Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Katara is having a bad day. Sokka gets it, he really, really does. Hell, he has bad days all the time. It’s hard not to. If he realizes it, he just takes a day outside the village, out on the ice. He can practice weapon drills or do patrols or hunt, anything to keep his brain and body busy. He’s not good at stasis, and trying to be good at it makes the bad days worse.

His sister’s the same way. She’ll deny it, because she’s got a head harder than permafrost, but she is. And because she’s stubborn, They’ve lost so much to the Fire Nation — warriors and healers, parents and children — they can’t stand to lose any more. They’ll hold onto what they have with bloody fingernails and teeth if they have to, clawing it back to them. Katara will try to force herself to be what she thinks the tribe needs her to be. She’ll carve pieces of herself away, pretend she’s made of ice, and not pay attention to the way it leaves cracks behind.

Sokka knows what she’s doing. He wishes he could protect her better, that she didn’t have to grow up so fast. But he also knows he can wish all he wants and it won’t change a damn thing.

So on Katara’s bad days, sometimes she’ll stand for hours at the edge of the sea and practice speaking the ocean tongue. Sometimes that helps, and she’ll come back home smiling and satisfied. But sometimes it doesn’t, and his sister comes home sullen and snappish, building another layer of ice around her to keep her feelings inside, and then pretending it’s the same as warmth.

She’ll keep doing it, pushing it in more and more, and even Katara can only hold so much inside under pressure before it explodes outwards. And when that happens, she’ll spend days feeling guilty about it, like she has to apologize for being human and having feelings.

Okay, so sometimes, this explosion involves some fascinating changes to the local geography (hooray, living in and on and generally around ice), but he’s used to it. Everyone is. But Katara will still end up hurting her own feelings over it. Which usually leads to more bad days, and turns this all into a vicious cycle.

And since Sokka is her big brother, it’s his job to try to pull her out of it. He’s tried a lot of things over the years, but there’s one that’s pretty much guaranteed to work. Although she’s usually the picture of respectfulness, he knows that Elder Umik could send her into a rage that made polar-bear dogs look tame. By the time the man died, all it would take was one comment from the elder about “a woman’s proper place in the Tribe” and his sister would be on a tear for the rest of the week.

The first time Sokka blurted out one of Elder Umik’s (many) complaints, it had been an accident. Katara had been spiralling and nothing he did could bring her out. He doesn’t even remember what he repeated, but Katara had totally stopped brooding. Because she instead wanted to dump an entire snowbank on his head.

(She succeeded too.)

So yes, as it turns out, pissing his sister off to the point of incandescent rage is enough to stop a streak of bad days. He hates doing it, but sometimes sacrifices must be made for the good of the community.

He just wishes that right now, they weren’t in a canoe in the middle of an ice floe maze. If he were smart, he’d keep his mouth shut and let Katara screw around with her bending until she gave up and helped him paddle them home. However, since he’s apparently an idiot, he does not do this.

“Is your magic water actually useful for anything, or are we just going to pretend that you didn’t almost crash us into the ice at least three times?” he says, and watches her back stiffen. Okay then, she must really be in a bad mood. One more push... “Leave it to a girl to decide an oar isn’t special enough.”

Katara whirls around and jumps to her feet in their canoe, almost tipping it over in her fury. (Sokka twists his oar against the ice to steady them) And fury is the correct word; it dances in her eyes like an aurora, lighting up everything.

Perhaps he went too far. Shit.

“Oh, I’ve had it with you,” Katara hisses. Oh this is going to be bad. “You were the one who asked me to come with you on this fishing trip. And what have I gotten in return? Not fish, that’s for sure!”

He watches his sister pull herself taller, her voice rising as her frustration and anger come together like a whirlpool. And he’s the target. Which, yes, is strictly better than her being the target, but this...okay, he’s in a canoe in an ice field and his very angry little sister can convince the water to do things. He’d be lucky if he ended up in a snowbank this time.

“No, all I’ve been getting this entire time is completely bone-headed running commentary from my sea-slug-brained brother, who is criticizing me for every little thing just so he can feel better!” Aaand she’s shouting now.

Sokka hears a crack. Oh no. “Um...Katara?” he tries.

But she’s on a roll now. (His sister is an unstoppable force, and he is nowhere near an immovable object.) “So of course he decides that it’s all the girl’s fault.”

Another crack, this time louder. Oh shit that’s definitely a crack in that iceberg. “Katara.”

“Like he hasn’t been asking me to do things this entire time, the ungrateful, sexist, jealous, bone-headed —”

“KATARA!” He shouts, wide-eyed. She stops, but it’s too late. This time, she doesn’t miss the cracking of ice, probably because it’s so loud he can’t even hear himself think. It shakes him down to his bones, down to his teeth.

He sees the ice smash apart around them, sees the cleaved chunk slice into the water like a knife, sees the wave coming. “Flame and ash,” he spits out the harshest curse he knows as he grabs his sister (too stunned to yell at him for swearing) and leaps out of the canoe onto the nearest ice floe. Just in time, too, as the wave smashes his canoe to bits.

Thank you, Dad, for the ice dodging training. Probably not how he’s supposed to use those skills, though.

Katara is lying next to him on the ice, safe and sound. She’s stunned, but safe. Good, that’s what matters. (That’s his responsibility.) “You okay?” he asks, just to be sure.

“Yeah,” she says, stuttering a little as she catches up to current events. “What...”

“I think the water got angry along with you again.”

She looks wide-eyed at the shattered iceberg in front of them. “I did this?” she whispers.

Sokka claps her on the back. “Well, I certainly didn’t.”

Katara sputters.

Well, at least she’s not spiralling or angry anymore. Progress!

“Hey, I think there’s something in there,” she says, pointing at the broken iceberg. She’s not entirely wrong, either. The ice does look strange, almost...glowy? (Which is a good clue that it’s not ice. Sokka knows ice; pretty sure it doesn’t glow.) Katara starts moving towards it.

“Katara, wait!” he hisses. Of course his sister immediately runs towards the weird glowy ice, what was he expecting?

As it turns out, he was not expecting the ice to burst open. And spit out a scrawny bald boy. With blue tattoos on his head and arms. That are glowing. He lands at Katara’s feet.

The glowing fades.

This day is officially Weird.

The boy picks himself up off the ice and looks directly at the two of them standing there dumbfounded. He rubs the back of his head. “Er, hi! Want to go penguin-sledding with me?”

“The nearest otter-penguin colony is half a day’s sled ride from here,” Sokka says automatically. Then his brain catches up with his mouth enough to start asking the important questions. “Wait, who the hell are you? Why were you in the ice? And why the hell aren’t you wearing a coat?!”

Because really, if those robes are actually warm enough for polar temperatures, he’ll eat his boot.

The boy beams up at him. “Oh! Sorry! I’m Aang. And I don’t know? And I’m an airbender, I don’t need a coat.”

Well, now Sokka has even more questions. He and Katara exchange a glance. They’ve gotten really good at having conversations like this (it’s a survival mechanism when everyone in the village is either old enough to be your parent or doesn’t reach beyond your kneecaps).

Airbender?

He could be lying.

Aang is trying to get their attention. “And half a day by sled is no problem, not if Appa — “ He pauses, then gasps. “Appa!” And then proceeds to jump way higher than physically possible, do a backflip, and land back in the iceberg.

“Okay, so...airbender,” Sokka says as calmly as he can. He turns to his sister. “Katara. What.”

“Why do you think I know?” she bites back.

“Come on, I know Gran-Gran’s been teaching you the songs.”

Katara winces. “We don’t...not any with...this.” Her voice is quiet and Sokka winces right with her. She doesn’t have to say more. He knows. He knows how much was lost when the Fire Nation attacked, destroyed the halls of the Innqiqti,and scattered their history until only song scraps remain. Gran-Gran says she saw it, heard them sing and learned when she first arrived from the North. She says there’s nothing else like it, a history living and breathing all around you.

She’s the only one left in their family who got to hear it.

His sister chews her lip. “That certainly looked like it could be airbending. Sokka, if he is, then we need to...”

She doesn’t need to finish that. If Aang’s an airbender, then he’s in danger. They haven’t had a raid from the Fire Nation in years, but that doesn’t mean anything. Especially not with the things Dad mentioned last time he was home. There’s a weird new fleet in the sea, and they’re causing a lot of trouble for the Fire Nation. Sokka really can’t complain because the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that. And it meant Dad and the others could come home with someone else keeping the pressure.

(Dad said they weren’t working together yet, when he last was home. But...well, he knows his Dad. He’s not someone who lets an opportunity slip past his nets. And that was months ago. His information is old.)

Dad is able to keep some of their warriors closer to home just in case. A raid is always possible, after all, and Sokka’s not sure the Tribe could survive another one. (Spirits, he hopes some of the kids he’s training pass the ice dodging trial and choose Brother Wolf. Sokka’s only one person; he can’t make up for all the warriors they lost.)

Sokka shakes his head, trying to get rid of all these other thoughts. He needs to focus on what’s happening now, right in front of him. Which is a boy suddenly appearing out of an iceberg and oh spirits what is that thing?!

A large — make that very large — furry...thing shuffles out of the ice with Aang riding on its head.

