, just make sure you end up back here.”

“I will, Toph,” Hotman answered. “I’ll take care of her. I promise.”

His heartbeat was steady, so that meant he was telling the truth. That was good enough for Toph.

Notes:

A key argument of Sigmund Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) is that human activity arises from the tension between the ‘sex drive’ and the ‘death drive’.

The Chinese xiānshēng shares the same 先生 characters as the Japanese word sensei, meaning ‘teacher’. In Chinese, xiānshēng can be a courtesy title for a man of respected stature, so Toph might simply mean ‘Mister Iroh’. But when the Japanese sensei is prefaced with the adjective 大, or dai, it goes from a teacher to a ‘revered master’.

I hope my playing fast and loose with language doesn’t come off as inappropriate or insensitive to any Chinese or Japanese readers, because Chinese-coded Toph does mean to be respectful to Iroh and his Japanese-coded culture – but if it does, she’s only twelve, and she’s allowed to make mistakes, right? :)

Chapter Text

When Zuko and Katara had gone to take Appa after sunset, Aang had been waiting for them, and he’d been unimpressed with how they had been planning on sneaking out anyway. Maybe Zuko could have handled the ensuing argument a little better, but when Aang had announced that he forgave them, and asked whether that gave them any ideas? he’d been just about ready to show Aang what kind of ass-kicking ideas that gave him.

But this was Katara’s journey, and that meant Zuko needed to shut up, let her talk to Aang, and let her do this her way. He shouldn’t try and stop her, and neither should Aang. This was a journey she needed to take. At least he and Aang could agree on that.

“We need to find the Fire Navy communication tower,” he told Katara as Appa neared the island. “All the navy's movements are coordinated by messenger hawk, and every tower has to be up to date on where everyone is deployed.”

Katara didn’t look away from the dark silhouette of the navy outpost building in the distance. “So once we find the communication tower, we bust in and take the information we need.”

That would have been Zuko’s first idea too, back before Uncle and Master Piandao had given him lessons in tactics and strategy. He’d tried to put those lessons to good use when he’d ended up having to break Aang out of a Fire Nation military base, but things at Pohuai Stronghold hadn’t quite gone to plan. Maybe this time, things would go differently, but Zuko wasn’t exactly holding his breath.

“Not exactly,” he explained quietly. “We need to be stealthy and make sure no one spots us. Otherwise, they'll warn the Southern Raiders long before we reach them.”

“Is that why we’ve got these dark outfits?” Katara’s voice gave nothing away. “For stealth?”

Zuko swallowed. “Yeah. For stealth.”

He watched Katara lift her hand to her face and take a tentative sniff. The sleeve was a little too long on her, and he tried not to find it too endearing. She glanced back at him, and he hastily averted his eyes. He wasn’t sure what she might be able to see in his expression, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

At least Suki had managed to grab that second bag of Zuko’s stuff, he thought to himself. He might have lost the dao swords, but at least he wouldn’t have to keep wearing the same outfit every day for the foreseeable future. He’d washed these ones before he’d left the Fire Nation on the day of the eclipse, so he hoped his – Katara’s outfit didn’t still smell of, like, blood. Or sweat.

Or any other unpleasant-smelling bodily fluid, for that matter.

“You were wearing this when we met up with you.” It wasn’t a question. “After we escaped from those pirates.”

Zuko wasn’t trying to avoid the conversation, but he suspected Katara wouldn’t have let him even if he’d wanted to. He couldn’t say he blamed her; he hadn’t told her or Aang that he was the Blue Spirit, and they’d only found out when Sokka had let it slip.

Ugh. Master Jeong Jeong was going to have an aneurysm when he heard about that one.

“Momo woke me up in the middle of the night,” Zuko recounted his version of events. “You weren’t around, and I went looking for you. I got worried that the pirates must have come after you, so I went off to find you.”

Katara had a frown on her face, but as long as she wasn’t looking directly at him, Zuko could lie to himself and say that maybe she was just thinking hard. She wasn’t mad at him.

“So you were the one who found me on the ship.”

Zuko honestly wasn’t sure whether Katara was angry at him for that. “You told the captain to go jump in the river.”

“And then you were there again in Omashu.” Now her eyes were fixed on him, and her determined face was set. “When Azula showed up.”

“Uncle had some friends in the city. They told me Azula was there.” He still remembered the frantic race to get to the city – the sickening fear that he would be too late. “I couldn’t leave you to face her on your own.”

“But you did,” she whispered. “In Ba Sing Se. I had to face her on my own because – because you left me.”

Just like he’d told Azula on the day of the eclipse, there had been one phrase Zuko had repeated to himself nearly every night on the Wani for over a year.

Father wouldn’t have asked you to do something he didn’t think you could do.

But Zuko hadn’t even asked Katara to fight Azula in the Catacombs, had he? He’d just… he had betrayed her. Maybe not the way she had thought, but he had let her down.

“I was trying to protect Uncle,” he said regretfully. “I was trying to keep him and Aang safe. But I promise you, Katara, if I’d thought for a second that you needed me – I swear, I would have been there.”

Katara was quiet for a long time after that, and it was only when they dismounted Appa and hid the sky bison behind a rocky outcrop that she finally spoke again.

“But why didn’t you just tell us you were the Blue Spirit?”

Zuko sighed to himself. All this time, and he still didn’t have an answer.

First, it had been because he hadn’t wanted to admit to himself that he was fighting against his country. Then, it had been because he had promised Uncle he’d keep it a secret. And after what Aang had done at the North Pole, it had been because he had just wanted the Dark Water Spirit to disappear.

“I was just trying to help,” he told her heavily as they stepped towards the shoreline. “I didn’t think it would matter to you whether I was the Blue Spirit or – or me, so long as I was helping.”

Katara didn’t reply as she bent an ice raft to carry them across to the communications tower. Zuko thought that might have been the best he could have hoped for. She remained silent as they infiltrated the communications tower, and she didn’t say a word as Zuko snuck into the air ventilation system and then helped her up.

Once Katara had caused a distraction so they could drop into the captain’s office undetected, she searched the assorted files and records for information with a single-minded intensity. Zuko was glad when he managed to find a scroll with a map of the coordinated patrol movements, if only because it meant he could break the stifling silence.

“Okay,” he mumbled, spreading the scroll out on the desk. “Southern Raiders – on patrol near Whaletail Island.”

“Whaletail Island,” Katara repeated the name carefully to herself, her voice muffled through the black cloth covering her mouth. “Here we come.”

Her blue eyes were bright as she stared down at the oddly-shaped island in the middle of the South Sea. Zuko hoped, yet again, that he was doing right by her.

 

 

Aang had only been able to get to sleep last night after Katara and Zuko had left because Sokka had made them both a pot of chamomile tea, but this morning, he felt like he needed a whole pot of sifu Iroh’s calming jasmine tea, and then some.

Maybe this was why Master Iroh was always drinking tea, because Hotman kept going off on crazy revenge missions, and Iroh needed to calm himself down so he didn’t go crazy from worrying about him. Well, now Aang had to drink twice the amount of jasmine tea, because not only was he worried about Zuko, but he was worried about Katara as well!

And the worst part was that nobody else seemed remotely worried about it! Aang was having to carry all the worry around by himself, without anyone else helping!

This must have been how Appa felt all the time, he thought to himself. But thinking about Appa just made him remember that Appa was out on a field trip, too. Now he had even more to be worried about!

“They’ll probably be back before too long,” Sokka just shrugged when Aang expressed his concerns when they gathered round for lunch. “Don’t stress about it.”

Suki had made lentil soup with fireflakes, but it tasted kind of burnt and smoky instead of fireflake-spicy. Aang would have complained, but he still remembered that one time he’d accidentally burned soup, so he figured it might be best if he didn’t say anything about that. He still had to say something when it came to Katara and Zuko going off on their crazy revenge mission, though!

“But what if they end up doing something Katara’s not ready for?” He fretted out loud. “Or Zuko makes her do something she doesn’t want to do?”

Sokka’s mouthful of lentil-and-fireflake soup must have been a bit too spicy for him, because he started choking. Aang was a little worried he was going to cough up a lung until Suki whacked him on the back.

“What do you think they’re going to end up doing, Aang?” Suki asked, handing Sokka a cup of water.

Suki,” Sokka wheezed. “Do you even hear yourself right now?”

“Oh, come on, Sokka,” she answered, patting him on the back as he took a slow drink. “It’s not like they’re going to end up sharing seal jerky, or something.”

That just set Sokka off on another coughing fit, and Aang was getting kind of annoyed by now. Why were they talking about seal jerky? This was an important conversation!

Still,” he said, trying not to let their silliness distract him from the point he was trying to make. “What if they end up doing something really crazy?”

“What, like blowing up a Fire Nation factory?” Toph muttered.

Oops. Okay, so maybe Toph had a point there. Aang politely pretended not to hear her, but that also meant that he couldn’t respond to her point without admitting to hearing it. That was a bit of a conundrum.

Thankfully, Suki spoke up next, and there was a pretty cool moment when Aang thought that she was going to be on his side, at least until he actually heard what she was saying.

“I don’t think Katara and Zuko are going to do anything too crazy, Aang,” she told him in what was a much too reasonable voice for someone taking such an unreasonable position. “They know it’s important to stay safe and responsible –”

“Have you met Zuko?” Sokka muttered.

“Alright, so Zuko’s a bit of an idiot sometimes,” Suki conceded, flicking Sokka’s ear. “But I’m pretty sure Katara will be happy to call him out on it when he’s being an idiot.”

“I bet she will,” Toph cackled with what Aang thought was a bit too much relish. Apparently Suki had the same idea, because she thumped the ground with an open palm, and that quickly shut Toph up.

“Besides,” Suki said as if nothing had happened, “We’re only going to know what Katara’s ended up doing one way or the other when they get back, you know?”

Aang bit his lip. He didn’t want to think about how Katara might be doing something one way or a different way. He was worried enough as it was without adding in all the different ways she could be doing whatever she was doing with Zuko.

“I just don’t want her to come back having done something she regrets,” he said instead.

Sokka sighed, and Aang thought for a moment that he was finally getting through to the Water Tribe boy. But then Sokka dashed his hopes.

“I think she’ll be okay with Zuko,” he said. “I know he’s kind of pathologically incapable of thinking things through, but he’ll still be around to stop her doing anything she’ll regret later on.”

To tell the truth, Aang wasn’t so sure about that. Zuko was the one who had told Katara where to find the man who had killed her mother in the first place, and ever since then, it was like Katara was this whole different person. Aang had told Katara he was sorry before he’d sealed himself in his earth tent and gone into the Avatar State because he knew she hated seeing him so out of control, filled with rage and pain. But seeing how determined Katara was to take revenge on someone… That wasn’t like Katara at all.

Sure, she got a bit grumpy sometimes if you woke her up too early, and she had always rolled her eyes at Zuko’s stupid puns back in Ba Sing Se, and she got kind of annoyed if Aang got stains on his robes or if Toph got dirt on Appa’s saddle – although to be fair, Aang had always been the one who had to clean that up, so he sometimes got a bit miffed, too. But Aang had never seen Katara get that mad.

Not until she had learnt how to bloodbend.

Aang didn’t know whether it was because Hama was the only Southern waterbender they’d really spent much time with so far and she’d turned out to be a bitter, angry old woman who wanted to take revenge on people who didn’t deserve it, so maybe Katara was basing her idea of what a Southern waterbender would be like on Hama. But how was she supposed to bend with love and kindness if she insisted on holding onto her anger?

Katara had said that Aang going into the Avatar State was really scary, but Aang thought the way she could use her element to do something as awful as bloodbending was even scarier.

 

 

“You should get some rest.”

The way the soft, rasping voice suddenly broke the silence took Katara by surprise, but at the same time, it was like she had been expecting it all along.

All the same, she didn’t respond.

She didn’t want to hear what Zuko had to say, but he continued undeterred. He must have taken her silence as an invitation for him to keep talking, which was decidedly not what it was.

“We'll be there in a few hours.” She could almost picture the slight pinch of the corner of his right eye as he frowned, the way his mouth would shift into a concerned line. “You'll need all your strength.”

“Oh, don't you worry about my strength,” she muttered. “I have plenty.”

He should have known that by now, she thought resentfully to herself. After all the time they’d spent practicing their bending together, he should know how strong she was by now.

They had started after Katara had been chi-blocked in Omashu, and he’d called her a prodigy. Like she had picked up waterbending as effortlessly as Aang had. But if she’d been a prodigy, she wouldn’t have needed to practice so hard with that waterbending scroll, and she wouldn’t have ended up captured by pirates because of it. She wouldn’t have needed the Blue Spirit to save her.

If she’d been a prodigy, maybe she would have been able to protect her mother when she had needed Katara the most.

“I'm not the helpless little girl I was when they came,” she promised him. Or maybe she was making that promise to herself.

Katara hadn’t ever seen black snow before that day. Soot, she had later learned it was called – the word unfamiliar in her mouth, the sound as bitter as the taste. She had stood there for a moment in the middle of the open ice, tipping her head back and wondering what all the fuss was about. Okay, so this snow was black instead of white, but why was that such a big deal? Why were all the warriors suddenly breaking into a frenzy of motion, shouting and rushing around?

Mom had always had the answers. Whether it was this strange new black snow, or the strange warrior ways of the menfolk, her mother had always known what to do, and so Katara had ran to her. But when she had burst into their igloo, Mom hadn’t been alone.

“Sokka always called them ashmakers,” she pronounced the word deliberately. “He’d heard Bato say it once, but we didn’t really know what it meant.”

She glanced back to Zuko where he was leaning over the edge of Appa’s saddle to listen to her, but his face didn’t give anything away. He was just watching her intently, his golden eyes fixed on her.

She swallowed and looked away. “He was nearly as tall as my Dad.”

To an eight-year-old girl, the spiked horns on the man’s helmet had made him seem like some sort of malevolent spirit. The harsh, grating sound of his voice as it bled out from his mouth had terrified her.

Mom had told her to go and find her father, which had made perfect sense to Katara. Dad was tall, too. He was taller, and stronger, and he was Dad. His voice was always warm and kind, and he only ever raised it when he was calling her and Sokka back in to the warmth. Dad’s eyes were clear and blue, not cloudy yellow. If anyone could get rid of this ashmaker’s presence here, Dad could.

But then Mom had said that she would handle this. Whatever this was. Had her mother known what was going to happen next? Had she been trying to do the right thing by sending her off in the wrong direction?

Mom had sent her away to protect her, but Katara didn’t think she’d ever be able to stop wondering what she could have done if only she’d stayed.

“I ran as fast as I could,” she whispered, trying to keep hold of Appa’s reins in her trembling hands. “But we were too late. When we got there, the man was gone.”

Your mother’s not here anymore, Katara.

Did she leave? Where did she go?

She – told me to tell you that she loves you. Very much.

“And so was she.”

As Katara spoke those four words, she wondered how they could simultaneously say everything and nothing all at once. They said that her Mom wouldn’t laugh at any more of Sokka’s dumb jokes, or listen to his stories about how he’d almost hit the snowman he’d built and that he’d definitely be able to do it if they’d just let him stay out with his boomerang for another half-hour. They said that Mom wouldn’t ever let Dad pick her up and swung her around again. She wouldn’t laugh as she wrapped her arms around Dad’s neck and pressed her face into his hair.

They said that Mom wouldn’t ever tell her another bedtime story about the time Dad and Bato had tried to build a watchtower when they were only a couple of years older than Sokka was right now, and it had collapsed on them so quickly that the only thing Mom had been able to see of them had been Bato’s boots and Dad’s wolftail. She’d said that she’d begun to fall in love with Dad over the hot tea she’d made to warm the boys up after Gilak and Inuk had dug them out, but…

But Katara wouldn’t ever be able to drink ginger tea with her Mom again.

Because she was gone.

“Your mother was a brave woman,” she heard the ashma – she heard Zuko murmur.

She closed her eyes, and she let out a breath as she let her tears slip down her cheeks. She fought to control herself and not let her sobs overtake her breathing.

“I know.”

Katara touched the smooth blue stone on her mother’s necklace, the only thing she had left of her. When she’d thought it was gone forever, it had been like her mother had been ripped away from her all over again, but the Blue Spirit – but Zuko had gotten it back for her.

Had he been telling the truth about his mother? About how the Fire Nation had taken her away from him, too?

“You said you drank ginger with your mother,” she heard herself say.

“We used to drink it after we meditated together,” he responded after a time. “She always said it’s got medicinal properties. It, um. It reminds me of her, now. Now that she’s gone.”

Katara closed her eyes. She wished she could close her ears too, and maybe her heart as well, but she knew as well as anyone else how bad Zuko was at lying.

Chapter Text

As Appa landed on the deck of the Southern Raiders’ ship, a raider scarcely had time to bend a faint spark in his hand before a blast of water sent him sailing over the railings all the way over on the other side of the deck.

Zuko had barely panted out that the bridge would be found up on the higher levels of the ship before Katara was gone, her arms sheathed in water and her eyes narrowed in determination. He had to hurry after her, keeping one eye on her and one on anyone following them down the corridor. As one soldier wielding a sword burst through a door on the left, Zuko had to block his attack, disarm him, and dispatch him with a stamp and a hip-check before stabbing the sword through the doorhandles to deter any further attackers.

Katara didn’t ask whether he was okay, but she had waited for him before they continued on.

They didn’t speak except for his terse directions – right, right, left – and the only sounds Zuko could hear as they ran through the red-lit corridors were their footsteps and Katara’s breathing beside him. When they reached the locked door at the end of the hall, Zuko was relieved to see that it was just a simple spin-lock mechanism. He just could brace himself and twist the handle.

“This is it, Katara,” he cautioned her. “Are you ready to face him?”

If she wasn’t, they could leave, he told himself. It was her choice – this was her journey. But Katara pulled down the cloth covering her lower face, and her face twisted in rage as she let out a scream and sent the water crashing towards the door.

The simple spin-lock mechanism never stood a chance.

For a moment after she had torn the door away from the frame and sent it tumbling into the center of the room, Katara simply stood there. Whether she was as amazed by her power as Zuko was, or whether she had suddenly come to realize the enormity of facing the man who had killed her mother, he didn’t know. But it was up to Zuko to spring forward into the room, deflecting the first fireball away from her and batting the second away as he set his feet and his root.

The commander clearly hadn’t learned his lesson, so as Zuko once again blocked his attack, he sent a spurt of flames of his own at the man’s feet, causing him to shout and jump backwards. He wobbled as he landed, and Zuko took another step forward to press their advantage.

He could see the man running the calculations in his head – a waterbender attacking the Southern Raiders was enough of an oddity, but for a firebender to join her?

“Who are you?” The commander demanded right on cue, his accusing stare fixed on Zuko.

But this wasn’t about the firebender, Zuko reminded himself. This was about the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe.

This was about Katara, and it was time this man realized that.

“You don't remember her?” Zuko challenged him. “You will soon, trust me!”

He launched a slow-burning flame as a final warning, which the raider could dodge easily enough. But as the man moved and brought orange fire to his hand, it seemed like he wasn’t willing to give up without a fight.

But the way the flames around his trembling fingers suddenly snuffed out, and the way his eyes widened as his wrist twisted around – and the way he sucked in a rattling, horrified breath as his arm spun around and jerked across his body – that didn’t seem willing at all.

Was he –

Zuko didn’t understand what was –

was he fighting himself?

“What’s –” the raider gasped, collapsing to his knees – “What’s happening to me?

His panicked dark eyes stared up at Zuko as his helmet tumbled to the ground and clattered away, but Zuko didn’t have the first idea what was happening here. He took an uncertain step back, and glanced behind him.

As Katara hunched her body over and drew her clutching fingers down from her face to stab at the floor, a cold smile crept over her face. The firebender’s leg gave way from under him and he let out a pained moan as his face banged against the metal floor.

Was Katara…?

so she was

so she could

Oh, Agni above.

Zuko had always known she was capable. But this…

I’m not in charge here, he reminded himself. It’s her choice. Not mine.

He steeled himself, and turned back to face the man bent – bent – double onto the floor.

“Think back,” he said, as forcibly as he could manage right now. “Think back to your last raid on the Southern Water Tribe.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” the raider gasped. His left knee began to twist. “Please, I don't know!”

Zuko’s mind flashed back to the Great Divide, and how quickly Katara had left as soon as he’d asked her about her missing necklace. How overjoyed she’d been to get it back when Zuko and Aang had managed to retrieve it from Pohuai Stronghold. How she had wept in Ba Sing Se.

“Don't lie!” He yelled, dropping down to his knees next to the raider. He raised his arm to gesture to Katara, still standing there with her hands held closely in front of her body. “You look her in the eye, and you tell me you don't remember what you did!”

Zuko prayed that his nerve wouldn’t fail him now as he watched Katara… move the man’s body. The captain let out a whimper of terror as his head was tilted back, his eyes darting around but always landing back on Katara’s.

Katara’s blue eyes were always so expressive, but Zuko couldn’t see anything in them now. The man gurgled as he slumped to the ground. Katara must have – freed him from whatever control she had been exerting over him.

“It's not him,” she mumbled. “He's not the man.”

“What?” Zuko asked dumbly. “What do you mean he's not? He's the leader of the Southern Raiders – he has to be the guy!”

But Katara didn’t answer him. She just turned on her heel and left the room.

No, he thought to himself desperately. No, this couldn’t be it. It couldn’t end like this. It couldn’t end like – like smoke slipping through their fingers.

There has to be more!

Blindly, with nothing more than denial guiding his actions, Zuko hauled the man up to his feet and shoved him up against the wall. “If you're not the man we're looking for, who is?

He applied just enough pressure to make a shoulder shift worryingly, and the man let out a cry of pain.

“You must be looking for Yon Rha!” The man gasped, giving another shout as Zuko employed just a little bit more persuasion. “He retired four years ago – to Ma’inka Island!”

Zuko was gone before the man could react to his absence. As he ran through the hallways back to the deck, he could feel his heart pounding with every breathless heartbeat.

 

 

Ma’inka Island, Katara repeated to herself. Her mother’s killer lived on Ma’inka Island.

Zuko had told her what the Southern Raiders’ commander had told him, and she had leapt up onto Appa’s head, ready to take the reins and fly to Ma’inka Island faster than Appa had ever flown before – but then she had realized that she had no idea where Ma’inka Island actually was.

So now she was sat next to Zuko as he held the reins, and neither of them was speaking. Appa seemed to have picked up on the chill in the early morning air, and the sky bison flew on in silence.

Katara would have to give Appa an awful lot of hay after she faced her mother’s killer, if only to make up for all the flying they were putting him through. When Aang had been feeding his best friend earlier – yesterday now, she reminded herself – it had been with an easy laugh and a gentle smile on his face.

Maybe Aang would come to understand that this was a journey she needed to take, and that she needed to face the man who had taken her mother away from her. But she didn’t think Aang would have been able to understand why she had bloodbent the leader of the Southern Raiders.

Katara wasn’t sure she understood why herself. She had thought this was the man who had killed her mother when she had been helpless to stop them. She had wanted to show him that she was powerful now. That she wouldn’t be scared of him any longer. Now, he would be scared of her.

And he had been. That man had been terrified. His heartbeat had been racing, and his panicked breathing had been coming in choking gasps as she had forced his head back to look at him. But when she had seen that look of terror in the man’s eyes, they had been a muddy brown.

They weren’t the vicious yellow of… Yon Rha.

Katara shivered involuntarily as she remembered the tall figure and his armor.

“Are you cold?”

For once, she was almost grateful for the quiet, hesitant voice that interrupted her thoughts. She could almost feel Zuko’s golden eyes fixed on her, but she kept looking forward. Sunrise couldn’t be too far off – the sky was lightening, and she could feel her power waning. She wondered if Zuko could feel it too; where she drew her power from the moon, he had once said that he always woke up at dawn.

He’d said it was a firebender thing, and she’d thought at the time that it was just another thing that set him apart as someone she couldn’t trust. Well, now she had shown him a waterbender thing. Now, maybe she was the monster who couldn’t be trusted.

“I’m fine,” she said curtly, curling her fingers into fists and composing herself.

Though she couldn’t quite feel the weight of Zuko’s gaze, Katara could certainly feel the heat emanating from him. She wasn’t sure whether it was another firebender thing, or whether he just ran naturally warm. It had been one of the first things she’d noticed when she’d hugged him at the North Pole; she’d been so relieved to get Sokka back, she hadn’t been able to stop herself hugging her brother, and then after that, well, it would have just been a bit rude not to hug Zuko as well. He’d been warm, and he’d smelt of Gran-Gran’s jasmine tea.

Katara had gone to the North Pole to learn how to waterbend, and whilst it had taken a while to get Master Pakku to teach her, he had been a great teacher. Pakku had told her that they key to waterbending wasn’t just about moving the water around, but about feeling the push and pull. If Katara wanted to be a master waterbender, she needed to understand that waterbending was about balance. You needed to know yourself, and work with your element and your natural self, before you could achieve balance.

Master Pakku had said that some people were more naturally people who gave, and it wasn’t in their nature to take because they were so concerned with giving. But some people were more naturally people who took, and they weren’t able to give because they were more focused on taking.

Katara was someone who gave, but right now, she wanted to take. Her mother had been taken away from her, so didn’t this count as justice? Didn’t this count as balance?

Why did she have to give all the time? Wasn’t it about time she got to do something for herself for a change? And this little field trip wasn’t even about her. Like Zuko had said, this was about getting closure and justice.

Why wasn’t she allowed to want justice?

Katara had wanted so many things, but as long as she could remember, she’d had to keep a tight hold on her desires. She’d wanted someone who could teach her to bend, but there hadn’t been any waterbenders at the South Pole. She’d wanted someone to help with all the work around the village, but Sokka had been too busy playing soldier. She had wanted to learn to waterbend, and yet, because she was a girl, she’d had to fume and rage in silence whilst Aang got to learn so easily.

In the end, she’d had enough, and she’d challenged Pakku to a fight. She had tried her hardest, and she’d been determined that he wasn’t going to knock her down, but in the end, Pakku had defeated her. She’d thought that had been the end of her dreams of becoming a waterbending master, until Pakku had seen her mother’s necklace and agreed to teach her for the sake of Kanna, the love of his life. He’d carved that necklace as a betrothal gift for Gran-Gran, but she’d left the North Pole because she wouldn’t let the Northern Tribe’s stupid customs run her life.

It must have taken a lot of courage, Katara thought to herself. Her Gran-Gran was a brave woman, just like her mother. It must have taken a lot of courage for her grandmother to leave her home behind to do what she needed to do.

The outfit she was wearing smelled faintly of jasmine tea.

 

 

After he and Aang had spoken with Katara and Zuko about Katara’s sudden determination to go after Mom’s killer, and Aang had been talking about forgiveness and letting go of your anger, Sokka had been, dare he say it, a little inspired. So he’d asked if he could borrow Momo for a week, figuring that maybe instead of hating Momo for the rest of time, he could maybe get to know the little guy. Okay, so Momo was a lemur that had a different way of life to him, but maybe if Sokka just heard Momo’s side of the story, it could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

After Jet, Sokka should have known that his attempts at extending the hand of friendship to some sneaky bastard who had a different way of life to him had been doomed from the start. When Suki found him, he was sitting down on the ground and picking up Pai Sho tiles after that treacherous excuse for a white hamster had scattered the board and sent everything flying.

Sokka was totally counting that as Momo surrendering, which meant Sokka had won that game.

“Somehow, I don’t think the Order of the White Lotus will be accepting any winged lemur applicants any time soon,” Suki commented as she handed him a rhododendron tile. One of her eyebrows was raised, and a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“I don’t think their standards are as high as you think they are,” he muttered grumpily, taking the tile and popping it in the bag along with the rock and wheel tiles he’d picked up. “Momo’s probably got nothing to worry about.”

Something in his tone might have tipped Suki off to the fact that Sokka wasn’t in the best mood, because her confident expression was replaced with something a bit more… hesitant. Almost confused. Sokka didn’t really like being responsible for that look on her face.

“Are you, um…” she tucked her hair behind her ear and coughed. “Are you mad at me, or something?”

It took Sokka a moment or two before he realized that what he had meant and what Suki must have heard were two very different things.

“No way!” He waved his arms frantically and almost sent the Pai Sho tiles flying again in his haste to reassure Suki that he was very much not mad at her. “No, I swear to Tui – I wasn’t talking about you, Suki, I was talking about Zuko!

And Bumi too, he added in his head. But much to his relief, Suki seemed happy to overlook his stupidity.

“I guess that’s probably fair,” she gave him a small smile. “He’d probably kill me if I told you some of the dumb stuff Taki said he got up to when he was learning how to Blue Spirit.”

Sokka wasn’t sure if you could use to Blue Spirit as a verb, but considering the way he’d had a pretty narrow escape just then, he figured Suki could probably do whatever she wanted and he couldn’t even be mad about it. He did, however, make a mental note of the fact that she seemed to have some excellent dirt on Zuko that she was apparently willing to share.

As Suki settled down next to him and leaned against his shoulder, Sokka took the chance to take her hand in his and squeeze it gently. Are we okay? he asked her silently. She squeezed back – Yeah, we’re kicking ass – and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“But seriously, though,” she nudged his shoulder. “You okay? You’re being kind of…”

She trailed off, and Sokka winced. He didn’t know how to explain that he was…

“I’m just worried about Katara,” he admitted with a heavy sigh. “About both of them, I guess – especially after what Aang said.”

Suki’s forehead creased. “After what Aang said about what?”

Oh, right. Suki hadn’t been there for their argument. Or for their second meeting later that night. Now that Sokka thought about it, she and Toph might have had a point when they kept complaining about how the four of them kept talking about stuff they hadn’t been there for, and how they were constantly feeling left out of the loop.

“Katara just seemed so intent on getting revenge on the guy that killed our Mom,” he explained. “But Aang was trying to help her by talking about how revenge is like a two-headed rat viper.”

Rather than be as impressed as Sokka had been at Aang’s precocious wisdom, Suki just looked confused.

“What’s revenge got to do with rat vipers?” She asked, wrinkling her nose.

Come to think of it, Sokka wasn’t actually too sure what revenge had to do with rat vipers. He’d never actually seen a rat viper before, let alone seeing double. Maybe if he drank some more cactus juice, he could, like, hallucinate one, but he didn’t think it would be worth the risk.

Was this what maturity felt like?

“I think it’s about how if you focus on one rat viper head, the other rat viper head can bite you?” He explained uncertainly.

“Well, maybe that proverb’s not necessarily about revenge,” Suki said thoughtfully. “Maybe it just means that two heads are better than one. So that’s probably good news for Katara and Zuko right now.”

Sokka would usually agree with that concept: after all, two Water Tribe geniuses had been able to break out of a previously inescapable prison. But considering these were two heads who had both, independently of each other, come up with the idea of dressing up as weirdo spirits and messing with the Fire Nation… well, suffice it to say that Sokka had some serious reservations about whether putting Katara and Zuko’s heads together would be a good thing.

He let out a sigh, and slowly leant backwards onto his elbows until he could lie down on his back and look up at the sky. Suki laughed a little as he tugged on her hand, but she allowed him to pull her down with him.

“Don’t worry about Katara,” she murmured quietly, tugging his arm around her collar before she laced their fingers together. “She’ll be fine.”

Something about the confidence in her words made Sokka pause for thought. His head and Suki’s head were pretty close together right now, and Suki had started out on a journey looking for her sisters-in-arms only to end up as the Blue Spirit. Sokka’s girlfriend was the most sensible person he knew, and if even she could end up dressing up like a weirdo spirit, maybe he should have a bit more faith in his little sister on the journey she was taking.

“I know,” he replied simply. “And she’ll stop Zuko from doing anything too stupid, as well.”

Suki laughed quietly, and he felt her press a light kiss to the meeting of their entwined hands. “You wanna hear some embarrassing stories Taki told me about Zuko?”

Sokka squeezed her hand again. That one meant Do you even have to ask?

Chapter Text

Katara was almost disappointed in how easy it had been to lay the trap for Yon Rha. As the former captain of the Southern Raiders tripped over the wire Zuko had set for him, he let out a shout and toppled to the ground. The rain had turned the dirt to a thick mud, the brown sludge so different to the pristine white snow of Katara’s home.

Once, this monster had come to Katara’s home. Now, she had found him at his.

Justice.

The thought gave Katara strength as she stalked up to the monster lying in the mud and tugged her face mask down. The rain was cold, but it was worth the chill so he could see that she wasn’t the weak, helpless little girl she had once been.

“Do you know who I am?” She demanded.

“No,” Yon Rha swallowed, his eyes darting around her face. “I'm not sure.”

He didn’t remember. It was such a simple explanation, but Katara could hardly comprehend it.

He didn’t remember.

This man – this monster had been a part of the raid that had taken her mother away from her. And it hadn’t even stayed with him, he’d just – he’d just been able to leave it behind. Like footprints that were covered over by snowfall, with no trace left behind to show that anyone had ever been there.

He had left behind a body!

“Oh, you’d better remember me,” Katara bit out her words as she felt the rising tide of all her anger and rage. “Like your life depends on it!”

Katara hadn’t been able to forget his face. For years afterwards, she had woken up screaming, convinced that yellow eyes were waiting in the corner of the room, or that a demon with dark horns and a helmet covering their face was going to snatch her out of her bed.

But he got to forget. Why did she have to be the only one who remembered?

“Why don't you take a closer look?”

As Yon Rha looked at her again, Katara took the opportunity to look at him. His face was lined with wrinkles – had they been there… how long ago now?

A lifetime ago.

“Yes,” the monster dared to breathe. “Yes, I remember you now. You're that little Water Tribe girl.”

As Yon Rha recounted the story, Katara could almost see how everything had unfolded. The Southern Raiders had received a tip-off that there was one last waterbender at the South Pole, and the raiders had been determined that they weren’t going anywhere until they found them. But Mom had made Yon Rha promise that if she told him who the waterbender was, he and the rest of the Southern Raiders would leave the rest of the village alone.

Mom… to protect her… to protect all of them

Mom had said she was the last waterbender.

And Yon Rha had killed her. He had gone to the South Pole to find the last waterbender, and he had left thinking that he had succeeded in his mission. And then he had forgotten all about it, until now.

Katara would never forget.

She had waited years to face this man. To confront the monster who had taken her mother away. But he hadn’t just taken her mother – he had taken her father and her childhood away from her, too.

Like she had told Haru, her necklace was all she had left of her mother. She’d been able to help Haru get his father back by helping the earthbenders break out of that prison rig, but she wouldn’t ever be able to get her mother back.

“She lied to you,” she told the monster lowly, turning away from his ugly yellow eyes. “She was protecting the last waterbender!”

“What?” Yon Rha’s voice sounded shocked. Good. “Who?”

This monster had tried to find the last waterbender left in the Southern Water Tribe, but Katara’s mother had managed to save her. Now she was here to tell Yon Rha that he had failed. He hadn’t won.

And as long as Katara was alive to keep fighting, the Fire Nation wouldn’t win this war, either. Just like the earthbenders on that prison rig, the Fire Nation couldn’t take away her courage.

She opened her eyes, and tried to pour every last bit of hate she could into the way she glared at this Yon Rha. “Me!”

Katara had been practicing this bending move in Shu Jing. She knew how to take the falling water and make it stop in midair, keeping the water floating around her. It was harder to hold so much falling rain at one time, but she drew on the thought of how her mother had protected her, and it made her bending so much stronger.

She knew how to change the temperature of the hovering water. Back then, she’d turned it to steam. Now, she turned it to ice as her rage turned cold.

She screamed as she lashed out, sharpening the frozen shards like bone spears, flinging them at this ashmaker like the snow of her home.

You took my mother away from me!

She wasn’t sure whether Yon Rha screamed as the ice flew at him. She couldn’t hear it over the blood rushing to her head. But as she halted them all in their tracks, some only inches away from the man’s face as he cowered in the mud, the silence was deafening until the meltwater spattered against the ground.

It is the strength of your hearts that make you who you are, she heard her mother’s voice telling her and Sokka as she finished her bedtime story.

“I did a bad thing!” Yon Rha sobbed, dropping to his knees in the mud. “I know I did, and you deserve revenge! So – so why don't you take my mother? That would be fair!”

The weak, faltering smile he gave her nearly made Katara reconsider those ice shards. It would be easy… it would be so easy…

“I always wondered what kind of person could do such a thing,” she glared at Yon Rha. “But now that I see you, I think I understand.”

At the South Pole, family was everything. Gran-Gran had always told Katara that family was what held them all together through anything. And this man would just – just offer his mother up like that?

“There's just nothing inside you,” she declared coldly. “Nothing at all. You're pathetic and sad and empty.”

It would be so easy. She could reach out with her bending. She could bend his blood, and just…

“But as much as I hate you…” She shook her head. “I just can't do it.”

Katara had once hated the ashmakers of the Fire Nation, every single one of them, for what this man had done. But her Dad had always said that if you hated something, you were letting it have control over you.

She wasn’t going to let this pathetic, sad, empty man have power over her any longer.

Katara didn’t care if he wept. She didn’t want him to beg, or to plead with her to spare him. She just wanted to go. She didn’t want to see him ever again.

 

 

Suki usually wouldn’t have worried about two capable fighters going off on a mission, but ever since her Kyoshi Warriors had been captured by Azula and her forces, she found herself a lot more agitated about things like that, and she found that having something to take her mind off things helped.

With Taki, she hadn’t had that problem; when she hadn’t been going out as the Blue Spirit, she had been too busy learning Pai Sho and training with her new set of throwing knives to let her mind wander. Ideally, she would have dragged Sokka away to play Pai Sho and have a spar with him – and, okay, maybe distract herself with some other activities as well – but she could tell that Aang and Toph were worried about Katara and Zuko too. So she and Sokka were staying with the younger kids, but Suki had to admit that Aang’s attempts at taking their minds off things struck her as more than a little ridiculous.

“So I’ve got to make tea out of a random forest plant and drink it to learn something new,” she repeated slowly, trying to wrap her head around what Aang was asking her to answer, “And you want to know what I’d want the forest plant tea to taste like, and what I’d want to learn?”

“Uh-huh!” Aang nodded enthusiastically. “Sokka said he wanted his to taste like cactus juice! And I wanted mine to taste like egg custard tart, or maybe roast duck, and Toph wanted hers to taste like victory, and Katara…”

Aang trailed off, and Sokka shifted awkwardly in his seat. Suki tried very hard not to turn her head to see what Toph was doing, because then it would become obvious that people were reacting to Aang’s words, and that would make it even more awkward.

“Well, I did actually have to make tea in the forest this one time,” she said instead, trying to offer a new conversation topic that wouldn’t make everyone feel acutely aware that two familiar faces were conspicuous by their absence. “But Taki didn’t actually tell me it was white dragon bush until I’d made it, so I guess that kind of answers the question for what I’d learn from drinking it, right?”

Suki didn’t know much about tea, but Taki had seemed to enjoy it, at least. And it seemed to interest the others, from the way all three of them leaned closer, so she thought she’d picked a pretty good distraction.

“What’s the white dragon bush?” Aang asked, cocking his head. “I swear it sounds familiar, but I can’t remember where I’ve heard of it before.”

“Isn’t it a Pai Sho tile?” Toph asked, but Sokka shook his head.

“No, that’s the white jade tile,” he explained. “I think Master Iroh said something about the white dragon bush when I was working in Pao’s teahouse – he said its leaves make a tea so delicious, it's heartbreaking.”

“Better not mix those two up, Toph,” Suki laughed. “The white jade plant’s poisonous; if you try and make tea out of that, it might not end well for you.”

She’d just been making a joke, but the way Aang gasped and nearly fell over with excitement made her think she was missing something here.

“This one time when we were in the Great Divide, Zuko told me that sifu Iroh once poisoned himself because he tried to make tea from a plant he’d found in the woods!”

Toph guffawed. “Classic Gramps.”

“Right?” Aang pointed his finger in the air emphatically. “Hotman told me that it was because sifu Iroh had thought it was some other plant – that’s what he must have been talking about!”

“White dragon bush and white jade?” Sokka thought about it for a moment before he chuckled. “Yeah, I guess I can see Master Iroh doing something like that.”

Suki grinned at her boyfriend, who was wearing a fond smile of his own.

“Well, Taki wasn’t going to make a mistake like that,” she said, deciding to share a bit more. “She really knows her stuff. Foraging, tracking, navigating, making shelters – like, I learnt how to do this stuff when we left Kyoshi Island, but it took me a little while to get good at it. But Taki knew what she was doing straight away.”

“I think she said she was top of her class at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls,” Sokka agreed, before frowning pensively. “I don’t know what they teach you at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, but…”

He trailed off, and Suki stifled a laugh at the perturbed look on his face. “I’m sure you were going somewhere with that thought, huh?”

He scowled good-naturedly at her. “Sure I was – just like you ended up going to the Boiling Rock. Who was it that busted you out of there, again?”

Suki allowed him one kiss, because, yes, he had rescued her from a supposedly inescapable prison.

“We would have gotten out of there eventually,” she told him though, because he couldn’t be allowed to get too cocky. Rangi only knew how long he would be playing the Remember when I got you out of prison tile – remind her, who had been the one to take the warden hostage?

“Yeah, Sokka,” Aang nodded. “The Blue Spirit always gets out of Fire Nation places safely, remember? First there was that prison rig in Beihe, and then Pohuai –”

“That one doesn’t count, Aang,” Sokka interrupted. “The way Zuko tells it, there wasn’t anything safe about the way you got him out of there.”

“What?” Aang pouted. “Just because I didn’t know it was Hotman, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t careful when I got the Blue Spirit over the walls –”

“You airbent him forty feet into the air without any warning, Aang.”

“Oh, yeah…” Aang let out a nervous laugh. “Well, yeah, okay. But before that part, I was careful!”

“You just sent him flying?” Toph cackled. “Just like that? Oh, man, I wish my feet could have seen Sparky’s reaction!”

Suki would have quite enjoyed to see the first Blue Spirit sent flying, too. “It probably wasn’t as bad as the time Taki and I went to Pohuai Stronghold.”

“The Duke told me about that,” Sokka said. “So that was you, huh?”

“The Order of the White Lotus needed some information on the Rough Rhinos’ movements,” Suki explained. She refused to blush at the very distracting grin her boyfriend was sending her way. “Taki said the Blue Spirit usually used dao swords, but we didn’t have any. I ended up getting stuck in a ventilation shaft with one of my fans wedged between my legs.”

Toph and Aang seemed to think this was the most hilarious thing they’d ever heard, which kind of grated on Suki’s pride as an elite warrior who had trained for many years in the art of stealth. But when Sokka started chuckling even as he took her hand in his and started playing with her fingers, she figured she could see the funny side of it, too.

 

 

Katara had been silent as they left Ma’inka Island, and the whole time Zuko had been sitting on Appa’s head and steering them towards Ember Island, she hadn’t so much as asked him where they were going. Whilst he had been setting up camp and building the fire, she had just sat with Appa, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. Even when he had called her over to sit and eat some seal jerky and a sticky bun, and warm her hands around a cup of chamomile tea, she hadn’t said anything. He’d had all that time to think of what he might say to her, but he hadn’t thought she would break the silence first.

“Did I do the right thing?”

But that was Katara, he thought to himself. She was always surprising him, even when he should have learnt by now to never underestimate her. Her courage, her power, her compassion… her mercy.

When he summoned up his courage to look at her, she met his gaze with stormy blue eyes.

“I don’t know,” he answered as honestly as he could. “But I don’t think that’s my decision to make.”

“What?” Her hands tightened around her cup. “You saw what I – you must have known that I could have… why not?

Her gaze was equal parts accusing and yearning, and Zuko didn’t know how to speak when she was looking at him like that. So he took the coward’s way out, turning away to stare into the fire like it held any kind of answers at all.

“If you’re wondering whether you did the right thing,” he tried to pick his words carefully, “Then – then it means you were trying. Sometimes, all you can do is try. And sometimes, that’s enough.”

He wasn’t sure whether what he had said would make things better – he wasn’t even sure if it made sense – but it seemed to mean something to Katara.

Zuko wasn’t sure which one of them moved first as her cup fell to the floor – whether he reached out for her, or whether she made a wild grab to clutch onto his shirt – but as she collapsed against him with a guttural, wrenching cry, he caught her to his chest and drew her tightly against him.

Katara’s forehead came to rest against his shoulder, and her small hands made fists in his dark tunic. Her shoulders were shaking as she wept, but Zuko couldn’t care less about whatever mess of snot and tears she was leaving on his sleeve. He only tried his best to keep her warm in the cold rain, smoothing his heated palms down her hair and running them over her back.

She had been crying the last time he had held her in his arms like this, too. Back in Ba Sing Se, when the truth had come out.

It seemed that every time he tried to do the right thing, he only ended up hurting her.

He held her until her sobs had quietened and her trembling body was slumped against his, her face hidden against his shoulder.

“Where are we?” She eventually asked, her voice muffled by the fabric

“Ember Island,” he answered evenly, still slowly running his hands up and down her arms.

“Why are we here?”

“We can stay here for now,” he responded. “My family has a house, but nobody’s been there for years. It's the last place anyone would think to look for us.”

Katara seemed to go still in his arms for a moment, and Zuko cursed himself as the moment was shattered. As he ruined the moment. Like he seemed to ruin everything when it came to Katara.

“Your family,” she repeated as she slowly drew away, leaving him cold. “You mean… the royal family.”

Katara had told him once that she didn’t see him like she saw his sister or his father. Zuko wasn’t sure how she saw him now, but if it was anything like the way he felt about himself at this moment in time, he didn’t think he wanted to find out.

“Yes,” he answered curtly.

He’d hoped that would have been the end of the matter, but Katara wasn’t one to give up easily. “The Fire Nation’s royal family.”

Because that was what it all came back to, Zuko reflected bitterly. His family. Not him, not Zuko, not even the Blue Spirit – but the Fire Lord’s son. “Yes.”

“You never said anything.”

“I know. But I’m saying it now.”

“But why didn’t you say anything?” Katara seemed to search his face, and he wasn’t sure what she would find. “Why didn’t you just tell us who you really were?”

Because Uncle Iroh should have been the Crown Prince of the Nation. Because Lu Ten was the Prince Zuko had always idolized. Because he was not his father’s, but his mother’s son.

Because he couldn’t coax flames from ash, nor catch the smoke on the breeze.

For two and a half years, Zuko had only wanted to go home. But when he had severed his topknot at the Sun Ruins, abandoning his royal status for the life of a humble peasant, he had renounced his claim to the throne. Zuko hadn’t thought he stood much chance of ruling the Nation when he wouldn’t ever be welcomed back to the Nation. When Oyaji had contacted Uncle and told him of an airbender who had come to Kyoshi Island, Zuko had been too intent on the idea of going home to think about what he would do when he got there.

Clearly Uncle had been playing a longer game than Zuko had even dreamed of.

“I couldn’t go home,” he mumbled. “So I just… I didn’t want to be Prince Zuko anymore. I didn’t want it to matter anymore.”

“But it still mattered,” Katara pressed him. She wasn’t satisfied with his answer, and he couldn’t blame her for it. “You knew it still mattered. That’s why you kept calling yourself Lee, wasn’t it?”

Instead of nodding his assent, Zuko just hung his head. “I was trying to protect you. All of you.”

“And yourself.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

“And myself,” he admitted, swallowing hard past the lump in his throat. “I’m sorry, Katara.”

“But after Sokka found out –” she faltered, but only for a moment – “After Toph found out, too – I know you didn’t want to tell them, but… but why didn’t you tell me?

Zuko had been lying to himself the whole time he’d been hiding under the Blue Spirit’s mask, but he couldn’t lie to her. “Because I didn’t want you to hate me.”

And look how that turned out, he thought bitterly to himself.

He couldn’t see the look in Katara’s eyes as she gazed into the firelight. “That should have been my choice to make.”

“I know,” he confessed, far too little and too late. He didn’t know if he wanted to know the answer, but he had to ask all the same. “What – what would you have chosen?”

Katara was quiet for a long time before she closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Chapter 45

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Anyone who had Toph Beifong as an earthbending teacher was obviously going to improve their earthbending by many order of magnitude, but Toph had to give credit where it was due: the Fancy Dancer was getting good.

Okay, so he wasn’t quite metalbending good, but he could use his seismic sense to walk around and dodge the obstacles she was putting up around him, and he was only falling back on his airbending to cheat disgracefully half the time now, rather than all the time, which Toph figured was good progress. It was just a shame that he still needed to get a few other things through his dumb airbender head as well.

“In case you’ve forgotten, Twinkle Toes,” she argued, resisting the urge to throw a rock at this moron’s head. “I’m a very capable earthbender.”

Seriously. The Fancy Dancer wished he could even get close to beating her in a fight.

“No, I know that!” She sensed the Fancy Dancer nodding his head a couple of times. “No, I know you’re capable, sifu Toph Miss Beifong – like, you’re the Blind Bandit, right? And you even came up with metalbending, that’s super cool and awesome!”

Better, Toph allowed in her head. She was super cool and awesome.

“But I guess I just still don’t like the idea of fighting you,” Twinkles continued. “I know you think you can handle it, but how am I supposed to fight you if I’m supposed to bend with love?”

Toph sighed. She was beginning to wonder who was really the blind one around here.

And it wasn’t like she hadn’t tried to be reasonable about this, you know? She’d already told the Fancy Dancer more than once that setting aside some time during earthbending practice to spar wasn’t about trying to hurt anyone, it was actually about the two of them trying to see what Aang was good at and what he needed to improve on. She’d even tried to point out that if he didn’t get used to sparring, he was going to be completely unprepared for when Bozo Ozai turned up with a lot less love and a lot more pain.

But clearly, approaching her arguments with an earthbender’s bluntness wasn’t doing the trick. Toph couldn’t believe she was doing it, but… maybe it was time to try a different approach.

“Look, Twinkles,” she appealed to the intelligent, rational person that must be somewhere up there in that tattooed head. “You keep talking a lot about love. You want to tell me what that is, exactly?”

“What?” She heard the frown in his voice. “Um… love’s love, Toph. You know what love is, right?”

“Of course I know what love is!” Toph loved winning Earth Rumbles, she loved being awesome… she probably loved Gramps and Snoozles and Aunt Fanny, too, but not quite as much as winning Earth Rumbles. “I’m just wondering what you think love is.”

“Oh, right!” Twinkles’ voice brightened up there, and Toph could sense him sitting down cross-legged on the ground. “Well, love’s when you want the best for someone, right? You get happy when they’re happy, and sad when they’re sad. Love’s like… like when you want to give someone all the egg custard tarts in the world, just because they’re them!”

He finished with a satisfied air, and Toph imagined him nodding to himself.

“Alright, Twinkles,” she allowed. “That’s a pretty good one.”

“Thanks, sifu Toph Miss Beifong.”

“So let me ask you another question, huh?” Toph didn’t wait for him to reply before she continued. “What if that person doesn’t want an egg custard tart?”

“What?” The frown was back in his voice. “Like, because they don’t like egg custard tarts? How about fruit pies? I swear you eat fruit pies, Toph – didn’t you say you like them?”

“We’re not talking about me here, Twinkles,” she waved her hand impatiently. “We’re talking about this hypothetical person you love, who doesn’t want an egg custard tart in this hypothetical situation. Or a fruit pie.”

“Well, yeah, that probably makes sense,” she sensed the Fancy Dancer drumming his fingers on the ground in concentration. “I think she’d probably want a sticky bun – um, hypothetically. So I’d just give them a sticky bun instead, right? Or I’d maybe give them, like – Appa!”

What the fuck?

“You’d give someone Appa?” Toph demanded incredulously. “Who the fuck wants Appa as a present, Twinkle Toes?”

“No, Toph!” She heard a whoosh of air, and a sudden freezing wind around her toes. “Appa’s back! They’re back!”

The last time Toph had felt that freezing wind, Snoozles had explained to her that it was the Fancy Dancer’s air scooter. At least that explained why her seismic sense suddenly couldn’t sense an overexcited airbender, Toph thought to herself as she set off back for their campsite. She got there just in time to catch a bit of a brouhaha.

Where’s Katara?” Twinkles was shouting at Sparky. Toph could hear the swish as he waved his glider around. “What’ve you done with her?! If she’s turned invisible because you made her drink some random forest plant tea or something, I’m gonna kick your fu –”

“Katara’s fine,” Sparky interrupted in a loud, grumpy, altogether pissed-off voice.

Mudslides, forget everything that had happened previously, Hotpants had the worst timing. Toph thought she’d been about to hear the Fancy Dancer swear, for crying out loud! That shit was even rarer than Snoozles coming out with some witty smack talk!

“She’s been through a lot, and she’s tired, but she’s fine,” Sparky continued. “And funnily enough, she hasn’t turned invisible, either. She’s back on Ember Island, waiting for us to join her.”

“Oh.” Yep, that seemed to have taken the wind out of Aang’s air scooter. “Well… is she, um. Is she okay? Did she, uh – did she do anything kind of crazy?”

Toph had been pretty sure all along that Katara going crazy wasn’t going to be a possibility they needed to worry too much about. Painted Lady gimmick aside, she’d usually tended to be the most sensible person in their little group. Anyone who knew how to do darning stitches and ladder stitches was hardly going to go on some sort of cactus-juice-fueled rampage. Despite all Mistress Ouyang’s attempts at turning her into a proper high-society girl, Toph barely knew how to do blind stitches.

Sparky snorted. “Yes, she’s okay. Yes, the man’s still alive. No, you don’t have to worry about what she did.”

“But I didn’t even ask if –”

“You didn’t need to ask, Aang,” Sparky snaps. “How stupid do you think I am?”

“Pretty stupid,” Sucker replied, in what might have been the first piece of good smack talking Toph had ever heard out of him.

“Fuck off, Sokka.”

“Two words, buddy,” Snoozles drawled. “North Pole.”

Toph didn’t have any idea what the Water Tribe moron was talking about, and it didn’t seem to reassure the Fancy Dancer, oddly enough. But at least it gave Dumb and Dumber something to bicker about as they all packed their stuff up on Appa and set off for Ember Island. She wasn’t going to admit it out loud, or anything, but Toph had kind of missed their little arguments when Sparky had been gone.

 

 

Katara had been sitting alone with her thoughts for a while as she watched the sun go down, so she first saw Appa as a far-off speck in the distance. As the sky bison drew nearer, she just waited and tried to make the most of the setting sun’s warmth. The ocean waves only lapped gently at her feet as they dangled over the edge of the jetty. Zuko had reassured her that he wouldn’t be leaving her alone for long, and it seemed like he had kept his word. Now that he had returned with the others, they could all go on to the Fire Lord’s beach house together and settle in.

Katara hated being separated from the people she cared about, and this had been no exception, but Zuko had promised that he’d return with Sokka, Aang, and all the others. He’d kept his promise; he’d been telling the truth. And now, after everything… after their little field trip, Katara thought she could understand why he hadn’t told her the truth before. He hadn’t told her that he was the Fire Prince, but Aang hadn’t told her and Sokka that he was the Avatar until Gran-Gran had already figured it out, and Katara hadn’t blamed him for that. And Zuko hadn’t told her that he was the Blue Spirit, but after Jang Hui, Katara didn’t think she could really blame him for that either.

Did it really matter whether he had been Zuko or the Blue Spirit when he had saved her life? When she had been so grateful that she had gotten her mother’s necklace back? And now Zuko had given her what she needed to find her mother’s killer, too. And he hadn’t told her what to do, or how to do it. He had simply been there beside her – he’d been there for her, he’d been there with her – waiting to follow her lead.

He’d shown Katara she had a choice, that it had been her choice to make. And he’d trusted that she would make the right choice for herself.

She heard footsteps approaching from behind her, and she closed her eyes, taking a few final moments to collect herself.

“Katara?”

Aang’s voice sounded so small behind her, but Katara couldn’t say she blamed him. When she and Zuko had left, she had been so focused on the thought of finding her mother’s killer that she’d ended up being brusque and snappy with Aang. It reminded her of when Aunt Wu had shown her how to be patient and gracious, and how she’d wanted to be a more patient and gracious person.

“Are you okay?”

Katara hadn’t been the person she wanted to be when they’d left. She’d been so angry, and she’d taken it out on Aang, and it hadn’t been fair on him.

“I'm doing fine,” she reassured him.

“Zuko told me what you did.” She heard the slightest scraping sound, maybe as he scuffed his toe against the wooden planks of the jetty. “Or what you didn't do, I guess. I'm proud of you.”

“I wanted to do it,” she confessed. “I wanted to take out all my anger at him, but I couldn't. I don't know if it's because I'm too weak to do it, or because I'm strong enough not to.”

“You did the right thing,” Aang told her. Now that he could tell her what he thought, he sounded a little more confident. “Forgiveness is the first step you have to take to begin healing.”

Katara felt a small stab of disappointment at Aang’s words. Despite everything, it seemed like he still didn’t understand everything she had been going through. She couldn’t be angry at him for that, though; he’d suffered so much, and it wasn’t fair for her to try and make him grow up so quickly. It would be awful of her to want him to be able to understand the hurt and pain she felt. But there was still a part of Katara that wanted Aang to know that she couldn’t just forget how much Yon Rha had hurt her.

“But I didn't forgive him,” she told him, getting to her feet and turning around. “I'll never forgive him.”

She didn’t look to see whether Aang’s gray eyes filled with disappointment, or whether his face fell at her harsh words. She only looked to Zuko.

He hadn’t just been there for her when they had faced Yon Rha. He’d been there for her on the pirates’ ship, and in Omashu, and in the desert, and at the North Pole. Every time Katara had needed him, Zuko had been there. Even when he’d needed to save Aang from Azula in Tu Zin village, or to catch Sokka as he was about to fall out of Appa’s saddle, every time any of them had needed him, Zuko had been there. He had made mistakes, yes, but he had also made chahan and ginger tea, and terrible jokes that still made her laugh.

He was looking at her now with his soft honeyed eyes, and Katara made her choice.

“But I am ready to forgive you,” she told him. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to.

She gave Zuko a small smile as she walked towards him. She knew he wasn’t much of a hugger, but… she wasn’t going to give him a choice in the matter, this time.

For a moment, Katara could see Zuko’s eyes widen as he saw her moving towards him. She almost laughed at how alarmed he looked, like she was about to pull a frying pan out and beat him round the head with it again.

But that had been for when she hadn’t trusted him.

And she trusted him, now.

As she threw her arms around Zuko’s neck, Katara pressed her face to his shoulder and breathed him in. He was always so warm, and he smelt like jasmine tea as she closed her eyes and felt his strong arms wrap around her.

Maybe Zuko hadn’t always told the truth, but his actions had told Katara everything she needed to know. She still had so many questions, but he had been honest with her, and that was all she had wanted from him all along.

She only broke away from their embrace reluctantly, and as she looked up at Zuko’s face with a smile, the look in his eyes made Katara think he was just as unwilling to let her go. She couldn’t help but let her hand rest on his shoulder that moment longer, just to soak up as much of his warmth as she could. Maybe that warmth could give her the confidence to rectify something else she had said – something she had made someone else feel – that had been wrong of her.

And then she could leave all this behind her, and move forward.

 

 

Honestly, until Aang had raised the possibility, Sokka hadn’t realized how worried he’d been about the possibility of his little sister turning invisible, but now it seemed like he was doomed to be having nightmares about it for the next week or so. His invisible sister would be capable of bending invisible water whips, and Sokka would be helpless to defend himself against the ultimate sneak attacks.

Still, he supposed it would be better than if Toph turned invisible; spirits only knew what she’d get up to with that sort of power. Or – and this was, somehow, an even more terrifying prospect – what if Momo turned invisible?

Tui’s stars and La’s depths, Sokka didn’t even want to contemplate it. The horror.

As Katara came up to Appa, she gave the sky bison a hug and a pet, and murmured something to the big guy that made him give a rumbling reply. Sokka couldn’t figure it out, but he supposed it was probably something to do with how much flying they’d been making the poor dude do over the past few weeks. First the invasion, then heading to the Sun Ruins, then a prison break, and now whatever it was Katara and Zuko had gotten up to. Zuko had been pretty tight-lipped on the details, and Katara wasn’t saying much as she settled into Appa’s saddle either.

Sokka was glad to see that neither Suki nor Toph were falling over themselves to crowd around her and ask her tons of questions about how things had gone. His little sister had been away for three days on what was… probably a pretty stressful journey, and he didn’t think that she needed everyone excitedly asking her about what she’d been doing, or where they’d gone, or – urk.

Okay, he hadn’t been expecting the hug. Especially not one as tight as that one. Holy icicles, if she’d done that whilst she was invisible, Sokka would have assumed some crazy panda bear spirit was trying to kill him!

“Uh, K‘targh?” He gurgled, flailing about and really trying his best not to jab his elbows or his knees into his sister. “You’re – can’t – breathe –”

“Oh!” Just as suddenly as she’d started hugging him, Katara jumped back. “Slush – sorry, Sokka, I’m really sorry!”

“You’d better be,” he wheezed, clutching at his windpipe and coughing hard. “Why would you do that?”

“No, I meant –” his little sister made another motion with her hands, and Sokka let out a hoarse squawk and scrambled back to the edge of Appa’s saddle. Suki and Toph were being unusually quiet, and Sokka wondered whether they were trying to act invisible right now.

“I’m just really, really sorry, Sokka!” Katara cried out, apparently not giving a wet blanket about their unwitting audience. “I shouldn’t have said – I was so awful, and what I said – I didn’t mean it, Sokka, I swear –”

She shook her head and dived back in for another hug, and whilst Sokka got a face full of her hair this time around, it was at least better than getting a couple of cracked ribs and her shoulder driving into his throat. He was just so glad to have his sister back, all in one piece and decidedly not invisible, that he couldn’t help but hug her back.

“‘S’alright, Seal Pup,” he soothed her, giving her a pat on the shoulder and a quick ruffle to her hair. “‘S’okay. ‘M not mad. Whatever.”

Her shoulders shook dangerously close to Sokka’s gullet as she let out what Sokka really hoped was a laugh and not a sob. Watch it, little sister – he needed that gullet for eating!

“Always so manly,” she mumbled, drawing back with a shaky little laugh. “No unmanly emotions here.”

“You know it,” he adjusted his tunic where Katara’s sneaky surprise attack hug had creased it. “We’re talking the finest Water Tribe warrior Manliness over here.”

He was pretty sure that Toph – and maybe Suki too, but hopefully not – would have had a few words to say about his credentials as a Manly Water Tribe warrior, but whilst they were still doing a pretty good job of pretending they weren’t around right now, he was going to make the most of it.

“Water Tribe,” Katara nodded, blinking hard as she did so. “Where we – where family holds us all together. Through anything.”

Sokka really hoped that she wasn’t going to start crying; he didn’t believe in that whole thing about how being Manly meant you didn’t cry anymore, but he was still very much unprepared to deal with a weepy waterbender.

It was probably for the best, then, that a jerkbender and an airbender came back at that moment in time. As Aang hopped up onto Appa’s head, and Zuko hauled himself into Appa’s saddle, everyone seemed to let out a silent breath. When Appa rose up into the air, it kind of felt like they were leaving a little more than the Ember Island beach behind.

“Long time no see, Sparky,” Toph greeted Zuko casually, patting the space next to her. “You end up going to the Spirit World in the end?”

“Not this time,” Zuko answered, settling next to Toph and nudging her with his elbow. “Kicked some Fire Nation butt, though.”

“Ah,” Toph nodded. The nudge she gave Zuko seemed a bit fiercer, and he winced. “Business as usual for the Blue Spirit, then.”

“Kind of,” Zuko grimaced, rubbing his ribs and looking over to Sokka. “What’s, uh – what’s been happening with you guys?”

“Well, Suki’s been teaching Aang a couple of somersault moves,” he jerked his head over to Aang, who seemed unusually subdued as he guided Appa eastwards along the coast. “So he’s been using a few of those in his airbending, and it’s looking pretty cool. But Toph, oh my La, wait until you hear what Toph’s been getting up to –”

“Shut up, Snoozles, you suck at telling stories,” Toph interrupted, pointing her finger first at herself, and then at a point slightly to the left of Suki. “So, turns out Fan Girl’s getting pretty good with throwing knives, right? So I’ve been metalbending different shapes for her to practice with, right –”

“To traumatize me with, you mean,” Sokka corrected her, shooting Suki a look. She’d almost taken his warrior’s wolf-tail off this afternoon!

Toph snickered at the memory, which he did not appreciate. And he didn’t appreciate the way Zuko smirked, either!

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” he grumbled. “We’ll see how you like it when she’s throwing shuriken in your direction.”

But it made Suki laugh, and Aang seemed to perk up a bit at the chance to retell the story, and Sokka was pretty sure even Katara had a smile on her face, so he figured he could roll his eyes as Aang grossly misrepresented just how high-pitched a noise he had made when shuriken had suddenly started zipping past his face.

And if Zuko happened to choke on his own spit when Suki promised Sokka that she’d make it up to him later, well, that was the jerkbender’s own fault for not knocking.

Notes:

Darning, ladder and blind are all types of stitching.

Chapter 46

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Suki couldn’t pretend that staying at the Fire Lord’s beach house wasn’t a weird, weird vibe, but she’d definitely experienced worse over the past couple of months. Besides the three weeks she had spent in a Fire Nation prison cell, she and Taki had spent three nights in a barn on a farm in the southern Earth Kingdom, two nights sleeping in tree boughs, and four nights in a literal cave. After all those wonderful experiences, her Ember Island accommodation wasn’t actually all that bad by comparison, even if her room did smell a bit too much like ginseng for her liking.

There was also the added bonus that having her own room with a lock on the door meant that she and Sokka could have some time to themselves without anyone interrupting them, which was a welcome change after the way Zuko had managed to ruin their little romantic evening out on the cliffs.

Annoyingly, though, it seemed like their firebending friend was still managing to complicate things.

“What do you mean, you’re busy this evening?” She complained, getting up from the bed so she could put her hands on her hips and give Sokka a more accusing glare. “Are you seriously cancelling on me to swing swords around with Zuko?

“Suki, I swear, it’s just for one night,” Sokka’s blue eyes were annoyingly earnest and sincere. “But I’ve got to show the jerkbender who’s boss at some point, you know?”

Suki resisted the urge to scowl. She didn’t have a problem with warriors staying in fighting shape, but she was getting a little tired of Zuko getting in the way of plans involving her boyfriend.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already lost those new swords Toph made him,” she grumbled resentfully, moving across the room with slow, deliberate movements. She could feel the way Sokka’s eyes followed her, and it made her feel pretty good about her form. “Reckon you can take him?”

Sokka snorted. “Listen, if I can put Kyoshi Island’s best warrior on her butt –”

Suki spun around and fixed him with an outraged look. “I fell on purpose to make you feel better!”

She dared him to contradict her. But however dumb Sokka could be at times, he could also be pretty sensible. Instead of continuing to boast about something that never even happened, he just gave her an infuriatingly cute smile and shifted to lean on his elbow.

“I’m just saying that you’re way tougher than that loser,” he pointed out, and the way he shrugged made his bicep move in a very nice way. “And if I can even come close to taking you in a fight –”

“Which you can’t,” Suki interjected.

“– Then I can probably take Zuko, right?”

Suki grumbled a bit as she flopped back onto the bed. “You may or may not be a worthy opponent,” she conceded, blowing her hair out of her face in order to pull a face at Sokka. “At least you picked a fight with a Blue Spirit you might be able to beat.”

“Wow,” he drawled, pulling a face right back at her. “Such a vote of confidence.”

“I still don’t get why you’re so insistent that you guys need to have some big fight after dinner tonight,” she muttered, spreading her hand out over his face and drumming her fingertips on his forehead. “Too much male ego in this place.”

“It’s not about male ego,” Sokka said, although his voice came out muffled. “And if you don’t move your hand, Suki, I’m gonna lick it –”

“Oh, gross!” Suki jerked her hand back like the unagi had just come out of nowhere to try and take a bite out of it. “Don’t you dare!”

Sokka blinked hard as his eyes readjusted to the sunlight, but once he turned to face her, he was wearing an offended expression on his face.

“Seriously?” He deadpanned accusingly. “Katara told me about how you guys had to go through slurry when you took that drill down in Ba Sing Se. And she said you didn’t even blink. You’re seriously going to act like my tongue is worse than slurry?

“If you’re going to lick my hand,” Suki emphasized the words with two jabs to his shoulder, “Then yes, Sokka. Yes, I am.”

“My tongue is nowhere near as gross as slurry,” he declared stubbornly. “And neither’s the rest of my mouth, before you start – I brush my teeth twice a day.”

“Good,” Suki responded, moving her fingers along to lightly prod at his jaw. “No way am I letting you kiss me with that mouth if you didn’t.”

“Good,” Sokka repeated back to her. “Right back at you.”

It was absolutely ludicrous, Suki reflected, that she somehow found her boyfriend attractive. She was pretty sure that he sometimes talked just for the sake of noise coming out of his own mouth, but she still wanted to kiss that sweet, dumb mouth. Being a good kisser and an even better warrior, and one who wrote her love poems at that… well, that sort of thing made up for a lot of Sokka’s dumb moments. As did the way he caught her hand where she was poking at his chin and linked their fingers together.

She hummed as he kissed the back of her hand, but she refused to get distracted. “Right back at me, what?”

“You heard me,” he mumbled against her knuckles. “I’m not kissing your mouth if you don’t take good care of your dental hygiene.”

Then again, even Suki had to admit that Sokka had a lot of dumb moments.

“Excuse me?” She sniffed. “I take great care of my dental hygiene! I take great care of all my hygiene!”

Sokka snickered. “Okay, Suki, please tell me that’s not your idea of an innuendo.”

“Oh, shut up,” she scoffed, giving him an eyeroll even as she squeezed his hand. “You only learnt what that word means, like, two days ago.”

“‘Cause if that was your way of telling me that you’ve never had slurry in your –”

Annnnd we’re back to the gross,” she said to nobody in particular, settling down beside him and sticking her hand over his mouth again to cut him off. “Speaking of which, you don’t get to lecture me on hygiene until you figure out what you’re doing with your socks.”

“Oh, I gave them to Aang for firebending practice the other day,” Sokka tried to reassure her, but it came out slightly muffled. She saw his eyes flick down and go slightly cross-eyed as they flicked down to her hand as it covered his mouth.

“Don’t even think about it, ” she warned him menacingly. “If you start licking my hand, I’m going to take your space sword and ask Toph to make me some new fans out of it.”

“What about if I start licking your – mmpph!

Okay, so maybe shutting Sokka up with kisses really wasn’t the best way of getting him to think before he spoke, but Suki was running out of options here.

And he said she talked too much. Honestly.

 

 

“So when Aang came back from Pohuai Stronghold telling us about how the Blue Spirit had broken him out… that was you?”

Zuko ducked his head in embarrassment to try and avoid Katara’s questioning gaze. The summer sun seemed to bring out lighter highlights in her dark hair, but Zuko didn’t know many shades of brown. There were, like, light browns, and dark browns, and… medium browns? Whatever. Katara’s hair was a really pretty sort of brown, and her skin was a really pretty shade of brown too, and he really needed to get round to answering the question before she got suspicious and asked him what he was thinking about right now.

“Uh-huh,” he nodded, trying hard to act casual as his bare feet sank into the warm, dry sand of the beach. “Blue Spirit at Pohuai. That was me. Hello, Blue Spirit here.”

Okay, in Zuko’s defense, he’d never actually said he was any good at acting casual.

“Because he said the Blue…” Katara broke off and shook her head with a rueful smile. “He said you got him out with a pair of swords.”

“Not just a pair of swords,” Zuko corrected her. “A super cool pair of swords.”

“Oh, really, now?” Katara sounded like she was humoring him, but her smile was genuine and uncomplicated. “Super cool swords?”

“I’m just saying. Those were his exact words.”

“Sure thing, Zuko,” she rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “If you say so.”

As they walked along the beach, Zuko reveled in the simple fact that he didn’t have to hide anything from Katara when she asked him these questions. As embarrassing as it was to have to admit that his and Aang’s time in Pohuai Stronghold had ended with him crashing into a tree because Aang had airbent him forty feet into the air with absolutely no warning, it was worth it for the way Katara laughed out loud at the mental image, and the fact that he didn’t have to keep his secrets back from her anymore.

He didn’t have to hide from her now, he thought to himself. And with Katara – brave, compassionate, forgiving, beautiful Katara – maybe he’d never needed to hide in the first place.

“But you didn’t have your dao swords when you showed up in Omashu,” she continued, giving him another appraising look. “But you only lost them later, right? In the Foggy Swamp?”

Zuko laughed awkwardly. “I, uh – yeah. I didn’t bring them with me. I kind of left them behind.”

Katara shook her head, but she had a small grin on her face. “Just like Sokka left that stupid bison whistle behind.”

Zuko didn’t quite appreciate the comparison, but he had to admit Katara had a point.

“I realized you were going to meet Azula, and I don’t think I’ve ever ran so fast in my life,” he explained as he tried not to tense up with remembered reflexes. “I didn’t really have time to get the swords out.”

Katara let out a snort before clapping her hand over her mouth. “So you just grabbed a random bucket instead?”

Her eyes were alight with mirth, and Zuko had to forcibly remind himself that just because Katara didn’t outright hate him anymore, that didn’t mean he could just immediately come out and tell her that he – that he liked her, or cared for her, or… whatever.

Casual, he reminded himself. He didn’t want to make things awkward.

Instead of saying anything he wouldn’t be able to take back, he gave her a tentative smile. “I mean, you’d already called dibs on the frying pan.”

Katara’s face softened before she shook her head and smiled right back at him.

“Are you doing anything later?” She asked him as they resumed their walk along the beach. “After dinner?”

She turned away and started playing with a little stream of water she had bent out of the ocean as they’d been walking, as if it was just another throwaway question. But Zuko could see that she was streaming the water much more quickly than he could remember her doing so previously.

“Sorry, Katara,” he replied regretfully. “But I was actually going to spar with Sokka this evening.”

“Oh.” She sounded surprised as she dropped the water into the sand. “You and Sokka?”

“We both trained with Master Piandao,” Zuko explained. “I think he wants to see who’s the better student.”

“But didn’t you lose your swords?” She asked, looking a little confused. “Your super cool swords?”

Actually, the way Zuko remembered it, Suki had been the one to lose them when she’d picked up Takahashi’s bag of ginseng instead of his bag of valuable items. But he was hardly going to accuse Suki, of all people, of incompetence.

“Toph’s been bending me some new ones,” he said instead. “She’s actually really good at it, she can identify the purer metals around the house, and because she can sense the sword as she bends it – but, uh, yeah.” He coughed awkwardly. “Yeah, Sokka and I were going to spar tonight.”

“Right.” Katara nodded, before she raised her shoulders and let them fall in a very obvious shrug. Zuko could see the way her shoulders slumped a little bit lower than they’d started. “Yeah, no, that’s cool. So is that, like – is that a thing you’re going to be doing now? You and Sokka?”

“I don’t think it’s going to be a regular thing,” Zuko admitted. “But we were both free tonight, so we thought, you know, tonight would be cool. But I can ask if he’s cool with rescheduling?”

“Yeah, no, that’s – that’s cool.” She let out a little pfft and kicked up a little bit of sand. “If you’ve already made plans, that’s cool.”

Zuko wasn’t a very good liar, but even he could tell that Katara probably needed a few acting lessons before she would be able to do a good job of hiding her disappointment.

“Well, my plans can change,” he offered. “If that’s okay?”

Her expression brightened up. “Are you sure?”

If he hadn’t been before, the look on Katara’s face would have convinced him in a heartbeat.

“Sure,” he nodded. “Yeah, it’s just a spar. We can always reschedule it.”

“Won’t Sokka be mad at you for that?”

“Sokka can suck it,” Zuko answered dismissively, willingly accepting an admonishing shove for his language. “What did you want to do?”

“I was thinking we could practice our bending together?” Katara phrased it as a question, but her blue eyes were hopeful as she looked at him. “Like we used to?”

Sokka probably was going to be mad at him, Zuko reflected to himself. He’d been adamant that they should have this spar and finally settle who was the superior swordsman; and then they were possibly going to have a hand-to-hand fight after that, too. He wouldn’t be too impressed to hear that Zuko wanted to cancel on him to spend time with his little sister.

But, like he’d said, Sokka could suck it.

“I’d like that,” he told Katara, and her smile was well worth the way Sokka loudly complained for the rest of the afternoon about jerkbenders who broke their promises.

 

 

If you’d told Aang a couple of months ago that he’d be at the Fire Lord’s beach house because he was best friends with the Prince of the Fire Nation, he wouldn’t have believed you. But then again, he wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told him back then that Zuko was the banished Prince of the Fire Nation anyway, but now that Hotman had come back and they were all friends again, Aang wasn’t exactly complaining about how he was able to spend time hanging around on the beach with all his friends.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Aang wasn’t here with all his friends. A hundred years ago, he had been talking with his friend Kuzon about maybe seeing whether Monk Pasang would let him go to Ember Island for a week. Kuzon had told Aang that all the dragons loved to come to Ember Island and fly over the beaches, and that if they were in a really good mood, they might even let some of the people at the beach ride them.

There was a teeny-tiny part of Aang that kind of wanted to defeat the Fire Lord not just because it would stop the fighting and end a hundred years of war, but also because then maybe the dragons would come back to the Fire Nation, and he could maybe ride one of them. They’d probably be harder to convince than the unagi, but it would still be really cool. It would really impress Katara!

It probably wouldn’t impress Toph much though, Aang thought to himself. Nothing really seemed to impress her except really cool earthbending, sifu Iroh’s stories, and that Taki woman who’d turned up at the Western Air Temple with Hotman, Sokka, Suki, and Hakoda. Aang didn’t know many interesting stories about tea, and he wasn’t sure where Taki had gone with Hakoda, Teo, Haru and The Duke, so he was kind of left with trying to impress Toph with his earthbending skills. Today, they were practicing sandbending again.

It wasn’t as bad as Aang had thought it would be, though – today, Toph had come up with a really fun training exercise where she would send up a whole flurry of sand, and shout out a word, and Aang would have to quickly try and bend the falling sand into the characters for that word before it fell back to the beach. Most of the words were stuff like rock, or stone, or something, but every so often, she’d give him a tricky one. It got kind of confusing at times, because he’d bend what he thought the character was for one of the syllables she shouted out, only to find out that it was a different character that sounded the same when you said it out loud.

It was actually kind of a pain, because Aang had thought he was doing pretty well with what he was supposed to be doing, only to end up realizing that he’d gotten the wrong idea completely. But they were always able to laugh about it, and Aang felt like Toph was laughing with him rather than at him.