“Hey guys, meet Appa! He’s my flying bison! We can get to the penguins in no time,” he says with a grin.

Sokka just stares, then facepalms. Yep, today is really weird.

——-

Azula eyes the way Mistress Beifong piles silks in front of her with growing trepidation. The seamstress in the corner is just waiting to pounce and Azula really wishes she understood what the big deal was. Because as soon as she and Toph set foot in the Beifong manor, she was convinced something was deeply wrong with Mistress Beifong. The woman had gasped and then immediately rushed over to manhandle her into the building as if there was some sort of crisis.

Apparently, Azula’s sleeves and pants legs are too short. Again.

“Oh, I do hope the sets I had made last time still fit,” Mistress Beifong worries. She tsks. “What are they feeding you on that boat? You’re growing like a weed.”

“Food?” Azula tries.

Mistress Beifong just smiles at her and drops another silk garment on the table.

Toph, meanwhile, is laughing at her.

“Better you than me, Smoky.”

“Toph, dear, do you also need new clothes? I’ll have Madam Song take your measurements while she’s here.”

Toph stops laughing. “You know, I had a question for Bàba, I’ll go see if he’s got a minute.” She starts edging towards the door. “Good luck, Smoky.” And then dashes away, leaving her alone with Mistress Beifong and the seamstress.

Azula sighs, then gingerly picks up the top garment. Even she can tell the quality is excellent, almost like something she’d find in the Palace. Not in her own wardrobe, but possibly in Zuko’s.

(She knows he’s alive, but there’s always a spike in her heart rate, a twist in her gut — anxiety — when she thinks about it. He’s not supposed to be alone; she’s supposed to be there to watch his back, to protect him, and she’s far away. She hasn’t seen him in three years, has left him undefended for three years, how could she do this?.)

(Stop. This is not her fault. This is because of the Fire Lord’s order. Zuko is her prince, but his father is not her Fire Lord. She is not his tool.)

She examines the shirt in her hands, brushing the thicker, tightly-woven silk with her fingers. It’s strong enough to turn away a blade or keep an arrow from being fatal, which she appreciates. Looking over the rest of the pile confirms most have a similar weave. The style is more Earth Kingdom than Fire Nation, done in blacks, greys, and blues. There isn’t a hint of red or gold anywhere.

Should that bother her? It’s been the case ever since she had to acquire new clothes. She can hardly assume to get classic Fire Nation-style clothing when she’s legally not allowed within their borders. In some ways, it’s a good thing she’s growing so much so quickly. Azula has long outgrown the armor set she had when she was banished, and there’s not another child-sized set available on the Yinglong. Soon, though, she'll be able to fit into a standard set without needing too many adjustments.

Azula finds she’s strangely ambivalent towards that.

“Azula, would you mind trying this on?” Mistress Beifong holds out what looks to be a black silk jacket; it almost looks like a haori, but it has too much Earth Kingdom influence. Azula shrugs, takes it, and slips it on. The seamstress flies into action, adjusting the jacket and making contemplative noises that Azula ignores in favor of examining the sleeves. (Length is good; it keeps her hands free. No restrictions on range of motion.) There’s a bit of blue embroidery on the cuffs.

She really isn’t surprised by Mistress Beifong’s color choices anymore. As soon as the crew renamed the ship to the Yinglong, someone had made a new flag to replace the old Fire Nation symbols. Instead of the black flame on red of the Fire Nation, they flew a flag bearing a blue dragon on black. It made things easier, especially when more and more ships, Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom alike, started to join them. All of them now flew the same blue dragon flag. They saw it as a statement, a marker.

When Mistress Beifong saw it, all of the clothing she offered Azula started coming in those colors. This, apparently, is Very Important, but the reasons why are still confusing and nonsensical. (How can pants “go with” a shirt? And how does clothing even coordinate, it is not formulating battle tactics?)

At least they are practical.

(Mistress Beifong had tried to give her the fine hanfu and silks the Beifongs traded in. Garments that are very pretty, and very much not for her. Azula’s uncomfortable in those clothes, not only because they feel restrictive, like she's making herself a target, but also because they’re not for her. She grew up in the shadows, cast by her own fire; she wonders if she’ll always be more comfortable there.)

“The fit is adequate,” the seamstress says, stepping back. She sounds almost pleased. “Although I suspect that will only be true for a few more months.”

Mistress Beifong smiles widely and claps her hands. “Oh wonderful. It does make you look very dashing, Azula. Just like a hero out of a story.”

Azula stares. She should be used to these kinds of comments, as they happen every time, but every time, Mistress Beifong manages to say something that is completely baffling. For example, being compared to a hero. She’s not. If anything, she’s the kind of person that heroes defeat. (But why do people keep asking to join her, like she hasn’t been branded a traitor by the Fire Lord?) (She thinks it’s honorable, at least. Zuko would know. And she’ll try to always do what’s best for him.)

The woman takes Azula’s moment of disbelief to place the stack of new clothes in her hands. She then pushes her gently out of the room, cheerfully informing Azula that she’ll take care of having new clothes ready when she outgrows this set.

Azula blinks a bit against the sunlight hitting her in the face in the quiet courtyard. It doesn’t matter how many times this happens, she doesn’t think she’s ever going to understand Toph’s mother. It doesn’t help that Toph is of absolutely no assistance in this either. Speaking of, her friend is sitting on a nearby rock, grinning widely at her.

“You escaped,” Toph says.

Azula frowns behind her scarf. “I got pushed out.”

“Eh, close enough.” Toph shrugs and hops to her feet, toes curling in the dirt. “You ready to head back?”

“Yes.” She’s only here so Toph can visit with her parents. Although she suspects Uncle Iroh will be pleased to see her return with new clothing. He’s been frowning at her sleeves for awhile now. She thinks...no, she is grateful for the larger shirts, with sleeves long enough to cover her arms without interfering. People...give her strange looks when they see her arms.

She earned those marks, every single one of them. Because she wasn’t enough, never enough. The Fire Lord had her trained to be the best, a honed tool forged for a single purpose. And even though Azula can now say the Fire Lord is wrong about a lot of things, he’s not wrong about this. She needs to be perfect, because she needs to stay alive until Zuko needs her, when she can be useful.

The marks on her skin, then, are reminders that she’s not. They’re reminders of her failures to be enough, and she doesn’t like putting those out there for other people to judge. She doesn’t need that shame.

(If they judge her for her arms, what would they say about the brand across her face?)

“I still can’t believe Mother is happy dressing you in practical clothes,” Toph says as they walk back to the ship. “I didn’t think she knew what those were!” She pauses a moment. “Then again, you did set the first set of formal hanfu on fire.”

Azula frowns. “That was an accident.”

“What did you think was going to happen when you tried to do that flaming spin kick?”

“It’s not my fault they weren’t fireproof.” It’s kind of a requirement for formal clothing back home.

Toph snickers. “I don’t think I ever felt Mother run that fast.”

Azula rolls her eyes. “Did you actually have to ask your father about something, or was that just an excuse?”

“Eh, little column A, little column B,” Toph admits. “I did want to ask how returning the stolen property was going. Shika wanted to know if there were any other leads or other shipments en route to the Fire Nation. So I...took the opportunity when it presented itself.”

“Sifu Rùfen would be so proud,” Azula says dryly.

“Damn right.”

As far as excuses go, it’s actually an important one. And true? For the most part. It started entirely by accident. They were low on supplies and needed to dock; however the only ones available were ports in the Earth Kingdom. Exiled or not, they still look Fire Nation enough that ports tended to turn them away more often than not. Captain Jee had been desperate, and mentioned that they had a hold full of what ended up being stolen Earth Kingdom goods they’d recovered from a Fire Navy ship that attacked them.

Suddenly, the Earth Kingdom was a lot more interested in letting them use their ports. As it turns out, returning stolen property makes people treat you a bit favorably.

So now whenever they end up in a fight with the Fire Nation, they try to recover what cargo they can. They relieve ships of their stolen goods and Master Beifong tries to reunite it with the appropriate owners. Azula still isn’t entirely sure how she feels about the practice. It gets them what they need. But it does mean attacking Fire Nation ships. Although those usually attack them first. (Zuko would understand. They don’t harm civilians. They need to do this to survive. He’d understand.)

Those attacks have gotten much more frequent. She’s certain it stems from the fact that Lt. Isao’s crew had not been the only naval crew to defect, just the first. That’s enough to cause problems for the Fire Lord, but then there were Earth Kingdom crews wanting to join them. Some with only modified merchant junks, but determined all the same. (Chief Engineer Tsui has been very happy.) It’s almost enough to be classified as a proper fleet, which means they’re an actual threat.

The idea that the Fire Lord would find her to be a threat is...well, it makes no sense. (Hands holding her down, a grip she can’t break, let go let goletgo) She is nothing to him; he’s always made it clear that he could crush her like an insect, and the only thing stopping him was her continued usefulness.

(So why doesn’t he?)

Some of the crew are finishing up loading supplies on the Yinglong when they arrive. Two more ships float on the river nearby, and she knows there are five more waiting in the open ocean at the river’s mouth. Fai gives her a salute as she passes him and the komodo rhinos that are lazing in the sun.

“Did he?” Azula asks as they board the ship.