Whunff!

“Pig-chicken!” Toph shouted. That one was easy – Aang could probably sandbend a pig-chicken in his sleep!

To be fair, if he closed his eyes, he’d probably get less sand in them. He had to take a moment or two to try and airbend all the grit out of his eyes.

“Not bad, Twinkles,” Toph praised him with a smirk. “Okay, so now let’s try…”

Whunff!

“Hey!”

“Uh, what?” Aang blinked, but this time it wasn’t because he had sand in his eye; it was because he was confused. “What is it, Toph?”

The way Toph laughed as she flicked sand over his toes made him feel like he was missing something here.

“No, dummy,” she explained. “Hay, like what Appa eats. That was the word I wanted you to bend.”

“Oh, okay,” Aang nodded, and then tapped the ground with his foot to show that he understood. “So should I sandbend ‘hay’, or are we trying something different?”

Toph snorted. “Nice try, Twinkles, but you had your chance on that one. We’ll do something different this time.”

Aang thought hay would have been quite a good word, but he supposed it would have been kind of easy if Toph had given him hay once he’d already been expecting it. Like, if he’d just been waiting for what he knew was going to happen, where was the fun in that?

At least if she picked a different word, or even a phrase like fruit pie or something, it would be a nice surprise for Aang to have to react to. And he had to react pretty quickly this time, because Toph bent the sand up in the air without giving him any warning this time around. Luckily, though, Aang knew the characters for poetry pretty well by now after all that time he’d spent practicing haikus in Miss Kwan’s literature lessons, so he thought he’d done a decent job of that one.

“That’s pretty good,” Toph allowed, “But you need to be quicker when you’re bending to your left. You’re right-handed, and you’re letting it lead too much.”

Oh, shoot, Toph was right. Aang had been standing with his left foot standing in front of his right foot, like he was preparing to airbend or something. Instead of nodding, he tapped his foot a few more times like a rabaroo. “Okay, sifu Toph.”

“Set yourself head-on,” Toph instructed him, and Aang almost overbalanced as she bent the sand under his feet so he was suddenly standing with his feet a shoulders-width apart. “You have to stand firm.”

Right, Aang remembered. If he wanted to be the world’s second-greatest earthbender, he would need to be stubborn and hardheaded. Or persistent and enduring, which were the words sifu Iroh had used instead.

“Better,” Toph nodded with satisfaction once he’d reset himself. “You ready for your next word?”

Aang tapped his foot on the ground again. “Ready, sifu!

“Alright –” whunff – “Let’s see here…”

As Toph sent another cloud of sand up into the air again, Aang readied himself for whatever weird random word she was going to pick –

Fuck!

Um…

Well, Aang had to get really creative to sandbend the characters for monkeyfeathers before all the sand came back down to the beach, that was for sure!

Notes:

Modern Chinese has many homophones; thus the same spoken syllable may be represented by one of many characters, depending on meaning.

Chapter 47

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The look Zuko gave Sokka and Suki as they interrupted firebending practice almost gave Sokka pause for thought, but after the way the jerkbender had totally thrown him under the mail cart yesterday by cancelling their sparring session to hang out with Sokka’s little sister, he figured turnabout was fair play.

“You guys aren’t going to believe this!” He declared, waving the rolled-up piece of paper around above his head. “There's a play about us!”

“We were just in town, and we found this poster!” Suki explained, as the others gathered around them.

Sokka showed them the poster in all its badly-drawn glory. He wasn’t quite sure how many students Master Piandao had actually had besides him and Zuko, but he was pretty sure that he hadn’t trained whoever had drawn this picture of an Aang with massive ears, a Katara with way too much make-up, and a Sokka who looked really Manly, with a strong jaw, and a square chin, and a huge Water Tribe club, and actually, come to think of it, whoever had drawn this was a pretty good artist, you know?

“What?” Katara frowned. “How is that possible?”

“Listen to this,” Sokka gloated. “‘The Boy in the Iceberg is a new production from acclaimed playwright Pu-on Tim, who scoured the globe gathering information on the Avatar, from the icy South Pole to the heart of Ba Sing Se. His sources include singing nomads, pirates, prisoners of war, and a surprisingly knowledgeable merchant of cabbage’.”

“‘Brought to you by the critically acclaimed Ember Island Players’,” Suki added.

“Ugh!” Zuko shuddered. “My mother used to take us to see them. They butchered Love Amongst the Dragons every year.”

Sokka scoffed. “What, was their Dark Water Spirit a grumpy dickhead, or something?”

“Sokka, so help me, I will set your ponytail on fire –”

Sokka took great offense at his Manly hairstyle being referred to as a ponytail. “This is a warrior’s wolf tail!”

“Well, it certainly tells the other warriors that you're fun and perky,” Zuko muttered, making Katara, Aang and Toph all crack up with laughter. And if that wasn’t bad enough, even Suki laughed!

Sorry, she mouthed when she met Sokka’s betrayed gaze, but it was too late; the damage was already done. He’d been just about to challenge the jerkbender to a swordfight to avenge this insult to his honor before Katara interrupted.

“Sokka, do you really think it's a good idea for us to attend a play about ourselves?”

With an effort, Sokka took several calming breaths before he let out his best carelessly-unbothered-yet-reassuringly-competent-and-Manly pfft noise. He could trounce Zuko in a swordfight some other time.

“Come on,” he appealed. “A day at the theater? This is the kind of wacky, time-wasting nonsense I've been missing!”

Missing?” Zuko repeated dubiously. “Weren’t you the idiot who picked the Si Wong Desert for our mini-vacation?”

“Yeah,” Toph agreed with a snicker. “Does drinking cactus juice count as wacky, time-wasting nonsense?”

Sokka laughed nervously and avoided looking at anyone who had been in the Si Wong Desert with him whilst he’d been… not entirely himself. Even that little jerk Momo had an accusing look on his face.

“Well, we won’t be doing anything like that this time around,” Suki said, giving him an encouraging smile. Or maybe a warning smile. Either way, Suki had the prettiest smile around, Sokka knew that for sure.

“Right,” he nodded and took the hint. “We’re just going to go in, catch this play, and get out. Nice and easy.”

“That’s what you said in Omashu,” Zuko half-shouted. “And look how that turned out!”

Ah. Well, Omashu hadn’t been Sokka’s fault, technically. That had been Azula’s fault. And it hadn’t been Sokka who’d lost the bison whistle; it had been that Fire Nation baby’s fault – uh, but Sokka couldn’t really blame a baby, so… Bumi?

Yeah, he decided. Bumi. It was all Bumi’s fault.

Everything was Bumi’s fault.

“Actually, that thing about Omashu reminds me,” Katara said thoughtfully. “How are we supposed to hide Aang’s tattoos?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that!” Aang made two thumbs-ups and grinned. “I found this super cool yellow hat in the attic, so I can just wear that when we go out, right?”

“A yellow hat?” Toph asked dubiously. “What about a yellow hat is ‘super cool’?”

“I don’t know, Toph,” Suki disagreed. “Yellow’s pretty cool. Did you know that it’s actually the color of happiness, wisdom, and glory?”

“Actually, Aunt Fanny, I did,” Toph replied. “Speaking of things that we should already be aware of, did you know that I’m blind? I’m telling you, knowledge, it’s an incredible thing to have –”

“So are manners, Toph,” Zuko muttered, before he neatly dodged the punch Toph sent at his stomach. The pebble she bent at his shoulder hit, though. “Ow – Agni’s sake, you little brat –”

“Call me xiǎo guǐ again, Hotpants, and this little brat’s gonna give you a big bruise –”

“– Literally no need for that,” Zuko complained, reaching out to muss Toph’s hair. She responded by turning the stone under his feet to sand, making him fall in up to his calves. “Or that, you little kusogaki –”

Before the two of them could get into a full-on brawl, Sokka turned back to Aang to try and keep the conversation moving. “Is this, like, one of those flat caps you were talking about getting? Back in that school?”

Aang shook his head. “No, this one’s kind of more pointy. Like that Fire Sage guy’s hat – what was his name, again?”

“Shyu,” Zuko supplied from where Toph was holding him in a loose headlock. He wasn’t making any effort to break free, though, so Sokka figured they weren’t trying too hard to kill each other. “Uncle told me he got out safely from the Fire Temple when Avatar Roku brought it down.”

“Glad someone knows what happened that time with this Fire Sage that I wasn’t around for,” Toph said sarcastically. “I was getting pretty nervous for a minute there.”

“You want to wear a big yellow hat as your disguise?” Katara looked a bit worried as she thought it over. “We’re trying not to draw attention to ourselves, Aang – are you sure that’s the disguise you want?”

Sokka had to admit that his little sister had a point; they had been introduced to the Avatar, as this Pu-on Tim dude was apparently aware of, when an iceberg had been cracked open and a blinding white light had shot, like, a million feet into the air. Aang was a lot of things, but subtle, he was not.

“Please, Katara?” Aang begged. “I really want to try and pretend to be Bonzu Pippinpaddleopsicopolis, the world-renowned theater critic!”

Sokka sighed. Aang’s insistence on projecting himself onto this Bonzu Pippinpaddleopsicopolis alter-ego was really starting to worry him. Maybe it was time Wang Fire had a talk with the kid, just to set him straight.

 

 

The beach house was so big that Katara was still going through the rooms and finding new things to investigate even after they’d spent a week here already. She had been hoping to explore the reading room today, but when she got there, she found that someone else might have had a similar idea.

Suki waved from where she was curled up in a cozy-looking armchair. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Katara greeted her. “What’re you reading?”

Suki nodded and raised one shoulder in a casual half-shrug. “I figured that if we’re going to the theater, we should go with at least some idea of what Fire Nation plays are usually like. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail, and all that.”

Katara had to squint to read the characters on the front of the scroll Suki handed her.

Love Amongst the Dragons?” She asked curiously before handing the scroll back. “Isn’t that the play Zuko said the Ember Island Players always ruined?”

“From what Taki told me, they’re not the only ones,” Suki snickered, stretching her legs out as they hung over the arm of the chair. “We were talking about Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation literature this one time, and she told me how she caught Zuko practicing one of the scenes when he was younger. He was doing voices and everything.”

“No way.”

Way,” Suki nodded emphatically. “He freaked out and fell on his ass when he realized she was there.”

Katara laughed along with Suki as she imagined the look on Zuko’s face as he got caught. In her mind’s eye, it looked a lot like the look on Sokka’s face when Gran-Gran caught him with his hand in the kale cookies jar. “Do you remember Uncle Iroh’s poetry night at Pao’s tea house?”

“It wasn’t Master Iroh’s night, Katara,” Suki disagreed. “It was your birthday party – yours and Sokka’s.”

Katara knew that, but she still felt a bit embarrassed whenever she felt like all the attention was on her; she’d only really agreed to Iroh’s idea because he’d promised her it would be Sokka’s party as well.

“Well, yeah,” she reluctantly allowed. “But still – Love Amongst the Dragons. I think Zuko said something about it back then, too. And something about the… um, the Hyakunin Isshu?

“Oh, there’s a copy of the Ogura Hyakunin over on the bookshelf,” Suki inclined her head so that Katara had a sense of where to look. She had only been thinking about maybe seeing what was in the reading room – she hadn’t actually been thinking about reading any of the books or scrolls here, but now that her curiosity was piqued, she figured now was as good a time as any to indulge in a little curiosity.

She retrieved a handbound book from the shelf and perched on the windowsill, and she began to read as Suki turned her attention back to her own scroll. They sat there in a comfortable silence for a while as they both read, each alone with their own thoughts. That was probably a good thing for Katara, because as she read on through the poems, she found herself with a lot of thoughts to occupy her mind.

Though in deep distress

Through your cruel blow, my life

Still is left to me.

But I cannot keep my tears;

They break forth from my grief.

Katara had to admit, that poem hit a little close to home. After what Zuko had done in Ba Sing Se – after what she’d thought he had done – she had really, truly hated him. He had struck such a cruel blow, and the pain and grief she had felt had only been heightened by how she had thought he had betrayed them, and she had felt deceived and tricked by how Zuko had kept so many secrets from her.

But then he had come back, and he’d saved Sokka and Aang from Combustion Man, and after he’d taken Aang to learn firebending, he’d gone off with Sokka to break her Dad out of prison. He’d taken her to find the man who had killed her mother, and she’d finally been able to let go of all the rage and pain she’d been holding onto for so long. He’d been honest with her about why he hadn’t told her who he really was, and she’d been able to forgive him, because although he’d made mistakes, he’d only been trying to do the right thing.

Like Michinoku prints

Of the tangled leaves of ferns,

It is because of you

That I have become confused;

But my love for you remains.

Katara sighed. That was a good way of putting it; she was confused. She’d thought in Ba Sing Se that maybe… maybe Aang hadn’t been the powerful bender that Aunt Wu had told her about after all. Maybe she had been talking about Zuko, who was tall and handsome and who liked stupid puns and drank ginger tea.

But then Zuko had left them, and Aang’s hair had grown out and he’d looked so much more mature. He was sweet, and kind, and fun, and he was always so good. He was the most hopeful, forgiving, generous person Katara knew, and he was the Avatar. He was a powerful bender, and they’d already kissed in the Cave of Two Lovers, so… maybe Aang was the person she was destined to be with?

But Zuko had helped her see that destiny was more a choice you made than something that just happened to you. She’d been wary of him, and she didn’t want to be hurt again, but now that she knew he hadn’t been lying to her… it was because of him that she had become confused.

But Katara knew this sort of thinking was dangerous; it had been all this silly fretting over love and romance and destiny that had made her get careless and sloppy in Ba Sing Se. When Azula and the Dai Li had struck, she hadn’t been prepared for them. Like Suki was saying, she had failed to prepare, and so she had failed to protect the people she cared about.

They were in the middle of a war, and they had other things to worry about. Maybe after the war, when things were different – maybe then she could think about these things. But right now, she needed to concentrate on the here and now. She needed to be prepared for what might be awaiting them at the Ember Island Theater.

“Can I read that scroll after you?” She asked Suki, who simply nodded and tossed it over to her without any further ado. “Thanks.”

As Katara began to read through Love Amongst the Dragons, she had been hoping that maybe this way of preparing for the night ahead would help focus her mind. But when she reached the scene where the Dark Water Spirit had their first lines, the description of the character’s appearance just left her even more confused.

Tui and La, she thought to herself in disbelief – this was what King Bumi had been trying to tell them?

 

 

Since Sparky had been antsy about going to a Fire Nation play in the first place, he’d insisted on getting seats right up in the nosebleed section at the back of the theater so they wouldn’t draw attention to themselves. Great thinking there, Hotpants – now Toph’s feet couldn’t see anything.

And from the way the others seemed to be reacting to the way they were being played by their actors, she was missing out big time.

“Didn’t that poster say that Pu-on Tim went to the icy South Pole to research this play?” Sugar Queen asked as her on-stage self started wailing about hope. “Wouldn’t he know that I’d never dress like that back home?”

“To be fair, that poster also said his sources included some guy selling cabbages,” Sparky pointed out. “So I wouldn’t expect this to be an entirely accurate performance.”

“That probably explains why he’s got me talking about food all the time,” Snoozles muttered, sounding just as annoyed as his sister. “This is pathetic – my jokes are way funnier than this!”

“I think he's got you pegged!” Toph cackled. She was laughing so hard, she had to lean on Sugar Queen so she didn’t fall off the bench they were sitting on – and that was before the Fancy Dancer arrived on the stage. From the sounds of things, the writer seemed to think that Twinkle Toes was some naïve, hyperactive, overly-excitable, childlike moron.

Funny? Definitely. Accurate? Definitely not. But who cared about accurate characterization when you could ham it up for laughs, right?

“I don't do that!” Twinkles complained aggravatedly as his actor sent Snoozles off in search of an imaginary platter of dumplings. “That's not what I'm like! And I'm not a woman!”

Wait a minute. The Fancy Dancer was some sissy girl?

This just kept getting better. “Oh, they nailed you, Twinkle Toes!”

Man, Toph wished her feet could get a good look at the Aang on the stage right now – and Gramps, too! The way this play was making him out to be some sort of permanently distracted, gluttonous, lazy old dude who just cared about stuffing his face all the time was killing her, honest to bedrock. If this was what Sparky had had to put up with for two years, Toph could appreciate why the great minds of Fire Nation literature seemed to think Prince Hotpants was an angry dickhead.

Maybe it wasn’t an entirely accurate performance, but if it meant hearing Sparky’s actor make long, dramatic speeches about honor!!! all the time, she figured it was well worth a little dramatic license. Toph wasn’t sure when Sparky had gotten his head out of his ass and joined the good guys, but if this was what he’d been like beforehand, she kind of maybe would have wanted him to hold off his heel-face turn a bit longer. At least until she’d had the chance to laugh at him and kick his butt for a bit.

“This is ridiculous,” Hotpants grumbled as his counterpart went on another rant about honorrrrrrr. “They’re treating me like some kind of joke!”

“Well,” Sugar Queen responded with a light laugh, “I guess they needed some way to make you funny.”

Toph would have flicked Splish-Splash in the ear for being gross again, but she was kind of interested to see how Sparky was going to respond.

“How could you say that?”

Aw. Boring. Actor-Sparky was way better.

“Let's forget about the Avatar and get massages!” Actor-Gramps said cheerily from down below.

“How could you say that?” Actor-Pants retorted.

Huh. Maybe the dramatic license wasn’t quite so out there after all. Xin Fu had always said that the best gimmicks were the ones just crazy enough to be unbelievable, but just realistic enough to be plausible. Like Fan Girl making Snoozles turn up to fight in a dress; that definitely counted.

This was the weirdest performance Toph had ever sat through, and that included Pao’s kid’s poetry night rendition of Your eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad swan.

“Sokka,” Sugar Queen scolded in a hushed tone, as some weird rhyming guy started babbling on about riddles and challenges. “What’re you doing?”

“Come on, Katara,” Snoozles whined, “One program, okay? Just let me throw one program at that kooky old bastard, you know Zuko’s gonna do it if I don’t –”

“Sokka, it’s an actor, you don’t get to boo them!”

Toph was a little curious as to what the point was if you couldn’t boo the performers – like, that was at least sixty percent of why Fire Nation Man and Headhunter had wanted to play heels in the first place. But her curiosity was momentarily diverted when some high-pitched, squeaky voice came across up to them.

“Hi there, Avatar Aang!”

Jeez, whoever was playing this loser sounded like they were barely out of short trousers. Whoever they were, they were going to get on great with Actor-Twinkle Toes

“My name’s Lee!” Squeaky McSqueaky continued. “I’m an amateur botanist, and I’m here to – hey! Who’re you? What’re you guys do-eeyyyaaaarrrrgghhhh!!!

Toph was a little confused as to what had just happened. Why was Fan Girl laughing? Why was Sugar Queen laughing? And why was Twinkles laughing – well, to be fair, Twinkles was always laughing, that wasn’t anything new.

“What just happened?” She asked bemusedly. She hated not being able to see through all this stupid wood!

“I think Lee the flower guy just got kidnapped,” Snoozles answered with mirth in his voice. “Oh, man – Pu-On Tim, you’re a genius –”

“Fuck this,” Sparky was swearing, “Fuck this, this is total crococat shit –”

Okay, Toph was totally lost right now. Hadn’t Sparky said he’d been kidnapped that one time? But that must have been later than, like, the moment he met these guys – Snoozles had said they’d needed to split up when Sparky had been kidnapped, how was that supposed to work if they’d only just met?

“Is this even close to what happened to you guys before I showed up?” She asked. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer.

“Right?” Aunt Fanny agreed. “Like – did Zuko seriously get kidnapped three seconds after he showed up?”

“Well, obviously it’s not real!” Sparky hissed. “The last time I checked, I wasn’t sailing round the South Sea trying to capture Aang!”

“And the last time I checked, I’m not a girl!” Twinkles agreed annoyedly. “And I’m pretty sure when Katara got captured by those pirates, she didn’t end up getting…”

As the Fancy Dancer’s words trailed off, Sparky made a strangled noise, and Sugar Queen let out a high-pitched meep sound that Toph would honestly have associated more with a sparrowkeet than a human being.

“Hey, Zuko?” Snoozles’ voice sounded pretty weird. “Why the slush are you tying my little sister to a tree?”

For a brief moment, Toph seriously contemplated whether this was what going mad felt like.

“I,” Sparky began, before he stopped. Toph could almost sense the way his shoulders must have slumped as he sighed. “I’ve got absolutely no idea.”

Notes:

In China, the color yellow is associated with happiness, glory, and wisdom. The English phrase ‘little brat’ can be translated into Chinese as xiǎo guǐ and into Japanese as kusogaki.

The first poem Katara quotes was written by the Monk Dōin; the second by Minamoto no Tōru, They're both taken from the Hyakunin Isshū.

Chapter 48

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Suki had thought that the worst thing they might encounter at Ember Island Theater was something like the audience participation at that Fire Festival she and Taki had come across, so she had told the others before they arrived that they all needed to keep their heads down and avoid eye contact with anyone on the stage. But now she just found herself avoiding eye contact with Sokka so she wouldn’t burst out laughing at what was happening on the stage. The actress playing Aang was standing on a platform guarded by six Fire Nation ‘soldiers’, but the seriousness of her plight was undercut somewhat by the way she was giggling and whistling as the actor playing Zuko prowled around.

“The Avatar is mine!” Actor Zuko gloated, before cocking his head. “Wait, who's coming?”

The Zuko and Aang in their booth let out matching quizzical noises as a figure in dark clothing and a huge blue mask appeared on the stage, waving two swords about. Suki noted with displeasure that they were Fire Nation katana, not Zuko’s Earth Kingdom dao. It might not have made much of a difference, but a warrior tended to pick up on these things.

“I'm the Blue Spirit!” The actor warbled in a muffled voice. “The scourge of the Fire Nation, here to save the Avatar!”

As the Blue Spirit danced around on the stage and liberated the actress playing Aang from Zuko’s evil clutches, Suki smirked and leaned forward to prod Zuko in the shoulder.

“Maybe it’s not an entirely accurate performance,” she whispered lowly as the Blue Spirit gave Prince Zuko what looked like an extremely painful wedgie. “I remember kicking your butt on Kyoshi Island, not in Pohuai Stronghold.”

Zuko blew smoke out of his nostrils with an aggravated sigh, but he didn’t respond – Suki had beaten him pretty convincingly when he’d showed up, and they both knew it.

“Yeah, buddy,” Sokka joined in with the teasing as Katara held a hand over her mouth to suppress her giggles. “How does it feel, watching the Blue Spirit kick your butt?”

“Feels weird,” Zuko replied, looking at the way the Aang actress was perched on top of the Blue Spirit’s oversized mask and giggling coquettishly. “But at least my outfit doesn’t make my butt look fat.”

Sokka turned to Suki appealingly, but she just shrugged. It wasn’t her fault the Kyoshi Warriors’ uniform had a lot of protective padding.

Suki would have thought that the Blue Spirit might have shown up in the next scene as well, but the way that Jet guy was being portrayed as some deadly-yet-charming rogue definitely made him a pretty convincing villain all the same. Suki remembered the way Katara had reacted so strongly to seeing him in Ba Sing Se – so that had been her deal with him after all!

Sokka wasn’t the only one with good instincts and a sixth sense for this type of thing, Suki thought to herself smugly as the action moved on and the scenery changed to something that might have vaguely resembled the North Pole if you were extremely generous and as blind as a wolfbat.

“You never told me you made out with the Moon Spirit,” she teased, nudging him in the side – only to suddenly find a finger roughly pushed over her mouth.

“Shh!” Wait, was Sokka crying? “I’m trying to watch!”

Hmph. Whatever.

After all that, Suki was of a mind that watching ‘Aang’ kick a whole bunch of miniature Fire Nation ships around whilst giggling to herself in an oversized fish outfit was probably the only way the first act could have ended. As the six of them filed out to sit around on a flight of stairs, she wondered whether the play’s depiction of the invasion of the North Pole had been as inaccurate as everything else, or whether there had been even the slightest grain of truth to it.

Zuko broke the silence by heaving a deep sigh. His features were hidden by his hood, but the unimpressed tone helped Suki picture the scowl on his face. “So far, this int–”

Honorrrrrr!

“Shut up, Toph!” Zuko hissed, before clearing his throat. “So far, this intermission is the best part of the play.”

“Apparently, the playwright thinks I'm an idiot who tells bad jokes about meat all the time,” Sokka complained as he sat down next to her with a big bag of fireflakes in his hand.

Spending time with Taki in the Earth Kingdom had helped Suki acquired quite a taste for fireflakes, and after the way Sokka had totally blanked her to keep watching that stupid scene, she couldn’t help but feel a little petty as she grabbed a handful out of the bag.

“Yeah, you tell bad jokes about plenty of other topics,” she snarked as she ate.

“I know!” Sokka nodded emphatically, missing her point by quite a wide margin. His garbled attempts at conversing meant he ended up spraying fireflakes everywhere, and Suki took another moment to question just why she was in love with an idiot.

“At least the Sokka actor kind of looks like you,” Aang grumbled. Sokka looked incensed at that comment, but Aang didn’t seem to notice as he kept talking. “That woman playing the Avatar doesn't resemble me at all!

“I don't know,” Toph said thoughtfully, “You are more in touch with your feminine side than most guys.”

Aang let out a grunt of frustration and muttered something that Suki thought might have begun with Pu-On Tim and might have ended with suck it.

“Relax, Aang,” Katara reassured him. “They're not accurate portrayals! It's not like I'm a preachy crybaby who can't resist giving overemotional speeches about hope all the time!”

“Listen, friends,” Toph spoke with a voice of authority, “It's obvious that the playwright did his research. I know it must hurt, but what you're seeing up there on that stage is the truth.”

“How would you know?” Zuko asked disbelievingly. “You weren’t eve–”

Honorrr!

Suki tried hard not to laugh at the way Zuko’s face was steadily turning purple. Katara patted him sympathetically on the shoulder, but Suki could see that she was trying not to smile; meanwhile, Sokka and Aang were outright giggling.

“Shut up, Toph,” Zuko repeated himself resentfully once Katara had withdrawn her hand. “You weren’t even there for that stuff!”

“Neither were you, Lee,” the world’s greatest earthbender retorted. “You weren’t there either, you just got kidnapped and missed everything, like a moron –”

“Agni, you’re such a little shit –”

“Seriously, why did the writer even bother including you?” Toph spread her arms. “You didn’t even do anything!”

“Come on, you two,” Katara intervened, preventing Toph from drawing Zuko into another scuffle. “Can’t we all get oolong?”

“That’s still my joke!” Sokka complained aggrievedly. “No wonder Pu-On Tim thinks my jokes are all about meat, when you keep stealing all the other ones!”

As Sokka and Katara started squabbling, Suki was almost glad when the lamps dimmed to indicate that it was time for the second act of the play to start.

“Well, I don’t know about you guys,” Toph said as Aang helped steer her through the aisle to her seat, “But I can’t wait to hear what happens next.”

 

 

As the second act of the play began, Aang thought he was getting a pretty good look at what Zuko had meant when he’d said the Ember Island Players had always butchered Love Amongst the Dragons. Only now they were completely butchering Aang’s life story!

If Aang ended up getting remembered as Avatar Aang, the Girly Avatar, he was going to be mad.

Probably the only good thing about how this whole stupid second act was completely inaccurate was when they showed the time he and Princess Azula had been fighting on top of that drill in Ba Sing Se. Aang was pretty glad that the Ember Island players hadn’t shown the way he’d almost fallen into poop liquid, but he felt kind of bad about it when they watched a rock almost fall on Jet’s character. The actor had to awkwardly shuffle underneath it and pretend to get crushed whilst gibbering away to himself the whole time.

Aang thought sadly that Jet didn’t deserve to be made fun of by some Fire Nation play that was making him out to just be some crazy maniac. Okay, so Jet had been a really complicated guy, but he’d been on their side and he’d tried to do the right thing, and that was what really mattered in the end.

“Did Jet just die?” Zuko asked in an undertone. Oh, right – Aang remembered that he hadn’t been there underneath Lake Laogai when they’d gotten Appa back.

“You know,” Sokka said thoughtfully. “It was really unclear.”

Aang was a bit confused by what Sokka meant by that, but before he’d been able to ask Sokka what he thought, he was a bit distracted by the way Zuko kind of shuffled across and bumped into him. It was a bit annoying, but before he could ask Zuko what he was doing, he got a bit distracted by what was happening up on the stage. Katara and Zuko were in some green place, and they were telling each other how much they liked each other!

 “I've had eyes for you since the day you first captured me!” Katara declared as she sat down next to Zuko on the stage.

“Wait,” Zuko shouted dramatically, standing up and tossing his hair back. “I thought you were the Avatar's girl!”

“The Avatar?” Katara laughed. “Why, he's like a little brother to me! I certainly don't think of him in a romantic way!”

What the fluff? Katara liked Zuko?

Since when?!

Wait a minute – was this why Zuko had wanted to sit in the seat next to Katara tonight? Because he had some stupid crush on her?

Well, in that case, Zuko could suck it! Aang loved Katara way more than he did!

Aang was feeling so mad, he had to leave the play before he did something like – like… well, Sokka had said something about fireflakes or fire gummies or something when Aang had left, so Aang might have ended up throwing fireflakes at Zuko and Katara whilst they were hugging up there on the stage. He had to go and stand outside on a balcony and try and do some deep breathing exercises. He’d been about to start doing hot squats when Katara walked up to him at the interval, so he was kind of glad for her timing. Hot squats really took it out of him.

“Are you all right?” Katara asked gently, coming to stand by him.

Was Aang all right? After he’d just found out Katara saw him like her little brother? Like he was just some sweet little guy like Momo?

“No, I'm not!” He declared, angrily throwing his stupid yellow hat down on the floor. “I hate this play!”

Katara made a sympathetic face. “I know it's upsetting, but it sounds like you're overreacting.”

Ordinarily, Aang would be kind of distracted by the way Katara looked really pretty right now, but this was kind of a bad time. “Overreacting? If I hadn't blocked my chakra, I'd probably be in the Avatar State right now!”

“Aang, you do know it’s totally made-up, right?” Katara asked slowly, before giving a little laugh. “I mean, it thinks Zuko’s been trying to capture you for the past six months!”

That wasn’t all the play thought Zuko was trying to do, Aang thought annoyedly. He was trying to steal the Avatar’s girl!

No way was Aang letting that happen! He loved Katara way more than Zuko did!

“Katara, did you really mean what you said in there?” He asked.

“In where?” Katara blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“On stage,” he explained. “When you said I was just like a brother to you, and you didn't have feelings for me!”

“I didn't say that,” Katara pointed out. “An actor said that.”

“But it's true, isn't it?” Aang felt himself growing stressed again, but he didn’t have any koala sheep for him to yell into this time around. “We kissed at the invasion, and I thought we were going to be together, but we're not!”

“Aang,” Katara began, before she paused and let out a sigh. “I don't know.”

“Why don't you know?”

“Because we're in the middle of a war,” Katara pointed out, as if Aang didn’t know that already. “And we have other things to worry about. This isn't the right time.”

“Well, when is the right time?” Aang asked. He was getting a bit annoyed with the way Katara kept running away from him and avoiding this conversation.

“Aang, I'm sorry,” Katara shook her head, “But, right now… I'm just a little confused.”

Katara was confused? What kind of weird answer was that? Aang wasn’t confused! He knew exactly how he felt about Katara – he loved her! And he wanted to be her boyfriend, and he wanted her to be his girlfriend, and what was so confusing about that?

But when he kissed Katara to show her how he felt, it didn’t seem to go quite as he’d hoped it would go. Katara just ended up getting really mad at him.

“I just said I was confused!” She shouted at him. “I'm going inside!”

As Aang watched her run away, he wondered what on earth he’d done wrong. The last time they kissed, she hadn’t reacted like that at all! And whenever he and Sokka had talked about Katara, Sokka had always told him that Katara liked him back!

But Sokka had also told Aang a whole bunch of times that Aang shouldn’t treat Katara like an airbender when she wasn’t an airbender. And if Sokka had thought that Aang shouldn’t treat Katara like an airbender when she wasn’t an airbender, Aang was pretty sure that Sokka wouldn’t want him to treat Katara like his girlfriend when she wasn’t his girlfriend.

The way Katara had ran off, Aang didn’t think she’d been very happy with the way he’d tried to kiss her when she wasn’t his girlfriend.

“Ugh,” he berated himself, “I'm such an idiot!”

Ow, monkeyfeathers!

Banging his head down on the balcony railing like that had been an even worse idea than kissing Katara!

 

 

Fact, Zuko thought to himself, was sometimes stranger than fiction.

And that wasn’t to say that the fiction here wasn’t utterly crazy – did the Fire Nation really think he’d just sailed around for three years and struck dramatic poses whilst Uncle ate cake? – but instead, what he was actually trying to say was that watching ‘Aang’ dance around a cave whilst playing the tsungi horn… well, that was somehow even crazier than the idea that he’d been trying to capture Aang this whole time.

Toph was finding it hilarious, of course, but then again she’d figured out who he was within five minutes of meeting him, so Zuko supposed she kind of deserved an opportunity to mock him. But the way she’d spent the entire fifteen-minute second interval interrupting him every time he tried to speak had been a bit much.

If Sokka hadn’t been on hand to reassure him that yes, these things had actually happened, Zuko would have refused to believe that Katara would have… well, actually, yes, he would one hundred percent have been ready to believe that Katara would wage a one-woman war on the Fire Nation’s military whilst dressing up as the Painted Lady. A week after he’d met her, she’d been instigating a prison break; he wasn’t the least bit surprised that she had progressed to greater things in his absence. All the scams and hustles Toph had gotten up to when he hadn’t been around hadn’t surprised him either, but Zuko honestly wasn’t sure what was worse; Sokka’s puns, or his actor’s dramatic monologues.

At least the Ember Island Players had gotten one casting choice right, he reflected to himself. They’d picked a moron to play a moron.

“Hey Toph,” Sokka’s actor began with a goofy smile, “Would you say you and Aang have a rocky relationship?”

Zuko could hear Sokka laughing hysterically behind him. “I told him to say that!”

As the invasion played itself out on stage, and Zuko saw his stage-self just casually announce that he was on the Avatar’s side, and be accepted just as casually, he couldn’t help but compare it to the less-than-friendly welcome he’d received after leaving Omashu.

“See that?” He murmured to Katara as the little group marched off. “Not a frying pan in sight.”

The smile she gave him was a little strained at the edges, and she hurriedly turned back to face the front before he could ask her if she was okay. Zuko thought it might have been for the best; he didn’t think Katara was too happy about seeing… whatever that had been at the end of Act Two.

Remembering how the Players had screwed up what had happened in the Crystal Catacombs was enough to bring a rush of heat to Zuko’s face. More than likely, it was probably just another piece of propaganda: another way to show how the traitorous Prince Zuko had never been good enough, never been a real Fire Nationer who only spoke of love subtly and obliquely. If he was dumb enough to fall for some Water Tribe peasant and then go around announcing it to the whole world like an idiot, the Fire Nation was probably better off without him.

But right now, Zuko didn’t really care what the Fire Nation thought of him – he was more worried about what his friends thought about him. He’d told Sokka that he’d thought about telling Katara how he felt back in Ba Sing Se, but once Azula had arrived and ruined any chance he might have had of letting Katara know that his feelings for her ran a little deeper than mere respectful friendship, he’d been trying to rein himself back in, no matter how unsuccessfully.

But if seemingly the whole Agni-damned Fire Nation knew how he felt about Katara, that was probably the end of any chance Zuko had of keeping that quiet.

It is true I love,

But the rumor of my love

Had gone far and wide,

When people should not have known

That I had begun to love.

“I guess that's it,” Sokka let out a grunt as he began to stand up. “The play's caught up to the present now.”

“Wait,” Suki objected, “The play's not over!”

As Sokka sat down behind him with a heavy huffing sound, Zuko tried not to let his sigh of relief come out too loudly. He was pretty sure he could still feel the glares the other boy had been sending his way at periodic intervals during this stupid play.

First that whole… whatever that thing with the pirates had been, where his actor had tied Katara to a tree, and then the utter fiasco at the end of Act Two. The end of this play probably marked the beginning of the end of Zuko’s life, and he was going to generously start the countdown at five minutes. Possibly ten, if he managed to bolt out the theater before Sokka got his hands on him.

But the way this play was speculating on how he was going to die, he wasn’t sure death by boomerang would be much worse.

“Aang!” His extremely overdramatic actor cried out dramatically as their counterparts onstage arrived at a set designed to look like the Fire Palace. “You find the Fire Lord! I'll hold her off!”

As a wire lifted the actress playing Aang up into the rafters, Zuko watched his stage counterpart and the actress playing Azula square off against each other.

“You are no longer my brother,” Azula declared. “You are an enemy!”

“No!” His elaborately-coiffed actor returned. “I am the rightful heir to the throne!”

“We'll see!” Zuli’s actress snarled, and they began to fight. Watching this sort of reminded Zuko of watching Toph square off against The Boulder in Earth Rumble VI, except this was scripted. He just hoped reality wouldn’t follow the pattern of fiction this time around as well.

He honestly wasn’t sure whether his death in and of itself was worse than watching his actor making out with Katara’s, but the way he died consumed by both flames and thoughts of his own honor probably pushed it ahead into second place. First place was reserved for watching Fire Lord Ozai fighting Aang. The actress screamed as the bright red cloth wrapped around her, and she fell to the floor in a swooning, groaning heap.

“Yes!” The Father Lord gloated. “We have done it! The dreams of my father, and my father's father, have now been realized! The world is mine!

Azula’s actress stepped forward, and the orchestra in the floor pit started up with a pulsing string beat. The two actresses playing Mai and Ty Lee joined her on stage, and just when Zuko thought the night couldn’t get any worse, the universe proved him wrong.

“Yeah! We’re the great Fire Nation! Bringing the light of our civilization! Sharing truth and our superior living, Fire Lord Ozai's so generous and giving!”

As Azula’s actress started rapping some sort of… national anthem, Zuko hoped that Sokka would at least be quick about it. Death would be preferable to this.

Notes:

The poem Zuko quotes was written by Mibu no Tadami and is taken from the Hyakunin Isshū.

Chapter 49

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

After Sokka and the others had walked back from the Ember Island Theater in a dead silence – okay, maybe not the best choice of words, given the way the play had ended – everyone else had taken themselves off to bed pretty much as soon as they’d gotten back to the beach house. Suki had given Sokka a raised eyebrow and a meaningful glance as he had gone off to the kitchen, which ordinarily would probably have been enough to make him go along with her, but right now, he kind of needed some time alone.

After all, he’d just seen his first girlfriend turn into the moon, all his friends had died gruesome, fiery deaths, and he’d had to deal with a Fire Nation national anthem. With a rap interlude. He figured that merited a cup of jasmine tea. When Aang knocked on the frame of the open doorway, Sokka had just about managed to trick his conscious memory into forgetting everything that had happened in Act One.

“Hey, buddy,” he greeted Aang lowly, giving him a tired wave. “Couldn’t sleep either?”

“Not really,” Aang shook his head as he came to stand by the table. “I, um, had a lot on my mind after tonight.”

He wasn’t looking at Sokka as he spoke, and he was looking at Sokka’s cup of tea like it was super fascinating. Sokka didn’t quite think jasmine tea merited that kind of scrutiny; whatever was on Aang’s mind must have been pretty serious.

“You want to talk about it?” He offered. “I can make some more tea, and I think we’ve got some kale cookies in the cupboard if you want some?”

“I’m, um. I’m good.”

Aang fidgeted as he sat down at the table, and he still wasn’t meeting Sokka’s eye. It took him a while to speak again, but when he did, it was all in a rush.

“You know how you always say I shouldn’t try and make people into something they’re not?”

“Sure,” Sokka said slowly, trying to figure out whether he had ever said this in a context that could be used against him. “Is this to do with how that play made you a girl?”

“Yeah!” Aang blurted out, before he literally clapped a hand over his mouth. “I mean, uh. Yeah. But that’s not… I think I kind of tried to make Katara into something she isn’t right now.”

If Sokka had been a little bit confused before, he was even more confused right now.

“You mean, like, you right now tried to make her into something she isn’t?” He double-checked. “Or you tried to make her into something she isn’t right now at this moment in time, but may or may not be some day in the future?”

Aang looked a bit shifty, which was enough to make Sokka get a bad feeling about this conversation.

“Um… maybe a bit of both?” He mumbled. “I think I maybe kind of tried to kiss her when she’s not really my girlfriend?”

Please let Sokka have misheard that.

Oh, spirits, please let him have misheard that.

Sokka would give up being the meat and sarcasm guy, he’d give up being the boomerang guy – slush, he’d even give up being the Manly guy if it only meant he had misheard Aang saying that he’d tried to kiss Katara.

“Well,” his voice came out a little squeaky, but he had to clear his throat and rub the back of his neck whilst he tried to compose himself. “I guess the, uh – like, first, I’d want to know, um… why did you do that, exactly?”

But Sokka had already resigned himself to the fact that he probably knew why Aang had done that. His instincts were proven right when Aang turned bright red and started babbling.

Don’t get him wrong, his little sister was an absolutely wonderful person, and there were, like, a couple of billion reasons why she was super cool. But Sokka didn’t want to hear about how they made boys want to kiss her. That just gave him weird oogies.

And this conversation was giving him alllllll kinds of weird oogies.

“And then she said she was confused, and that’s when I tried to kiss her, and then she got mad, and then she left, and now she probably hates me!” Aang concluded with a mopey, Sad Lemur look on his face.

Sokka didn’t want to see his friend so bummed out, but he didn’t have the faintest idea what he was supposed to do in this situation.

He’d thought Aang had liked Toph.

“Look, Aang, sometimes doing the right thing means focusing more on what you need to do than what you want to do,” he began, but Aang let out an annoyed noise.

That’s the sort of thing – ” he began, before they both cringed.

That had been kind of loud, and they really didn’t want to wake Suki or Toph up. Or Katara. Slush, spirits preserve them if they woke Katara up. The girls were pretty no-nonsense when you interrupted their sleep at the best of times, and this was definitely not the best of times.

When Aang went on talking, it was at a noticeably quieter volume.

“That’s the sort of thing Zuko would say,” he grumbled darkly. “How come what Zuko says matters so much?”

“I didn’t learn that from Zuko, Aang,” Sokka corrected him. “I learnt that from…”

He sighed, and tried to soften his tone.

“I learnt that from my Dad,” he tried to explain. “And from Princess Yue, too. And if Katara’s trying to focus more on what needs to be done rather than what – what you, or she, or anyone else might or might not want… well, that’s not a bad thing right now, okay?”

He clapped the kid on the shoulder again, and gave him a reassuring-yet-remonstrating squeeze.

“But if we’re talking about bad things right now, Aang,” he began as seriously as he could, “Kissing a girl when she doesn’t want to be kissed is not cool.”

Aang nodded miserably. “I know.”

“Like – super not cool,” Sokka emphasized. “And if you weren’t one of my best friends, I’d honestly be beating the shit out of you right now. And I’d be getting Suki to kick your ass, too.”

Sokka paused for a moment to let the thought of Suki’s wrath sink in, and the way Aang gulped let him know that the message had been received and understood. Poor kid looked like Sokka had kicked his lemur; Momo would have deserved it, but whatever.

“Try and get some sleep, and talk to her in the morning,” he offered his scant consolation. “Maybe things will look a bit better if you apologize to her.”

He patted Aang on the shoulder, and took an unnecessarily large gulp of jasmine tea to signal the end of the conversation.

 

 

Despite what Sokka had told him, Aang was still thinking about that stupid play all the way through firebending practice the next morning. It was kind of awkward because he was trying to avoid looking over at Katara where she was sitting on the porch steps, and he was also trying to avoid wondering whether Katara was there to watch him practicing his firebending or to watch stupid Zuko practicing his firebending, but the thoughts in his head were a little more difficult to block out.

Katara didn’t like Aang back, and it sucked. He’d loved her from the moment he’d woken up at the South Pole with her kneeling beside him. She’d looked so amazing in that parka of hers, with her pretty blue eyes and her kind smile, and it felt like Aang had spent ages loving her and getting nothing in return.

And now, just when Aang had thought she might be coming round to finally noticing him, Zuko was coming in to try and steal Katara, even though everyone knew she was the Avatar’s girl! That definitely sucked.

Except Katara wasn’t the Avatar’s girl, Aang tried to remind himself. Not right now – and Aang should probably try not to think about her like that, because otherwise Sokka would get Suki to kick his butt, and that would really suck.

Everything sucked, but the worst part was that Aang’s firebending was being really weird this morning. One time, he might be trying to make a fireball and it would only come out as a faint puff of smoke – and another time, Zuko asked him to make a few sparks and juggle them, and Aang managed to make this huge fireball that nearly set his robes on fire!

After the third time Aang accidentally inhaled when he should have exhaled and ended up nearly swallowing his breath of fire, Zuko seemed to have had enough. He let out a deep sigh, but instead of shouting some more at Aang, he ran a hand through his hair and looked up at the sun rising into the sky.

“Alright,” he said eventually. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on,” Aang muttered, but Zuko just shook his head with an unimpressed look on his face.

“You figured this move out, like, two minutes after I first showed you it,” he disagreed. “I know you can do this stuff, Aang. Why can’t you do it now?”

Zuko sounded really annoyed, but Aang didn’t know how to tell him that the fact that Katara didn’t love him back was messing with his firebending. Back in Chin Village, Zuko had actually given him some really encouraging advice about Katara, but after how that that stupid play had made it look like Zuko and Katara were a thing together, Aang thought that talking with Zuko about Katara now might be a little more awkward than the talk they’d had when Aang was in jail.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. He felt a bit bad about lying to Hotman, but it was only a little lie, and that wasn’t so bad, right? “My firebending’s just gone really weird all of a sudden.”

Zuko must have really understood where Aang was coming from, because he was looking really serious. That made Aang feel a bit nervous – had Hotman figured him out?

“My firebending went really weird when I was fourteen,” he said quietly, before he paused. “Actually, it, um – it didn’t just go weird. It disappeared. I lost it.”

“What?” Aang jolted back in shock. “You lost your firebending?”

Was Aang going to lose his firebending? He’d only just figured out that firebending wasn’t awful!

That was the worst timing ever!

“Well, I got it back,” Zuko answered, demonstrating by casually bending a flame in the palm of his right hand and nonchalantly gesturing at it with his left. “Obviously. But I needed to go back to what inspired me in the first place.”

“I know, Hotman,” Aang nodded, trying not to be too impatient. “You had to go to the Sun Ruins, and learn from the original firebenders, and you needed to learn that fire is life. I know.”

“It’s not just that, Aang!” Zuko snapped before he took a deep breath. “I needed to do all that, but I needed to remember who I was. Before the Fire Lord – before everything went wrong.”

Zuko turned his face away then, and Aang couldn’t see his scar as he looked back towards the house.

“I know things are hard right now,” Zuko continued in a really quiet voice. “I know you want to fulfil your responsibilities and make people proud of you, and I know that can be really hard. But we have to keep trying, even when it’s hard. We can’t forget who we are.”

The right side of Zuko’s face looked really sad when he said that. Aang didn’t want his friend to be sad, so he tried to think of something else they could talk about, but before he could ask Zuko whether he’d ever tried to ride a flying dolphin fish, Hotman beat him to it.

“Come on,” Zuko said gruffly, clapping his hands together. “Let me hear you roar like a tigerdillo.”

Aang figured his friend was probably at least a little bit embarrassed right now, so he just nodded and set his feet. Zuko and Toph always told him that it was important to stand firm and have a strong root. He tried to shout and shoot fire out of his mouth and his fingertips like Zuko had taught him at the Western Air Temple, but his fire kind of sputtered a bit, and he had to really push to get it to stay hot and crackly like fire was supposed to be, and then it just vanished in a puff of smoke.

When he’d finished coughing, Aang tried to smile awkwardly at Zuko, but Hotman didn’t look too impressed.

“That sounded pathetic,” he told Aang flatly, folding his arms. “I said roar!

Aang sighed. Zuko always seemed so focused on training, and being responsible, and all that other stuff. It reminded Aang of how Monk Pasang and Monk Tashi had always sucked all the life out of his airbending at the Southern Air Temple. At least Monk Gyatso had always tried to make things fun by bringing fruit pies and Pai Sho into his training.

Aang imagined Monk Gyatso standing next to him and cupping his hands over his mouth as they both let out loud howls, and fire burst out of his hands and his mouth as he roared. He could see Zuko nodding approvingly with a small smile on his face.

“Excellent!” He told Aang encouragingly. “You've got it!”

Aang wasn’t quite sure how his firebending had suddenly become so powerful after he’d been having so much trouble before, but at least sifu Hotman seemed pleased about it. The way he was smiling at Aang now made Aang feel kind of guilty about sort-of-accidentally-on-purpose setting his boots on fire earlier.

 

 

After twelve years of being pretty much alone, left to her own devices except for tutoring and tea parties, Toph had gotten used to being on her own. It had been what her parents had wanted for her, because they’d thought she was blind and tiny and helpless. The blind part was fair enough, but five-foot wasn’t exactly tiny, so whatever. And if there was one thing the Blind Bandit wasn’t, it was helpless. But Mom and Dad were Mom and Dad, and they’d just been trying to protect Toph, and they’d said they were doing it for her own good, and they loved her, of course they loved her…

Fuck.

Rock wasn’t this confusing, Toph thought annoyedly to herself. Rock was just there. None of this maybe shit. Earth was earth, rock was rock.

Okay, so maybe being twelve years old and never having had a real friend hadn’t exactly been ideal, but it had the only thing Toph had really known. But it hadn’t been how she was going to spend the rest of her life, and obviously she would have talked to Mom and Dad about the whole secret Earth Rumble fight club thing sooner or later… in maybe another couple of years’ time, or something.

Another few years of having to listen to Mistress Ouyang talk about color symbolism in a bunch of dumb poems, and having to pretend that she couldn’t do Master Yu’s most basic forms and breathing exercises? Another few years of spending dinner listening to her parents discussing the prices of silk in Xuzhou, and how the Pang family was looking to expand their business at Jia Gou port? Another couple of years of pretending to be an obedient little helpless blind girl?

Yeah, no way was Toph sticking around for that.

When Earth Rumble VI had presented her with just the opportunity she’d been waiting for, she hadn’t thought twice – and after twelve long years of saying please and thank you and putting on her airs and graces, going along with Twinkle Toes, Snoozles, Sugar Queen and Sparky had been the best decision Toph had ever made. The Fancy Dancer was getting pretty good at earthbending, Sucker and Sparky had taught her some great swear words, and although she’d had her ups and downs with Splish-Splash, Katara had given her the last sticky bun this morning instead of leaving it for that shǎ zi Hotpants, so there was that, at least.

So all in all, Toph had thought that she’d landed herself a pretty sweet gig when she’d ditched her old life for travelling with the Avatar and company. But after hearing the way Suki described her journeys through the Earth Kingdom, first with the Kyoshi Warriors and then with Taki, Toph was beginning to think that the morons she’d been stuck with weren’t even close to cool.

“So Taki chases the governor through the alley, and that’s when he steps into the snare trap we set up,” Fan Girl snickered, and Toph tried not to choke on a slice of mango as she laughed along with her.

“And that’s when he got yanked up into the air, right?” She asked eagerly. She could almost hear that fat blowhard squealing!

“Uh-huh,” Suki confirmed with a smirk in her voice. “So then he’s upside-down, twenty feet in the air in the middle of the night, and I’m there in the Blue Spirit mask – honest to Rangi, you should have heard him squeal.”

As Toph laughed along with Fan Girl, she had to be careful not to send her watermelon juice everywhere. Sugar Queen was splitting her time between the kitchen and watching Twinkles’ and Sparky’s jerkbending practice, but she’d still been in here to scold Toph for leaving mango all over the table, and she still had just about enough goodwill left in the bank from that sticky bun that Toph wasn’t going to make too much of a mess.

“So what did he say?” Snoozles asked. Toph could hear him scootch a little closer to Fan Girl on the other side of the table, as if some of Fan Girl’s awesomeness was somehow going to rub off on him by close proximity.

“He gave us the names of the guys we were looking for,” Aunt Fanny replied smugly, “And then offered us two hundred gold pieces each if we’d let him go.”

As a veteran smack talker, Toph could recognize an easy set-up when she heard one. “And what did you say to that?”

She could almost picture the smirk on Suki’s face. In her imagination, this smirk had a lot of sharp teeth.

“I asked him, ‘Why would a Spirit need gold?’, and I’m pretty sure he peed himself.”

Hmm. Not quite what Toph would have gone for – she would have just said Sure, I’ll let you go, and dropped the guy. Still, she had to admit, it sounded kind of badass.

“Maybe you could give us a repeat performance,” she hinted. “I kind of want to see Snoozles dangling upside-down in the air.”

“Sorry, Toph,” Fan Girl replied. “But you won’t be seeing that anytime soon. Or ever. Nice try, though.”

Damn it. Well, it had been worth a try.

“Besides, with all the food Sokka’s been eating the past couple of days –”

Toph heard an indignant noise coming from Snoozles direction, but where, exactly, was the lie?

“ – I don’t think I’ll be able to handle hoisting him into the air,” Fan Girl finished with a slight chuckle.

“Muscle weighs more than fat, I’ll have you know,” Snoozles muttered, “And I’ve got muscles in places you don’t even have places –”

“Don’t mind me,” Toph interrupted before he could take that thought literally anywhere, “I’m just an innocent twelve-year-old sitting right here.”

“Innocent?” Suki laughed. “I’ll believe what Sokka’s saying about his muscle mass before I’ll believe that.”

“You know, they do say that seeing is believing –”

Toph cleared her throat meaningfully.

Again, she was sitting right here.

“Well, to be fair, maybe I have let myself go a little bit,” Snoozles acknowledged, sounding a little sheepish. “But I know just the thing to change all that.”

“Oh, yeah?” Aunt Fanny asked doubtfully. “What’s that – another sparring session?”

“No, although that does sound like a good idea,” Sucker admitted as he got to his feet. “No, I was thinking more along the lines of a… beach party!

Toph resisted the urge to bang her head against the table as the world’s greatest dunderhead bounded out of the kitchen. If she left a forehead-shaped dent in the wood, Sugar Queen would probably be pissed.

Notes:

Shǎ zi is a Mandarin Chinese phrase meaning ‘blockhead’.

Chapter Text

Katara would be the first person to doubt Sokka’s intelligence, but she had to admit that her brother occasionally – rarely, infrequently, only really once in a while – proved that he was capable of rational thought. This beach day was definitely one of his better ideas, and she was loving the way she could splash about in the shallows or surf out to the deeper water, launching globules of water into the air and splashing Sokka and Suki even when they were lying on the beach twenty or thirty feet away from the ocean.

Splashing Toph might have been a bit mean because she wouldn’t have been able to sense the water coming until it was too late, and as for splashing Aang or Zuko…

Well, um.

After the stupid Ember Island Players and their stupid play, Katara didn’t really want to think about them today if she didn’t have to.

She took a deep breath and sank below the water, letting the saltwater sting her eyes and her hair float out around her. It was so quiet here, all on her own without anyone else around. The surface of the water was warm in the summer heat, but cooler the further down she dived, and she ended up staying down in the chilly depths until her lungs began to burn, and she had to kick powerfully to make her way back to the surface. The way she had to gasp for air was one way of taking her mind off things, she supposed.

But she was quickly diverted by the sounds of shouting coming from the beach. She could see bright orange lights – was that firebending?

Had someone found them here?

She swam for the shore, panic and determination helping her bend her way towards the beach, and once her feet hit the bottom, she was splashing and wading and running back up towards the others.

“What happened?” She asked, half-dreading the answer. If someone had found them, if it was Azula or even worse

“Zuko's gone crazy!” Sokka shouted, gathering up handfuls of sand and making a distressed noise as the grains slipped through his fingers. “I made a sand sculpture of Suki and he destroyed it!”

For a moment, Katara took back everything she’d ever said about her brother’s intelligence. She’d thought they were – that someone was – that the people she cared about were… and he was worried about some stupid sand sculpture?

“Oh, and he's attacking Aang,” Sokka added, almost as an afterthought.

What?

Katara must have misheard that. After everything – Zuko couldn’t have!

“I don’t know!” Sokka held his hands up defensively. “He said something about teaching Aang a lesson, and then he just chased him off!”

Katara didn’t want to admit it, but she breathed a small sigh of relief. At the North Pole, Zuko had told her that teachers in the Fire Nation would sometimes fight their students to see how much they’d learned. She couldn’t say she was the biggest fan of the way Zuko was so hard and demanding on Aang, but it was infinitely better than the alternative.

That she’d thought him capable of – no, there was no way. She knew him better than that.

As she and the others ran up to the beach house, following the sounds of shouting and the occasional whunff noise of a spurting flame, Katara saw two figures on the roof of the building.

“Get a grip!” Aang yelled across at Zuko from where he was standing, “Before I blast you off this roof!”

“Go ahead and do it!” Zuko challenged him, before sending another ball of fire at Aang. Aang dodged it and scrambled down into an open window.

“Zuko, what are you doing?” Sokka roared. “If you hurt him, I’m gonna kick your fucking ass –”

“Good!” Zuko bellowed right back. “Finally, you’ll be getting off your own fucking ass and doing something –”

“Don’t talk to him like that!” Suki shouted furiously at him – but Zuko was already sliding through another window and disappearing into the house.

Suki let out a noise that sounded like an angry crococat, and however worried Katara might have been for whatever was going on with Zuko and Aang right now, she was suddenly a whole lot more worried for what Suki was going to do to Zuko once they’d all gotten to the bottom of whatever was going on here.

“What’s going on with those two?” Sokka asked as he turned to Katara. “I was just putting the finishing touches to my masterpiece –”

Masterpiece?” Toph repeated doubtfully.

“Masterpiece!” Sokka repeated emphatically. “Yeah, I said it, it’s a masterpiece, Toph! I don’t care what you’re saying about it –”

Suki cleared her throat and tilted her head. “Babe?”

Sokka blushed. “Right, anyway. Uh – I was just finishing my sand sculpture, and Zuko went crazy and attacked Aang! What happened?

All of a sudden, the wall of the house shattered in a powerful airblast, and Zuko came tumbling out to land in a crumpled heap on the path. He managed to get to his knees before letting out a groan and rolling onto his side, almost falling into a patch of grass.

As Katara and the others hurried to gather around him, she was relieved to see that he wasn’t hurt – and neither, when he joined them, was Aang. But that relief was tempered by the fact that he’d been such a La-damned idiot!

“What's wrong with you?” She demanded. “You could have hurt Aang!”

Zuko’s right eye widened; his left stayed fixed in a angry-looking scowl.

“What's wrong with me?” He rasped as he used a tree trunk to claw his way to his feet. “What's wrong with all of you? How can you sit around having beach parties when Sozin's Comet is only three days away?”

Katara could only stare at him in confusion. Her head was spinning – why was he so concerned about Sozin’s Comet? She didn’t understand why that was playing such a role in his thinking.

But when his golden right eye narrowed to become just as slitted as his left, she wondered whether Zuko was also struggling to understand what was going on.

 

 

“Why are you all looking at me like I'm crazy?” Zuko asked defensively.

Aang was pretty sure the reason they were all looking at Zuko like he was crazy was because, well, Hotman had just attacked him for literally no reason. He’d just been having a relaxed day at the beach, making sand sculptures with Toph and Sokka. Maybe Zuko hated fun, but that didn’t mean he needed to ruin it for everyone else as well!

“About Sozin's Comet,” he began hesitantly. “I was actually going to wait to fight the Fire Lord until after it came.”

After?” Zuko repeated. He sounded really mad about it, but Aang felt like he needed to explain why he wanted to wait to end the war.

“I'm not ready!” He protested. “I need more time to master firebending!”

Toph cleared her throat. “And frankly, your earthbending could still use some work too.”

Aang thought Toph might have been a bit too harsh there. But Zuko didn’t seem interested in discussing the specifics of Aang’s earthbending progress.

“So you all knew Aang was going to wait?” He asked quietly.

“Honestly, if Aang tries to fight the Fire Lord now, he's going to lose,” Sokka said bluntly. He frowned to himself for a moment before turning to Aang. “No offense.”

Thanks, Sokka, Aang thought grumpily to himself. How was he not supposed to take offense at that?

“The whole point of fighting the Fire Lord before the Comet was to stop the Fire Nation from winning the war,” Katara explained to Zuko, “But they pretty much won the war when they took Ba Sing Se. Things can't get any worse.”

Aang tried not to wince as he heard the defeated tone in her voice. Katara was always so hopeful, but things can’t get any worse wasn’t exactly the most optimistic way to describe the situation they were facing. That sort of thing sounded a lot more like something Zuko would say.

But what Zuko then said was way worse than what Katara had said.

“You’re wrong.” He turned his back on them. “It's about to get worse than you can even imagine.”

Aang had a pretty good imagination, but when he heard Zuko tell them what Fire Lord Ozai was planning, he had to admit, he’d never imagined using the power of the comet to destroy the Earth Kingdom’s hope and their resolve to endure. He’d never thought about burning the Earth Kingdom to the ground. The Comet would give all the firebenders the strength and power of a thousand suns, and they would rain down a fire that will destroy everything. And then, once the Earth Kingdom’s hope had been destroyed, the Fire Lord would be the supreme ruler over everything.

Oh… monkeyfeathers.

“I can't believe this,” Katara murmured to herself as she sank to her knees. That just made Aang feel even more worried about what the Fire Lord was planning.

If the Fire Lord was trying to destroy the Earth Kingdom’s hope, what would he be looking to do to Katara’s hope? And the hope of the Water Tribes in general? And what about the Air Nomads –

Oh.

Oh, right. Never mind.

“What am I going to do?” Aang fretted, his head spinning with pictures of a firebender’s silhouetted figure blasting fire into the sky with a shout.

“I know you're scared,” Zuko told him seriously, “And I know you're not ready to save the world, but if you don't defeat the Fire Lord before the comet comes, there won't be a world to save anymore.”

Zuko got up from where he was sitting, and walked over to Aang. He put his hand on Aang’s shoulder, and it was like one of those Manly moments Aang sometimes had with Sokka, but it didn’t reassure Aang in the slightest.

“Why didn't you tell me about your dad's crazy plan sooner?” He shouted at Zuko, shaking his hand off his shoulder and walking away. Zuko always did this! He always hid important information from them!

“I didn't think I had to,” Zuko answered, sounding a bit confused and a bit annoyed. “I assumed you were still going to fight him before the comet. No one told me you decided to wait.”

Oops. Maybe it was Aang and the others that had been hiding the important information, and Aang should have told Zuko something for a change. But Aang hadn’t told Zuko, and now they only had three days before the Fire Lord attacked the Earth Kingdom!

Monkeyfeathers. Monkey-monkeyfeathers. Monkey-monkey-monkeyfeathers.

Oh, fluff it all.

Crud!

“This is bad,” Aang mumbled to himself as he knelt down on the ground, hoping that this was all just a bad dream. “This is really, really bad!”

“Aang,” Katara told him quietly as she came to stand next to him. “You don't have to do this alone.”

“Yeah,” Toph nodded as she joined them. “If we all fight the Fire Lord together, we got a shot at taking him down!”

Aang knew Toph wouldn’t be able to see his expression, but he couldn’t help but smile at her anyway. That was Toph all over – she was determined, and persistent and enduring, and she was definitely stubborn and unyielding. As long as Toph was there to remind him, Aang wasn’t ever going to give up without a fight.

“All right!” Sokka shouted dramatically, grabbing Suki and squeezing her shoulders as he pointed at them all with a big leaf. “Team Avatar is back! Air! – water! – earth! – fire! – fan! – and sword!”

“Fighting the Fire Lord is going to be the hardest thing we've ever done together,” Aang said as honestly as he could, “But I wouldn't want to do it any other way.”

As Katara and Sokka came to give him a hug, and then Toph and Suki joined as well, Aang felt warm all over at the way they were standing with him. But someone was still missing. Zuko looked as grumpy as he always did, standing back over there with his arms folded.

“Get over here, Zuko,” Katara encouraged him. “Being part of the group means being part of group hugs, remember?”

Zuko let out a deep sigh and rolled his eyes, but he joined them all the same, and Aang suddenly realized that this was the first time they’d all been together to have a group hug. They’d had one at the North Pole when it was him and Katara and Sokka and Zuko, and they’d had one in the Foggy Swamp as well, and then they’d had one after he’d survived that super sucky storm when it was him and Katara and Sokka and Toph, but he’d never actually had a group hug with Katara and Sokka and Zuko and Toph and Suki. This one felt really nice, he thought to himself as Katara and Sokka hugged him tight, and he heard Hotman grunt as Suki and Toph probably hugged him really tight.

As they broke apart, Aang thought his bending would be super crazy powerful after that. He could feel the love rushing through him – his love for all his friends, and all his friends’ love for him.

 

 

As Sokka knelt down on the ground to sketch out the plan, Zuko tried to focus on the plan. This was what they did – they changed their plans, but never the goal. The goal was to end the war, and restore balance to the world. And although their window of opportunity had suddenly been drastically shortened, they still had time. Three days of it – that was plenty of time to regroup, refocus, and return. They could do this. There was no reason they couldn’t do it.

Zuko didn’t find himself being the hopeful one very often, but he thought he might have been doing a pretty good job of it.

“In order to take out the Fire Lord – or in this case, the Melon Lord,” Sokka corrected himself, “Our timing has to be perfect. First, Suki and I will draw his fire. Then, Katara and Zuko charge in with some liquidy-hot offense, and while the Melon Lord is distracted, Aang swoops in – and bam! He delivers the final blow.”

Sokka’s plan appeared simple, but was deceptively smart. In that respect, Zuko thought, it was a lot like Sokka himself. It was also a lot better than the plan Zuko and Uncle had come up with for getting Zuko and Sokka to the North Pole, which had essentially consisted of turn up and hope they don’t kill us.

Come to think of it, that was basically what this plan consisted of, too.

“Uh,” Toph raised a hand. “What about me?”

“For now, you're the Melon Lord's forces,” Sokka answered. Zuko had to admire the way he was able to say the words Melon Lord out loud with a perfectly straight face.

“So I get to chuck flaming rocks at all of you?” Toph double-checked, rubbing her hands together and bouncing up and down slightly on the balls of her feet.

“Whatever makes the training feel more realistic,” Sokka nodded.

Toph sighed happily. “Sweetness.”

Zuko had the sudden mental picture of a large crater in the ground where the Avatar used to be, and glanced over at Suki to see whether she shared his sudden apprehension at the idea of letting Toph decide what would be appropriate for a training session. But Suki was wearing a lopsided smirk on her face, and Zuko remembered how she’d repeatedly kicked his ass when he and Uncle had arrived on Kyoshi Island last autumn. It was entirely possible that the Melon Lord was going to be even more of a threat to the Fancy Dancer’s safety than the Blind Bandit.

As he and Katara made their way to their spot up in the rocky cliffs, about a half-mile away from the beach house, Zuko couldn’t help but remember his second firebending session with Aang this morning. Katara would probably say that two training sessions a day was verging on excessive, but what else could they do? Aang needed to learn how to redirect lightning.

Zuko couldn’t teach him how to generate his own, but if Aang could take the killing strike and turn it back on the Fire Lord, then they stood a chance. It would mean that Aang had killed the Father Lord, but…

Well, Uncle Iroh had always told him he never thought things through, and that was a scenario Zuko was happy not to think too closely about.

“Ready?”

Katara’s voice brought him back to the present, and he tried to refocus himself.

“Ready,” he responded, narrowing his eyes at the training arena Sokka, Suki and Toph had been setting up earlier.

Even from here, he could see the travesty of… Melon Lord, he sighed to himself. It was a crimson robe draped over a pile of rocks with two sticks wedged in the sleeves for arms. Hardly a realistic stand-in for the Fire Lord, but they had to take what they could with three days to go.

As Sokka gave the signal for them to start, Zuko took another glance at Katara as she stood by his side. He didn’t really know what to say, so he just played it relatively safe.

“Let’s go.”

As they started running along the rocky ground, Zuko had to take care to pick out a relatively safe path that he could take at speed and Katara could follow without falling behind him. Training with Master Piandao had helped the Blue Spirit become something of an expert in using the terrain to his advantage, and he was agile and fast enough to be able to move across the uneven ground. But Katara was keeping up with him, and her features were determined and her eyes were alight as she darted along in his wake, and he should probably concentrate on his own running if he didn’t want to fall over on his face.

“Watch it, Toph!” Sokka sounded aggrieved somewhere up ahead. Zuko wondered whether he’d been knocked over, or whether he’d just, like, fallen over his own feet or something.

“I’m not Toph!” The greatest earthbender in the world shouted. “I am Melon Lord!

Zuko figured that someone who called themselves the Blind Bandit as they fought in Earth Rumbles probably would get a little too invested in playing their character. But that didn’t mean he appreciated the way she lit another boulder on fire and sent it sailing towards him and Katara. They had to dodge it, but Toph brought up a ring of stone dummies that blocked off their route forward.

Zuko felt Katara step up behind him, and he knew from all their practicing together that she would want to step to the right before bending her water to the left, freezing it as she went so it shattered the rock soldiers. That meant that he could turn on the spot with her, sending a fireball at the dummies that would bring so much heat and pressure with it that the rock shattered under the onslaught. He turned back to the path ahead of them just in time to see Aang launching himself towards the mound Toph and the Melon Lord were standing on, his glider prepared to strike –

“Now, Aang!” Sokka’s voice rang out.

Zuko watched as Aang landed and wound himself up for the finishing blow…

And waited as Aang kept winding up for the finishing blow…

And waited some more, whilst Aang backed away from the finishing blow

“What are you waiting for?” He screamed. “Take him out!”

But as Aang looked down at him from where he stood up on the hill, he only shook his head like an agitated rabaroo. “I can't.”

For a moment, Zuko saw red.

you can’t what do you mean you can’t we’ve got three fucking days

“What's wrong with you?” Sokka demanded, taking the words right out of Zuko’s mouth as he strode up to Aang. “If this was the real deal, you'd be shot full of lightning right now!”

“I'm sorry!” Aang hung his head. “But it just didn't feel right. I didn't feel like myself!”

After a few moments where his mouth worked wordlessly, Sokka spun around, and his sword flashed in the air. As two halves of a melon fell to land on the ground with a dull thud, Zuko could see Aang wince slightly.

“There,” Sokka said coldly, giving one part of the melon a savage kick. “That's how it's done.”

Chapter Text

“He has to kill him.”

Sokka was pretty sure a firebender’s voice shouldn’t be that cold. “I know.”

“But he’s just…” Zuko struggled for the words before giving up and slumping back in his seat with a resigned snarl. “Not going to.”

“We don’t know that, Zuko,” Suki’s voice was altogether more reasonable than Sokka thought his would be right now.

“He’s under a lot of stress right now,” she continued, nudging her empty cup across the kitchen table towards Sokka. “And, to be fair, tonight did kind of come out of nowhere.”

“Nowhere?” Zuko repeated. His scowl seemed even angrier as he shook his head. “This hasn’t come out of nowhere, Suki. This has been the plan for months. Defeat the Fire Lord – what did he think the plan was?”

“Maybe we should have told him sooner,” Sokka said helplessly. “Before the invasion.”

Thinking about how they could have done things differently wasn’t going to help, he knew that, but considering what they were facing now…

Sokka just tried to concentrate on pouring Suki another cup of tea before his brain melted from the whole three days until Sozin’s Comet thing, but he only managed to get about half a cup out before the teapot ran dry. He wasn’t sure whether that made the cup half-full or half-empty as he slid it back across the kitchen table.

“It wouldn’t have mattered when you told him,” Suki shook her head as she accepted the cup. “If he’d known you expected him to kill the Fire Lord before the invasion, then you’d probably just have had this whole argument then instead of now.”

True, Sokka acknowledged. But then, if they had needed to call the invasion off, would Bato and the others still have been captured? But… if Dad hadn’t been captured at the invasion, then would Sokka even have gone to the Boiling Rock, where he’d been able to free Suki?

Sokka wasn’t a very spiritual guy; he didn’t believe that things necessarily happened the way they did for, like, some grand, overarching reason. There wasn’t any point in worrying about what things might be like now if they’d done things differently back then.

“He’s got faith in his principles,” Zuko muttered with a hollow little laugh, sounding like he was saying it more to himself than to them. “Agni fucking damn it.”

“Do we think he’s going to be up there much longer?” Suki glanced up to the ceiling, as if she could see through to Aang’s bedroom. The airbender had stormed off after he’d loudly refused to take Fire Lord Ozai’s life, and they hadn’t seen him since.

“Dunno.” Zuko’s shrug was a stiff, jerky thing. “Go ask him.”

“I didn’t ask him,” Suki responded. “I asked you.”

“Yeah, well, how come I have to keep coming up with all the answers today?” Zuko snapped back at her.

Suki narrowed her eyes at him and held his gaze. After a few tense moments where they scowled at each other, Zuko’s shoulders slumped and he let out a harsh breath. Sokka could smell the smoke from across the table.

“I don’t know,” Zuko muttered. “I don’t know what’s going on with him right now.”

Sokka rubbed his forehead; he could feel a headache coming on. Three days to go…

“Zuko?” He requested. “Have we got any jasmine tea?”

Zuko heaved a sigh, but he got to his feet all the same. Sokka watched him make his way over to the counter and yank a couple of cupboard doors open, pulling down a couple of boxes and busying himself with… whatever it was you had to do in order to make a cup of jasmine tea. Sokka had always been the one serving customers in the Pao Family Tea House; he was a lot of things, but he wasn’t very good with ingredients.

Or, it seemed, with airbenders who seemed horrified at the idea of taking the Fire Lord’s life.

But surely – surely, if it was in the name of keeping balance, it was okay, right? Sokka was pretty sure the universe would forgive Aang one death, if it meant peace? Like Aang had clearly forgiven Gyatso for killing those Fire Nation soldiers they’d seen at the Southern Air Temple?

But then again, Aang didn’t seem to have connected those two Pai Sho tiles in his head. Sokka should probably have tried to point that out earlier, but… there wasn’t any point in worrying about what they could have done differently.

“We’re out of jasmine,” Zuko said brusquely, setting a cup down in front of him with a dull thunk. “Hope you like green tea.”

As the firebender sat down, he wrapped his hands around a steaming cup of his own, and his knuckles were white as he gripped it tightly.

“I guess your customer service hasn’t improved much since Ba Sing Se.”

Sokka could see that Suki regretted the half-hearted joke as soon as she made it. It was probably for the best that Zuko disregarded it. Much like Aang had disregarded all their attempts at reasoning with him.

Katara had seemed affronted at the way Aang was acting, but Sokka couldn’t say he wasn’t surprised. In the first few weeks after Zuko had showed up in Omashu, Sokka hadn’t been his best self. He’d been extremely stressed, far from home, and he’d felt the pressure of trying to come up with answers to hard questions he’d never had to ask himself before.

Sokka didn’t like seeing Aang so uncharacteristically snappy, but he could sympathize.

“When you left Kyoshi,” he began, turning to Suki. “You were trying to help make a difference in the Earth Kingdom, right?”

It probably was a bit of a random change of topic, so he couldn’t blame Suki for looking a little confused, but she nodded all the same. “Sure.”

“But Kyoshi’s neutral in the war,” he checked again, just to see whether he had his facts right. “Like, even now you’ve left, they’re still neutral. That’s why you left, right?”

“Right,” Suki nodded again. “What’s your point?”

Sokka wasn’t quite sure his point made sense, but he was kind of running out of options here. “Was Oyaji mad at you when you went against those traditions?”

It kind of sucked that Suki knew him so well that she understood exactly what he was trying to get at.

“Oyaji was really supportive of us.” Her violet-blue eyes didn’t look happy or sad at the memory. She just looked as clear-eyed and determined as ever. “But I wasn’t planning on killing anyone when I left.”

As Zuko let out another deep sigh, Sokka could smell smoke again.

“Guess not,” he sighed.

Three days to go.

 

 

After Aang had walked away from them mid-conversation, Katara had been about ready to drag him back so they could finish talking about what he needed to do to defeat the Fire Lord. But then Zuko had put his hand on her shoulder and told her that Aang needed time to sort it out by himself. She hadn’t been happy about it, necessarily, but she remembered what he had told her outside General Fong’s camp; sometimes, you had to let someone work things out for themselves.

Katara had a lot of things she needed to figure out, so whilst Zuko and Suki had been washing up after dinner, she had gone down to the beach to practice her waterbending and be alone with her thoughts. She didn’t do anything more than stream the water through her hands, over and over again, but the soothing, restful motions of the back-and-forth did little to ease her mind.

From the way Zuko had told Katara about how patient Uncle Iroh had been with him after he had been banished, it had sounded like Zuko had taken quite a while to work things out. Katara could only hope that Aang wouldn’t take quite so long to come around to what they needed him to do. Or, if he remained adamant that he wouldn’t be killing the Fire Lord, then at least they could come up with another solution that didn’t involve making some big pots of glue so that Aang could gluebend the Fire Lord’s arms and legs together so he couldn't bend anymore.

But they still had three days – well, two days from tomorrow – where they could come up with another plan, right? And Aang was the Avatar, so they always had that – the Avatar had to win, right?

Okay, so maybe Aang had been unusually decisive when he’d told them earlier that he wasn’t going to go against what the monks had taught him. But Katara could see why he was so determined to honor Monk Gyatso and the rest of his family; if he had made them a promise that he wouldn’t take a life, then they couldn’t pressure him into breaking that promise. They just couldn’t.

But if Aang couldn’t do it, that meant that it was up to the rest of them.

None of them had said it out loud, but Katara wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t naïve. Zuko had said at firebending practice that Aang would have to take the Fire Lord’s life before he took Aang’s, and Sokka had chopped down the Melon Lord when Aang wouldn’t do it. So if Aang couldn’t be the one to kill the Fire Lord, it would have to be one of them.

Katara hated the idea of killing someone – even though she knew she could never forgive the man who had taken her mother from her, she knew in her heart of hearts that she wouldn’t have been able to kill him. Mom had always said that it was the strength of a person’s heart that made them who they were, and Katara knew that it was down to her to stay strong and not give in to her hatred. If you hated something, you were only letting them have control over you.

Katara couldn’t let her hatred for the Fire Lord control her, or make her do something she couldn’t ever come back from. She’d promised Uncle Iroh she’d remember why she fought – to protect the people she cared about. But she couldn’t lose herself – she couldn’t forget like Hama had forgotten. She couldn’t.