Toph shrugs. “He said he’s got some leads and that he’ll send a hawk once he’s sure they’re actually solid.”

Captain Jee steps forward once they’re on deck. “Kaishō. Toph,” he says with a smile.

(Azula managed to convince him to stop calling her “princess”, since she isn’t one, not anymore. Instead, he started using the old rank for fleet admiral. It seems to have stuck.)

“Welcome back. I see your visit with Mistress Beifong was productive.”

“I don’t think it’s possible for Smoky to leave without Mother dropping half a bolt of cloth on her,” Toph says with a laugh.

His smile quirks a little, as if there’s another joke she’s not getting. She knows she’s getting better at understanding people’s rules, but sometimes it still escapes her. People are hard. And while the crew of the Yinglong are probably the ones with rules she understands the best, they can still twist her up sometimes. She sometimes wishes she knew what was wrong with her, because other people don’t have this problem. They just understand these things.

(She is not a broken thing.)

“Oh, Kaishō ?” Captain Jee turns to her. “Your uncle told me he has some correspondence addressed to you in his quarters.”

Azula nods and heads below deck to put away the clothing before visiting Uncle Iroh. Walking into her quarters is always slightly strange. Since she shares the space with Toph, it stands to reason that her friend would store her own belongings in here. Which she does, in a slightly sprawling and scattered fashion. It’s not a problem, not really. It just sometimes makes the back of Azula’s neck itch and her stomach twist a bit when all of her own things fit in a trunk in the corner.

(The important things — Lu’s húdiédāo, some money Uncle Iroh insisted she carry, bandages — those fit in a small rucksack on top. Just in case.)

It’s certainly easier to keep track of things, she thinks as she sets the folded clothes neatly into the trunk and closes the lid. Toph hasn’t followed her down, and since Azula doesn’t have training for a few hours, she heads over to Uncle Iroh’s quarters.

He looks up from his writing desk when she enters. “Ah, impeccable timing, Niece. I was just about to make a pot of tea, if you’d join me?” he asks with a broad smile.

She nods and quietly sits down in her usual chair next to his as he prepares the tea. “Captain Jee said there was correspondence for me?” she asks quietly as she accepts the cup from Uncle Iroh.

He passes over a pile of scrolls, still sealed. Azula raises an eyebrow. Uncle Iroh chuckles. “You’re a popular girl, my dear.”

She rolls her eyes, causing him to laugh.

(There’s a flare of warmth in her chest. Uncle Iroh likes it when she’s less than perfectly respectful. It’s so strange, it should feel wrong, but...it doesn’t. It feels the opposite of that.)

Azula opens the first scroll and scowls. Of course it’s written in Court Huǒzi. Why do some of the colonial governors insist on using it? It’s pointless for this, since Uncle Iroh is the only one who can read it quickly. Even after three years, she still struggles with the characters. Still, she makes it over halfway through the letter before she stumbles and needs to ask Uncle Iroh for help.

He frowns at the characters in question, but explains. She’s learned that part of the difficulty of Court Huǒzi is not only in the characters themselves, but also because the people who write it have the annoying habit of using characters that allude to some classic piece of Fire Nation literature that she’s never read.

(“Why don’t they just...use the normal word?” she had asked Uncle Iroh after a particularly frustrating attempt.

“Because small minds will take any opportunity to make themselves seem bigger than they are,” he replied.)

The letter itself is another request for support against the Earth Kingdom. Azula wonders if the governor is serious or if this is another poorly-disguised trap. She’s well-aware of the bounty on her head; the Fire Lord has distributed posters with her face on it throughout the colonies and into the Earth Kingdom for quite some time, with an ever-increasing reward. The only use for letters such as these is to know which ports to avoid or take a closer look at to see if a government removal is necessary.

It happens with a depressing regularity.

The other scrolls are more useful. One colony reports bolder dissident activity and requests a ship be sent to pick up new recruits. Another is from one of the ships in their makeshift fleet passing along updates to their position. It’s the final scroll, marked with blue on the edge, that is the most interesting.

The wax seal has the mark of the Southern Water Tribe.

Azula breaks the seal and unrolls the scroll, letting out a sigh of relief as she does. Chief Hakoda writes in Standard Huǒzi; she has the thought that the man sees no point in wasting precious time. If only more people were the same. She still hasn’t actually met the man in person, only through correspondence such as this that started approximately one year ago.

She knows what to expect from Chief Hakoda: a brief update on the current vague positions of his fleet and the accompanying requests for backup or relief. Theirs is an odd partnership, one where the other ships in the fleet have had more contact with the Water Tribesmen than the capital ship has.

She admits there is a logic to it: having all the leaders in one place makes a tempting target. Azula doesn’t see any reason to change their arrangement, and assumes Chief Hakoda has assessed the situation and come to the same conclusion.

Therefore, it’s surprising that his letter deviates from the standard update. Something has caused Chief Hakoda to reassess.

Her eyebrows raise as she continues to read the letter. Uncle Iroh notices. “What is it?”

“Chief Hakoda has provided coordinates and a time frame. If we can make it, he would like to discuss a more formal alliance,” she replies. “In person.”

Uncle Iroh sips his tea. “Is it possible?”

She nods. “It’s a very...generous time frame.”

“That’s encouraging. Is there anything else?”

Azula frowns. “The Southern Water Tribe reports that they’ve seen a Fire Nation battlecruiser entering polar waters. They’d appreciate it if we could provide any support.” Her frown deepens. “They say it’s the Golden Wings Brushing Against the Clouds.” Why does that name sound so familiar? “Did we fight them at some point?”

“Yes. Commander Zhao.”

“Who?”

“...You blew up his ship.”

Azula just stares blankly at Uncle Iroh.

He sighs and shakes his head. “It was the first one we blew up.”

Oh. That guy.

“He’s irritating.”

“You are not wrong.” He chuckles, but then grows serious. “But what is Zhao doing so near the pole? He seemed quite insistent on chasing after us.”

He has been a nuisance. But what’s only a nuisance to their Fire Navy style ships is a very different kind of threat to Chief Hakoda. Her frown deepens as she glances back up at the request for a meeting. They are probably the closest to the South Pole at the moment; there’s more than enough time to investigate what Zhao is doing and chase him away if necessary. (It probably will be necessary.)

“I think we need to find out,” Azula says quietly before getting to her feet so she can inform Captain Jee of the change in plans.

It was probably only a matter of time before she ended up at the South Pole, really.

—-

Aang has no idea what’s going on. Oh, he’s figured out he’s at the South Pole, that was the easy part. But he could have sworn the Southern Water Tribe was, well, a lot bigger than what he’s seeing. Is this an outpost? But the Tribe never keeps tiny kids like the ones he sees running around at any of the outposts he knows about. Then again, he hasn’t been to every outpost. Maybe this one’s different.

(He knows something’s wrong, he knows he’s lying to himself. He’s looked up at the sky and it’s all wrong. All the stars are out of place, like the sky forgot what season it is. It’s like an illusion but the rest of the world doesn’t know about it.)

(What happened?)

The girl — Katara —- is really nice. She’s the nicest girl he’s ever met, not that he’s met many, but there’s something in her eyes that makes him wary. Like she knows something and she’s not telling him. (Does she know why the stars are wrong?) Instead, she smiles at him a little too cracked and introduces the members of the tribe with a cheerfulness that rings a little too false.

Aang notices because he thinks his voice is doing the same thing. Katara’s nice enough to pretend not to notice.

Her brother, not so much. Sokka watches him closely; his gaze feels like a hawk’s on the back of Aang’s neck, quiet and intense. It fits, because he recognizes the way Sokka wears his hair. That’s a Wolf’s Tail, a sign that he follows the path of Brother Wolf, if Aang remembers his lessons correctly. There should be more of them, though, even if this is just an outpost. The Wolves are the guardians of the tribe, so why is Sokka the only one here?

Aang shakes his head and aims a giant smile at both siblings. Katara’s smile is not as wide, but it seems genuine. Sokka just keeps his sharp-eyed stare on him.

“So...” he says, rubbing the back of his head. That’s about as far as he gets. He doesn’t know where he’s supposed to take this conversation. Or what he should be doing. Appa needs to rest, so he knows he has to stay here, at least a little bit. Gyatso’s probably worried sick, what with that storm Aang got all caught up in.

He knows he shouldn’t have run. It just proves everything the other monks were saying, that he’s too young, too flighty, not serious enough. That he needs to go and train and...not be himself. Not be Aang. Aang’s not the important one, the Avatar is. So Aang ran away, because he doesn’t want to be not himself. It’s not fair. He didn’t want this, not at all like this, and they want to send him away. He’s not good enough for them.

Gyatso thinks he’s good enough.

But they want to take Gyatso away too. He just...left before they could.

The excuse doesn’t even sound good in his head.

Aang sighs. “Gyatso’s gonna be so mad.”

Katara and Sokka exchange a look. It’s a very...something look.

“Who’s Gyatso?” Katara asks.

“Gyatso’s my mentor,” he rubs his neck again. “Well, he’s more than that. He’s...” He tries to make some kind of gesture to encompass everything that’s “Gyatso” because there aren’t words. It’s like trying to explain the wind.

“Like your dad?” she suggests.

Aang shrugs. “Close enough?” Maybe. Sort of? The idea of having a single guardian who has to be related to you is just...one of those weird culture clash things. But from what he understands of what dads are, it's not that far off. “Anyway, he’s gotta be worried. I didn’t mean to get caught up in that storm.”

The two Water Tribe siblings share another look. “What storm?” Sokka asks.

“Uh, the one...I don’t know how many hours ago. Days? It was pretty big, though! Even Appa had trouble, and that never happens.”

Sokka frowns a lot. “Aang,” he says slowly, “there hasn’t been a storm in weeks.”

Okay, Gyatso is going to be very worried if he’s been missing for weeks. (Is that enough to explain the sky?) Not to mention the other monks. Specifically, the ones who want to send him away.

Maybe they forgot.

Aang opens his mouth when someone clears their throat.

“Gran-Gran?” Katara asks the old woman who is now standing directly behind them. The old woman smiles faintly, then turns to Aang.

He bows deeply, as appropriate. “Thank you for your welcome, Elder...” he trails off because he can’t call her Gran-Gran, that’s too informal, too disrespectful.

“Kanna,” she says, but her smile dims. “Welcome to the Southern Water Tribe, Aang.”

“The Southern...” he looks around again. This...this isn’t an outpost. Elder Kanna welcomed him as if this is the entire tribe.

That’s impossible.

Kanna sighs quietly. “Come, child. I think you have questions and the answers are not things to be shared in the cold.” She gently takes his shoulder and leads him to one of the nearby dwellings. The two siblings follow them inside and Sokka adds more fuel to the fire before sitting off to the side next to his sister. Aang finds himself sitting across the fire from Kanna.

“Child, I have a strange question for you.”

Aang twists his hands in his robes. He’s got a bad feeling about this. “Okay?”

“Who is the current Fire Lord?”

He blinks. How long has he been out of it? Did something happen in the Fire Nation? There were whispers about something, something big. “Sozin. Fire Lord Sozin.”

Sokka hisses. Katara looks stricken. And when he turns back to Kanna, the old woman looks even older than she did before. “Fire Lord Sozin has been dead for over eighty years.”

Aang’s vision goes grey around the edges. “What?”

“Aang,” Katara’s voice is so very soft. Like a cloud. “You were in the ice a long time.”

He shakes his head. “That’s not...no...but...”

“That’s not the worst part,” Sokka mutters.

“Sokka!” Katara hisses.

“What?” Aang’s voice cracks a little. The world moved on for...how many years has he lost? The stars are wrong because it’s not just the season that changed. It’s all so very wrong and it’s not supposed to be like that and now he’s questioning his ability to even find home.

“Aang, do you know Nijjajut?” Kanna asks.

He shakes himself a little. What is going on? Why does...what does it matter if he can speak the old Water Tribe tongue? What does that have to do with anything? “Yes? I can speak it.”

She nods. “Then I think I owe you a tale. It’s a tale that hasn’t been told in...many, many years. I, Kanna of the South, once of the North, learned it in the halls of the Innqiqti, where it had been crafted in the memory of our dear friends who now walk the spirit trails.”

And Kanna begins to sing.

The words flow around the notes, given a foundation in the beat she taps out on the drum she’s pulled from behind her. It beats like waves against the shore, a push and pull, and her voice gives it shape. She tells the tale in Nijjajut, and Aang feels like his breath has gotten wedged in his throat like a stone, because he could not imagine this being told in anything else.

It’s a memorial.

Kanna’s voice goes harsh, deep quick breaths from her throat that echo the taste of fear, the howls of a wolf looking for his pack, the cry of the raven as he searches for his children. Sounds of grief and madness spring from her voice to reverberate in his bones. It’s the sound of a harsh wind stripping heat and life from bone, the sharp crack of a flame consuming wood and stone. The drumming is a counterpoint, hammering like a heart into his skull, an echo of a people lost.

His people. Kanna sings of the last hours of his people as they died to fire and blade. As the sky burned and the stars fell. As the sun hid and the spirits howled. The echoes reverberate in her voice, over the arc of years and decades, an old, old cry of pain and loss. Of a people betrayed by ones once considered friends.

Aang’s breath is caught in his lungs, grief crushing it down, pulling him to the earth, below the earth. (He ran he ran he ran) This is not a lie. This is truth. The Water Tribe would not create this unless it were.

His people are dead. His people were slaughtered by the Fire Nation when he ran away and he is the last of them.

He tastes salt on his lips and blood on his tongue. His fingers curl into the ice, nails slice into his palms as he gasps, no, sobs. How can he do anything but? It’s his fault. Oh spirits, breath of life, it’s all his fault. He’s going to shake and shake apart, break under the weight of guilt of his sins because he can’t run from this, it’s too big for him.

Slowly, he becomes aware that the weight on his shoulders is warm and he is rocking as well as shaking. Kanna holds him in her arms and whispers soothing words into his ears.

“I’m sorry, child. I’m so sorry. Let it out, child. Just cry.”

It is not absolution. It is something greater than that, and it’s something Aang doesn’t think he deserves. Not this type of kindness when she does not know his sin. “It’s my fault,” he admits into her shoulder.

“It’s the Fire Nation’s fault,” he hears Katara mutter, suddenly vicious. It makes his heart hurt more because she’s right but she’s also so very very wrong and everyone’s going to look at him so differently when the truth comes out.

He thinks about hiding it. Of course he does. He could. He could make up a story about how he survived that ice, survived everything, but anything he tries to think of just sounds so hollow in his heart. All he has left now is the truth, and lying about this is like lying about why his people, his friends, his mentor uncles and aunts, why everyone died.

If he runs again, what would happen?

“You don’t understand,” he mumbles.

Kanna keeps rubbing his back, a warm and steady presence that keeps him grounded like he deserves, but it doesn’t feel like a punishment. It feels like an indulgence, a tether to something solid so he doesn’t blow away in the wind like part of him so very much wants to. “It’s all my fault,” he repeats. “I ran away.”

“Aang,” Katara tries, but Aang shakes his head and pulls away from Kanna’s shoulder.

He takes a deep breath and scrubs the tears from his face before looking at all three of them. “I wasn’t...entirely honest earlier. It’s my fault. I’m the Avatar, and I wasn’t there.”

—-

The sun’s rays are brutal and relentless as they beat down in the training courtyard. Zuko ignores it, just as he ignores the burning in his muscles and the sweat dripping in his eyes as he works through his set yet again. The swords in his hands sing as they slice through the air, extensions of his will, cutting down invisible targets with laughable ease. He’s almost perfect.

Not good enough.

Not yet. It’s not enough. He has to be better, faster, stronger. His enemy has a fleet (his enemy has his sister) and the knowledge burns inside him, driving him forward. This is not enough to face the Dragon of the West. Not enough to keep the one promise he will not break.

(She needs her big brother to look out for her and protect her. Can you do that for me, Zuko?)

“Almost perfect” is not good enough.

Azula seems to agree from where she watches him in the shadows, a small frown on her tiny face. She won’t tell him what he’s doing wrong; he knows she expects him to figure that out for himself. She’d want him to be able to do that much at least. He can’t rely on his little sister to do everything for him, after all.

Zuko looks up at the sky and scowls. Ugh, he has other things to do today. So he dutifully does his cool-down stretches under his sister’s watchful eye before heading back to his rooms. Azula pads quietly after him, reaching no higher than his waist.

She’s six today, apparently.

She hops onto his bed as he puts his swords away before heading to the bath. Part of him wishes he could spend hours just soaking in the water, but he has far too much to do and far too little time. So he bathes quickly and changes into clean clothing. She’s still waiting on the edge of the bed when he returns, little legs not reaching the floor. He can’t help but smile at her. It earns him a quiet scoff and he laughs quietly.

“Come on, Zula, don’t be like that,” he says softly.

Azula gives him a flat look. “You’re going to be late, Zuzu,” she says, because she still called him that when she was that age.

He grimaces. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I won’t be late, don’t worry.”

She scowls, but says nothing more.

Zuko knows Azula is not actually there, sitting on his bed, sitting in his room. She’s not anywhere in the Fire Nation, let alone the Palace. She’s not even the right age, for all that she’s sitting there glaring at him with those gold, gold eyes in all her tiny six-year-old glory.

This isn’t the first time she’s been here. He’s been seeing her since not long after Mai had to go to the colonies. A flash of her topknot out of the corner of his eye, a hint of gold eyes and the slash of a frown in the shadows. Then she showed up on his bed one morning, just like she is now, all small and fierce and a knife right to his heart.

He doesn’t even really want her to go away. (He might be mad. If this is what his madness is, though, he doesn’t think he wants to be sane.)

So Zuko decided to live with it. It beats being lonely. And he knows she’s not real, so...he’s fine. It’s all fine. Today, his little sister is six years old and scowling at him to not be late for his meetings.

(It’s easiest when Azula’s little like this. The other times...it hurts too much. At least when she’s little he can pretend he hasn’t failed her so badly yet.)

There’s a knock at the door. He opens it, coming face to face with Wen’s placid expression. Zuko had managed to wheedle the older woman into his household, after Azula’s was officially dissolved (stupid exile status). So now she was his glorified mail carrier and bearded cat wrangler. It was effectively a demotion for the senior servant, but it was the only thing Zuko could think of, and she at least took to it with good grace.