She remembered the way Hama had trapped those villagers below the mountain for months. They would have been down there in the dark and the cold for so long, not knowing if they’d ever see the sun again. She remembered the way she had made that Sea Ravens captain fall to the floor like a shattered cup.

The water Katara had been streaming fell to the sand with a soft pitter-patter that sounded like rainfall. As she tried to keep herself from shivering at the memory of the rain on Ma’inka Island, she looked down at her hands.

Hands that could reach inside someone and control them.

For so long, Katara had thought that the Fire Nation was so evil, so awful – so inhuman. She had been shocked to hear what Master Jeong Jeong had said about fire; about how it forced those burdened with its care to walk a razor's edge between humanity and savagery, until they were eventually torn apart. She had been stunned to hear a firebender speak so openly about how terrible their element was.

She thought she could see what he meant, now.

Katara had once thought that every person from the Fire Nation was evil, until Zuko had joined them in Omashu. It had taken a long time for her to learn to trust him, and it hadn’t been easy to begin with, but as she had gotten used to the way he used his bending to light their campfires for cooking and warmth, Katara had learnt to appreciate that firebending could be used for good as well as for evil.

But bloodbending wasn’t like firebending. It wasn’t like someone could just – just use bloodbending for evil purposes, like Jet had been trying to use her waterbending. It was evil. Controlling the water in another body. Enforcing her own will over theirs. Having that kind of power over them… Katara couldn’t see what could possibly be good about that.

But when she had bloodbent Hama to stop Sokka and Aang from fighting each other, she had been trying to protect them. That was what inspired her waterbending; she would never, ever turn her back on the people who needed her.

So if she had done something evil for a good reason… could she use bloodbending for good?

Could she…

If she could bloodbend the Fire Lord –

No, she shook her head reflexively. It wasn’t right. It was taking someone’s freedom away from them. Aang would hate it – he wouldn’t ever be able to forgive her.

But if Aang had to kill the Fire Lord, Katara knew that he wouldn’t ever be able to forgive himself. And although she was so confused right now, about Aang and Zuko and the war and everything else, and she was so angry at Aang for kissing her, she knew that she couldn’t bear to see him in that sort of pain. If Aang needed her, she wouldn’t ever turn her back on him.

But if she could use bloodbending to keep Aang from having to make that impossible choice…

But all they were facing right now were impossible choices, Katara thought bitterly to herself. They were children fighting in a war that they should never have been asked to fight, and they were being asked to make choices they should never have been asked to make.

“What should I do, Yue?” She whispered, looking up at the moon; the source of a waterbender’s power.

But if Katara was hoping for an answer, she was disappointed. The moon hung in the sky, still and silent far above their war.

 

 

Aang had taken some candles and a small cup of water out to the beach house porch, along with some berries and some fruit, and he’d been trying to meditate with them both at the same time. But that just reminded him of how Zuko and Katara used to meditate together, and that reminded him of how that stupid play had said that Zuko and Katara liked each other. But it also reminded him of how Zuko had wanted Aang to kill the Fire Lord, and how Katara hadn’t seem shocked by that at all.

How could they just want Aang to kill someone? Aang had tried to tell them that the idea of wiping out people he didn’t like went against everything he had learnt from the monks, but Sokka had just said that there was no reason he couldn’t do it, and that had made Aang really mad. He’d gotten so angry at how Sokka was taking Air’s philosophy of freedom and – and twisting it to make it say what Sokka wanted it to say! Aang had needed to leave before he did something he’d regret, like – like…

Aang sighed. He didn’t have any idea what he would have done if he’d kept arguing with Sokka, because he didn’t like hurting people, and he couldn’t imagine hurting Sokka. But Sokka wanted him to hurt the Fire Lord – even worse than that, he wanted Aang to kill the Fire Lord!

Sokka was always telling Aang that he shouldn’t try and make Katara or anyone else act or think like an airbender, and although Aang didn’t always do the best job of letting other people live how they wanted to live, he thought he was at least giving it a good try. But now Aang felt like Sokka was trying to make him act and think like he wasn’t an airbender! Why was he asking Aang to take a life? The monks had told Aang that all life was sacred – even the life of the tiniest spider-fly caught in its own web.

When they had been flying on from Haru’s village, Aang had asked Sokka whether he hated the Fire Nation, and Sokka had told Aang that it wasn’t really something he thought too much about. He’d said that they just needed to beat the Fire Nation and end the war. Aang had thought that sounded so simple back then, but he hadn’t realized that Sokka thought they needed to kill the Fire Lord.

Had that been what Sokka had been expecting Aang to do when they’d arrived in the Fire Nation Capital for the invasion on the Day of Black Sun? If they had found Fire Lord Ozai in the underground bunker instead of Azula, would Sokka have wanted Aang to kill him?

Aang was almost happy to see Momo when his friend flew in and landed in front of him, but he wasn’t totally sure whether he really wanted to see anyone right now. There was a slightly awkward moment where Momo nearly set his tail on fire with the candle, but that seemed to ease the tension Aang was feeling.

“Hey, Momo,” he mumbled, stroking his friend’s head half-heartedly. “I don't suppose you know what I should do?”

Momo let out a squawking chirrup to let Aang know that he had his eye on the fruit Aang had brought along.

Aang sighed. “I didn't think so.”

Momo made pretty quick work of scoffing down Aang’s sliced ash bananas, and then he curled up and went straight to sleep. Aang thought it would be nice if his life was that uncomplicated.

He didn’t have any idea what he was supposed to do! If Aang killed the Fire Lord, that would easily go straight to the top of the list of the worst things he had ever done, but if he didn’t kill the Fire Lord, then Zuko had said there wouldn’t be a world left to save. But Zuko also had said that Aang would have to take the Fire Lord's life before he took Aang’s, and Aang just couldn’t accept that.

Had that been why Zuko had been teaching Aang how to redirect lightning earlier? So he could kill the Fire Lord with his own lightning?

Zuko had said that if Aang let the energy in his own body flow, the lightning would follow it – that was how Aang was meant to turn his opponent’s energy against them. But the energy Aang bent with was love, and how was Aang supposed to channel the lightning through his body and kill the Fire Lord with love?

He squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his hands around his head. How could it be loving to kill someone? How could it be that that was the only way Aang could end the war?

No, he decided shakily. No – he couldn’t accept that. There had to be another way. Aang was an airbender, and the whole point of airbending philosophy was that it wasn’t about rules, it was about freedom. There was no reason Aang couldn’t find another way to defeat the Fire Lord without killing him!

There’s no reason I can’t do it, he reminded himself as he settled down on his straw mat. In the morning, he’d wake up and go and talk to Katara and Sokka and Hotman and sifu Toph and Suki, and they’d be able to find some way of defeating the Fire Lord without killing him or using gluebending.

Aang had said earlier that fighting the Fire Lord was going to be the hardest thing he and his friends had ever done together. But that didn’t mean he was going to give up. Just like Yue had said, the Avatar had already saved the world. And he’d save the world again if he didn’t give up.

And Aang definitely wasn’t going to give up, he nodded to himself as he closed his eyes and waited to fall asleep. He wasn’t going to give up. Not without a fight. Not without…

Huh?

“Momo?”

Wait, what?

“Guys?”

Oh, monkeyfeathers!

“Where the fluff am I?!”

Chapter Text

Okay, so Aang didn’t want to kill the Fire Lord. That was okay. They could work around that. They just needed to figure out how they were going to do it. It wouldn’t have been easy, exactly, but Suki figured that a team featuring the Avatar, a master waterbender, a metalbender, two Blue Spirits, and a master strategist stood as good a chance as any.

Of course, for Team Avatar to have a chance, they first needed to find said Avatar. Apparently, Zuko had knocked on Aang’s bedroom door after he hadn’t showed up to firebending practice, and he hadn’t been there. Sokka hadn’t found him in the kitchen, and Katara hadn’t seen him in the library when she’d gone to check.

“He left his staff,” Sokka reported, picking up Aang’s glider and looking at it with a frown. “That's so strange.”

“Aang's not in the house,” Zuko reported as he and Toph joined them. “Let's check the beach.”

Suki hadn’t seen Aang since the argument they’d all had last night, but she was beginning to feel uneasy. As they went down to the beach, that feeling only intensified. Aang’s footprints stopped at the beach, so wherever he had gone, he’d gone last night, when they were all asleep. If there had been any prints there, they must have been washed away by the high tide.

“So he went for a midnight swim and never came back?” Suki speculated uncertainly.

Katara bit her lip. “Maybe he was captured.”

“I don't think so,” Sokka shook his head as he crouched down to examine the footprints more closely. “There's no sign of a struggle.”

“I bet he ran away again,” Toph scowled.

Suki didn’t like the sound of that one little bit, but Sokka seemed unconvinced by Toph’s pessimism. “He left behind his glider and Appa.”

“Then what do you think happened to him, oh sleuthy one?” Toph scratched her ear.

“It's pretty obvious,” Sokka answered, although it really wasn’t to Suki. “Aang mysteriously disappears before an important battle? He's definitely on a Spirit World journey.”

“But if he was, wouldn't his body still be here?” Zuko pointed out.

“Oh, yeah.” Sokka colored slightly and he laughed a little awkwardly. “Forgot about that.”

“Then he's got to be somewhere on Ember Island,” Katara nodded. “Let's split up and look for him.”

“I'm going with Zuko!”

Faster than Suki could blink, Toph had grabbed hold of Zuko’s arm. Judging by the stunned look on Zuko’s face, he hadn’t been expecting Toph to move that quickly either.

Toph seemed to sense that they were all staring at her with varying degrees of surprise, because although she wasn’t looking at any of them in particular, Suki felt like her scowl was aimed for every one of them.

“What?” The earthbender demanded. “Everyone else went on a life-changing field trip with Zuko. Now it's my turn!”

Although Suki supposed that Toph was technically correct, she still wasn’t sure that she’d call escaping from prison a life-changing field trip. A desperate, life-or-death break for freedom, maybe, but not quite a field trip. But as she shared a glance with Sokka, she knew that now wasn’t the time to quibble over semantics.

“Come on, Katara,” she decided. “We’ll check around the town.”

Katara looked like she was about ready to throw up, which Suki could understand. But when you were faced with uncertainty, you could only concentrate on what you did know. Suki knew the town, and she knew that if Aang hadn’t left the island, there were only so many places he could be.

But as she and Katara returned to the house after searching through every square, street, alleyway and dead end in the town, all to no avail, it was only through sheer force of will that Suki was able to keep the unease in her gut from becoming something more like panic.

She had to focus on what they knew – if Aang wasn’t in the town, he would have to be somewhere else on the island. He wasn’t in the house, and he wasn’t in the town – Zuko and Toph hadn’t found him on the beach, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t somewhere on the island…

But as Sokka landed Appa down in front of the house, Suki could see his already-drawn face become even tighter as he jumped down from the sky bison.

“Judging by the looks on your faces, I'm guessing you guys didn't find Aang, either,” he remarked flatly.

Shit.

Zuko shook his head. “No. It's like he just…” he scowled and huffed in frustration. “Disappeared.”

“Hey, wait a minute.” Toph sounded just curious enough for Suki to turn towards her in expectation. “Has anyone noticed that Momo is missing, too?”

“Oh, no!” Sokka gasped, spinning back around towards Appa. “I knew it was only a matter of time! Appa ate Momo!

“Oh, Kyoshi,” Suki muttered to herself. “Rangi, give me strength.”

One of the things Suki had really admired about Sokka was the way he had seemed to grow and mature as a person over the time she had known him. He’d been a sexist idiot on Kyoshi Island, and then he’d been an overprotective worrier in Ba Sing Se. But now, as Suki watched him climb into Appa’s mouth, loudly proclaiming that he would be the one to save Momo, she was seriously wondering whether what had appeared to be personal development had just been him swapping out one form of stupidity for another.

“Get out of the bison's mouth, Sokka!” Zuko snapped. “We have a real problem here. Aang is nowhere to be found, and the comet is only two days away!”

“What should we do, Zuko?” Katara asked anxiously. She kept glancing back towards Sokka, but Suki really wasn’t worried about him.

Well, she was, in oh-so-many ways, but she didn’t think he was in danger of getting eaten by Appa. The big guy didn’t strike her as much of a carnivore.

Zuko dragged his hand over his face. “We need to find Aang,” he said dully, in what Suki thought might have been the understatement of the century.

“How?” She asked, hearing the edge of frustration in her own voice. “We don’t know where he is, and we can’t follow his tracks. How are we supposed to find him?”

“We can’t,” Sokka answered as he rejoined the group.

“Well, that’s not fucking good enough, Sokka –” Toph began furiously, but Sokka was already shaking his head as he interrupted her.

“We can’t find Aang,” he continued, glancing at Zuko. “But we know someone who can.”

Suki really didn’t think it was a good sign that Katara seemed as nonplussed as she did, but the way Zuko’s eyes flashed might have made up for it.

“Sokka,” the Fire Prince smirked. “You’re a genius!

After the way her boyfriend had just been trying to climb into Appa’s mouth, Suki had serious reservations about that. But as Zuko and Sokka began to discuss how long it would take them to reach the northwestern Earth Kingdom, she thought it might be best not to say that out loud.

 

 

Before he and his friends had come to Ember Island, Aang had liked to think he was a pretty observant guy. But what with everything that had happened in the last couple of days, he was beginning to wonder whether he was quite as perceptive as he’d thought he was.

First, he’d apparently completely missed that Katara didn’t love him back, and seemed to only see him like she’d see, like, Momo or something, and then he’d somehow failed to pick up on how everyone had been expecting him to kill the Fire Lord and be totally fine and okay with that. And as if all that wasn’t bad enough, now he’d woken up on an island he’d never seen before, with no idea of how he’d got there, and no idea of how he could get out of here!

This was worse than that time he’d managed to get himself frozen in an iceberg, he thought to himself as he tried not to panic. At least in the iceberg, he hadn’t been awake to freak out about how he only had… two days left to figure out where he was, find a way to get off the island, and come up with a way to defeat the Fire Lord without killing him or using gluebending.

He’d tried to talk to Momo about it, but Momo hadn’t really had much to say on the matter. Maybe lemurs didn’t feel the same instinctive horror at the thought of killing someone as Aang felt, or maybe they just didn’t like getting glue in their fur. When he’d been in that Fire Nation school, Aang had gotten a bit of glue stuck in his hair during an arts and crafts lesson, and it had been really difficult to get it out without revealing his arrow. In the end, he’d had to ask Shoji to help him wash it out with oil and warm water.

Aang sure wished he had some help right now. He wished he had some way of talking to someone who could help him with his dilemma; maybe he could talk to Avatar Roku, like on the Winter Solstice. Roku had been the one to tell Aang that he needed to defeat the Fire Lord before Sozin’s Comet arrived, so maybe he could be the one to give Aang some idea of how he was meant to do that?

Wait a minute!

This was just like that time in Senlin when Roku had appeared to Aang in a spirit vision and told him that he needed to get to the Fire Temple on Crescent Island before the Winter Solstice. Aang and the others had had barely any time to lose before they’d had to fly all the way to the Fire Nation, just like he needed to talk to Roku right away right now.

Just like back then, there wasn’t any reason Aang couldn’t talk to Roku, so he could just talk to Roku!

Aang took a deep breath, and began to meditate, and it wasn’t too long before Avatar Roku showed up in a burst of pale-blue light. As Momo made an awkward chirr to let him know he was going to go be someplace else whilst Aang talked to the new guy that had just showed up out of nowhere, Aang breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of Avatar Roku sitting in front of him.

“I do have Roku!” He grinned shakily. If that hadn’t worked, he didn’t even want to think about how much stress he would have been under.

Roku didn’t look stressed out at all, and whilst that might have been due to how Roku wasn’t the one who needed to worry about killing anyone, Aang hoped that it was because Roku had an idea of how he could defeat the Fire Lord and end the war without going against everything the monks had ever taught him.

“You're right, Aang,” Avatar Roku smiled at him.

What?

Roku had an idea of how he could defeat the Fire Lord without killing him? That was amazing news!

“All the past Avatars,” Roku continued, still steadily smiling at Aang. “All their experience and wisdom is available to you, if you look deep inside yourself.”

Oh, right. Roku was just responding to what Aang had said out loud, not what he had been saying in his head. Aang couldn’t deny that he was a bit disappointed that Roku hadn’t just come straight out and told him how to defeat the Fire Lord, but at least mind-reading still wasn’t one of those Avatar powers that Aang hadn’t yet discovered. Aang sure was relieved about that right now, for a whole variety of reasons, but he was even more relieved that Roku was here to help him. He didn’t feel very experienced or very wise, and he needed Roku to help him find the answers he needed.

“So where am I, Roku?” He asked, figuring that that was the most important question he could ask at this point. “What is this place?”

The Fire Avatar looked a little confused as he looked around the leafy green forest he and Aang were sitting in. Maybe Aang’s question had been a little too vague? Aang hoped Roku wasn’t going to give the really obvious answer of a forest. He wasn’t that unobservant.

“I don't know, Aang,” he admitted, and Aang’s heart sank. “But I see you are lost in more ways than one right now.”

“I am,” Aang nodded earnestly. “I need to figure out what to do once I face the Fire Lord. Everyone expects me to take the Fire Lord's life, but I just don't know if I can do that!”

Roku looked very serious as he considered Aang’s dilemma, and Aang hoped that Roku could help him come up with another way. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t be able to help Aang with his gluebending idea, but Katara and Sokka had told him that Avatar Roku had bent lava when they’d escaped the Fire Temple, so Roku knew how to bend things nobody had ever known you could bend before, right?

Aang knew gluebending was a pretty out-there idea, but he also knew he’d rather try gluebending than killing someone.

“In my life, I tried to be disciplined and show restraint, but it backfired when Fire Lord Sozin took advantage of my restraint and mercy. If I had been more decisive and acted sooner, I could have stopped Sozin and stopped the war before it started.”

Aang didn’t like the way Roku said he could have stopped Sozin. Stopping the war sounded great, of course, but stopping Sozin… that sounded awfully permanent to him.

“I offer you this wisdom, Aang,” Roku said calmly. “You must be decisive.”

As Aang’s past life vanished in a flurry of blue light, Aang felt even more lost than he had been before he’d talked to Roku. What Roku had said about how the Fire Lord had taken advantage of his mercy … was Roku saying Aang should be unmerciful?

Aang didn’t know what Monk Gyatso would say about that.

 

 

Toph said it every time she got down off Fuzzball, but that was because it was true every time. She fucking hated flying.

She’d barely had time to recover her feet and catch her balance before Sparky was hauling them into a building that smelt worse than backstage at the Earth Rumbles. The crowd was louder and boozier than the crowds at the Earth Rumbles, too, which Toph wouldn’t have thought possible until she’d experienced it for herself.

Sparky had brought them to some tavern in the western Earth Kingdom because he apparently knew some bounty hunter who may or may not have kidnapped him at some point, or something, whatever. Sparky was a crap storyteller to begin with, and the fact that Snoozles had constantly been interrupting with sarcastic comments hadn’t helped things either, as the two of them had been too busy arguing to actually tell Toph anything.

Still, she had to admit that this June lady seemed kind of cool for a bounty hunter, though. Definitely better than the last two bozos Toph had needed to deal with. And the way she called Sparky Prince Pouty when they went over to talk to her? Outstanding smack talk.

“Where's your creepy grandpa?” Were the next words out of her mouth, though, and she lost an awful lot of points in Toph’s book if she was going to talk shit about dai-xiānshēng Iroh.

“He's my uncle,” Sparky replied. “And he's not here.”

Huntsgirl gave a hum that Toph decided to interpret as that’s a shame, because Gramps is a fucking legend. “I see you worked things out with your girlfriend.”

I’m not his girlfriend!

She’s not my girlfriend!

Toph wasn’t really too sure which out of Splish-Splash and Hotpants denied it louder, but mudslides, did it give her ears a clean-out.

Morons, she thought resignedly to herself.

“Okay, okay,” Huntsgirl grumbled. “Sheesh, I was only teasing. So, what do you want?”

Sparky managed to get his heartbeat back under control in time to get back to the issue at hand. “I need your help finding the Avatar.”

“Prince Zuko, trying to find the Avatar?” June Bug let out a laugh. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Funny you should say that,” Snoozles interjected. “Because I’ve actually got a great one that starts off a lot like this.”

June Bug hummed. “I hope it’s got a better punchline than that uncle’s joke about tea.”

“The end of the world!” Sparky half-yelled, leaning over the table and clenching his fists. “How’s that for a punchline?”

Funnily enough, that did seem to get June Bug’s attention, so they ended up going outside. Sugar Queen had Twinkles’ staff, but whatever the shirshu thing was trying to do with it, apparently it wasn’t working. Toph could sense it sniffing around the ground in a circle for a little while, but then it just let out a whine and slumped on the grass with their paws over its nose.

Toph thought this might actually have been even worse than Snoozles’ mini-vacation.

“Well?” Sparky said impatiently. “What does that mean?”

“Means your friend's gone,” Huntsgirl replied, standing next to the shirshu as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

“We know he's gone,” Toph pointed out annoyedly. “That's why we're trying to find him!”

“No,” the bounty hunter reiterated. “I mean he's gone gone. He doesn't exist.”

“What do you mean, Aang doesn't exist?” Snoozles demanded. “Do you mean he's – you know, dead?

“Nope,” Huntsgirl answered coolly. “We could find him if he were dead. It's a real head-scratcher. See ya.”

“Helpful,” Toph made sure she was saying it just loud enough for June Bug to hear it as the world’s worst bounty hunter moved to stand next to the world’s most useless tracker mutt. “Real helpful.”

“What about Master Iroh?” Snoozles asked. “Can’t he help? We could try and find him?”

“We’d need something to track him with,” Sparky growled. “Gee, if only I had the Crown Prince’s headpiece he gave me – oh, wait, Suki picked up the wrong fucking bag at the Air Temple –”

“That wouldn’t have worked anyway,” Huntsgirl said flatly, before Fan Girl could respond with violence. “It can’t be something you’ve given away willingly; it has to be yours. That’s how Zhao was planning on using your necklace.”

Toph assumed that last comment was directed at Sugar Queen, because she couldn’t remember anyone else wearing a necklace in the time she’d been with them.

Great,” Sparky seethed, pacing back and forth. “Aang’s glider doesn’t work, we don’t have Uncle’s crown, it wouldn’t have worked even if we’d had it in the first place – what’s the Agni-damned point of any of this –”

“What if it was stolen?”

Toph blinked at the sound of Aunt Fanny’s voice – but more than that, her heartbeat.

Why was her heart beating so fast?

“What if what was stolen?” Huntsgirl sounded as confused as she was.

“The necklace,” Fan Girl said. “If Katara’s necklace had been stolen, would you still be able to track Katara using it?”

“I… guess so?” June Bug sounded as lost as Toph was. “If she hadn’t given it away willingly, then sure. Why not?”

Toph didn’t have a clue what was going on here – what did Sugar Queen’s necklace have to do with all this? And why was Aunt Fanny suddenly hurrying over to Fuzzball?

“Suki, what are you doing?” Snoozles called out after her.

“Katara, throw me down that red bag!”

“What?” Sugar Queen sounded bewildered. “Which one?”

“The one with a box of ginseng tea in it!” Aunt Fanny clapped her hands, and Toph sensed her making an impatient movement. “I grabbed it when Azula attacked the Air Temple –”

Toph wondered for a moment whether Fan Girl had gone completely pigeon-cuckoo. Why was she looking for a bag full of ginseng tea?

“Oh, fuck off –”

And why was Sokka swearing?

“Taki stole this from Master Iroh when we left the Wani,” Little Miss Fantastic said quickly as she marched over to Huntsgirl. “Can you use it to track him?”

“One way to find out,” June Bug said, hefting whatever Fan Girl had given her in one hand before moving over in the direction of the weird shirshu thing.

Toph wasn’t sure what was happening over there with the shirshu, but whatever Huntsgirl was doing, it seemed to do the trick. She heard a loud roar, and she sensed one set of feet jumping up onto the giant mole whatever.

“What just happened?” She asked the others uncertainly. “Was it a good thing?”

“It’s a great thing,” Sparky’s voice was triumphant. “We can track Uncle now!”

“Finally, a good use for ginseng,” Fan Girl muttered, clapping Toph on the shoulder. “Come on, Toph – up onto Appa!”

“Are you for real right now?” Sucker demanded. Toph pictured him waving his hands in the air like a total dunderhead. “We’re seriously tracking Master Iroh using fucking ginseng tea?

Toph couldn’t help the snort she let out as she clambered up onto Fuzzball. Oh, man, when she told Gramps about this, the kooky old dude was gonna cry laughing.

“Come on, Sokka,” Sugar Queen sounded like she was smiling. “Quit complaining, and get a move oolong!”

Chapter Text

When Momo asked Aang why he was still meditating after Avatar Roku had already talked to him, Aang tried very hard not to reply with something super sarcastic. But Roku hadn’t been any help at all! He’d just told Aang that he needed to be decisive, but Aang had already decided that he couldn’t kill the Fire Lord. He needed an alternative.

“Avatar Kyoshi,” he called out. “I need your wisdom.”

As Avatar Kyoshi appeared in front of Aang, Momo scarpered off pretty quickly, which Aang could kind of understand. He didn’t really want to ask Kyoshi for advice, because the last time he’d gone to Kyoshi for help, back in Chin Village, he’d ended up getting sentenced to getting boiled in oil. If he asked Kyoshi Do you have any ideas for how I can defeat the Fire Lord without killing him?, and she replied Hmm, have you considered boiling him in oil?, Aang wasn’t going to be too happy about that.

As he explained to Kyoshi about how everyone expected him to take the Fire Lord’s life, Kyoshi had a severe look on her face that made Aang feel more than a little bit uncomfortable with how seriously she was taking this conversation.

“In my day, Chin the Conqueror threatened to throw the world out of balance.” Kyoshi said without preamble once Aang had finished explaining himself. “I stopped him, and the world entered a great era of peace.”

Aang hadn’t liked the way Roku had talked about how he could have and maybe should have stopped Fire Lord Sozin, but he really didn’t like the way Kyoshi talked about how she had been the one to stop Chin. He knew that Kyoshi’s confrontation with Chin had ended in Chin’s death, but why did Kyoshi have to act like she was taking responsibility for an accident? Especially an accident that awful?

Aang didn’t want to take responsibility for the way the Ocean Spirit had taken their revenge on the Fire Nation and sunk hundreds of ships when their navy had attacked the Northern Water Tribe.

“You didn't really kill Chin,” he protested, trying not to remember the way Chief Arnook had talked about thousands of casualties. “Technically, he fell to his own doom because he was too stubborn to get out of the way!”

“Personally, I don't really see the difference,” Kyoshi shook her head. “But I assure you, I would have done whatever it took to stop Chin.”

Aang’s stomach dropped. If Kyoshi didn’t see the difference between a terrible accident and something you did deliberately, did that mean she thought Aang had killed all those Fire Nation soldiers? Did she think Aang should kill the Fire Lord?

Aang knew that was what Zuko and Sokka wanted him to do, but he couldn’t just go around wiping out people he didn’t like! That went against everything the monks had taught him!

“I offer you this wisdom, Aang,” Kyoshi looked really serious, but her eyes looked old and tired. “Only justice will bring peace.”

As Kyoshi disappeared, Aang had to sit back in disappointment. He’d been hoping that Kyoshi would be able to give him something better than being boiled in oil, but the Earth Avatar hadn’t been helpful at all. And what was worse, she’d basically told him that although fusing with the Ocean Spirit and attacking the Fire Nation’s huge fleet of ships had been an accident, it was just as bad as if Aang had just decided to up and kill all those people himself!

“I knew I shouldn't have asked Kyoshi,” he muttered to himself.

He needed to look deep inside himself. He’d tried speaking to his last two lives, but neither of them had come up with answers that could help him. Now, he’d need to meditate even harder and look even further back into the Avatar Cycle; all the way back to the last Water Avatar.

Aang didn’t know that Avatar’s name, but when a Water Tribe man wearing a polar bear dog pelt on his head appeared, he figured that they were probably who he was looking for. The man looked like he was quite young, but they also looked like they had a really old spirit.

“I am Avatar Kuruk,” Aang’s previous life introduced himself. “When I was young, I was always a go-with-the-flow kind of Avatar. People seemed to work out their own problems, and there was peace and good times in the world.”

Aang thought this sounded pretty good – peace and good times in the world? That was what he was hoping for now! Why was Avatar Kuruk looking so grim-faced as he remembered how people worked out their problems and life was good?

He got his answer when Kuruk said that he lost the woman he loved to Koh, the Face Stealer. Aang shivered at the memory of the spirit with a centipede’s body and a thousand faces. He had been worried about losing Katara earlier, but he’d never dreamt that he might lose her to Koh.

Imagining Koh screaming at him whilst wearing Katara’s face… that was awful.

“It was my fault,” Kuruk said, with a heaviness in his voice that Aang hoped he would never have to feel. “If I had been more attentive and more active, I could have saved her. Aang, you must actively shape your own destiny and the destiny of the world.”

As Avatar Kuruk vanished, Aang thought that his previous life might have taken his hope with him as he went.

When Aang and his friends had saved Makapu village from that erupting volcano, Aunt Wu had told him that he could actively shape his own destiny just like he’d shaped the clouds in the sky – but Aang had thought that had something to do with how just because Aunt Wu hadn’t seen any romance in his future, that didn’t mean he couldn’t get Katara to like him back. Aang didn’t want to think that Katara had anything to do with the Fire Lord, but he had a horrible feeling that he knew what Kuruk was trying to tell him.

If Aang wanted to go into the Avatar State and defeat the Fire Lord, he would have to unlock his blocked chakras again… but Guru Pathik had told Aang when they had been working on his chakras at the Eastern Air Temple that he would have to let go of his attachment to Katara if he wanted to unlock his Thought Chakra and access the pure cosmic energy of the Avatar State.

Aang shut his eyes tightly as he rested his head in his hands. First he was being told he had to kill the Fire Lord, but now he had to let go of Katara as well?

How could Aang let go of his love for Katara, after he had just heard Kuruk tell him about the heartbreak he had felt when Koh had taken the woman he loved away from him?

There has to be another way, he told himself. There has to be.

There had to be!

 

 

“We're going to Ba Sing Se?” Zuko asked warily as he and the others dismounted Appa with varying degrees of grace and composure. Toph let out a particularly creative swear word as she nearly toppled off, and it was a testament to how tired they all were that Katara didn’t even call her out on her language.

After following June and Nyla across the Earth Kingdom, they had finally arrived at the biggest city in the Earth Kingdom. Even after June had called a halt to their trip, her shirshu continued to huff and grunt as she determinedly scratched at the crumbling remains of the once-impenetrable wall.

Zuko tried not to think too closely about how the Fire Nation would never have been able to take the city if he had only acted differently in the Crystal Catacombs.

He’d been trying to do the right thing, but he’d failed.

Again.

“Your uncle's somewhere beyond the wall,” June replied simply. “Nyla's getting twitchy, so he can't be too far. Good luck.”

Zuko would have thanked June for helping them track Uncle down, but he was still a little sore with her for that time she had helped Zhao track and capture him in the northern Earth Kingdom. Okay, so she had been helping Zhao chase after the Blue Spirit at the time, but once Zuko had needed to reveal his identity to distract Zhao at the nunnery, he would have thought that June would have refused to capture him out of, like, solidarity, or something.

Honor amongst bounty hunters was apparently not quite as common as honor amongst thieves, but at least the end of the world was apparently significant enough for her to wave her finder’s fee this time around. If Zuko had needed to tell Uncle Iroh that he needed another four hundred gold coins, Uncle probably wouldn’t have been very impressed.

As June and Nyla sped away across the flat plains surrounding Ba Sing Se, Zuko turned around to face the others. It was only then that he noticed just how pale Suki was, and how Sokka was swaying slightly as he stood next to the Kyoshi Warrior. They’d flown all the way from Ember Island to Ba Sing Se without a moment to rest, or break, or even to catch their breath.

“It's been a long day,” he managed, blinking hard to try and dispel the dark spots at the edge of his vision. “Let's camp and start our search again at dawn.”

He didn’t hear any arguments from Sokka or Suki, and even Toph wasn’t stubborn enough to push back on him this time around. They had enough food for a supper of noodle soup and vegetable rice, and Sokka was just about gracious enough, at Suki’s subtle promptings, to share his kale cookies with the rest of them. By the time Katara went off to find a stream where she could get rid of the worst of the day’s grime and sweat, Toph had already bent herself a rock tent, and Zuko could hear two sets of soft snores coming from Appa’s other flank, where Sokka and Suki must have settled down for the night.

Zuko didn’t think Katara was going to run into any more pirates this time around, but he still wanted to make sure she got back safely. He occupied himself in her absence by using the last of his waterskin to make himself a cup of shōgayu tea, before setting up a candle and touching the wick to set it alight.

Sitting cross-legged on the grass with a candle in front of him, and a cup of steaming tea by his side. This was just like those journeys across the Earth Kingdom with Uncle Iroh; or even those times when he had been travelling northwards with Aang, Sokka and Katara. He had gotten used to Katara joining him in the mornings to meditate with him – she’d even started meditating with bowls of water, much like he did with candles, all so that she could improve her connection to her element.

He had been impressed by her dedication – not least because Katara hated waking up early.

Zuko meditated at daybreak because he had learnt to rise with the sun, when the greatest source of fire broke over the horizon and a firebender’s connection to their inner flame sparked into new life again every day. At this time of the day – or, rather, at this time of the night – a firebender’s power wasn’t lessened, exactly, but Zuko definitely felt a bit more sluggish. It wasn’t just the tiredness of a long day, either; it was the slight dullness of his inner fire without the sun coaxing him to burn. This time belonged to waterbenders, who drew their power from the moon.

As Zuko reached out a little further to sense the candle’s heat, flickering like a little heartbeat, he could sense the heat of the bodies around them. Appa was the largest and warmest body amongst them, but if Zuko concentrated hard enough, he could pick out Sokka and Suki lying on the sky bison’s legs. Toph was a little harder to pick out, but he could just about sense her as she lay in her earthen tent, and Katara –

Zuko opened his eyes to see Katara standing in front of him. Her face looked a little flushed, as if she had been scrubbing it particularly vigorously, and her hair was down around her face, not pulled back in a braid or tied up in loopies. She’d unwrapped the cloths she usually wore around her wrists, and her arms and hands were bare.

“Zuko,” she stuttered, half-raising her right hand before physically pushing it back down again with her left. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt –”

“It’s fine,” he answered curtly, turning his face away to his left. “I was just meditating.”

Katara didn’t reply at first, and Zuko was left to wonder whether she didn’t want to talk about it. But he didn’t really know what else to talk about. He really didn’t want to talk about what might await them over the next few days.

“Don’t you usually meditate during the daytime?” She asked eventually, glancing between him and the candle. “Like – at dawn?”

“You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun.”

Zuko wasn’t sure where the words came from, but he hoped he hadn’t said them loudly enough for Katara to hear them. From the way she looked from the candle to the cup of shōgayu by his knee before meeting his gaze again, he thought he might have gotten away with it.

“Well, yeah, but, uh,” he cleared his throat and gestured to the candle, trying to move the conversation on before his mouth decided to start rambling on about Agni only knew what without his permission. “I’m meditating now, too. So – you can sit, if you want. It’s not – you’re not interrupting.”

 

 

Katara couldn’t help but feel a little bit like a skittish crococat as she inched her way towards Zuko. On impulse, instead of sitting opposite him on the other side of the candle, she sat next to him on the grass, almost bumping their knees together. Maybe it was because she didn’t want to feel like she was staring at him – or maybe it was because she didn’t want to feel like he was staring at her.

She was so confused.

They both sat and stared at the flickering candle for a few moments before Zuko broke the silence.

“Do you remember when we started meditating together?” He asked quietly. His eyes were closed, but his features seemed softer in the candlelight. His dark hair hung down across his face and fell into his eyes.

“It seems like so long ago,” Katara confessed, hurrying onwards to try and distract herself from… everything. “Remember those water whips?”

Zuko’s lip turned up slightly in a tired smile, and he exhaled with a faint huff of laughter. “They really hurt, you know.”

Zuko’s voice was soft, and Katara remembered all those times before Ba Sing Se, when they had talked together around campfires in the Earth Kingdom. Before she had learnt that Zuko was a Prince of the Fire Nation, and before… before she had learnt that she could hurt people with her bending in more ways than one.

But Zuko hadn’t – he hadn’t seemed angry at her, when he’d seen her bloodbend. And he hadn’t judged her.

Had he?

“Do you remember that man on the Southern Raiders’ ship?” She asked lowly, looking down at her hands in her lap.

“You mean… that captain?”

Zuko’s voice was hesitant, but when she forced herself to meet his eyes, he didn’t look away. He only seemed curious as to what she wanted to say.

“What I can do,” she began, before she faltered. “What I did – I don’t know if I should…”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

“Do you think I should use it on the Fire Lord?” She blurted out before she could lose her nerve, opening her eyes again and turning to face him.

The only indications that Zuko had an opinion on the matter was the way his right eye widened slightly, and the faintest pursing of his lips.

“What do you think you should do?”

Zuko’s question was carefully neutral, but just like all the conversations they’d had in the past, his voice was soft. If Katara closed her eyes, she could pretend she was sitting with bowls of hot and cold water, and just beginning to learn to sense the water for herself.

For herself. Not for anyone else. Not so she could do someone else’s work for them.

“I want to use it for good,” she choked out. “But I don’t know how.”

Katara didn’t know. She was so confused – she didn’t know anything anymore.

She wanted Dad – Dad would know what to do, he always knew what to do. She wanted Mom, who had always been there to hold her when she was cold. She had always been there, and Katara had never felt lost when her mother was around.

“If you need help – figuring that out…” She heard Zuko take a deep breath. “You can use it on me. If you want.”

Katara’s head snapped towards him. Although his face looked drawn and tired, he met her wide-eyed gaze and he didn’t look away. There wasn’t any judgement in his expression.

“It’s not like the water whips,” she tried to help him understand. “It’s – it’s controlling the water in your body. Zuko, I could hurt you –”

“You won’t,” he interrupted forcefully, before he swallowed and lowered his gaze.

“I know you won’t,” he repeated, much more quietly. “I know you, Katara.”

Katara searched in his eyes for something – she wasn’t quite sure what it would look like, but something – to indicate that he was doubtful, or maybe just that he was as scared as she was right now, but he met her gaze unblinkingly.

Carefully, she shuffled on her heels and hands to turn until she was facing him. She tried not to be too distracted by the way their knees were almost touching, or by the way his scar seemed to be almost black against his pale skin in the moonlight.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” she whispered.

Zuko’s lips moved, but his response was barely a breath. “I trust you.”

Slowly, almost hating herself for doing it – almost hating him for letting her – Katara reached out to sense the water around her.

Zuko’s blood ran warmer than hers; she could sense it in his veins, his arteries and capillaries. His heartbeat was slow to begin with, but it sped up as she reached inside his body and wrapped her power around his limbs. As she made him raise his hand in the air, the candle flickered, and Katara stopped immediately.

If he told her to stop, she promised herself, she would.

She would.