Which is why she holds a number of scrolls in one hand and a slate tucked under her arm. “Good morning, Your Highness,” she says. “I have your morning correspondence and schedule for you.”

Zuko smiles slightly and takes the offered scrolls as he lets her into his rooms. When he turns towards the bed, Azula is nowhere to be seen. That’s normal. She doesn’t usually appear when other people are around. At least, not like this.

(That’s probably a good thing.)

Behind him, Wen tsks. “You still need to have your hair done before the meeting. Do you want me to take care of it?”

He chuckles weakly and sits down in front of the mirror. “Ah, please?” It’s not that his usual phoenix tail is hard to style, or that he can’t. It’s more that he’s old enough now that he has a certain image to present in public and to various ministers and the Court and...well, he’s got a lot of things to do and this helps a bit.

Wen hums lightly as she efficiently combs out his hair. Zuko finds his shoulders relaxing a little bit. (Mom used to do this. She’d laugh softly at his various attempts to do his own hair, and then he’d pout and she’d help him fix it. But Mom isn’t here now. Mom hasn’t been here for years, and instead it’s been servants helping him when he needed perfect hair for Court. It never felt like this, though. Why can he relax now?)

“What do I have on my agenda today?” he asks quietly.

She finishes combing out his hair and retrieves one of the hair ties to start wrapping it. He knows she’ll do some kind of pattern weave of the ribbon that he can never hope to replicate, which is really annoying because it somehow manages to keep everything perfectly in place, even if he runs through the most intense training session he can think of. (No wonder Azula’s hair was always so neat.)

“You’re supposed to be meeting with General Daichi over breakfast in the Western Garden regarding Home Guard deployments to help with infrastructure improvements. Itsuki should be meeting you there with any relevant documents,” Wen replies, naming Zuko’s personal scribe. “After, you have lessons with Ladies Li and Lo, followed by a meeting with the Agricultural Minister on resource distribution, and finally a meeting with Professor Liang from Caldera Imperial University regarding some research project. I believe Itsuki has the details on the latter as well.”

Zuko groans. Wen is unmoved. Which, fair, because she’s honestly probably used to this. One would think he would be used to his schedule by now. Father had requested Li and Lo as tutors, first for firebending and then, realizing they had a wealth of knowledge on the intricacies of court life, on anything else they could teach Zuko. That would have been daunting enough, but then Azula had shown up.

He thought it was because he had too much time to think at first. That obviously he was being haunted by his little sister because he hasn’t been able to do anything. So he had gone to Father and begged to be able to start helping with governance. Even something small, just to get experience, just to help take some of the stress of running the entire nation off of Father’s shoulders. He’d prepared himself as best he could, expecting to answer whatever question Father threw at him to justify this level of responsibility.

He hadn’t needed it. Father had been pleased with the request. Obviously, Father still has final say, but he’s been giving more and more trust to Zuko, especially after walking Zuko through his decision criteria the first few times. Zuko thinks he’s got a fairly good idea of what decisions Father would make.

Father certainly thinks so. Recently, he gave authorization that the Crown Prince’s seal be almost as binding as the Fire Lord’s for domestic matters. (His chest still swells a bit with pride over that. Father not only trusts him, but approves of his work.)

But all the increased responsibility, all the work he’s taken on, none of it changed the fact that he’s being haunted by the younger version of his little sister, who is very much not dead. If anything, it got worse.

Because that’s when the others showed up.

Of all of them, Zuko prefers Little Azula, for all that she makes it feel like there’s a knife stabbing him in the heart. She’s the first and the most talkative. It’s almost like having another person there to talk to, and she’ll listen to his ideas and tell him when they’re stupid. (She’ll still call him “Zuzu”, and spirits, why does he miss that nickname so much?)

Then came the version of his sister as she was the last time he saw her: eleven years old and fighting an Agni Kai for his sake. She usually appears as all fire and agility and dressed with not a stitch out of place. Usually, except for when she’s not. Because his sister was sent out to sea so sometimes Serious Azula comes to him pale and dripping saltwater and shivering like no firebender ever should. Shivering like the dead.

But Zuko will take even that version over the third. (Don’t think about her unless he wants her to show up. Which he does not. Ever.)

Wen finishes with his hair and steps back. Zuko looks at his reflection in the mirror. Behind him, on the bed, Little Azula sits kicking her legs off the ground.

Oh. She’s...never shown up with Wen here before.

“Stop staring, Zuzu,” she says. “People are gonna think you’re crazy.”

He swallows.

“Prince Zuko?” Wen asks, sounding very concerned. “Is something wrong?”

Zuko turns around, ignoring his sister. He smiles brightly at the older woman. “Nothing is wrong. I’m perfectly fine.”

—-

Katara hesitates in the doorway. She knows Sokka is outside somewhere, prowling around the village, watchful and guarded. But she’s not looking for Sokka right now. No, her attention is on the small figure that stands out like a beacon on the ice, dressed in his yellows and orange. Aang.

The Avatar.

This is...this is a lot.

Because never in a million years would she think that the Avatar would be here, in their little village. An actual living, breathing spirit tale come to life, the master of the four elements. (Someone who could teach her, help her regain the birthright the Fire Nation stole) He’s the one who can end the war against the Fire Nation and balance the scales, see justice served and make the ashmakers pay. (Mom’s spirit could finally rest, and Dad could come home to stay.)

But...in all the stories she’s heard, Katara never expected the Avatar to be, well, Aang. He’s younger than she is! He’s just a kid. Just like her.

And he’s an airbender.

The last airbender.

Katara had never heard Gran-Gran sing the Lament of the Burning Leaves before. She thought she’d heard all the stories Gran-Gran knew, that she’d been taught them all, because the stories need to be passed down. What would they be without their past, without their ancestors to guide them? Now that she’s heard the Lament, she understands.

(She’s dreamt of the smell of burning flesh for so many nights.)

But if it was hard for Katara to hear,it was worse watching Aang. He hadn’t known. So all she could do was watch helplessly as the bright smile slid off his face and something died in his eyes.

Helpless again.

After the revelation that he’s the Avatar, which is so going to get discussed but later, he just ran out onto the ice. She wasn’t sure if she should run after him. Did he want to be alone? Probably. Should he be alone? Probably not. She doesn’t know if he’s even thinking clearly about anything else. Spirits, he didn’t even have a parka. He’d told her that his airbending kept him warm, but every instinct she has is screaming that standing out in the open without anything warmer than his robes is a one-way ticket to hypothermia.

She shakes her head. Focus, Katara.

“Aang?” she calls softly as she walks closer. The boy startles and then rubs his arm across his face before turning. The ice on his cheeks give away his crying. She searches for something, anything, to try to make things a little easier for him. (Not better. Better is impossible.) “You sure you’re not cold?”

Of all the things. Katara wants to facepalm.

“Ah, yup. Totally fine.” he says, giving her a big smile that’s as stable as rotten ice.

Snow crunches under her boots as she slowly walks closer to him. His smile cracks a little more with each step until it falls away completely and he sighs. “I don’t want to believe it,” Aang whispers, “even though my head knows the Innqiqti wouldn’t even have a song like that if...if it...” He chokes the last word down with a sob.

Katara sits down in the snow next to him, not quite touching but close enough to feel his presence. She stares out at the ice shelf in front of them, staying quiet for a long time. “Gran-Gran says that we used to have so many people, we had housing all the way past that ridge,” she says finally, pointing. “That there was a path the traders would wind all the way up past here, to right in front of the lodge. They’d come with their sleds full and you knew they were coming because of the barking.”

Aang is still next to her. “It was. Like that, I mean,” he whispers. “This...this isn’t an outpost, is it?”

Her throat feels tight, threatening to choke her on her feelings. Grief is an old friend. She should be used to this by now. (Katara knows she never will be.)

“No.” She can feel his flinch. “We’re...pretty much all that’s left.”

“Katara,” he breathes. “I’m sor—-”

“It was the Fire Nation,” she interrupts, voice cracking in the cold like ice. “Not you. It was the Fire Nation, Ashmakers, who did this. They destroyed our homes, our people. They melted the hall of the Innqiqti and stole our history. It wasn’t you.”

She grits her teeth and presses the heels of her hands against her face. Her eyes burn. It’s just the wind. She will not cry. (She’s cried too much and tears won’t fix anything.) It happened before she even drew her first breath, before her mother drew hers. The Innqiqti songs are as out of her reach as the bottom of the sea, and all she has of either are the stories her elders had managed to salvage.

But at least they have that. Even this is a priceless treasure compared to the ashes Aang has.

Katara realizes he’s looking at her and meets his wide-eyed gaze. He wears his grief like a mantle, tear-tracks frozen on his cheeks, but there’s something steady in his eyes. Or is it that his eyes now look like theirs, hard as ice and cold as the sea?

“I need...I need to go there,” he says, desperation clear. “I need to see. I need —”

“I know. I get it.” And she does, she really, really does. She’s seen the men who come back having lost one of their own, who came back after the raids, and Katara knows the look in their eyes. The pain of Not Knowing.

(Hope is a knife.)