But Zuko remained silent, and although his eyes were wide and his heart was thundering in Katara’s ears as she curled and uncurled his fingers in a loose fist, she could hear him doing his best to breathe in time with her. She purposely slowed and deepened her breathing as she let her fingers twitch and bend.

As Katara drew his hand up towards her, she thought she could feel his fingers twitch. He let out an unsteady breath, and his wide eyes flickered between hers and the way his warm hand cupped her face, but he remained silent.

Katara made sure to only exhale slowly as she released her hold on Zuko’s blood. His hand shook for a moment as he recovered himself, but he didn’t pull away from her.

Holding his gaze the whole time, Katara leaned forwards until she was resting her forehead against his. When her hand slid up to rest over Zuko’s scarred cheek, his breath broke over her face and a shudder ran through his whole body as his eyelids fluttered and closed.

But when a sudden, high-pitched noise split the silence of the night at a deafening volume, he flinched away so violently that Katara almost overbalanced and toppled onto him.

“What was that?” She gasped as she tried to recover herself, turning her head this way and that.

“It can’t be,” Zuko muttered as he leapt to his feet, already conjuring a fireball in his hand. “There’s no fucking way –”

If it was Azula – if it was anyone who would hurt the people she loved –

“Zuko? What was that?

“I’m gonna kick your ass, your kooky old –”

But Zuko was cut off by that same ear-splitting sound. It sounded like a screech, or a cackle, or a –

“Well, look who's here!”

Katara paled as she realized what that sound was.

It was a laugh.

Chapter Text

Sokka had been in the middle of a crazy dream where he’d been raised by crococats in the Foggy Swamp when Suki had woken him up by jabbing him in the ribs with what felt like an elbow. It wasn’t the nicest way she’d ever woken him up, not by a long way, but it did hurt enough to take his mind off the dream. He woke up to a nightmare of an altogether different kind, though: King Bumi of Omashu leaping down from the top of the crumbling wall to meet them in surprisingly nimble fashion, landing in front of him with a grin that hurt Sokka’s face just looking at it.

Zuko looked like he was about five seconds away from either fainting or punching the old dude, but Sokka hoped he wouldn’t injure Bumi before they got to ask him the important questions – like how the slush he’d managed to escape from Omashu and get to Ba Sing Se.

And why were the rest of the Order of the White Lotus here as well? Not that Sokka was complaining, exactly, but he and the others had come here looking for Master Iroh – he hadn’t been expecting a five-for-one deal.

“What's going on?” Toph demanded, casting her sightless head around and glancing down at her feet every few seconds. “We're surrounded by old people!”

“Not just any old people,” Katara told Toph as she went walking up to Pakku with a friendly smile. “These are great masters and friends of ours!”

Sokka caught Zuko’s eye and raised an eyebrow at the thought of Pakku being a friend. Judging from Zuko’s deep glower, the jerkbender had the same attitude. Sokka distinctly remembered his little sister calling the thin, grumpy old man a prick, but absence apparently made the heart grow fonder, because she gave him a respectful bow. Sokka was only marginally appeased by how Pakku bowed back.

“It is respectful to bow to an old master,” he commented, sounding as unimpressed as ever – wait, why was he holding his arms out?

“But how about a hug for your new grandfather?”

What the slush? Gran-Gran had married Pakku?

Sokka would have thought Gran-Gran was a bit more sensible than that.

“That's so exciting!” Katara squealed, giving her old waterbending teacher a great big hug. “You and Gran-Gran must be so happy to have found each other again!”

“I made her a new betrothal necklace and everything,” Pakku responded. There was an unfamiliar expression on his face – wait, was that a smile? Was Pakku even capable of smiling?

Sokka thought that might have been even weirder than how Pakku was apparently shacking up with Gran-Gran and oh for the love of Tui why did he think saying that, even in the privacy of his own head, was a good idea?

If he was doomed to suffer through that horrifying mental image, Sokka at least wanted Pakku to suffer with him, so he gave the old guy a great big hug.

“Welcome to the family, Gramp-Gramp!” He cheered in a sing-song voice. He could hear Katara giggling from behind him.

“You can still just call me Pakku,” the Northerner grumbled as he pushed Sokka away. He looked kind of pissed off, Sokka noted with no small degree of satisfaction.

“How about Gramp-Pakku?” He bargained, staring at the old waterbender in a Manly fashion.

Pakku’s eyebrow twitched, but he held Sokka’s gaze. “No.”

Sokka narrowed his eyes. If Pakku wasn’t accepting his new nickname, that sounded an awful lot to Sokka like he wanted a different nickname.

Prickku had a nice ring to it, he thought to himself.

“What about the rest of you?” Suki asked, interrupting their stare-off. “Why are the White Lotus here in Ba Sing Se?”

“Since Prince Zuko joined the Avatar in Omashu, the Order has been working to lay the foundations for a smooth transition of power at the end of the war,” Jeong Jeong explained. “But about a month ago, a call went out that we were needed for something important.”

“It came from a Grand Lotus,” Pakku supplied, nodding at Zuko. “Your uncle, Iroh of the Fire Nation.”

Zuko didn’t say anything, but Sokka could see a small smile on his face as his wary expression softened at the mention of his uncle. He might have been a grumpy, sullen jerk at times, but he really did care about the old guy.

“Well, that's who we're looking for,” Toph stated decisively.

Pakku nodded again, this time at Toph. “Then we'll take you to him.”

Sokka let out a sigh of relief. Finally, Gramp-Pakku was doing something right! They needed to talk to Iroh and figure out how they were meant to confront the Fire Lord without Aang; if the White Lotus were here, that was even better, spirits knew they needed all the help they could get –

“Wait!” Bumi shouted, popping up behind Master Piandao and Jeong Jeong and sending them stumbling to the side as he forced his way in between them.

Maybe not all the help they could get, Sokka amended. They weren’t quite that desperate just yet, right?

“Someone's missing from your group,” the kooky old King of Omashu continued, leaning right in to Sokka’s face and breathing all over him. “Someone very important!”

Sokka had to lean backwards to avoid Bumi’s breath. He was getting a real whiff of cabbages and some weird smell that might have been jennamite.

“Where's Momo?” Bumi demanded. Yep, definitely jennamite.

And Sokka had thought his feet smelt bad. Honest to La, Bumi deserved to have the Dark Water Spirit kick his ass.

“He's gone!” Sokka protested, turning his face away from the smell. “And so’s Aang!”

Bumi’s eyes bulged, and for a split-second, Sokka thought that the old earthbender might actually have grasped the seriousness of their situation. But then Bumi giggled and patted him on the chest, and he almost went stumbling backwards. Only Suki’s strong arm at his waist stopped him from falling on his ass.

“Oh well,” the mad King of Omashu said cheerily. “So long as they have each other, I'm sure we have nothing to worry about. Let's go!”

As Suki nudged Sokka back upright, he couldn’t help but watch on disbelievingly as the kooky old bastard earthbent himself up onto the wall, snorting and snickering as he went. He could hear Gran-Gran’s words about how he was more likely to catch a winged eel in his mouth if he didn’t keep it shut, but that only made him remember how Gran-Gran was engaged to Pakku, of all people.

Sokka wasn’t quite sure how, but he was pretty sure Bumi had something to do with it – and even if he didn’t, Sokka was still going to blame it on him.

Fucking Bumi.

 

 

Although she had gotten to know Zuko and Master Iroh fairly well in Ba Sing Se, Suki hadn’t known that they were part of the Order of the White Lotus. For what it was worth, she hadn’t even known at the time that an ancient secret society dedicated to philosophy and beauty and truth existed, let alone that they had been responsible for the emergence of the Blue Spirit. She’d only found that out when Taki had handed her a blue theater mask outside a Fire Nation foreign intelligence office in Qifeng and told her very simply that she couldn’t do a worse job than Zuko. That had been an interesting conversation.

So Suki had more than a few questions for the White Lotus’ leaders as she and her friends followed them back to their campsite. Judging from the daggers Zuko was staring into Bumi’s back as they trailed behind them, she wasn’t the only one.

“So, Bumi,” Sokka began.

Suki shot him a warning look – if he picked a fight right now, she wouldn’t be happy about it. They’d already had one major argument with Aang that had landed them in this mess in the first place – Suki didn’t want to have to deal with the fallout of another confrontation.

They needed to remain focused; they had a job to do right now, and the job wasn’t done yet.

“How did you end up escaping your imprisonment in Omashu?” He finished weakly, and Suki nodded inwardly with satisfaction.

But as Bumi told them how he’d been able to fight back against the Fire Nation, she could feel her jaw slowly beginning to drop. He’d managed to take on a whole city of Fire Nation soldiers all by himself, and win? She’d thought she and Taki had been daring in Yu Dao, when they’d masqueraded as a businesswoman and her secretary so they could steal the records of the corrupt Finance Minister’s under-the-table dealings.

“Wow,” she breathed. “You took back your whole city all by yourself?”

Even Sokka and Zuko looked grudgingly impressed as Bumi nodded so fast his ear hair seemed to jiggle.

“So what about you guys?” He asked, grinning at them and letting his eyebrows jump up and down. “Did you do anything interesting on the day of the eclipse?”

Suki couldn’t remember the eclipse; it had probably happened during the time she had been in solitary for beating up that guy who’d been picking on Hansuke. Thankfully, Bumi seemed to take it all in his stride. Well – either that, or Sokka and Zuko’s noncommittal answers didn’t permeate whatever strange alternate reality he was living in.

“Well, here we are,” he announced, using his earthbending to lower a rock wall and let them into what Suki could see was a fairly small campsite. “Welcome to Old People Camp.”

“Your uncle's in there, Prince Zuko,” the man Sokka had told her was Piandao gestured to a tent across on the other side of the campsite. Zuko didn’t say anything, but he swallowed hard.

As everybody tried to pretend that they weren’t watching him walk away, the awkward silence was broken by the sound of Toph scoffing.

“Old People Camp?” She wrinkled her nose and folded her arms. “They’re going to need a better name.”

“Tell me about it,” a familiar voice drawled. “But I guess ‘Pai Sho Dickheads’ was already taken.”

Suki grinned as she saw a welcome face drawing towards them. “Taki!”

Taki never looked happy, per se, to see anyone, but she was definitely smirking as she walked towards them.

“What’re you doing here?” Sokka grinned, reaching his arm out. Taki disregarded his offered hand to punch him in the shoulder, and Suki stifled a laugh at the wince on Sokka’s face.

“Hakoda and I got the others to the Wani, and they’ve been helping Jee and the others with supply runs to the South Pole,” Taki recounted, giving Suki a punch of her own to match. “But Yoshida got a message from Master Iroh about a week and a half ago that I was needed here in Ba Sing Se.”

Suki frowned, her confusion momentarily taking her mind off the bruise she could already feel forming. “How did Master Iroh know you’d be aboard to get the message?”

Taki shook her head. “The less you think about it…”

“The less you have to worry about it,” Suki nodded, completing the phrase. That motto, along with Midshipman Yang’s moonshine, had apparently gotten Taki through her first eighteen months on the Wani. “Gotcha.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Taki said suddenly. “The crew thinks Zuko’s pregnant.”

Suki must have misheard that.

What?!

That Sokka had coincidentally misheard it at the same time didn’t mean anything.

Taki nodded casually, as if what she had said wasn’t the craziest thing Suki had heard her say yet. After hearing her views on ginseng, it was quite the feat.

“Yeah, that Bato guy told Boatswain Honda, and he told Yang, and obviously Yang thought it was hilarious, so he started telling everyone.” She shrugged casually. “Jee wasn’t too impressed, but what can you do?”

“I can’t believe this,” Sokka guffawed. “Oh, man, this is the best thing I’ve ever heard!”

“Better than the time he was kidnapped?” Toph asked doubtfully. “Which you still haven’t told me about, by the way.”

“A million times better,” Sokka reassured her gleefully. “Oh, it’s gonna take him the rest of his life to try and live this down.”

“Not just the rest of his life,” Katara agreed, before she started to giggle. “It’s going to take –”

As she dissolved into helpless laughter, Suki exchanged a confused look with Taki. She wasn’t quite sure what had amused Katara so much, but she had wrapped her arms around her stomach and she seemed fairly delighted with… whatever she was finding so funny.

“Uh, ‘Tara?” Sokka seemed at as much of a loss as Suki was. “What’s it going to take, exactly?”

“It’s going to take –” Katara gasped, blinking back tears of mirth – “It’s going to take him a maternity!

As she continued to chortle at her own joke, Suki managed to laugh along weakly. Sokka groaned and dragged a hand over his face, and Taki just rolled her eyes, but Katara was undeterred.

“Get it?” She managed through her snickering. “Because it’s eternity – but because they – they think he’s pregnant – it’s also maternity, like when it’s –”

“We get it, Sugar Queen,” Toph cut her off impatiently. “It’s just not funny. Your jokes are worse than Sparky’s.”

Suki’s mental calculations of whether she, Sokka and Taki between them could keep the two benders from making frozen mud of each other were halted when Sokka nudged her, making her blink and look up at him.

“Talking of Zuko,” he murmured, nodding his head over in the direction their firebender friend had taken. “Do you think he’s okay over there?”

From where she and the others were standing, Suki could see the way Zuko’s shoulders were visibly slumped, as if he was letting out a deep sigh. She knew that being a leader didn’t just mean making hard decisions. Sometimes, it meant being there for your team when they were feeling down.

A leader had to look after their group. That was one of the first things Suki had learned.

“Come on, guys,” she made the decision. “Let’s go.”

 

 

Breathe, Zuko reminded himself, trying hard to remember his basics. If you can control your breath, you can control anything.

But Uncle had taught him those basics, and Zuko had almost thrown it all away. Everything Uncle had showed him, everything Uncle had been working towards – everything Zuko had been fighting for, he’d almost ruined it all

He squeezed his eyes tight and fought to steady his breathing as he sat down heavily on the grass. He was trying very hard not to feel the way his heart was drumming in his chest, and trying even harder not to remember the disapproval in Uncle’s eyes the last time he had seen the old man in his prison cell.

He wouldn’t even have been in that prison if Zuko hadn’t made his choice in Ba Sing Se.

Despite the way Zuko’s blood was thundering in his ears – and after the way Katara had bent his blood earlier, Agni knew he was more aware of his heartbeat than he’d ever been before – he could still hear the soft sound of footsteps as several bodies came to hover over and around him where he sat slumped over on the ground.

“Are you okay?”

Sokka’s blue eyes were serious as he crouched down besides him. Suki and Taki – when had Taki gotten here? – seemed content to remain standing along with Toph, but Katara settled herself on the grass on his other side opposite her brother.

“No,” Zuko confessed lowly. “I’m not okay.”

Sokka didn’t push him, and Suki and Katara were quiet as they let him gather his thoughts. Even Toph remained silent. She must have realized that this wasn’t the time to make a dumb joke or come out with a new and creative insult, although Zuko wasn’t so sure that he wouldn’t have appreciated the distraction.

There is nothing wrong with letting the people who love you help you, he reminded himself. But Uncle had taught him that.

Uncle had taught him so much, and he’d – he’d…

“Everything that’s happened,” he choked out, fighting the urge to duck his head and shy away from them. “It’s because I was too scared to tell the truth. I was ashamed, and I was weak, and I…”

He forced himself to look at Katara. She wasn’t the only one he had wronged, but… she was the one he had hurt the most. She had been so gentle with her hold on his blood, and her hand on – on his scar, and she had forgiven him, he knew that, he did, but that didn’t change what he had done.

“And I wasn’t brave enough to do the right thing and just tell you the truth.”

He hadn’t wanted her to hate him, he thought miserably to himself. That was the only reason he hadn’t told them – Uncle Iroh had made him promise, but Zuko had cared more about whether or not Aang and Katara hated him than whether or not he could keep them safe.

If the first eighteen months of his banishment had taught Zuko anything about Uncle, it was that he had been prepared to take all of Zuko’s frustrations and rage upon himself. He hadn’t cared if Zuko had gone to sleep hating him, so long as he knew that there would still be one person in the world who would still be there for him in the morning.

And because of what Zuko had done in Ba Sing Se, Uncle, Aang, Katara and the others had spent all that time thinking Zuko had betrayed them.

But Katara was looking at him now, and although Zuko didn’t know what the look in her eyes was, he knew her well enough by now to know that it wasn’t hatred, and that gave him a little more courage to hold her gaze.

“All you wanted was to protect the people you love,” she murmured, looking him in the eye. “Uncle will understand that.”

When Katara had bent his blood, her fingers had twitched and contorted; now, they curled slowly around his hand and gave a comforting squeeze. He wondered for a moment how she could be so confident.

“I’m –” he began, before he had to clear his throat and swallow to rid himself of the strangled edge to his words. “I’m sorry.”

But she shook her head more firmly and tightened her hold on his hand again.

“I forgave you,” she said simply. “I trust you.”

“We all do,” another voice suddenly spoke up from behind Zuko, and oh, fuck, he had completely forgotten that Sokka had been there for that.

“We all trust you, Zuko,” Suki continued where Sokka had left off. “And we respect you, too.”

He’d also forgotten that Suki had been there for that. And Toph and Taki, too.

Oh, fuck, Taki and Toph had both just been there for that.

Whatever that was.

“Water Tribe, buddy,” Sokka reminded him. “We respect someone who tries to do the right thing.”

Zuko had thought if he ever returned home, maybe he could become a diplomat. He wouldn’t have necessarily enjoyed being the Fire Nation’s ambassador to Omashu, but it would certainly have qualified as doing something for the good of the Fire Nation that nobody else would have wanted to do.

He’d thought maybe he could become a firebending tutor in the villages. He could offer his services to the peasants who couldn’t afford proper training, and train them free of charge. His mother had always said they showed great courage and strength.

He’d thought about returning home a thousand times, but he’d never thought that Uncle had expected him to be the Fire Lord. Everything had changed after Ba Sing Se, but… that should still have been Uncle’s crown.

But Uncle couldn’t coax flame from ash, and Zuko couldn’t cover the whole sky with only the palm of his hand.

He took a deep breath and looked again to Katara, and she gave him a small smile when he met her waiting gaze.

“Go and talk to Uncle,” she encouraged him. “We’ll be here when you get back.”

As he rose to his feet, Zuko looked around him at his friends, each of them looking back at him. Sokka gave him two thumbs up; Suki gave him a nod. Toph didn’t give him any grief, which was pretty good going too, and Taki even gave him a smile.

Zuko thought absently to himself that that might have been the most incredible thing he’d yet experienced, and he’d seen a giant koi fish eat someone.

He took a deep breath, and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. His left ankle didn’t falter, and his footsteps didn’t waver.

Chapter 55

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sokka had woken up in the morning after a restless night that had him feeling more tired than he’d been before he’d tucked himself into his sleeping bag. He would have said that the way Katara was still snoring in her mound of blankets next to him was a sign that the last thirty-six hours were catching up to her too, but Katara always slept in late whenever she could, so that wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary. The way Sokka’s stomach was rumbling was pretty normal, too, and he was a little reassured, in all honesty, to know that although the last couple of days had been wild enough to turn his world upside-down the right way up, some things still remained the same.

He tried his best to keep quiet as he got dressed and tied his hair back in his customary warrior’s wolf-tail, but he overbalanced when he was trying to pull his left sock on and landed on his sleeping bag with a dull thump that left a dull ache in his tailbone.

“Tui damn it all,” he grumbled, rubbing his butt.

“Shuddup,” Katara slurred, poking her head out of her sleeping bag. “Sleeping.”

“Sorry,” Sokka apologized genuinely. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Still talking,” she accused him. Her voice was muffled by a combination of pillow, sleeping bag, blankets, and what Sokka imagined was a mouthful of her own hair.

“If you’re up, you’d better get up,” he advised her quietly. “To rise early shall bring you three silver pieces.”

Katara’s only response was a pretty drowsy fuoff, which wasn’t quite the response he’d been hoping for.

By the time she eventually did join him and the others for breakfast, Sokka had already been able to enjoy two whole bowlfuls of Zuko’s specialty jook with mango, apple, and lychee nuts, and a couple of jennamite-dusted fruit pastries Master Iroh had gotten from Bumi. It was almost enough to make him forgive Bumi for all the shit the kooky old bastard had put them through. Almost.

“Miss Katara!” Iroh greeted her, patting the patch of grass on his left. “A wonderful morning is made purely sublime by your arrival!”

From where he was sitting across from Iroh, Sokka could see Zuko close his eyes and visibly count to ten.

“Good morning, Uncle,” Katara smiled as she knelt down next to the old man. She even leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. “What are we talking about?”

“Gramps has been at the moonshine again,” Toph interrupted before Iroh had the chance to answer. “He’s been saying that Old Smokey’s been having fun.”

“Master Yoshida tells me that Lieutenant Jee has been enjoying the logistical challenge of ferrying supplies to the South Pole,” Master Iroh agreed merrily, seemingly unconcerned by how Toph had no regard or respect for her elders. “I suppose you could say that he is rather in his element!”

Sokka couldn’t quite envisage Jee enjoying anything much, but he supposed that if anything was going to put a smile on the pedantic old firebender’s face, planning and supplies would probably do the trick.

“That’s really great to hear, Uncle,” Zuko leaned forward slightly before recovering himself and jerking back upright.

Jerkbender, Sokka’s brain supplied unhelpfully.

“But haven’t we got something a bit more important to talk about?” Zuko finished, shifting restlessly in his seat.

“Perhaps,” Iroh acknowledged, inclining his head towards Suki. “I would be interested, if we have time, to hear the story of the Blue Spirit’s adventures in the Hu Xin Provinces; Miss Takahashi has been rather uncharacteristically modest in her recounting of events –”

“The invasion, Uncle!” Zuko groaned, dragging a hand through his hair and making it even messier, somehow, than it already was. “I’m talking about the invasion! The one the Fire Nation’s been planning for when Sozin’s Comet comes!”

“Ah,” Iroh nodded serenely, as if he was well-used to being interrupted by a frustrated Zuko. “And what about the invasion, Nephew, should we discuss?”

Sokka was pretty sure Zuko was breathing out smoke at this point. He figured they could probably be spending this time at least a little more productively than they were.

“Well, that’s sort of why we’re here, Master Iroh,” he began, but Zuko slammed his hand down on the ground as he glared at his uncle.

“He already knows why we’re here, Sokka,” he snapped irritably. “It’s obvious why we’re here! Uncle, you're the only person other than the Avatar who can possibly defeat the Father Lord!”

Sokka blinked. A quick glance at Suki and Katara let him know that they looked just as confused as he did. Surely Zuko hadn’t just said that?

“You mean the Fire Lord,” Toph corrected their friend.

Zuko’s face turned an interesting shade of crimson. “That's what I just said!”

Iroh said nothing as he stroked his beard. Sokka recognized the look on his face; it was the same expression he’d sported when he was teaching Sokka Pai Sho in Ba Sing Se, and Sokka had played the boat tile at a point in the midgame when it would probably have been a smarter move to play the knotweed.

I should probably ask a few pointed questions about what led you to make that mistake, the look seemed to say. Maybe later.

Zuko seemed to sense Iroh’s reluctance. “We need you to come with us!”

“No, Zuko,” Iroh shook his head with a heavy sigh. “It won't turn out well.”

“You can beat him!” The jerkbender insisted. “And we'll be there to help!”

“Even if I did defeat Ozai,” Iroh began, before he looked down at his cup of tea. “And I don’t know that I could…”

Sokka didn’t like the sound of that, and judging from the way Suki tensed next to him, she didn’t either. Katara bit her lip as she shuffled a little closer to Iroh, and even Toph’s eyebrows pulled together in a rare look of genuine concern.

Zuko said nothing, but his right eye narrowed.

“It would be the wrong way to end the war,” Iroh continued firmly. “History would see it as just more senseless violence – a brother killing a brother to grab power. The only way for this war to end peacefully is for the Avatar to defeat the Fire Lord.”

Sokka hated to admit it, but he could see where Iroh was coming from. It was like a well-executed endgame, and Tui knew he’d seen Iroh pull quite a few of those off when they’d been playing together in Ba Sing Se. The reasoning was sound, the logic was solid, and it was leading Sokka inexorably towards one conclusion.

Sokka had to be sure… But if he was

“So once Aang’s defeated the Fire Lord,” he began, his voice almost wavering as he tried to keep his composure. “Then – then would you take your rightful place on the throne?”

 

 

“All these past Avatars,” Aang grumbled to Momo. “They keep telling me I'm going to have to do it. They don't get it!”

Momo let out a growl and a squeak, and told him that maybe his past lives didn’t get it for the same reason his friends didn’t get it – because they weren’t Air Nomads who understood that all life was sacred?

“You're right!” Aang nodded. “Maybe an Air Nomad Avatar will understand where I'm coming from!”

He felt a renewed surge of optimism as he thought about how he could connect to one of his past lives that really understood what the Air Nomads believed.

“I know you can't really talk,” Aang told Momo casually. “Pretending you can just helps me think.”

Okay, what Momo said then was uncalled for. Saying that Aang was as good at thinking as he was at pretending was just plain rude!

“I'm going to pretend I didn't pretend to hear that,” he muttered, giving Momo a real stink-eye.

As Aang tried to put Momo’s rude words out of his head and connect to his past lives, he tried hard to face down all his fear in the present moment and become free. As the spirit of a female Air Nomad in orange-and-yellow robes appeared in front of him, he felt a sense of peace and calmness surround him.

The Air Nomad smiled at him. “I am Avatar Yangchen, young airbender.”

“Avatar Yangchen!”

Aang was so excited to talk to another Air Nomad, he almost fell over himself. He thought that was especially impressive considering he was sitting down.

“The monks always taught me that all life is sacred,” he explained eagerly. “Even the life of the tiniest spider-fly caught in its own web!”

“Yes,” Yangchen nodded impressively. “All life is sacred.”

Aang couldn’t help the relieved smile that spread across his face. Finally, one of his past lives who understood what Gyatso had always told him!

“I know!” He nodded eagerly. “I'm even a vegetarian!”

That made Avatar Yangchen chuckle a little bit, and Aang felt a bit more confident about talking to her because of that. He told Yangchen about how he’d always tried to solve his problems by being quick or clever, and how he’d only ever used violence for necessary defense, and how he’d never used it to take a life. He didn’t count that time at the North Pole, because that had technically been the Avatar and La fused together, right? So it didn’t really count as Aang.

When he’d finished explaining himself, Yangchen looked quite sad. “Avatar Aang, I know that you're a gentle spirit, and the monks have taught you well, but this isn't about you. This is about the world.”

What?

Aang frowned. “But the monks taught me that I had to detach myself from the world so my spirit could be free,” he pointed out confusedly.

“Many great and wise Air Nomads have detached themselves and achieved spiritual enlightenment,” Yangchen agreed, “But the Avatar can never do it, because your sole duty is to the world. Here is my wisdom for you. Selfless duty calls you to sacrifice your own spiritual needs, and do whatever it takes to protect the world.”

As Avatar Yangchen faded away, Aang felt himself return to the physical world. As he came back to himself, all his fears came rushing back. In this present moment, he had never felt less free.

Maybe Zuko could do it, he thought desperately to himself. Wasn’t that what Zuko always said his destiny was? To do what had to be done, when no one else could do it? Because Aang couldn’t do it, he couldn’t do it

He didn’t want to have to kill anyone!

Aang was only twelve, and he couldn’t kill the Fire Lord. He didn’t want to kill him, he wanted to go on the mail chutes with Bumi, and he wanted to go penguin-sledding with Katara, and he wanted to maybe even ride the dragons with Zuko if he saw him again. He wouldn’t even be angry with Zuko for how he’d told him he had to kill the Fire Lord, because if he saw Zuko again, that would mean they’d won, they’d found a way to win without killing the Fire Lord, and Aang couldn’t kill the Fire Lord.

Aang was twelve years old, and he was making a mess on his robes with some really gross snot and mucus, but he didn’t want to have to kill anyone!

After he had found out that his people had been attacked by the Fire Nation, Aang had been so heartbroken. And even after all the bitter disappointments of not finding any airbenders at the Northern Air Temple, he’d always hoped that maybe the airbenders would be back again, like how Senlin Forest might one day grow back after it had been burned down.

But for Senlin Forest to grow back, you needed acorns. You needed something to be left over after the disaster. And if Aang was the last of the airbenders, then what happened if he left what the monks had taught him behind? If he killed the Fire Lord, if he turned his back on what Monk Gyatso and Monk Pasang and Monk Tashi had taught him… could he even call himself an Air Nomad anymore?

But if Aang wasn’t an Air Nomad anymore, than what else could he be? Where could he go? Aang could only see uncertainty ahead of him if he let go of everything his people had believed in.

But even if Aang wasn’t an Air Nomad anymore, he would still be the Avatar. And being the Avatar meant that his sole duty was to the world. Aang hoped that Monk Gyatso would still be proud of him, even if he wasn’t able to detach himself and achieve enlightenment.

If Aang was going to have to leave Gyatso behind, then he would try and remember his lessons. Sifu Iroh had said that was how you honored your masters. Gyatso had always told Aang that peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free. He had to defeat the Fire Lord and end the war, because otherwise how could there be freedom?

“I guess I don't have a choice, Momo,” he said miserably. “I have to kill the Fire Lord.”

Aang knew that love was when you wanted the best for someone. He didn’t know whether death was the best thing for the Fire Lord, but he knew that the best thing for the world was if the war ended. He knew that Gyatso would be so disappointed in him if he took a life, but he hoped that Gyatso would be able to forgive him if…

If he didn’t love someone so that he could love the world instead.

AVATAR…

What?

BRIDGE BETWEEN WORLDS.

Oh, monkeyfeathers, was that La again? That was the last thing Aang needed!

ENDLESS LIVES. ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES.

Aang was pretty sure the Dark Water Spirit wasn’t going to be able to help him now. But the voice was still inside his head.

Who was this?

LET THE BRIDGE MAKE A WAY.

 

 

“What do you mean, you won’t take the throne?” Fan Girl demanded. “Master Iroh, are you serious?

Toph could sense the way Snoozles’ hand twitched towards his girlfriend, but he had the good sense not to try and cut her off mid-rant. After the rockslide Gramps had just dropped on them, Toph was wondering whether she wanted to yell at him.

If they all got through the next couple of days and everyone came out the other side okay, she was going to stuff his pillow with Snoozles’ socks.

“Why aren’t you going to become Fire Lord, Uncle?” Sugar Queen was asking the question a different way, but there wasn’t any less confusion in her tone.

“After a century of war, how could an old, graying general be the one to lead the Fire Nation into a new era of peace?” Gramps replied. “And besides, I hardly imagine that the other nations would willingly see the Dragon of the West upon the Takamikura throne,” he added as an afterthought.

Toph hated to admit that he was making a good argument. Mom and Dad hadn’t often discussed business in front of Toph or at the dinner table, but whenever they’d complained about how there wasn’t enough in the Tanggu economy to tempt them to set up a venture there, the name of General Iroh hadn’t exactly been pronounced with affection.

“Yeah, but Azula’s not exactly…” Snoozles began, before he coughed. “Look, no offense, or anything –”

Toph was pretty sure that meant whatever Sucker was about to say next was going to be more than a little offensive.

“But Azula’s crazy!” he half-shouted, confirming her suspicions. “You can’t let her become Fire Lord!”

“We won’t,” Sparky said quietly, before he coughed and spoke a little louder. “Azula’s not going to be the next Fire Lord, Sokka.”

“Well, who’s it going to be, then?” Aunt Fanny asked annoyedly. “If it’s not going to be Azula, it’s going to have to be you, Iroh, because otherwise we’re looking at another war –”

“It’s not going to be Uncle, either,” Sparky interrupted. “It has to be me.”

Even though she couldn’t see, Toph turned her head towards him. She tried to sense him through the ground, but she had to concentrate pretty hard to make him out, because he was sitting very still.

“Zuko?” Sugar Queen was the first one to break the silence. “You’re going to be the Fire Lord?”

“It’s the only way we can end the war,” Toph heard the Prince of the Fire Nation say. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“Oh, Tui,” Sucker groaned. “If this is about that destiny of yours again –”

“This isn’t about me,” Zuko interrupted him. “This is about the Fire Nation. But it has to be done, and it has to be me.”

Gramps let out a slow breath, but Toph could sense his unsteady heartbeat. She couldn’t see what was going on, but she imagined he and Sparky were having some emotional moment where they were staring meaningfully at each other, or whatever. But when he spoke again, his voice was as steady as a rock.

“When Aang defeats the Fire Lord, Nephew, you must be in the Capital to greet him as an ally – rather than an enemy – of the Fire Nation.”

It wasn’t the subtlest change of subject Toph had ever heard, but she couldn’t really blame Gramps for trying to move past whatever moment he and his nephew had been having. They’d seemed pretty happy when she’d woken up this morning, but Sparky had quickly cleared his throat and started rambling on about something that Toph could tell had nothing to do with whatever he and Gramps had been talking about before she had joined them for breakfast.

Toph had not needed to hear all the gory details of the time Gramps and that June lady had been arrested in Yu Dao, especially over breakfast, but if Sparky and Gramps didn’t want to be overly emotional in public, that was fine by her. This new topic of conversation wasn’t quite as bad as that one, but it still wasn’t great.

“Well, what if Aang doesn't come back?” She asked, asking the question she knew nobody else was going to ask.

She was going to kill the Fancy Dancer once all this was over.

“Sozin's Comet is arriving, and our destinies are upon us,” Gramps said in a voice that didn’t sound anything like the old guy who’d chatted with Toph about their mutual hatred of assam. “Aang will face the Fire Lord. When I was a boy, I had a vision that I would one day take Ba Sing Se. Only now do I see that my destiny is to take it back from the Fire Nation, so the Earth Kingdom can be free again.”

Aunt Fanny made an ah noise of comprehension. “That's why you gathered the members of the White Lotus.”

“Yes,” Gramps acknowledged. “Zuko, you must return to the Fire Nation, so that when the Fire Lord falls, you can assume the throne and restore peace and order. But Azula will be there, waiting for you.”

“I can handle Azula,” Sparky said. His heartbeat told Toph he wasn’t lying, exactly, but the way four other heartbeats around their little circle started beating a little faster made her think that he might not have been stating a universally accepted factual truth.

“Not alone,” Gramps disagreed, proving her right yet again. “You'll need help.”

“You're right,” Sparky nodded seriously. Toph didn’t even have time to feel surprised at how easily the stubborn, grumpy jerkbender caved in to Gramps’ wisdom before she could sense him turning to the person sitting at the old man’s left side. “Katara, how would you like to help me put Azula in her place?”

Toph might not be able to see the smirk on Sugar Queen’s face, but she could definitely hear it in her voice. “It would be my pleasure.”

“What about us?” Snoozles asked. “What’s our destiny today?”

“What do you think it is?” Gramps asked.

Snoozles was quiet for a moment as he thought it through. “I think that even though we don't know where Aang is, we need to do everything we can to stop the airship fleet.”

That was good enough for Toph. “And that means when Aang does face the Fire Lord, we'll be right there if he needs us.”

When, she repeated it to herself. When, not if. Toph had invested an awful lot of effort in training that little airhead into becoming a halfway-decent earthbender. No way was all that hard work not going to pay off.

Otherwise, she was going to march up to the Fire Lord herself, and they could find out just how much iron there was in the human body.

Notes:

‘Early rising benefits you three pence’ is a Japanese proverb.

‘Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free’ is a quote from Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama.

The Chrysanthemum Throne, or Takamikura, is the throne of the Emperor of Japan.

Chapter Text

As Appa flew on, and the sky around them turned red, Katara didn’t need Zuko’s sharp intake of breath to help her understand what was going on. Sozin’s Comet had arrived.

She could only see the right side of Zuko’s face, but his jaw was set and his narrowed eye was looking straight ahead. Just like the first time they had sat up on Appa’s head together, on the very first journey he had taken with them after he had joined them in Omashu.

He’d quickly tired of sitting with Sokka and Aang back in Appa’s saddle, and he’d clambered over to join her. They’d talked about how excited she was to be traveling north to find a waterbending master, and how Zuko had needed to be patient and work really hard before he’d gotten good at bending. Back then, Katara had had no idea that he was from the Fire Nation; she’d thought that he’d been talking about earthbending at the time. When he had conjured fire from thin air to relight her cooking fire later that night, she had reacted instinctively, defending herself and Sokka and Aang from someone who might have been there to hurt them.

But Zuko hadn’t been there to hurt them, she thought to herself as she glanced over at him. He had said he was there to help; to help them reach the North Pole and to help Aang restore balance to the world.

“I’m sorry.”

With the speeds Appa was flying at, her words might have been stolen away by the wind – but Zuko heard them anyway. As he turned towards her, his left eye was narrowed by the red burn scar that marred his pale features. His right was narrowed in confusion.

“I’m pretty sure that’s my line,” he responded with a frown. “What’re you talking about?”

Back at the Western Air Temple – and even before that – Katara might have thought Zuko was the one who had needed to apologize, too. But he had tried so hard, so many times, to make amends, and now it was her turn.

“I’m sorry for hitting you in the head with a frying pan,” she said as clearly as she could.

Zuko laughed, but it didn’t sound like he was amused. “And why are you saying sorry for that now?

Katara knew that somewhere in the distance, the Fire Nation – and Azula was waiting for them. She bit her lip. “Because you deserve to hear it.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Zuko’s eyes were fixed on the ocean beneath them. “Not now, Katara, Agni damn it, don’t tell me –”

He broke off with a frustrated noise and shook his head. On another day – any other day, Katara might have tutted at him, or teased him about his language, but today, with everything hanging over them, she couldn’t find it in her to try and lighten the mood. She and Zuko were flying on Appa again, but Sokka and Aang weren’t with them this time around. Sokka had gone off with Toph and Suki to try and stop the Fire Lord’s airship fleet, and Aang…

Aang was…

Aang was coming back. Katara wasn’t sure where he was right now, but she knew he’d be coming back. Like he always did.

He had to come back.

“It sounds like you’re giving up,” Zuko eventually muttered in a low voice. “Don’t give up. Not without a fight.”

“Zuko,” Katara began, trying to encourage him. “Don't worry. We can take Azula.”

For a long moment, Zuko was silent. His long fingers flexed as he held onto Appa’s reins with a tight grip, and he stared down at his hands like they were the most interesting thing in the world.

“It's not her I'm worried about,” he mumbled unwillingly, and Katara could see just how much it took him to force the words out.

Katara wasn’t worried about Azula either, she told herself. She had been able to hold her own against the Fire Princess in Ba Sing Se, and now that she and Zuko were fighting together against his sister, Katara knew they’d be able to take her. She knew from what Sokka had told her and what she’d seen Zuko teaching Aang that he could redirect Azula’s lightning.

Zuko cleared his throat. “I'm worried about Aang,” he admitted. “What if he doesn't have the guts to take out my father? What if he loses?”

“Aang won't lose,” Katara said firmly. She refused to even consider the unthinkable alternative. “He's going to come back. He has to.”

Aang always came back. Even when the Avatar had vanished for a hundred years, Katara had known that he would return. Aang was going to end the war and save the world, and everything that had happened – all those awful things that had happened to Katara and the people she cared about – they would all have happened for a reason.

“He has to come back,” she repeated. She wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince. “He has to. He’s the Avatar.”

“He’s also twelve years old,” Zuko reminded her. “Katara, I know it’s – it’s hard. But we can’t put everything on him. That kind of pressure isn’t fair, it can’t – it can’t just be down to him.”