She grabs his hand and holds it. Aang grips it like a lifeline and she does not want to let go. A wild thought crashes into her head, and she lets herself be swept up in its current. “Let me come with you,”

“What? No, Katara, I can’t ask — “

“You’re not asking. I’m the last waterbender here; we both will need a teacher.” Something in her soul tugs, unceasing and relentless as the tides, and Katara knows she can’t stay here. To stay here is to stagnate, and stagnant water is poison.

She will not let her people die like this. She will not die like this, fighting for scraps cast off from their oppressors. The sea is dark and old, full of secrets man has long forgotten, patient and always changing. (Careful, Sister Orca croons, the deep has teeth. From the sea you came and to the sea you will return.)

“And I don’t want you to go alone.”

Aang looks at her, grey eyes shining. “Okay.”

They make their way back to the rest of the tribe. In the morning, Katara will follow Aang as he retrieves Appa and they’ll head off. She regrets that she’ll sneak out, but she can’t risk this chance. Dad would want her to stay here, but how can she? How can she even hope to protect them as the last waterbender if she can’t speak to the waves? She needs this.

Sokka watches them from the other side of the igloo, a sharpness in his gaze that feels unfamiliar. Her brother is a goofball and stubborn, but ever since Dad spent some time home and was able to take him through the warrior initiation, something’s settled in him. There’s an edge that’s honed instead of brittle.

Then he gives her a lopsided grin and rolls over to fall asleep.

Why is her brother like this?

(Katara wakes up in the middle of the night. Aang is a new presence nearby, curled up like a polar bear puppy under the skins.

Sokka is not next to her.

She squints, vision fuzzy with sleep. Why are he and Gran-Gran up this late?

“ — know your responsibility, Sokka.”

A breath. “I know. I chose it. It’s just — “

“It’s never easy, grandson. But we make our choices, in the end.”

They say nothing more. Katara falls back to sleep before Sokka returns to his bed.)

In the morning, Aang sneaks out to fetch Appa as planned. Katara will meet them on the ice, but first she needs to pack her bag with enough supplies to last them at least a little while. And she has to do it without waking either Sokka or Gran-Gran.

She wishes she had the chance to do this last night, but there wasn’t any time, so she has to do it now. Except she can’t find her bag anywhere.

Sokka clears his throat behind her.

Katara whirls around, annoyance dying on her tongue. Her brother stands there dressed ready to go out (was he only pretending to be asleep?) with a bag slung over his shoulder. Gran-Gran is next to him, with Katara’s bag dangling from her fingers.

“I can explain.” The words tumble from her mouth.

“You’re going with Aang,” Gran-Gran says as she hands over Katara’s bag, which is now more full and better packed than she could have managed.

“And I’m going with you.” Sokka’s tone has a note of finality, an undercurrent of ‘you are not going to argue with me.’

Katara has never obeyed that tone in her life.

“Are you out of your mind?” she yells, causing him to flinch. “What about the Tribe? What about the kids you’re teaching? What if the Fire Nation comes? You have a job, Sokka!”

“Yeah, I do. And what’s going to happen to the Tribe if the Fire Nation catches the last waterbender?” he bites back. Katara’s mouth clicks shut. “I have to make the call and this is it.” He looks to Gran-Gran. “Anyway, it’s not like Dad would leave the Tribe defenseless. They’ll be back in a week or so.” Sokka turns back, face serious. “You need me now.”

Katara can’t help it. She bristles. “I don’t need you to protect me!”

“Both of you, stop it.” Gran-Gran’s voice cracks through their argument with the same authority as an avalanche. “You are both going with Aang. You both need to protect each other. Or have you forgotten?”

That stings. But obviously, she’s right. (As always.) Sheepishly, Katara takes her bag and puts on her gear. “No, Gran-Gran.”

Gran-Gran hugs both of them fiercely, and Katara very carefully does not think about the what-ifs here. Because she will come back, and Gran-Gran and Dad and all the others will be here, safe and sound and they won’t ever have to worry again. She refuses to even consider any other option, because there are none.

“Please. Take care of each other,” Gran-Gran whispers before letting them go. And what else could they do but promise?

Aang gives Katara a look of baffled confusion from where he stands just outside the village with Appa. “Um...hi, Sokka...” he says nervously.

“Morning, Aang!” Sokka sounds way too cheerful as he walks over to the boy. “Ready to go?”

“Um.”

She sighs. Waterbending training. Maybe save the world. She can put up with her brother’s nonsense for this, right? “Sokka wants to come with us,” she explains, apologetic smile firmly in place. “If that’s all right?”

Aang blinks and then shoots them both a big grin. “Really, Sokka?”

“Uh, yeah? Got my gear, boomerang...I’m all set to go with you guys.” Sokka gives her a look she...can’t interpret, not fully, but there’s a warmth there that stays when he turns back to Aang. “I don’t want you guys to go have all the fun without me.”

Aang’s face falls a bit. “I...don’t know if it’ll be fun? I...the Southern Air Temple...”

Sokka’s hand lands on his shoulder. “Which is why you shouldn’t go alone.” His voice is softer (the same tone he uses when he’s giving a child gentle encouragement on how to throw a boomerang). “We don’t let people do hard things alone.”

Aang blinks, and then his smile returns, even brighter than before. And the tension Katara didn’t realize she was carrying uncurls in her stomach, flooding her with warmth and affection as she realizes what her brother is doing: offering this boy in front of them the friendship he needs. It’s a tentative trust that Aang grabs with both hands. (She doesn’t think he’ll ever let go.)

“Well, Appa doesn’t mind, do you boy?” Aang asks the sky bison.

Appa snorts, but apparently takes his additional passengers with good cheer. Once they’re all settled in the saddle, Sokka looks around.

“So, uh, flying bison, you said? How does that work?”

Aang grins. “Like this! Yip, yip!”

Appa leaps from the ground and stays in the air. Sokka yelps, and Katara’s not ashamed to admit she gasps right along with him.

By the tides, they’re actually flying.

The village she spent her entire life in, almost all the people she has left in the world in this tiny scrap of home, seems even tinier as Appa flies higher into the sky. Katara realizes for the first time, in a way she had known but hadn’t really understood before, that her idea of the world is incredibly small.

She refuses to be daunted by it.

Katara watches as the ice shelf gets smaller and smaller behind them, followed by glaciers and icebergs as Aang turns them north towards the Southern Air Temple. She should be looking ahead, because this is really happening, she’s going to go find a master and learn. But this is also the last time she’ll see home and she wants to freeze it into her memory.

That’s the only reason she sees the ship.

She feels her blood freeze in her veins as she catches sight of it, so small in the water below them. It barely looks like a threat from this distance, but Katara can never, ever make that mistake. Not when the terrible grey steel curves slice through her memories, not when it spews black smoke into the air. Not when that bloody red flag flies as a warning.

A Fire Nation ship. Ashmakers.

“Sokka!” she hisses.

For once, he figures out she’s serious and slides over without a word. His face goes cold as he follows her finger to where she’s pointing. As they watch, the ship (there’s only one but there only needs to be one) starts turning. Away from the south pole, thank the spirits.

But it’s turning towards the north. In the same direction they’re going.

(It can’t possibly know. It can’t be following them.)

Katara doesn’t believe in chances, not with the ashmakers. Not since...

Her hand wraps around the necklace at her throat.

“Hey Aang,” Sokka calls. “Can Appa go any higher?” He says it like a challenge.

Aang takes it and laughs. “Of course he can. Come on, buddy, show them!”

Appa soars higher and higher still, above the clouds. Out of sight of the ship.

Sokka looks at her, frowning. “We need to tell him,” he whispers.

Katara nods. But...she thinks about what they’re flying to, what Aang’s already putting a brave face on for. “After,” she whispers back. At Sokka’s skeptical look, she shakes her head and continues. “We’re already going...anyway, they might not have seen us.” (She doesn’t even pretend to believe that) “And they don’t know where we’re going. We don’t need to add this, not yet.”

Sokka presses his lips together, but nods. “Not yet. But after.”

She sighs and looks to the front of the saddle, where the boy who is the Avatar sits and flies them to where they all know his heart will shatter. “Yeah. After.”

——-

Xicheng is nothing special, as far as colonies go. Colonel Sanren sat astride his mongoose lizard as he and his men marched through farmland and past the various mines dotting the landscape. Fairly typical, really. Once they entered the town gates, his impression of its dullness didn’t abate. Civilians gave the soldiers a wide berth, which was smart of them, really, both colonist and native alike.

He frowns. Ah yes. Xicheng had been one of the colonies that had needed a...rather sudden replacement in leadership almost three years ago. Which reminds him.

“Captain Masa!” he calls.

The man pulls his own mongoose lizard up besides him. “Sir?”

“Take some men and start postering,” Sanren commands as he gazes over the main street. “Send the rest to the barracks. I have some business to attend to.”

“Yes sir.” Masa snaps off a salute and starts issuing orders. Sanren smiles as he watches his men work. The captain is competent, always a wonderful feature in a second, and soon fresh posters are going up on walls up and down the street.

The exiled former princess’s face stares back at him. Sanren notes the reward has gone up again. He shakes his head. Such a waste.

Oh, he’s heard the rumors. It’s impossible not to have heard them. The truth slipped from the mouths of sailors to the rest of the military. And Sanren knew the old General. The man lived up to his reputation, as wily and dangerous as his namesake. Any hope that the kid was unaffected and merely a hostage was misplaced.

The Dragon of the West has had three years to sink his claws into her.

Poor kid.

Sighing, he nudges his mount into movement and rides to the governor’s manor. Time to go play politics.

It is rather nice, though, to be on his own two feet instead of in the saddle. And it doesn’t look like he’s going to be wasting time, either, which is also a pleasant surprise. Someone must have seen him arriving and ran to tell the governor, as the man is waiting for him.

“Governor Ukano,” Sanren says pleasantly as he dismounts and bows a greeting. “Thank you for your kind welcome.”

Ukano smiles politely (so false) and bows as well. “Colonel Sanren. I hope you had no trouble on our roads.”

“No, no trouble. In fact, I saw very little signs of any discontent,” he says blandly as the governor ushers him inside the manor. The decor is tasteful, more Fire Nation than Earth Kingdom, thankfully. (He’s seen far more governors than he’d like all but adopt Earth Kingdom affectation. As if it were a magical talisman against attack.) (How quickly fools forget that the Exile they fear so much is a child playing war.)

The man stiffens. “Of course. I am the Fire Lord’s loyal servant and of course represent him to the best of my abilities.” Are you accusing me of being in league with traitors, soldier? is what the colonel hears.

“As are we all,” Sanren replies pleasantly.

Oh, he knows Ukano’s reputation. He knows it very much indeed.

The two men engage in the required pointless smalltalk before they can actually get down to practical matters. At least Ukano’s refreshments are respectable, he notes as the teenage girl brings them tea and wagashi on a pretty tray. The girl glances at him with a blank expression, then steps back and hides her hands in her long sleeves.

“Mai,” Ukano says, then gestures to him. “This is Colonel Sanren. Colonel, this is my daughter, Mai.”

“An honor to meet you, sir,” the girl says dully.

If she sounded any more bored, the poor girl would be asleep. Sanren can’t help the amused quirk of his lips. “A pleasure, lady,” he says smoothly. He allows his smile to grow a bit. “Ah yes, I’ve heard that you are quite close with the Crown Prince.”

“We keep in touch.” Her tone remains perfectly flat. The girl gives him nothing; it’s rather impressive.

(Her father, on the other hand, couldn’t hide his thoughts from showing on his face if he shoved his head into a bag. Sanren despises the actual effort it takes to keep from rolling his eyes. The girl cannot be older than sixteen, and even if she was not a known associate of the Crown Prince, he is a man with honor. He will not replace Meilin — may her soul burn brightly forever — with a child.)

“Hmm.” He takes a sip of his tea. Delicious. “I also heard you were close to the exiled princess?”

Mai tilts her head slightly. “As you said, I know the Crown Prince. Knowing his sister was inevitable when she was there.”

“And now?”

She shrugs, a purposely artless motion he can’t help but be amused by. She’s a sharp one, certainly moreso than her father. “She’s an exile. I don’t keep correspondence with traitors.”

Sanren laughs. “Clever girl,” he says. He means it, too. Ukano looks like he’s about to have a heart attack while his daughter barely looks phased. With any luck, the rumors of her association with Crown Prince Zuko hold enough weight; she’d be a cobra in that pit of vipers and he’d be delighted to witness the carnage.

Ukano clears his throat. “Thank you, Mai,” he says in clear dismissal. The girl bows stiffly and takes her leave.

Sanren brings his cup to his lips. That short conversation with the girl was far more enlightening than whatever platitudes Ukano blathers at him. He can read the reports, thank you. He’s in the military, it doesn’t mean he’s an idiot. All the man does is confirm the conjectures Sanren’s already made about the state of the colony.

Oh, it’s well-run, he’ll give Ukano that. But Sanren referred to the “exiled princess” when he spoke to the daughter, and she did not correct him. Either that was out of misplaced childhood loyalties (and she was far too careful for that), or she hears the word “princess” enough that it no longer registers as suspicious. That means there are quite possibly sympathizers in Xicheng that Ukano is not telling him about.

It’s not technically his current objective. There have been reported incidents near Gaipan and it’s become one problem too many to ignore. Sanren has orders to make his way there to assist the local garrison. However, as an officer in the Fire Army, he also has a duty to his nation to maintain order. And that means if he runs across any kind of nascent rebellion, well, he’s supposed to assist local authorities before it becomes a problem.

“I hope you understand, Governor, that I meant no disrespect to you or your daughter,” he murmurs. Ukano’s eyes sharpen, but some of the man’s uneasiness leaves him. “I had orders to update the Wanted posters in your colony. I feared I would be causing...unfortunate distress by showing a friend’s face.”

“Ah, well,” the man equivocates. “Understandable. That’s very...thoughtful, Colonel. But it is as my daughter said. I would not allow an association with a known traitor.”

“Of course not,” Sanren agrees. He pauses. “Have you had any trouble with that? In general, I mean. Among the populace. I hear that the exiled princess is quite popular in some areas.”

Ukano waves the concern away. “Not that I am aware of.”

Then there is much that the man is unaware of. Because one of the intelligence reports Sanren also received spoke of some slightly-concerning activities. Nothing too worrisome. Not yet. It’s only been an odd word here, and a questionable conversation overheard there. The most alarming thing in the report was a mention of an odd essay found in Xicheng and some of the other nearby colonies. The author had some strange, but not actually treasonous, ideas about the relationship between Fire and Earth. Or Fire and Water. It was too philosophical to be actual dissent, but Sanren has his suspicions about this Saya. This author clearly knows where the line is, and he just as clearly takes great pains to not cross it despite how close he dances.

He has a few days here in Xicheng to rest and resupply. If he uses the time to investigate the governor’s clear blindspots, then what else is there to do?

“Of course, thank you,” Sanren says with a smile. “We are all the Fire Lord’s loyal subjects, after all.”

Chapter Text

Katara doesn’t know what to expect when they reach the Southern Air Temple. She knows the stories, obviously, and just like Aang, she heard Gran-Gran’s tale. It had painted a vivid picture, almost too vivid. It brought back memories of...that day. So much that maybe she half-expects to see the same on the Air Temple grounds.

She knows, of course, that it won't be exactly the same. It’s been one hundred years. There isn't going to be...fresh evidence. Right there. But what remains? That’s what she’s been preparing herself to see.

That’s why it’s downright eerie when Appa sets down in a courtyard. She’s never seen so much green before: grass grows wild, breaking through the stone tiles; vines curl around benches and fountains; small shoots peak through the edges of snow drifts. Nature is reclaiming the temple, and while part of her heart aches, another can’t help but be soothed.

Would the Air Nomads have wanted life to come back like this? It’s supposed to be their grave.

And that’s the thing. There’s nothing here but the temple slowly turning to ruin. No sign of the slaughter they all know happened.

“Something’s not right,” Sokka says quietly from her side. “This is not what I was expecting.”

“Me neither,” she admits. She looks over at Aang, and slows. He’s standing so very still, and it’s noticeable because “Aang” and “still” don’t belong in the same sentence. “Aang?”

“There’s...something here,” he murmurs, focused on something else in the distance. He takes a step forward.

Something white drops down from the tree branch above him and lands on his head.

“Gaah!”

“Aang!”

They rush forward, only to stop abruptly, dumbfounded. The white thing chitters.

“Uh, your new hat talks,” Sokka points out as Aang attempts to pry the furry white creature off his head. It’s kind of adorable.

The creature leans down off Aang’s head so that they’re looking eye-to-eye. Aang blinks, then grins. “Hey, buddy! You scared me.” He turns to her and Sokka, still grinning. “It’s a flying lemur, I think he likes me.”

Katara blinks. Before she can ask another question (what question, she doesn’t know, there are a lot), the lemur leaps onto the ground. It turns to look back at them, chitters, then dashes off a bit until it repeats the process.

“I think it wants us to follow it,” Aang says slowly. “Come on!”

So that’s how they end up chasing a lemur through the crumbling temple. It’s probably better this way, because she doesn’t have time to get sucked into what is here. What should be here. She can’t see her own ghosts drifting in and out of temple archways if she’s running too fast to see them. (The scorch marks on the walls, the odd stains on the stone floors flash by out of the corner of her eye.)

Katara focuses instead on Aang’s back, the steady beat of Sokka’s footsteps behind her, the air in her own lungs. They’re being pulled somewhere. Or maybe it’s just Aang is being pulled somewhere and they’re caught in his wake. (Is it so strange? Even fish can find their way home.)

They exit the temple building at a run, stepping into almost-blinding sunlight. She nearly runs into Aang, who has stopped in his tracks. Sokka skids to a halt besides her.

“Hey, why’d you...oh.” The words die on her tongue as she takes in the view in front of them. They’re near the edge of a cliff, way up at some high point of the temple grounds. Beyond the edge of the plateau is open space, clouds and blue sky. It’s a gorgeous sight.

Or it would be, if not for the bones.

There, at the edge of the cliff, are stacks and stacks of bones, taller than she is. It’s hard to wrap her mind around what she’s even seeing, because it’s just so many bones. She swallows down bile as she realizes they’re organized: stacks of skulls next to ones of legs next to one of spines, all arranged so very neatly. (She nearly vomits when she sees how very small some of them are.)

And then there are the skeletons. Rows and rows of neatly arranged skeletons, still wearing the remnants of whatever clothing they died in, arms crossed over their chests. Some of the cloth still has rust-colored stains surrounding jagged holes.

It’s quiet. Not even the sound of birds. Just...just the wind.

It’s creepy.

Aang isn’t making a sound, and he’s shaking so hard she’s afraid he’ll fall apart in front of her. Katara reaches out a hand, to touch his shoulder, to offer some kind of support, to remind him that they’re there behind him and she’ll try to hold him together if he needs her. She doesn’t know why, but she knows she has to try because no one should go through this alone, standing amongst the dried bones of everyone they ever knew.

Her fingers brush his shoulder, and he gasps, lurching forward, stumbling over to a skeleton on the right. “Gyatso?” It comes out cracked and broken, fragile as a trembling bird’s wing. He sounds like a lost child. (He is a lost child)

Sokka steps closer to her. “Someone was here, did this on purpose,” he murmurs quietly as he keeps his eyes on Aang, who has fallen to his knees next to Gyatso’s bones.

Katara shoots him a look. “You think?”

He frowns. “I mean, someone came here after. Whoever did this found the bones, not...bodies.”

How the hell did he come to that conclusion? She opens her mouth to ask, then it hits her. The stacks are too neat. If it had been...the Fire Nation (hah), well, Katara thinks they’d have just dumped the bodies in a pile and let it be a midden heap. This, though? This is...something different.

She steps closer to Aang and finally puts a hand gently on his shaking shoulder. He’s weeping, full-body gasping sobs that crack her heart into pieces. It’s the only thing she can possibly do to kneel besides him and pull him close to her. He bows his head and cries into her shoulder. Katara feels a warm hand on her own shoulder, sees Sokka’s other hand come to rest on Aang’s.

No one says a word. What words can ever be enough?

After a time (forever and far too quickly), Aang pulls back, and tries to wipe his tears away. “I knew...I knew I should expect it, but...I don’t know if this is better or worse.”

“How can it possibly be better?” Katara asks, baffled. Better is absolutely not a word she would use to describe, well, any of this.

“You noticed?” Sokka’s voice is so very gentle. (It’s been awhile since she’s heard him use that tone) “I didn’t want to say anything. But, it looks like...”

“...someone came and...tried,” he finishes in a broken whisper. “They...tried to give them dignity. A funeral. I...saw the braziers.” He indicates some golden stove things. At her questioning look, he explains, “They’re...not usually out here. I think...someone didn’t know the...actual rites, so they...did the best they could.”

He bites his lip. “They got everyone, I think.”

“Someone cared, Aang,” she says, because what else can she say? “Someone cares.”

“But who?” he wonders.

Sokka clears his throat. “I think I might have an idea, but I don’t exactly like it.” At their looks, he continues. “It looks like it’s only your people here, Aang. Only Air Nomads.”

“Figures the Fire Nation would only care about their dead,” Katara mutters. “If there were any.”

Her brother shakes his head. “I think there were. And someone took care of them.” He points off to the side, closer to the cliff but far away from the Air Nomad resting place. Even from here, even with grass poking through the cracks in the stone, Katara can make out scorch marks far larger and darker than any she’s seen so far. Something burned long and hot over there.

Like cremation.

Katara understands what Sokka’s getting at. All the Fire Nation bodies were burned, but the Air Nomads were left to the open sky, because whoever was here didn’t know what was proper. And even the Southern Water Tribe knows that Fire Nationals burn their dead.

But that would mean that Fire Nationals came here later, came to try to do right by the dead, like they were ashamed. Which makes no sense because that’d suggest the Fire Nation could show remorse, and she’ll believe that when she sees it.

Aang looks around, still a little lost. Katara shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts. The damn Ashmakers aren’t what’s important right now. He is, and all he has is her and her brother. “Is there...anything we can do? To help put them at ease?” She doesn’t know a lot about Air Nomad culture, no one but Aang really would anymore, just the stories from Gran-Gran. But she thinks making sure their spirits are put to rest is one of the important parts. And if they are restless, well, it’s just one more wrong to fix.

He hesitates. “Whoever...they got it sort of right. The body needs to return to nature. We become food for the birds, and in turn, the birds help the trees that provide us food.” The words come out reluctantly, as if he’s slowly realizing something as he’s saying it. “The final flight, to...crack the bones against the mountain...that part always needs an airbender.”

Her eyes go wide. An airbender. And he’s the last one. He’ll have to do it, if he wants to let their spirits rest, and it’s not fair. It’s so not fair.

Katara and Sokka stand back, silent and watchful, as Aang finishes the rites, stutters his way through the prayers, and sends the last remains of the Air Nomads finally off onto their final flight, letting them break the bonds of earth one last time.

(Could she do the same? If she were where Aang is right now, could she carry the burden he is, give her people their last rest? Could she alone stand to send them under the sea, to the road of the dead? It’s not fair.)

(Her hand comes to her neck and grasps her mother’s necklace. It was so hard with one. How could a person manage so many?)

After, the lemur climbs onto Aang’s shoulders until he carefully plucks it off and buries his face into the white fur.

Neither Sokka or her say a word about his tears.

——

Azula leans backwards just enough to avoid getting her throat slit. Her opponent over-extends himself trying to recover, so she slides her húdiédāo home in between the plates of his armor. A kick to his chest gets him out of the way. He’s irrelevant now, a body choking on its own blood before it realizes it’s dead.

Next target.

Toph is nearby, holding her own and keeping them from getting mobbed. Too many for her to take down alone. Azula taps her foot on the ground, a message coded within the taps as a signal to her battle partner.

Assist?

Toph grins.

Azula slides seamlessly into Toph’s movements, and the earthbender changes the rhythm of the battle. It throws their opponents off, upsets their tempo, and that’s all they need.

The lightning comes so much easier now, separating her poles is almost second nature. She lets herself sink into that feeling of nothing, that place where all that exists is herself and her body, where everything becomes so very clear and she thinks this is what should be her natural state of being, where she is an arrow in flight or lightning the moment it leaves her fingertips.

(She described it to Uncle Iroh once, this feeling of perfect awareness and of nothing. He called it zanshin, but looked so very sad when she said how that’s the feeling she should want all the time. She doesn’t understand; she knows this feeling from when she is fulfilling her purpose. When she is most useful.

Tools need to be used for their proper purpose.)

The lightning slithers down her arms, dances along her fingers and along the blades. The air stinks of ozone and she tastes light upon her tongue. Toph opens a hole in their defense, and she moves.

Azula can’t hear their opponents’ screams over the crackle in her ears. This is ideal. She does not need a distraction. All she needs is to focus on the target.

One blade parts the armor, sinking deep into the chest of one opponent. The other slashes and releases a wave of lightning in its wake. The two targets coming from that side go down. (They’re thrashing on the ground, but they are no longer a concern. Toph will have her back.) She springboards off the first opponent’s shoulders onto the next target, blades coming down like fangs.

Blade to a throat. Lightning wave to another. Cycle kick, end in fire.

She’s a whirlwind of lightning and steel and tears through her foes like paper, with the earth itself rising up to meet whatever flames dared to try to touch her.

When she stops, there is no one left standing other than herself and Toph. Azula lowers her blades, lets the lightning dissipate, and evaluates the situation. They are in the middle of a town. Other than the road that Toph is fixing already, there is no damage to the surrounding area. Of the soldiers that attacked them, she notes pained movement from five of them. (She doesn’t worry; Toph’s bindings will hold them.) All the others are either dead or unconscious.

“I can’t tell if they’re getting desperate, cocky, or just plain stupid,” Toph drawls as she hops over the fallen to reach Azula. “Seriously, how long has it been since someone just flat-out attacked us in the middle of town?”

“Three weeks, four days,” Azula responds.

Toph sighs. “I don’t know why I didn’t expect you to know that.”

Azula says nothing, turning instead to examine the men who just tried to kill them more closely. Fire Nation, obviously. Army insignia, not Navy. Too young to be exceptionally experienced, although there are a lot of them. She thinks she should feel bad about killing young soldiers, because Zuko wanted to protect them, and it wasn’t their choice to fight her. He’d be so upset, and her heart shudders in her chest at the thought of facing his disappointment.

(But she couldn’t not fight. They were trying to kill Toph, and the thought of Toph getting hurt, of Toph dying when she could have stopped it makes her mouth go dry and her chest hurt as badly as one of the Fire Lord’s kicks. Worse than that.)

(Hers hers hers, Toph is hers, the Yinglong is hers, Uncle Iroh is hers, as much as Zuko owns her life. Azula does not own things, has not been allowed to claim many things, but the Fire Lord is not here so she has claimed them where he cannot see.)

“Anything interesting, Smoky?” Toph asks, nudging one of the bodies with her foot.

Azula glances around and spots the body with the highest ranking insignia. Just a captain, but she does find a pouch with a few military scrolls. “Maybe?” she answers. She’ll have to take a look at it later. The townsfolk are giving them wary looks from the windows. “We should go.”

Toph’s mouth twists downwards, but she nods. “Yeah, probably. I’ve got clean-up.” She stomps her foot once. The earth surges upwards around each body, even the ones still alive, and pulls them under. Any screams are cut off before