Katara knew that. She knew that it wasn’t fair to expect so much from Aang. Expecting him to defeat the most powerful firebender alive and end a hundred years of war – it was an impossible task to ask of anyone. But sometimes, it wasn’t about what was fair. It wasn’t fair that Mom had needed to die to save Katara. It wasn’t fair that Sokka had needed to grow up without his Dad and Bato around to help him learn how to fight with a sword. It wasn’t fair that Toph’s parents had treated her like she was helpless, and there was nothing fair about what Zuko’s father had done to him.

The Fire Lord had better hope that Aang came back, Katara thought to herself. Because if she was the one who ended up facing a man who would do that to his own son

Ice and snow could burn as well.

 

 

Suki had needed to subdue the unagi on occasion back home on Kyoshi Island, and she and Taki had taken on a few Komodo rhinos over the past few months, but riding on an eel hound was a new experience and it wasn’t one she was eager to repeat. She was almost grateful for the distracting novelty of a blood-red sky as Sozin’s Comet streaked across the heavens above them, because it was something to take her mind off the way the animal was jostling her back and forth into Sokka and Toph.

“It's weird to say,” she admitted, looking up at the skies, “But the comet actually looks beautiful.”

Toph didn’t look too impressed. That was probably because it didn’t matter much to her, Suki remembered belatedly.

“Too bad the Fire Lord's about to use it to destroy the world,” the earthbending girl replied, and she didn’t sound too impressed, either.

“The airship base is on a small island just off the Earth Kingdom shore,” Sokka repeated what Piandao had told them. “We should be there soon.”

Suki could see her boyfriend fighting hard to try and remain confident when all the odds seemed stacked against them. It was the same face she’d been putting on since she and the girls had left Kyoshi Island all those months ago.

As the eel hound reached dry land and started bounding across the coast towards Wulong Forest, Suki could see a bunch of somethings in the distance.

“What’re those?” She asked, pointing up at them. As they dismounted the eel hound, she had to narrow her eyes and squint at them – they were too far inland to be flying dolphin fish, but too big to be scorpion bees or ant-flies…

Rangi damn it, she swore to herself. The airships!

“We're too late!” Sokka groaned, confirming her suspicions. “The fleet's already taking off!”

“Then we're taking off too,” Toph cracked her knuckles. “Where's the closest airship?”

Suki’s gut feeling was that any time Toph sounded that decisive was a good time to start worrying, but Sokka didn’t seem to have the same instincts she did, because he gestured towards the gigantic vessel in front of them. “It’s right –”

Suki didn’t even have time to let out a terrified scream as Toph earthbent the ground beneath their feet, launching them into the air and shooting them towards the airship.

She could barely see past the cold air blasting her face and the tears blinding her eyes, but past the screeching wind she could just about make out the sound of Sokka swearing at the top of his voice –

All the breath was driven out of her lungs as she hit the metal hull of the airship and skidded across it, tumbling and sliding until she was able to regain her feet. Blinking hard, she was able to make out two figures coming towards her; a taller one dressed in blue and a shorter one dressed in green.

“Sorry about that, Aunt Fanny,” Toph told her, without a hint of an apology in her tone. “Figured it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

Suki would have liked at least a little warning, but they didn’t have time to argue. She could get her own back on Toph later. She wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to get her own back on a metalbending prodigy who could sense lies through the ground, but she was always up for a  challenge.

“Come on,” she told Sokka and Toph, pointing over to what Taki had taught her was the starboard side of the ship. “There’s a hatch over there that’ll get us into the airship.”

Toph redeemed herself a little in Suki’s eyes by opening the hatch, and as they dropped down into the ship, Suki tried to remember where the bridge of Azula’s airship had been.

“We need to head left, then right, and then take the second left,” she told the others as they began running. “That’ll get us to the main control room!”

“How do you know that?” Sokka asked as he kept pace with her.

When Suki had needed to deal with that Fire Nation drill in Ba Sing Se alongside Katara and Aang, those schematics had come in handy – so when she and the others had broken out of the Boiling Rock, and she and Taki had found themselves on a Fire Nation airship, they had wasted no time in finding the schematics to that Fire Nation vehicle as well. But she didn’t really have time to explain all that right now.

“Instinct!” She said confidently as they took a sharp left at high speeds.

That seemed to be good enough for Sokka and Toph as they followed her through the corridors. When they reached the control room door, Suki had been ready to try and pick the lock or use some other way to sneak in, but Toph just stepped forward and knocked on the door a couple of times, as casually as if she had just been announcing herself at Pao’s Family Tea House.

Then, she used metalbending to break the door down, and as Suki and Sokka rushed in after her, they were just in time to see the little girl use her bending to coat herself in metal to shield herself from the soldiers’ attacks. Even as they tried firebending at her, Toph was able to dodge around them and use the various bits of metal hanging off the walls and the control panels to strike back at them. As Suki watched on open-mouthed, she heard Sokka let out a burbling laugh.

“I am so glad we added you to the group!” He told Toph fervently as she peeled her coat of metal armor off herself.

Suki could only concur with a couple of nods that she hoped Toph would be able to sense through the metal floor. Judging from the way Toph seemed to be fighting hard to hide her pleased grin, she could see it.

“That's how it's done,” she pronounced with a satisfied smirk.

“Good work, Toph!” Sokka cheered, rushing forward to examine all the complicated buttons, levers and dials on the control panel. “Time to take control of the ship – take the wheel!”

“That's a great idea! Let the blind girl steer the giant airship!”

Sokka hesitated, his eyes flicking from the control panel back to Toph. “I was, uh… talking to Suki.”

Credit where it was due; Toph rallied pretty quickly. She nodded casually enough, as if nothing was amiss. “That would make a lot more sense.”

“What are we going to do about the rest of the crew?” Suki asked Sokka as she stepped up to the steering wheel and gave it an experimental pull.

“Take us down closer to the water,” he requested, with a cocky smirk on his face that she couldn’t help but appreciate. “I've got an idea.”

 

 

WAIT FOR HIM, the lion-turtle had told Aang as they had dropped Aang off on part of the Earth Kingdom’s coast. HE WILL COME.

So Aang had waited. He’d airbent himself up onto one of the hundreds of rock columns that were spread out across the land, and he’d settled down to try and face down his fear in the present moment. He hadn’t needed to wait long before he’d seen a whole bunch of airships appear in the distance, and they’d gotten to him pretty quickly.

One of the airships was flying ahead of the others, and Aang could just about make out a figure standing on a ramp at the front. When they started blasting the ground with a huge fireblast, Aang knew it must have been Fire Lord Ozai.

“Momo,” he told his friend, “Time for you to go.”

Just before Momo jumped off Aang’s shoulder, he told him that he could do it. Aang appreciated that, and it gave him the confidence to take a deep, calming breath.

He started earthbending chunks of the rock column beneath him at the Fire Lord’s ship before jumping across to another column, and then another. As he sent rock after rock at the airship, a whole bunch of them hit the airship, and smoke started pouring out of the engine. To finish off the job, Aang sent a huge fireblast of his own at the airship.

Aang had once thought that he was supposed to be the Avatar who showed that firebending wouldn’t consume and destroy him. He still thought that now, but after what the lion-turtle had shown him, he thought he had a better way of doing that than just not firebending ever again. Even so, as he sent a streaming burst of flames at the airship, Aang knew he didn’t want to be an Avatar who hurt people with his firebending. As the airship started sinking towards the ground, he hoped it would crash-land gently enough that nobody would get hurt.

Aang could see that the Fire Lord looked surprised to see him as the airship slowly drifted past him, but he recovered quickly. He used his firebending to fly away from the airship and fly towards Aang, but Aang hadn’t known that anyone but a very few select airbenders were able to fly!

The idea that the Fire Lord was able to do something Monk Gyatso hadn’t been able to do left an uncomfortable knot in Aang’s heart. But bending was a gift from the spirits, and it wasn’t a gift to be used arrogantly. Gyatso had never used his gift arrogantly, and Aang knew that meant that his old mentor was worth a hundred of a man like Fire Lord Ozai.

As Fire Lord Ozai landed on top of another rock pillar, Aang prepared himself just in case the Fire Lord shot lightning at him. He had a really pointy beard, and his chest was broad and muscled. Aang had often thought that he would want a cool beard and big muscles when he grew up, but now he wondered in the back of his mind whether those two things were really so important after all. Maybe it was more important to be kind and brave and forgiving, like the monks had always taught him.

The Fire Lord let out a laugh, but it didn’t sound like he was very amused. “After generations of Fire Lords failed to find you, now the universe delivers you to me as an act of providence.”

Aang made sure to tuck his elbows into his sides to protect his center like Katara had shown him, and set his feet firmly like Toph was always telling him to do. Aang had mastered waterbending, he was a really good earthbender, and he knew how to firebend and redirect lightning. And he was wearing pants, so he was definitely ready to fight the Fire Lord.

He just really didn’t want to have to fight him.

“Please listen to me,” he begged, hoping against hope that the Fire Lord would listen to him. “We don't have to fight. You have the power to end it here and stop what you're doing!”

“You’re right,” Fire Lord Ozai nodded slowly. But before Aang could think that maybe the Fire Lord had listened to him, he gave Aang a really nasty smile.

“I do have the power,” he proclaimed dramatically. “I have all the power in the world!

He thrust both his hands out and shot fire out into the sky from his hands and his mouth – just like the vision Avatar Roku had shown Aang in the Fire Temple sanctuary on the Winter Solstice. Back then, the idea of facing a firebender who could breathe fire had terrified Aang, but after Zuko had shown him how he was working on controlling its intensity and focus, and after Hotman had gotten kind of grumpy in an amused way at how Aang had accidentally coughed up jasmine tea in his face a few times, Aang had gotten used to the idea of a firebender breathing fire. He could even do it himself now, after all of Zuko’s lessons! So it wasn’t as impressive when the Fire Lord did it now.

Roku had told Aang that if the Fire Lord succeeded in his awful plans, even the Avatar wouldn’t be able to restore balance to the world. But Aang could stop Fire Lord Ozai, because he was the Avatar. Even if he couldn’t remember saving the world a whole bunch of times before, he had done it, so there was no reason he couldn’t do it again.

The Fire Lord leapt up into the air and did a fancy spin before blasting a wave of fire at Aang, but Aang knew how to dodge Zuko’s wall of fire after all their training. He could jump over the flames and earthbend himself a big rock out of the pillar he had been standing on. As he swung the rock around and kicked it at Ozai, the Fire Lord jumped away by using his firebending to move him around in the air. As Aang sent a rippling burst of orange-yellow fire at him, he kicked his own white-hot fireblast at Aang.

The two attacks met in mid-air, and Aang had to fight really hard not to hold his arms out and shield his face from the heat of all the fires. He knew he couldn’t give up without a fight.

Chapter 57

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Toph could sense the metal airship all around her, but beyond that? Nothing. She could see it just like she could see the earth beneath her feet, but the earth didn’t suddenly drop away from her once she reached the end of the world.

She really hoped this wasn’t the end of the world.

“We're not gonna catch up to him in time.”

Toph turned towards the sound of Sucker’s voice just in time to hear Fan Girl agree with him.

“What?” She asked, daring them to repeat that. “It sounded like you just said we’re not going to catch up to the Fire Lord, and I know you didn’t just say that, Snoozles.”

“The Fire Lord’s ship is too fast,” Aunt Fanny explained, as if that meant anything to Toph fucking Beifong. “We can’t catch up to them, Toph. I’m sorry.”

“Of course we can!” She insisted. “What the fuck are you talking about, Suki – of course we can catch him!”

“Look, Toph, it’s not that simple,” Sucker began, but Toph hadn’t become a metalbender by just sticking to simple earthbending.

“Shut the fuck up, Snoozles!” She rounded on him angrily. “There’s no reason we can’t do it!”

“Toph, we’re just trying to –”

But whatever it was Aunt Fanny was trying to do, Toph never actually found out. Instead, she got an earful of Snoozles yelling at the top of his very excited voice. It was like his I’m a moron voice, but without any sort of self-awareness. The difference, in Toph’s mind, was therefore negligible.

“What just happened?” Fan Girl asked, taking the words right out of her mouth.

“It's Aang!”

Toph prayed she had heard that right. She couldn’t believe it, but she was actually hoping, maybe for the first time, that she hadn’t misheard whatever Snoozles had just said.

“He's back!” Snoozles shouted. “Go, Aang!”

In amongst all her relief, Toph couldn’t help but take a moment to note that her buddy Sokka was back to his I’m a moron voice again. But if Twinkle Toes was back, she was honestly too relieved to find Snoozles irritating.

Although if he kept shrieking airbending slice! and swinging his hand through the air, she was going to do what he was always threatening to do to Momo, and tie his dumb ears together.

“Shouldn't we be helping him?” Fan Girl asked, proving yet again that she was the only one with a working brain cell.

“The Fire Lord is Aang's fight,” Snoozles replied, and Toph could sense him shaking his head. “We need to stay focused on stopping that fleet from burning down the Earth Kingdom.”

“And how do we do that, Captain Boomerang?” Toph asked sarcastically. “I can't see outside of this floating hunk of metal!”

Through that same hunk of metal, she could sense Sucker waving his arm dramatically through the air. “Airship slice!”

Oh, mudslides, she thought to herself, trying not to roll her eyes. Never mind; forget she even asked.

As Toph sensed Snoozles messing about with levers and buttons and Fan Girl turning the wheel this way and that, she could sense the airship begin to tilt slightly, the front end rising a little higher into the air. Were they going higher?

Toph thought she could remember Twinkles saying something about how he used air currents to glide about, because hot air rose higher than cold air. She crossed over to an open window to see if she could gauge the temperature outside, but before she even got within feet of the window, she could feel a heat that even she could see wasn’t just an ordinary part of Mistress Ouyang’s lessons on convection currents.

“Whoa,” she breathed. “That's a lot of fire, isn't it?”

“It's gonna be a rough ride,” Snoozles informed her and Fan Girl. “We need to get to the top of this thing, fast.”

She could feel a sweaty hand slip into hers, and she had just enough time to set herself before Snoozles started yanking her along behind him. She could sense Fan Girl following behind them, stopping every so often to make sure there wasn’t anyone behind them. Toph would have been able to sense them before Suki even saw them, but she appreciated the effort nevertheless.

“So we’re getting to the roof,” Fan Girl asked. “Then what?”

She didn’t even sound out of breath, Toph noted with grudging admiration. Awesome.

“Watch each other's backs,” Snoozles replied, giving Toph a quick push as they reached a ladder that would take them up to the top of the airship. “And if we make it that far, I'll let you know.”

As she scaled the ladder, Toph could feel the heat all around her. Whatever Fan Girl had been saying about how beautiful this Comet was, it was fucking shit for heat. Toph could feel her hair frizzing up like Sheddy on a muggy day. She could also sense –

What the slush?

She could sense a whole other fucking airship?

Toph didn’t have a clue what was going on. The airship she, Snoozles and Aunt Fanny was on was being so shuddery, and there was a weird, irregular sort of bumping going on. Each jolt to the airship almost knocked her over, and knocking the Blind Bandit over was not an easy thing to do.

“What’s happening?” She demanded, holding out her hand and grasping impatiently until Snoozles took the hint and took it again.

“We’re steering the airship into the others,” Aunt Fanny explained as they ran. “If we can push them into each other, we can push them all off course.”

First Ba Sing Se, now here, Toph thought to herself. How did it happen that every fucking time she was out with these two, she just ended up running her ass off –

As the airship let out an ugly-sounding groaning noise below them, Toph’s right foot landed on the hull of the ship just in time to feel a giant fucking nothingness a couple of steps behind her, right where Aunt Fanny had

no

NO

No, no, no!

Toph was too stunned to even hear Snoozles screaming next to her. She couldn’t sense Fan Girl, but she had to still be there – Toph was the greatest earthbender in the world, she could even bend metal, but just because she couldn’t sense Suki, that didn’t mean she wasn’t there, Toph must have made a mistake, she couldn’t just be gone –

“I'm okay!” A faint voice called out in the distance. “Just finish the mission!”

Toph didn’t have time to feel relieved that Aunt Fanny was okay. She could hear the airship falling apart beneath her, and her legs were about two seconds away from giving way beneath her.

“Sokka!” She shouted, not even caring about the Blind Bandit’s reputation as the world’s greatest dispenser of nicknames. “I think we’ve gotta jump!”

 

 

Fire was everywhere. Aang had never seen so much fire in his life, not even when he’d been surrounded by Ran and Shaw’s dragonfire. Everywhere he turned, flames were there, ready to burn and spread. Aang was trying to remember that fire was life and purpose and passion, but it was hard not to think of it like he’d always thought of it before, like its entire nature was to consume and destroy.

He was trying to escape all of Fire Lord Ozai’s attacks, but it seemed like every time he managed to jump away to a new boulder, the Fire Lord was already there and launching a new blast of white-hot fire at him. As he tried to race around another rock column and skirt away from the Fire Lord’s attacks, Aang came face to face with – Fire Lord Ozai!

He had to hold his hand up to try and ward off the Fire Lord’s fire blast, but the explosive heat only went and pushed him into the side of another rock column. As he hit the ground, the air was driven out of his lungs in a weird unff sound, but he didn’t have time to lie there for a moment and try and catch his breath, because the Fire Lord was already after him again.

Aang wondered whether this was what it had been like for Monk Gyatso. Fire, never-ending fire, until everything ended in fire.

As the Fire Lord swung his arm at Aang again, Aang knew that punch had been aiming for his face.

He blasted a gust of wind at the Fire Lord, but when he landed his somersault, he could see that it hadn’t had any effect on him. In fact, the Fire Lord was setting himself and moving his hands, and Aang could see something flickering between his fingers.

Zuko had taught Aang how to redirect lightning. Aang knew that all of his power, all of his drive, all of his motivation had to be caught up in channeling the lightning and making it follow the path Aang wanted it to take.

But when he saw a huge, gigantic bolt of lightning coming straight towards him, Aang… kind of forgot all that.

As he swung his arms around himself to bend a small hurricane to make the lightning dissipate, he could almost hear Zuko saying Agni damn it, Aang!, but what was he supposed to do? He hadn’t been prepared for the lightning to come at him that quickly! He hadn’t been able to set himself and stand firm, or anything like that!

How had the Fire Lord managed to bend lightning that quickly? He had to be cheating somehow!

Aang managed to dodge and duck his way away from another bolt of lightning and airbend himself up to the top of another rock pillar, landing with his feet a shoulders-width apart and facing the Fire Lord. He lifted his head up just in time to see another lightning bolt coming towards him.

As Aang caught the lightning, there was a part of him that was already thinking about how easy it would be to just throw it back at Fire Lord Ozai. Redirecting the lightning at him would be super cool, but it would also be super deadly.

Once, Aang had thought that was the perfect combination, but he couldn’t think that way anymore. After the way the Ocean Spirit had done so much damage at the North Pole, Aang couldn’t bring himself to do anything that awful again.

He just couldn’t do it. He had to redirect the lightning up away from them both, where it crackled and fizzled and disappeared into the blood-red sky.

The effort it took to bend all that energy almost made him fall over, but the Fire Lord was already twisting his body into a spin and sending another load of fireballs at Aang, blasting him off the top of the column and sending him flying –

Except he hadn’t really been sent flying, because only, like, one airbender in history had been able to unlock the secret of flying, so it was more like Aang had been sent falling really, really fast from a really, really high place, and now he was about to fall into the ocean and go splat!

Monkey-monkey-monkey-monkey–

Desperately, Aang tried to airbend his way out of his fall, but that was kind of hard to do when he was falling so quickly. The best thing he could manage was to adapt and change his approach to try and get a wave to catch him and wash him up on the shore. He staggered up onto the rocky beach, trying to cough and airbend and waterbend the sea spray out of his lungs. He had to earthbend a protective rock shelter around himself so the Fire Lord didn’t have an easy opportunity to shoot him full of lightning like Azula had been able to.

This wasn’t working, Aang realized desperately. He needed time to think about how he was supposed to defeat the Fire Lord! He had to buy time to figure out his next move!

“You're weak,” he heard the Fire Lord shouting at him. “Just like the rest of your people! They did not deserve to exist in this world! In my world!”

No! Aang wanted to shout back at him. This isn’t your world!

“Prepare to join them!” The Fire Lord screamed at him. “Prepare to die!”

Aang didn’t want to prepare to die one little bit, but if he was being really, really honest, he didn’t feel prepared for anything much. He’d been learning waterbending for less than a year, he’d been learning earthbending for less than half a year, and he’d only been learning firebending for about two months. But Fire Lord Ozai had been able to spend his whole life learning how to firebend, and now he had Sozin’s Comet on his side to help him.

Aang wished he had his friends by his side to help him. He wished he had Sokka’s smarts so he could figure out a way out of this situation. He wished he had Katara’s hope so he could keep going. He wished he had Zuko’s determination to do what he needed to do.

“Come on out, Avatar! You can't hide in there forever!”

Aang could see orange light coming in through the cracks the Fire Lord was forcing open. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the Fire Lord shouting at the rock without his pants on, but all he could see was the last time he had seen Monk Gyatso at the Southern Air Temple.

The rock cracked open in a huge blast of energy, and Aang barely had time to be stunned by how much power the Fire Lord had been able to generate before the sudden rush of heat blew him away and sent him flying backwards. He’d only just started thinking aw, crud to himself when he felt his back hit –

OW!

Monkeyfeathers, what the slush?

That really fluffing hurt!

 

 

There had been a small part of Zuko that had been fully aware of how he and Zuli –

of how he and his little sister –

of how he and the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation would have to settle their claims to the throne. There had just been a larger part of him that had really hoped it wouldn’t have to come to that.

“What are you doing?” Katara’s voice was low, but the frustration and fury in her words was pretty hard for Zuko to miss. “She’s playing you! She knows she can’t take us both, so she’s trying to separate us!”

“I know,” he muttered. “But I can take her this time.”

Katara took a half-step forward towards him before rocking back on her heels. “But even you admitted to Uncle that you would need help facing Azula!”

Zuko looked hard at his little sister. Since the last time he’d seen her on top of that gondola at the Boiling Rock, something had clearly changed in her. It wasn’t just the absence of Mai or Ty Lee – Azula’s usually-perfect hair was unkempt and tousled, her movements were jerky and erratic, and strangest of all, when she looked back at him with a wild-eyed grin, Zuko could see teeth.

Zuli smirked. She didn’t smile.

“There’s something off about her,” he muttered, narrowing his eyes at his sister. “I can’t explain it, but she’s slipping. And this way –”

He swallowed, remembering the Crystal Catacombs. The Boiling Rock. Ma’inka Island.

“This way, no one else has to get hurt,” he finished, fighting hard to keep his voice steady as he looked back at Katara.

Every time Zuko tried to do the right thing, it seemed like someone got hurt. He wasn’t going to put Katara in danger again if he could help it.

There must have been something in his eyes to convince her, because although she clearly wasn’t happy about it, she nodded.

“I trust you,” she reminded him as he knelt down at one end of the courtyard. At the other, Azula dropped to one knee with an audible thud, but her expression didn’t give any indication that she felt the pain.

“Don’t interfere,” Zuko swallowed again, but his mouth was dry. “Keep away.”

He wanted to say something else, but this wasn’t the time or the place.

Maybe later. Maybe once Katara had apologized properly for hitting him with that fucking frying pan. But not now. He had to do this, and nobody else could do it.

Zuko had said that it wasn’t fair to put all the pressure and all the responsibility on Aang, but this was different. A firebending duel took place under Agni’s watchful eye; there were no seconds, interfering was forbidden, and it was understood that Agni’s favored would win the duel because they did right in his eyes. Zuko knew he’d made a lot of mistakes, and he wasn’t sure whether he would win or lose today because of his righteousness in Agni’s eyes. But he knew what he needed to do this time around.

“I’m sorry it has to end this way, brother,” Azula called out to him. The challenge laid down.

Zuko narrowed his eyes as he straightened up and settled into a stance that stoked his inner fire and strengthened his root.

“No, you’re not,” he answered. The challenge taken up.

As Azula sent the first blast of her blue fire towards him, Zuko brought his hands down to bend a wall of fire forward, meeting her attack with one of the defenses Bumi had shown him and Uncle had helped him adapt. Azula had to force her way past the fire with a series of spinning kicks that sent concussive fireballs towards him, but Zuko knew his fires would hold.

He’d learnt from the mistakes he’d made in his Agni Kai with Zhao; he couldn’t let Azula dictate the terms of the duel. He had to hold the middle of the courtyard and impose himself on the duel, leaving her to fight from the sidelines. As Azula used her firebending to power-skate her way around the courtyard, she couldn’t find a way through the flames he sent out to guard himself.

The heat was almost unbearable, but if Zuko wasn’t running, he could concentrate on his breathing. He inhaled deeply and brought his arms round in a long, sweeping movement he’d adapted from Katara’s wave attacks, bending fire out of the air and sending them towards Azula in a focused stream. She had to dodge around them, her hair streaming out behind her, and Zuko could take advantage of her distraction to punch down into the ground, sending a rippling flare of heat, light and powerful energy towards her. Azula had to flip away from the fires, and she came to land on the floor on all fours.

As Zuko met her shocked, wide-eyed stare, he knew that her open mouth wasn’t just due to any surprise she might have been feeling at just how good a bender Uncle had helped him become. Uncle had always told Zuko that he would not be able to master lightning until he had dealt with the turmoil inside him, but he had also told him that bending lightning didn’t mean anything if you couldn’t land a quick, killing blow. For that reason, Uncle had always concentrated on building up Zuko’s stamina in their training together instead of teaching him to rely on a technique he couldn’t actually use.

Sozin’s Comet was making their bending even stronger, and their flames even hotter, and Zuko could feel the sweat dripping down his face and soaking into his robes. Azula was panting for breath as she struggled to her feet, and Zuko decided to take a chance. If she was sloppy – if she was slipping – then that might be the opening Zuko needed…

“Where are Mai and Ty Lee these days?” He taunted her. “I didn’t see them earlier!”

Azula snarled, and her hair fell into her eyes as she staggered forwards, but Zuko wasn’t done yet.

“And I don’t see any lightning, either,” he continued. “What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll redirect it again?”

Oh,” she half-screamed at him. “I’ll show you lightning!

Zuko took a deep breath and prepared himself. The smell of ozone stung his nose, and the hot air rasped in his lungs, but he had to take this opportunity to center himself, like Uncle had always taught him. From the fingertips, up the arm to the shoulder, down into the stomach, and then out the other side.

You needed time to catch the lightning. Your root needed to be strong. You had to be in control.

But as Zuko saw that Azula was sucking in gasping breaths through a disturbed, disturbing grin, as he saw the cold fire flickering in her hands, as he saw that her eyes weren’t fixed on him –

NO

No time. No root. No control.

Duty is weightier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather.

Zuko’s last conscious thought before instinct took over was that Uncle would be proud of him.

A proverb as he did the right thing.

Notes:

‘Duty is weightier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather’ is a Japanese proverb.

Chapter 58

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Katara had never seen Zuko move so fast. Not even as the Blue Spirit. For a moment, she could only see him hanging in the air, every line of his body a dark shadow against the blinding light of the lightning Azula had meant for her. But then, as he crashed into the ground, reality came rushing back to her with a high-pitched noise in her ears.

It took her a few moments to realize that she was the one making that noise; a scream that ripped and clawed its way out of her.

Zuko!

Her body was moving before her mind had even caught up to the situation.

As Katara rushed forward, she wasn’t seeing Zuko lying on the ground. She was back in the Fire Nation capital, choking back her tears as she fought to heal her Dad. She was in the Crystal Catacombs, cradling Aang’s broken body in her arms as icy water soaked them both through. She was back in Lake Laogai, turning her back on Jet and letting go.

Not this time!

She called her water up to coat her hands, already trying to remember what she knew about healing Dad’s wounds and Uncle Iroh’s lightning burns. But before she could reach Zuko, blue fire spread across the ground, and she had to skid to a halt to avoid being burned.

She gritted her teeth and redoubled her efforts to struggle against the blistering heat. But as she darted forward again to try and get past Azula’s flames, she could hear the Fire Princess shouting at her as if from a great distance away.

“I’d really rather our family physician look after little Zuzu, if you don’t mind!”

Fire and lightning out of the corner of her eye –

Katara had to jump away so that Azula’s attack couldn’t hit her. For those moments, she could only think about getting out of Azula’s sight, getting away from the danger. She hated herself for the way she had to turn and flee, scurrying for shelter and safety whilst Zuko was lying on the ground.

He was okay. He had to be okay, at least until she reached him. Katara never, ever turned her back on people who needed her.

She peeped out from behind the stone column, trying to keep her heartbeat and her breathing under control. Her hands were shaking as she watched Azula make her way over to her brother as he lay prone on the ground. She was too far away to bend Azula’s blood. If she tried to finish Zuko off, Katara would be too late to protect him.

Her heart was beating fast enough to hurt her chest with every breathless thud against her ribcage as the Fire Princess stood over Zuko and peered down at him.

Katara heard a quiet, ragged groan, and the relief that burned through her veins like wildfire was viscerally, painfully warm. But Azula only let out a cold, high laugh as a sharp grin spread across her face.

“Zuzu,” she crooned, tilting her head slightly as she examined her brother. “You don’t look so good!”

He’s okay, Katara told herself, refusing to let herself believe anything else. He’s okay, you can heal him, he must have redirected some of it

he did it for Aang

he did it this time

there’s no reason he couldn’t

please –

“I’ll tell you exactly why you shouldn’t care about her, you big dum-dum,” Azula stood over Zuko’s prone body with a cruel, dark smile. “Because it’s better to be feared than loved!”

Her golden eyes flicked back to Katara’s, and Katara only had a moment to realize what she was going to do before she had to dive back behind the stone pillar again.

The explosion from the Fire Princess’ lightning almost blinded her as she hid behind another column – with the blinding blue, and the stinging heat in her eyes, it was almost like the spray of the ocean in her face.

She reached frantically for water – somewhere, anywhere – and found some, there, in the pool to her left!

Katara hurled it towards Azula where she been standing on the roof of the palace, but Azula must have realized what she had been trying to do. Katara’s only warning was an ominous sound of crackling energy from behind her – and suddenly, Azula was charging towards her, faster than she could run away. She had to call her water towards her and freeze it into ice, drawing it towards her and bending herself away faster than she had ever bent before.

Tui, La, spirits, please –

Katara stumbled her way under the roof of the wing of the palace and collapsed to her knees with a graceless fall. Her knees banged painfully against the metal grating, but she could sense all the water rushing through the sewers below her. As she struggled to her feet, she could see a metal chain hanging on the wall – and Azula stepping out from behind one of the stone pillars just as she retrieved the chains.

“There you are,” the Fire Princess crooned, stalking forward and placing one deliberate foot in front of the other. “Filthy peasant!”

Azula’s lank hair hung down over her right eye. Katara could only see her left, but it burned. It might have been hatred, or madness, or the power of the Comet – she wasn’t sure, but she didn’t have time to figure it out.

She attacked first, before Azula could summon her lightning, and used her water whips to strike first. Azula had to dive forward to avoid her attack, and as she rolled forward and leapt up, Katara could already see the small crackling sparks of white fire at her fingertips.

With the power of Sozin’s Comet, Azula’s fire was so hot that she had been able to melt Katara’s ice and vaporize the water with ease. But Katara had been practicing; she knew how to feel the water in the midst of the heat, and she knew she could draw it back to herself even when Azula’s blue fire burned with the power of the sun.

Katara pulled on the waters below them, and suddenly she and Azula both were engulfed in the flood.

Firebending comes from the breath, Uncle Iroh had told her. As Katara closed her eyes and exhaled into the water, she could feel the liquid cooling around them. It would dull Azula’s reflexes and slow her reactions – and give Katara the time she needed to wrap the chain around Azula’s limbs and secure her tightly to the grating they stood on.

As she released her hold on the water, Katara prayed desperately to Yue that she had left herself enough time to get back to Zuko.

She ran as fast as she could. All she had left was the hope that she wasn’t too late this time.

When she reached Zuko, his breathing was ragged, and his chest was barely moving. His shirt was charred, and his chest was covered in soot and ash and – and blood.

Oh, spirits, no.

Please, she begged as she dropped to her knees, but she couldn’t find the words. Please.

 

 

Monk Gyatso had always told Aang that air was the most spiritual element, and that airbenders were naturally more spiritual than people from the other nations. Aang remembered that a really famous guru called Laghima had said that airbenders could see more clearly than other people because they were free from illusion.

As Aang let go of his illusions and unlocked his final chakra, he remembered what the monks had always taught him; that air was the element of freedom, where you could leave it all behind.

When he came back to himself, he could sense that Fire Lord Ozai was standing over the rubble covering him. The Fire Lord had been kicking his butt this whole time. He’d been making the whole world fight his senseless war. And he’d sent Aang’s friend away from everything he knew and everyone he loved.

Aang decided that stupid Fire Lord Ozai could suck it.

“Come on out, little boy!”

The Fire Lord’s voice sounded cruel and mean as Aang prepared himself to jump out. Toph had told him that he needed to wait for the right moment. Any moment…

“You're about to be –”

Now!

Aang earthbent himself out of the rubble and grabbed hold of Fire Lord Ozai’s decidedly uncool goatee beard.

When Ozai tried to firebend at Aang, he just batted it away with the back of his hand like Zuko had shown him, and then airbent Ozai up in the air. It was like the time he had airbent the Blue Spirit over the walls of Pohuai Stronghold, except Aang wasn’t really so invested in making sure Fire Lord Ozai landed as safely as he’d made Zuko land that one time.

As Ozai crashed into one of the rock pillars, Aang remembered something else Zuko had shown him. The morning after Hotman had joined him, Katara and Sokka, he’d helped Aang practice his bending by spinning a load of acorns in a circle. Over time, Aang had kept practicing, and he’d added his marbles, and some pebbles, and even some of Sokka’s lychee nuts into his routine, and he’d taken the first letter of each object and called it his L-A-M-P trick. Aang wasn’t sure what he was supposed to call it when he bent the air, water, earth and fire all around him and started spinning it around him in four super cool circles, but he was pretty sure he could come up with a better name than AWEF. He’d have to think about that later, once he’d defeated Fire Lord Ozai.

The moment Aang knew for sure that he’d been able to let go of all his earthly attachments and unlock the Avatar State was when Ozai tried to use his firebending to fly away from him, and he was able to just fly after him without anything holding him back or holding him down. Aang could use his earthbending to block Ozai’s way when he tried to fly in between two rock columns, and he could use his waterbending to soak him through, pants and all, and extinguish his fire-jets to send him falling to the ground.

Ozai could try to shoot all the fireballs he wanted, but now Aang could just dodge the fire and earthbend a bunch of rocks in front of him to shield himself from Ozai’s attack. Then, he sent a bunch of fireballs at Ozai to make him run away again. Zuko kept telling Aang that if you broke a firebender’s root, you’d already beaten them, and Toph kept saying that if you couldn’t stand firm, defeat was confirmed, and stuff like that. So Aang knew that he had the Fire Lord running.

Eventually, Aang was able to waterbend a snare to trap Ozai’s leg and send him flailing, just like Katara had done to Sokka when he’d accidentally walked over the laundry she’d set out to dry in the hot sun. They’d all laughed about it for ages afterwards. After he’d whirled Ozai round to slam him down on top of a pillar, Aang earthbent Ozai’s hands and feet to the ground to trap him. At the beach house, Toph had tripped Zuko over and made him fall flat on his face in the courtyard when she’d locked the stone around his ankles.

As Aang hovered in the air over the Fire Lord, he couldn’t imagine sifu Iroh having fun with his little brother the way his friends all had fun with each other.

FIRE LORD OZAI,” he said in a super dramatic voice. Wow, was that what he usually sounded like? “YOU AND YOUR FOREFATHERS HAVE DEVASTATED THE BALANCE OF THIS WORLD, AND NOW YOU SHALL PAY THE ULTIMATE PRICE.

But even as Aang drew all the four elements together in a super cool, super deadly attack, he knew he couldn’t do it. Even if he hadn’t seen the way the Fire Lord’s eyes widened in terror, even if he hadn’t been able to hear him yelling in fear… he couldn’t kill the Fire Lord.

The fire faded away, the stones all fell to the ground in a pitter-patter, and the water sloshed around in the dirt. The air lowered Aang gently to stand in front of the Fire Lord.

“No,” he promised himself, and Monk Gyatso and Monk Pasang, and even grumpy old Monk Tashi. “I'm not going to end it like this.”

“Even with all the power in the world, you are still weak!” Ozai shouted at him.

Aang sighed. Gyatso had always told him that compassion and tolerance weren’t signs of weakness, but of strength.

He shifted his left foot back and his right foot forward so he was standing with his feet a shoulders-width apart. Then, he began to earthbend so that Ozai’s arms and legs were trapped in rock and he was kneeling on the ground in front of Aang.

IN THE ERA BEFORE THE AVATAR, the lion-turtle had told Aang, WE BENT NOT THE ELEMENTS, BUT THE ENERGY WITHIN OURSELVES.

Aang just needed to defeat his opponent. Not defeat them with any specific form of bending. That’s what Zuko had said back at Earth Rumble VI.

TO BEND ANOTHER'S ENERGY, YOUR OWN SPIRIT MUST BE UNBREAKABLE,

Aang hadn’t been planning on using energybending to defeat the Fire Lord. But Katara had told him that plans can change, and that’s okay.

OR YOU WILL BE CORRUPTED AND DESTROYED.

He would have to stand firm, just like Toph always said.

THE TRUE MIND CAN WEATHER ALL THE LIES AND ILLUSIONS WITHOUT BEING LOST.

Can you do that? Bend another person’s bending?

THE TRUE HEART CAN TOUCH THE POISON OF HATRED WITHOUT BEING HARMED.

Okay, so that last one hadn’t been one of his bending sifus, that had been Sokka. But that was okay, too. Sometimes, Sokka just knew stuff.

SINCE BEGININGLESS TIME, DARKNESS THRIVES IN THE VOID…

Suki was always talking about the element of surprise, and this new form of bending definitely counted as a surprise to Aang.

BUT ALWAYS YIELDS TO PURIFYING LIGHT.

But even so, there was no reason he couldn’t do it.

 

 

Sokka felt like he’d spent most of the past year running. He’d been running at the South Pole, the North Pole, running on Kyoshi Island, in Omashu, in Ba Sing Se, and just about everywhere else you could think of. If he’d been there, chances were Sokka had gone running there.

Running several thousand feet in the air was a new one, though.

“Toph, metalbend the rudder so it's jammed in a turning position,” he instructed his friend as they raced over the airship. “The ship will spiral and slam into the others!”

“Got it!”

As the world’s greatest metalbender dragged the rudder of the ship into position, Sokka tried to scan the horizon for the airship Suki had fallen through onto. He knew she could handle herself – dirtballs, did he know that – but right now, in the middle of a fight on an airship with Sozin’s Comet streaking across the sky? Sokka figured he was allowed to worry about her just a little bit.

If – when, fucking when, Agni damn it – when he saw her again, Sokka was going to tell Suki exactly how worried he’d been feeling right now, in this moment. And he’d tell her in iambic hexameter and everything.

As Toph’s bent rudder sent their airship crashing into the other flying machines of their fleet, Sokka could hear the grinding of metal on metal, and he mentally envisioned a whole bunch of airships on a piece of paper getting allllll scribbled out with blotting ink.

“Have I ever mentioned how sweet it is that you invented metalbending?” He grinned, resisting the urge to punch the air in triumph.

Toph looked bright red, and Sokka could sympathize. It was roasting up here, high in the sky over the burning Wulong Forest. “You could stand to mention it more.”

When they got out of this, Sokka promised himself, he’d mention it every day for a month. Maybe twice a day. But they had to get out of here first – and as a firebender emerged from the ship and blasted flames at Toph, Sokka had to quickly drag her out of harm’s way.

“Hang on!” He yelled, grabbing onto Toph and diving off the side of the airship.

He tried, he really did. He tried to stab his sword into the hull to try and slow them down. But the sword didn’t stick, and the blade didn’t catch, and he was falling towards the airship below them with Toph screaming in his ear and a pretty nasty landing rushing up to meet

TUI AND LA MOM WHERE ARE YOU

My leg!

Sokka blinked back his tears and gulped back his agonized scream, and tried to figure out which way was upside-down, and which way was the right way up. He was collapsed on a platform with his space sword lying a couple of feet away from him, and Toph was…

The only thing that had stopped Toph from falling thousands of feet into the ocean was the death grip she had on Sokka’s wrist.

Fucking slush on an Agni-damned stick.

Sokka didn’t have it in him to haul Toph up onto the platform with him, but he gritted his teeth and clung onto her hand with everything he did have in him. Judging from the way her fingers were clinging onto his, they’d come to a mutual understanding.

“Hang on, Toph!” He gasped.

He didn’t need the extremely delayed pause to tell him that it was a really fucking obvious thing to say –

“Aye, aye, Captain,” came an uncharacteristically quiet reply.

Shit.

That wasn’t a sarcastic Toph. That delayed pause might not have been due to sarcasm.

Double shit. Two firebenders had come out of the airship, and Sokka was staring right at them.

Back on the prison rig in Beihe, Momo had been flying around and picking up the prison guards’ spears as Sokka had chopped through them. He’d also been jumping on firebenders’ heads to distract them.

Sokka knew things were looking bad, but he wouldn’t have thought he’d ever get to a point where he’d be missing Momo.

As he threw his boomerang towards the firebender standing on the left, before twisting over to desperately heave his sword at the other one on his right, Sokka hoped against hope for a miracle. The spirits couldn’t hate him that much, could they?

But as he watched the blade he and Master Piandao had crafted from a meteor flicker in the sunlight before it disappeared in the space between sea and sky, Sokka already knew the answer to that question.

Bye, space sword.

“I don't think boomerang's coming back, Toph,” he managed weakly. His fingers were slippery with sweat. “It looks like this is the end.”

He could hear Toph crying. Fuck. Toph didn’t cry. She never cried. But Toph was only a kid.

Sokka’s Dad had always told him that when the Fire Nation had attacked civilians, it was their greatest crime. But Toph was just a kid, and the Fire Nation were attacking her because Sokka and the others had dragged her along with them to teach Aang earthbending.

It’s my fault, Sokka realized numbly. Whatever happens next, it’s my fault.

He couldn’t protect her.

Triple sh–

BOOM

Sokka barely had time to realize that Toph had let go of his hand before he was falling. His last thought was that at least he’d get to see Mom in the Spirit World, and he’d get to remember what she looked like.

But Yue must have put a good word in for him with the spirits, because although Sokka landed on his leg again – fucking OUCH, by the way, again – he found himself curled up in a pain-wracked, pain-filled, painful ball of pain on another airship.

Alive.

“How did that happen?” Toph asked, grabbing his shoulder and holding on tight to stop him from slipping further down the airship’s hull. “Did boomerang come back?”

Sokka was just as confused as she was, but as he looked up at the sky, he had to stifle a gasp. He was in a world of pain, but all he could feel was amazement.

It was just like the first time a girl in a dojo had showed him up as a complete novice by spinning him round and wrenching his shoulder almost out of his socket. He could see her now, face alight with exhilaration, hair whipping across her face in the wind, smiling in triumph, eyes fixed on him…

No, seriously, as in he could actually see her now, riding on the fin of an airship, waving at them with a triumphant cry that Sokka could only barely hear. But he could hear her, and that was all he needed.

“No,” he managed. “Suki did!”

As Toph let out a breathless, disbelieving laugh, Sokka slumped back down onto the roof of the airship. The metal hull was roasting his back, and he was struggling to breath. He had no idea what was going on with Aang, he didn’t know what had happened to Katara and Zuko, he’d lost his space sword, and he was ninety-five-percent sure his leg was broken.

But they had done it.

They’d done it.

They’d done it.

Notes:

‘Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength’ is a quote from Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama.

Chapter 59

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Zuko was fighting, but he couldn’t feel anything but the pain. He was sort of used to that by now, though.

Lying on the ground, struggling to breath past the unceasing agony in his lungs, ribs, chest, stomach, throat… it might have been the delirium of his injuries talking, but it kind of reminded him of the time Azula had blasted him through a wall in Tu Zin. Or the time Suki had kicked his ass on Kyoshi Island. Or the many, many times aboard the Wani when Zuko had lost his patience with Ensign Takahashi and accused her of disrespect and laziness, only to get the shit beaten out of him for his troubles.

Uncle Iroh hadn’t been too impressed by Zuko’s newfound appetite for brawling, and he had made sure to impress upon Zuko that a crew would not respect a commanding officer who did not behave in a way worthy of respect. Zuko hadn’t had any idea how to command a ship to begin with, but that had changed over time under Uncle’s patient, watchful eye.

So much had changed over time, Zuko most of all. After eighteen months at sea – eighteen months of chasing the Avatar; eighteen months of shameful, dishonored banishment – he had been reading one of Uncle’s scrolls in his own private study. It had only been a week or so before the anniversary of Lu Ten’s death, and Zuko hadn’t wanted to disturb Uncle at such a hard time. But when he had read what the banished Fire Sage Itō had written in his later years, Zuko had known what he needed to say to Uncle. He’d taken a cup of jasmine with him just to be on the safe side, though.

Do not put me in the dark

To die like a traitor;

I am good, and like a good thing

I will die with my face to the sun.

Distantly, as if in a dream, Zuko could feel something digging into his back. So he wasn’t on his front anymore. He would die with his face to the sun, at least. He would not die in exile. They could scatter his ashes beneath a tree by a pond, where he could enjoy the scent of the blossoms and watch the turtleducks go by.

Zuko had been fighting so long that to imagine that kind of peace brought him a quiet sort of serenity. It made his heart thump unsteadily in his chest, but it soothed the pains running up and down his body.

He could feel fingers threading through his hair, and a hand cradling his head. After his banishment, Zuko had shaved his own head; he hadn’t let anyone else touch his hair for three years, not even Uncle Iroh, not until that time when Katara had helped pull Appa’s gross shedding fur out of his hair.

Suddenly, Zuko remembered what had happened.

Katara.

He had to get up. If Azula was still after Katara – if she hurt her –

He had to keep fighting!

But as Zuko fought to draw breath into his aching lungs, as he struggled to open his eyes, he could feel the pain in his chest fading away. As he blinked hard, trying to bring his muddled surroundings into focus, his world narrowed to the cool hand on his torso and the bright blue eyes looking down at him.

Katara’s dark skin was flushed with exertion, her eyes were red-rimmed with tears streaming down her cheeks, her thick hair was bedraggled and soaking wet, and she was the most beautiful sight Zuko had ever seen.

“Zuko,” she began, before drawing a stuttering, gasping breath. “Zuko –”

Through the haze of icy contractions and his burning lungs, Zuko could only just about hear Katara’s words. He tried his hardest, but it took him a couple of moments to comprehend what she was saying.

“Are you alright?” Her voice cracked; his ears drank in the sound. “Zuko, are you okay?

A question. Requiring an answer. Zuko blinked dumbly as he tried to figure out what he was supposed to say in response.

Did I get hit in the chest with a frying pan? was the first thing that came to mind.

It burns like Ibuki's fire plant was the next.

Something told Zuko that if he gave Katara either of those replies, she wouldn’t be too impressed. So, instead, he gave her the only other answer he could think of.

“Thank you, Katara.”

Wait a second.

Hold on a minute, those weren’t the right three words.

No, they were the right three words, just not the right three words.

Wait, no, that wasn’t –

Agni damn it all.

If Zuko didn’t know what it felt like to have the cold fire of lightning coursing through his body, burning its way along every last one of his chi pathways, he would have asked Agni to strike him down and have done with it. But Katara was shaking her head.

“I think I'm the one who should be thanking you,” she told him, a tearful smile spreading across her face.

As Katara helped Zuko struggle to stand up, her hand slipped from the nape of his neck to his shoulder, and whilst part of him missed her touch on his skin, he was too disoriented to notice too much beyond the way his chest and stomach really fucking hurt.

There’d been the lightning, he remembered, staggering to his feet. Azula had been charging up her lightning, and he’d needed to jump to catch it. He hadn’t been able to set himself, so he couldn’t redirect it all.

But Zuko was here, now. He was here, and he was alive. He had to be alive – Uncle had never mentioned the Spirit World being this painful.

He struggled to breathe in, but the question came out in a rush on his exhale. “How?

He didn’t know what he was trying to ask, but Katara’s blue eyes had a knowing quality to them as she met his confounded gaze.

“Fire is life,” she repeated his own words back to him. “But where there is life, there is water.”

If anything, that left Zuko even more confused. Was that one of Uncle’s proverbs?

But before he could try and puzzle out what in Agni’s name Katara was talking about, he heard a piercing scream from behind them.

It had been years since they’d last played The Floor Is Lava, but Zuko still remembered the sound his little sister had made when he’d hit the ground, and she’d seen the way his ankle had turned.

Their mother had told him that he was meant to look after his little sister and look out for her. But as Zuko saw Azula tugging on her manacles and breathing out her fire, and as he heard her screaming and weeping in rage and pain, he was at a loss as to how he was meant to do that.

He didn’t think a sticky bun would be able to make all this go away.

 

 

Toph wasn’t unused to winning, per se. She won at Earth Rumbles, and she won at life. But winning a war that had been going for a hundred years, one that had seemed the Fire Nation was going to win by a landslide? That was gonna take some topping, even for the Blind fucking Bandit.

By the time she, Sokka and Suki caught up to Aang and the Fire Lord on the outskirts of what Snoozles told her was a now thoroughly-burnt Wulong Forest, it was beginning to sink in for Toph just what the Bandit, the Sucker, and the Blue Spirit had managed to achieve. Not bad, not bad at all.

“You did it!” Snoozles cheered, hobbling his way over to the Fancy Dancer and wrapping him up in a hug tight enough to crush boulders – and Toph would know. “You should've seen yourself, it was amazing!”

Actually, when Toph thought about it, she and Fan Girl had done most of the work. Snoozles had kicked a bit of butt, yeah, but he’d also said shit like airship slice! and other dumb stuff. Kind of like what the big goof was doing now.

“You were all like ‘Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding! Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!’ And the Fire Lord was all like ‘Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho! Joff-tchoff-tchoffo-tchoffo-tchoff!’”

Oh, spirits. Had Toph really been putting up with this guy for the past five months? She pitied Fan Girl, who actually had to put up with this idiot pretty much full-time. But their heartbeats were full-time jumpy around each other, and that only confirmed to Toph that these two idiots deserved each other. At least this way, nobody else had to put up with their idiocy.

And at least Aunt Fanny knew Snoozles well enough to cut him off before he got into his rhythm of rambling on like a moron.

“So,” she said to Twinkles with an awkward cough. “Did you, you know… finish the job?”

She must have been asking about the Fire Lord, who was lying slumped on the ground a couple of meters away from them all. Toph could feel a dull heartbeat thudding away and sending vibrations through the earth, but something about the Head Jerkbender seemed weaker than she’d been expecting.

It wasn’t anything to do with the rate or strength of his pulse. It was more like he just seemed weaker than he should have been. But he still had enough fight left in him to raise his head and lean forward in what might almost have been a threatening move.

“I'm… still alive.”

Fan Girl and Snoozles each took a step back from him – well, Sucker took an awkward hop, what with his broken leg and all. The Fancy Dancer was there to wrap an arm of his own around the big goofball’s waist and help steady him before he overbalanced.

“I learned there was another way to defeat him and restore balance,” Aang told them. Toph could hear the smile in his voice. “I took away his firebending. He can't use it to hurt or threaten anyone else ever again.”

“Wow!”

Wait a minute, that wasn’t Snoozles’ voice.

Had Toph seriously just said that? Out loud? Like a total dork?

Aw, crud. The Blind Bandit had a reputation to protect!

She coughed and silently dared anyone to make a comment. “Who taught you that?”

“A giant lion turtle,” Aang replied casually, and Toph had absolutely no idea how to respond to that.

Seriously. What the fuck.

But like always with Twinkle Toes, she just had to shake her head and smile. “You have the craziest adventures when you disappear.”

If she was jealous, it was only because it sounded cool. Badgermoles were still cooler, though.

“Well, look at you, buster,” Snoozles crowed. Toph could sense him pointing at the Fire Lord with one arm as Fan Girl eased the other around her shoulders. “Now that your firebending's gone I guess we should call you… the Loser Lord!”

Hmm. Not the best nickname Toph had ever heard… but then again, not the worst.

“I am –” the Dire Lord wheezed – “The Phoenix King!”

That, Toph decided, was the worst nickname she’d ever heard. It was one thing to have an impressive nickname and not be able to back it up – that was Headhunter all over. But at least Headhunter cared about his grandma, and he made good cupcakes. Bozo-Schmozo-Ozai was just flopping about on the ground, and Toph could sense drool building up in the dirt.

Gross. This was the guy they’d spent all that time running scared of?

“Oh, sorry,” Toph sneered. It felt good to smack talk this shǎguā into the dirt. “Didn't mean to offend you, Phoenix King of Getting His Butt Whooped.”

“Yeah!” She felt Aunt Fanny nod and point at him with a laugh in her voice. “Or how about King of the… uh…”

She paused for a moment, and Toph waited eagerly for her to finish the Loser Lord off. Knowing Little Miss Fantastic, it was going to be something legendary, something cool, something super special awesome.

“Guys Who… Don't Win?”

Huh. Toph wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she might actually have found something that Fan Girl wasn’t scarily good at. She wasn’t quite sure how that made her feel. Kind of a weird mixture of disappointment, relief, and something that might have been, like, affection or whatever, but only if she muttered it quietly enough.

“Leave the nicknames to us, honey,” she advised Suki as gently as she could. Thankfully, everyone else seemed as eager to move on from the awkwardness as she did, because Sucker just nodded and cleared his throat.

“We should get back to the Fire Nation capital to tell the others what’s happened,” he declared, starting to stumble over in the direction of the airship with Twinkles and Fan Girl’s help. “Katara and Zuko will want to know what’s happened, and there’s a prison in the capital where we can keep Ozai for the time being.”

“Oh, right!” Toph felt Twinkles nod through the still-warm earth. “How come Katara and Zuko aren’t here, Sokka? Actually, wait – how come you guys are here?”

Toph was a little preoccupied with earthbending some shackles for the Loser Lord and bumping him along on the ground towards the airship, so she was a bit too busy to give the Fancy Dancer an answer.

“And have you guys seen a massive lion turtle around anywhere? They look a bit like an island?”

Well, maybe she wasn’t too busy to give Aang an answer.

“Sure!” She nodded. “Yeah, I saw one a couple of minutes ago.”

“Oh, cool, thanks Toph! So where did you see – hey!

Toph smirked. The more things changed, the more things stayed the same.

 

 

As their airship arrived at the Royal Palace, Aang could see that there must have been some kind of fight going on – there was water everywhere, and some roofs were burnt and charred, and there was a bunch of old guys in red outfits milling around and looking like they were waiting for someone to tell them what to do. The weird part was that there was a figure that seemed to be telling them all what to do, but they quickly started running towards the airship as soon as Sokka started their descent. Aang recognized Katara straight away.

He was so excited and relieved that she was okay, he had to get onto his air scooter and zoom through the airship to greet her. Never mind all Sokka’s shouting about running in the hallways – this wasn’t running, this was zooming on an air scooter, it was totally different!

“Katara!” He cried out happily as he zoomed-not-ran down the ramp. “You’re here!”

“Aang!”

Judging by the way Katara flung her arms around him and squeezed him tight, she was pretty excited and relieved to see him too. The sky was slowly turning blue again, but Aang thought he might be turning blue as well.

“You came back,” her voice was really shaky all up close in his ear. “You’re here, you’re really here, you came back –”

Aang was worried that his airbending tattoos might come off and stain Katara’s arms blue, the way she was holding onto him. When she finally drew away from him, she was holding onto his shoulders as if she was worried he was going to vanish on her again.

Aang knew that he had a few things he needed to say sorry to Katara for, but he thought he should probably start with that.

“Katara,” he began, wondering whether he should do that weird bow thing Zuko had done when he’d been apologizing outside General Fong’s base. “I’m really sorry for running off. And for making you worry about me. And for –”

“No, Aang,” Katara began, before shaking her head and making a weird noise that sounded like a mixture between a laugh and a sob. “I don’t care about any of that. I’m just so glad you’re okay!”

Oh. That had gone better than Aang had feared it would. As his other friends caught up to them, he tried not to seem too relieved. It would have been really awkward to have to say he was sorry for kissing Katara when she didn’t want to be kissed in front of everyone.

Aang was so happy to see Katara, but it was different to the way he usually felt when he saw her. Instead of feeling like he had a whole swarm of sooty copper fritillaries fluttering around in his stomach like before, he was just happy to see her. He wasn’t worried about what he was supposed to say, and he didn’t feel all that pressure about saying the right thing to make her love him back the way he loved her. All that sort of thing could wait for later; right now, he was just so relieved to see that she was okay.

“Sokka!” Katara hugged her brother even more tightly than she’d hugged Aang. “You’re okay! You’re all okay!”

“‘M ‘kay, ‘Tara,” Sokka gurgled. “Got a br’k’n leg, but ‘m all good –”

What?” Katara demanded, reeling back just as quickly as she’d gone forward to hug Sokka. “You broke your leg?

“I mean, we also broke the Fire Nation’s undefeated streak and won the war and shit,” Toph pointed out. “But go off, I guess.”

“You won?” Katara repeated, looking at Sokka for confirmation. “So you guys… so it’s really over?”

Sokka nodded. “It’s over,” he confirmed with a tired smile. “It’s really over, Seal Pup.”

“Did everything go okay here?” Suki asked. “I’m assuming so, considering you’re, you know,” she waved vaguely at the Royal Palace. “Here, and stuff.”

Aang looked across at the Royal Palace, and then he looked around the courtyard. Sokka and Toph had told him why Katara and Hotman had needed to come to the Fire Nation Capital to stop Azula, and Suki had been saying something that Taki had apparently told her about how Zuko would need to fight Azula in an Agni Kai, but Aang didn’t actually know what had actually happened.

“Where’s Hotman, anyway?” he asked, before he frowned as a thought struck him. “Or should we be calling him Fire Lord Hotman now?”

To begin with, Aang wasn’t sure why Katara’s eyes filled with tears, but as she told them, haltingly and tearfully, about why Zuko wasn’t with her, and why he was asleep right now, and why he had bandages all over his chest, and why Azula had been locked up by the Fire Sages until they could figure out who was in charge of the Fire Nation and what they wanted to do with her, Aang thought he could see why she was a bit upset.

Hearing about how Hotman had saved Katara’s life, Aang wondered whether Zuko might have been motivated by love the same way Aang was. Looking at how Katara was clinging onto Sokka and Suki as Sokka gave her a big, tight hug, Aang thought that maybe Katara had been motivated by love when she’d saved Zuko in return.

Thinking that Katara maybe loved Zuko made Aang feel kind of weird, but it didn’t make him feel angry or shocked or hurt the way it had when they’d all gone to see the Ember Island Players. It just made him remember the talk he’d had with Toph when they’d all been waiting for Katara to come back from confronting the man who’d killed her mother, when Toph had asked him what he thought love was, and he’d told her that he thought that love was when you wanted the best for another person.

If wanting the best for another person meant that you loved them, then maybe Katara and Zuko did love each other, and maybe Aang could love his friends enough to look past his own feelings and be happy for them. He thought this might have been what Guru Pathik had been trying to help him to understand when they had been working at unlocking his Thought Chakra.

“Is Zuko going to be okay?” He asked Toph quietly.

“Sparky’s tough as shit,” she assured him with a lot of feeling in her voice – ow, and a really unnecessary punch to the shoulder. “He’s gonna be fine.”

“Yeah, Aang,” Suki chimed in, nudging him encouragingly. It hurt a lot less than Toph’s punch did. “From what Taki told me, getting hit by lightning isn’t even close to some of the dumb stuff Zuko got up to when he was the Blue Spirit. He’ll be okay.”

Toph had been teaching Aang how to use his seismic sense to read other people’s heartbeats, and although he was still only a beginner, he wasn’t entirely sure whether Suki was telling the truth or not. But he decided to trust her anyway.

Sometimes, Suki just knew stuff. If she said Hotman would be okay, Aang was confident he’d be okay.

They were all going to be okay, now that the war was over.

Notes:

Zuko quotes from an English translation of A Morir, a Spanish-language poem by José Martí.

Sokka’s vivid description of how Aang’s battle with Ozai went is a bunch of lyrics from Ylvis’ ‘What Does the Fox Say?’. Shǎguā is a Chinese Mandarin word for ‘melon’, but it means something more like ‘dummy’, ‘fool’, or ‘idiot’ in conversation.

Aang’s thoughts on Katara and Zuko’s feelings for one another are pretty much lifted from a time I had a crush on someone and they started dating my best friend, so please be kind with your comments.

Chapter 60

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

One Week Later

 

As Suki entertained herself by tossing little chunks of bread into the turtleduck pond, Sokka wondered to himself whether Zuko really had been the guy at the Great Divide who’d told Aang about how great roast duck was. Don’t get him wrong, Sokka had loved the roast duck he’d had round the Beifongs’ house, but he just couldn’t see a guy who’d grown up around so many cute little turtleducklings just suddenly turning around and saying Yeah, I’m gonna eat you now.

But, then again, Zuko had never really struck Sokka as the kind of guy who thought things through to their rational conclusion.

“Told you the turtleducks look cozy.”

At the sudden sound of a voice that was definitely not Suki’s, Sokka’s idle reverie fell apart like a faulty Pai Sho strategy. Instinctively, he snatched up the new boomerang Toph had fashioned him. It wasn’t quite as good as his old one, but it would do until he and Dad could make a new one.

It might have been a week since word had come through of the White Lotus’ triumph, and it might have been three days since Master Iroh had showed up and helped Fire Sage Shyu push through the last few objections to Zuko becoming Fire Lord, but Sokka had known all along that the day of the coronation itself had always been the biggest and most obvious target for any dissidents who didn’t like the idea of a twice-dishonored sixteen-year-old being put in charge of the world’s largest military-industrial absolute monarchy.

“Put that away before you hurt yourself, kid,” the voice continued, tutting slightly. “Agni knows you won’t be hitting us with it.”

Sokka shifted and turned his neck slightly to his right to see two dark-haired young women stepping into the garden. One was in long crimson robes, and the other was in a dark sleeveless shirt and matching pants. Neither were shooting lightning bolts at Sokka or flirting with him at this present time, so his instincts told him that that was a good start.

“Taki,” Suki began cautiously. Sokka could feel her relaxing next to him, but only slightly. “And… Mai. What’re you doing here?”

“By which we mean, what’re you doing here?” Sokka stared at Mai. “Specifically you. You, Mai, specifically. Mai.”

“I got that part,” she answered flatly. “Taki sprung me and Ty Lee yesterday. Now we’re here. That’s pretty much it.”

Sokka was calling bullshit on that one. After eight months traveling with Zuko, he’d learnt the hard way that stories were never as simple as they first appeared.

“Uh-huh,” he nodded sarcastically. “Okay, sure. And, uh – how did you get here, exactly?”

“Master Iroh and I have a bit of a history when it comes to getting people out of cells,” Taki explained with a casual shrug. “I called in a favor, got him to pull a few strings with the new warden at the Boiling Rock, and it was pretty easy to get Mei-Mei out of there after that.”

“Taki,” Knife Girl complained. “I told you, don’t call me that –”

Sokka couldn’t help the snort he let out. “Mei-Mei?

He regretted the slightly mocking tone to his voice as soon as he saw the way Knife Girl was narrowing her eyes at him.

“Yeah,” she replied, slipping her hands into her sleeves. “Something you want to say?”

“Um…”

Sokka was a little too busy trying to guess just how many knives Mai had up her sleeves right now to come up with a witty retort. He was going with at least five, and that was a conservative estimate.

If he ended up surviving the Hundred Year War only to get killed because of his sense of humor, Toph would never let him hear the end of it.

“We’re looking for Zuko,” Taki said, possibly saving Sokka’s life in the process. “You guys know where we can find him?”

“Actually, it’s probably best you don’t go looking for him just yet,” Suki answered, giving Taki an apologetic smile.

Mai’s eyes narrowed. “Why’s that?”

“He’s kind of busy right now,” Suki replied, meeting Mai’s stare coolly. As in, with a calm, composed response. But also, you know, coolly. Awesomely, one might say.

Sokka was very happy to declare that Suki was awesome every chance he got, just saying.

“Well, then,” Mai sighed, turning to Taki with a shrug. “Guess we’ll have to find something else to do.”

“Guess so,” Taki agreed. “Or we could just search around until we find him.”

“That does sound fun,” Mai allowed. “We could sneak up on him, like you did that time you caught him reading that stupid play.”

Sokka reflexively tensed. He wasn’t in great fighting shape, what with the cast on his leg, but if Mai wanted to get to Zuko at this moment in time, she was going to have to go through him first.

“But it seems like a lot of effort just to make him pee his pants,” the dark-haired Fire Nation girl continued, checking her cool-looking fingerless gloves. “I might just go to the kitchen and get some fruit tarts instead.”

Sokka was very much in favor of going to the kitchens. He hadn’t even known going to the kitchens was an option. As Mai departed, he leant forward to try and start the first of the eighteen separate maneuvers he needed to get through in order to get to his feet, but quickly gave up on that when a turtleduckling started waddling over to him and plopped itself down on his cast.

Sokka could understand why Zuko and Master Iroh found roast duck so tasty now. Revenge was a dish best served with plum sauce.

“Okay, but seriously, though,” Taki raised her eyes at Suki in a clear question. “What’s Zuko doing right now that’s so important he can’t see us?”

Sokka felt Suki squeeze his hand. On any other occasion, he would have thought that it was a gesture of her unfailing, unwavering support and faith in him, and a reminder that just as he loved her and wanted to protect and take care of her, she wanted to do the same for him. But right now, he knew it was just her way of telling him that this was his question to take and answer.

He sighed deeply, but he couldn’t really be too mad with the jerkbender. Not today, of all days. Especially not after he’d saved Katara’s life.

“Just some weirdo spirit stuff,” he recited in a monotone, trying really hard not to think too hard about it.

Taki looked confused, but before she could ask any further questions, Suki let out a laugh and shooed the turtleduckling away.

“Come on, tough guy,” she smiled, helping Sokka up to his feet and handing him his crutch with a smile. “Let’s go find Toph and Iroh before the coronation.”

Sokka let out a sigh as he tucked his crutch under one arm, just as Suki tucked herself under the other.

“Okay,” he agreed contentedly. “They might be having a cup of tea together, so we can check the kitchens first.”

 

 

“How does it feel?” Katara asked quietly as she drew her healing water away from Zuko’s midriff. The jagged, raggedy edges of the scar Azula’s lightning had left on his body still looked angry and red, but it looked a lot better than it had been.

“Better,” he answered quietly. “You’re a good healer.”

Katara couldn’t help the feeling of relief that washed over her. As she watched him struggle to shrug his coronation robes on over his bandages, she moved forward to help him fit his arm through the sleeve. He had to put his cup of shōgayu tea on the windowsill to manage it.

Katara’s mother had drunk ginger tea to improve her circulation; she’d always complained about how the cold at the South Pole affected her more than Dad. Mom had always said that it was the strength of a person’s heart that made them who they were, but Katara wondered whether it was the other way round in Zuko’s case. His heartbeat had been so dangerously weak by the time she had reached him, but it had still been stubbornly beating, refusing to give up without a fight, as Hama’s words had sprung unbidden into her mind.

It's your duty to use the gifts you've been given to win this war.

Katara had never been so grateful for her ability to heal as when she had heard Zuko’s pained groan and seen his bleary eyes come to focus on her.

“Thanks,” he mumbled once she had finished helping him into his robes.

She tried to hide her blush by ineffectually fiddling with the ties around his waist, but she couldn’t bring herself to knot them together. “No problem.”

I think I’m the one who should be thanking you.

She was tempted to say it again, but instead, she decided to ask the question that she had been wondering about since that horrifying moment in the palace courtyard.

“Why did you do it, Zuko?”

She didn’t have to elaborate; they both knew what she was asking about.

For a moment, as Zuko looked down at his feet, Katara wasn’t sure if he was going to answer her. Maybe this new, sometimes painful honesty between them wasn’t ready yet for such a question. Maybe they could talk about something else, if he wanted.

Zuko sighed, and turned to look out the window. He looked tired, but he was still standing. They all were. But then, he began to speak.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he whispered, a tortured look in his eyes. “When I saw the lightning, I – Katara, I had to – I couldn’t –”

He ducked his head and averted his eyes, and Katara wondered if he was remembering it how she remembered it. The helplessness, the fear – she had to, she couldn’t turn her back on him, she couldn’t

“You once said that you looked at destiny like it’s a choice you make,” she started cautiously. “Did you – did you not have a choice?”

Zuko closed his eyes. “You once said that my way of looking at destiny sounded a lot like love.”

Katara wasn’t sure how she found the breath to ask her question. “Why didn’t you have a choice, Zuko?”

As he turned back to her, and she met his honest golden gaze, she couldn’t doubt the sincerity written all over his handsome face. He coughed, and stood a little taller.

“For your precious sake, once my eager life itself was not dear to me. But now, it is my heart's desire; it may long, long years endure.”

Oh.

Katara felt her lips shape the word, and her shaky breath left her in a soft sigh. She wondered whether she should respond with a poem of her own.

I have met my love.

When I compare this present

With feelings of the past,

My passion is now as if

I have never loved before.

But instead, she decided to go a different route. Water could be patient, but… it always flowed home to the sea. To where it belonged.

“I was reading Love Amongst the Dragons,” she began, striving to keep her voice calm. “And there was this one part I really liked.”

“Was it Noren’s soliloquy?”

Katara hadn’t quite been prepared for that question. “What?”

“His speech,” Zuko explained. “When he sees the determination of the herring-salmon swimming against the current.”

“Um, no.” Honestly, Katara couldn’t even remember that part. “No, Zuko, that wasn’t it.”

Zuko colored a wonderful shade of pink. “Oh,” he mumbled. “Well, uh – yeah. That’s one of my favorites. It reminds me of you, now.”

For a moment, Katara considered forgoing her words altogether and showing Zuko what she meant instead. It wasn’t the perfect moment, hours before his coronation, but she had waited so long, and…

After what had happened, she knew she had to tell him. There wasn’t any time like the present.

“No, Zuko.” Why were they whispering? “That’s not the line.”

He winced slightly. “Oh. Sorry. Uh – what’s the line you really liked?”

Katara gave him a small smile as she summoned up her courage. “Only with your glory hidden in false form could I finally recognize your devotion.”

She hadn’t trusted the firebender, but the Blue Spirit had returned her mother’s necklace to her. She had hated the Prince in the Crystal Catacombs, but Zuko had made her tea in Ba Sing Se.

She knew now that she had loved him, then. And that maybe he had loved her too, all along.

“That’s, uh,” she heard the barest ghost of a low, rasping laugh. “That’s not quite how the line goes, Katara.”

Katara knew that. She’d thought enough about that line to know it off by heart. “It’s not?”

Zuko smiled slightly, but his eyes were warm honey. “No, it’s… the Dragon Empress, in the final scene. She doesn’t say that.”

“I know,” she told him, stepping close enough that she could smell the jasmine on his skin. “But I’m saying it now.”

There it was, out in the open at last. She had offered up her heart, and now – now all she could do was wait, and hope that he understood.

She dared to reach out for him and touch his hand. “I’ve made my choice, Zuko.”

His fingers entwined themselves in hers, and oh, she should have known that they would have this, too, in common.

“Me too, Katara.”

Zuko’s hand was warm, and his gentle eyes were soft as Katara lost herself in his gaze. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “And I’d choose you, every time.”

Slowly, Katara reached up to tangle her fingers in Zuko’s thick dark hair. The palm of her hand brushed over his scar as she pulled his face down to hers.

“I choose you, too,” she whispered against his lips, and her actions spoke louder than her words.

 

 

It had taken ten Agni-blessed minutes for Zuko to remember that today was supposed to be the day he was becoming Fire Lord, and another five after that for him to remind Katara. By the time he’d been able to tear himself away from the way she had been running her hands through his hair as she kissed him, enough time had elapsed that he was in serious danger of running late for his own coronation. Uncle would probably have a proverb about that – something about going from the frying pan out to the fire, or something?

By the time Zuko finally arrived at the end of the corridor Uncle had told him to be at no later than quarter-to, Nephew, he was running decidedly late. Aang was already there and waiting for him. He was wearing a vivid orange set of robes Zuko hadn’t seen before, but they seemed to dim in comparison to his beaming smile.

Sifu Iroh gave me this super-flaming set of robes,” he told Zuko, holding his arms up with a toothy grin. The sleeves fell a little loosely around his sleeves. “He said the Order of the White Lotus had been keeping them safe for ages!

Zuko blinked, and looked at the robes with a newly-focused eye. Orange robes, and Aang was wearing a medallion with three spiraling lines. Uncle had shown Zuko that pattern when he’d been teaching him about the four elements – the symbol of the Air Nomads.

“He said that the White Lotus got them from a village in the Earth Kingdom,” Aang explained, reaching up to gently trace over the pendant. “A boy from the Southern Air Temple had been visiting his family on the day the Fire Nation attacked.”

Zuko cringed at the reminder of what his country had done, but Aang didn’t look at him with any resentment or accusation in his gray eyes.

“I know it’s kind of crazy,” he said thoughtfully. “But I couldn’t help but think of my friend Samten when he said it.”

Zuko thought the name was familiar. “Wasn’t he your friend who said that shaving your head was a sign that you were growing up?”

“Uh-huh,” Aang nodded. “He was my best friend at the Temple.”

He chuckled, and Zuko wondered whether he was remembering something that had happened a hundred years ago, or maybe something that had only happened a couple of hundred days ago. So much had changed in a year.

“I can’t believe a year ago, I was hiding from the Fire Nation behind a mask,” he confessed. “And now…”

Now he had his honor restored. Now he and Katara were a something. Now he was having to deal with a whole bunch of Fire Sages who were concerned about whether the Fire Lord they were meant to be crowning today was pregnant.

He was going to kill Sokka.

“And now we’re friends,” Aang said quietly with a small smile. That hadn’t been what Zuko had been thinking at all, but he had to admit it was a lot better than thinking about his own pregnancy.

“Yeah.” He gave Aang a small smile of his own. “Now we’re friends.”

The way Aang’s gray eyes brightened up made him feel like maybe he’d said the right thing.

“So does that mean I can call you Fire Lord Hotman now?”

It was only through great effort that Zuko stopped himself from rolling his eyes. Immensely talented young benders were going to be the death of him, it seemed. Toph had already started calling him His Royal Sparkiness.

“You’ll have a quota,” he decided. “Twice a week to start with.”

The way Aang was pouting at him, you’d think Zuko had decided to banish all the turtleducks, or something. “Only twice?

“We’ll review it in a month,” he reached out to rest his hand on Aang’s shoulder. “See if we can bump it up to three.”

“Four.”

Three.”

“Okay, fine,” Aang huffed, before cocking his head thoughtfully. “How about four?”

Zuko sighed, but he couldn’t help but smile fondly at his friend. “Still haven’t learnt to haggle yet, huh?”

Aang was wearing a little grin of his own. “This wise old guy once told me that there’s always more to learn, sifu Hotman.”

Zuko resented that remark. For Agni’s sakes, he wasn’t Uncle.

“Less of the old, Bison Breath,” he grumbled. “Which one of us is a hundred and twelve, huh?”

“Apologies, Fire Lord Hotman,” the Spirit Bridge intoned with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “And you aren’t really that wise either, now I come to think about it –”

“Oh, really?” Zuko raised an eyebrow and leveled Aang with his best deadpan expression. “Do the words ‘Pohuai Stronghold’ mean anything to you?”

Sifu Iroh told me some stories,” Aang replied nonchalantly, as unaffected as always by sarcasm. “You’re definitely not that wise, Zuko.”

Zuko tried not to gulp at the thought. Uncle knew all the embarrassing stories.

Oh, Agni. All the embarrassing stories.

“What stories?” He asked apprehensively, but Aang only shook his head.

“No way, Hotman,” he smiled – wait, no.

He smirked.

What the slush?

“Now it’s my turn not to tell you stuff,” the world’s second-most aggravating twelve-year-old told him.

If Zuko wasn’t already running late for his own coronation, he would probably have sat Aang down and refused to let him leave until the monk had told him exactly what Uncle had blabbed so he could refute it all. But Aang was grinning at him like he had just told the world’s most hilarious joke, and Zuko was pretty sure that pissing the Avatar off was perhaps not quite the best way to start his reign as Fire Lord.

Fire Lord Zuko, he thought to himself, still mentally stumbling over the way it sounded. Hot cinders.

“Let’s just get this over with,” he sighed, schooling his features into something that didn’t feel quite like a scowl or a smile. “The sooner we’re done with this, the sooner I can tell you about the time Uncle got himself arrested.”

“You already told me about that one,” Aang replied. “You said Lieutenant Jee had to go and bail him out.”

“Yeah, I told you about that one,” Zuko conceded. “But I didn’t tell you about the time Taki had to go and bail him out.”

Aang’s eyes widened, and Zuko resisted the urge to smirk.

Take that, Uncle.

As he and Aang stepped out onto the balcony, Zuko could feel his inner fire burning brightly. But it wasn’t in response to the light and heat of the summertime sun beating down upon him, or the triumphant roars of approval and joyous shouts of celebration ringing out from the crowds that thronged the capital’s streets. Uncle had always said that his bending was fueled by passionate emotions, and today, Zuko was feeling more than he had felt in a long, long time.

The soon-to-be Fire Lord drew upon his courage, and his faith, and his hope, and turned to the Avatar standing beside him. “Ready?”

“You bet, Hotman,” Aang was already watching him with a smile on his face. “How about you?”

Zuko couldn’t help but smile right back at him.

“Sure,” he replied. “There’s no reason we can’t do this.”

Notes:

Mei-mei is Chinese for ‘little sister’. Taki’s making an oh-so-witty pun on how Mai’s name is a homophone.

Cold weather can affect blood circulation, but one documented health benefit of ginger tea is improved circulation.

The poem Zuko quotes was written by Fujiwara no Yoshitaka, and the poem Katara quotes was written by Fujiwara no Atsutada. They’re both from the Hyakunin Isshū. ‘Only with your glory hidden in false form could you finally recognise my devotion’ is a line from the final scene of Love Amongst the Dragons.

Zuko misquotes the proverb ‘From the frying pan into the fire’, because of course he does.

Series this work belongs to: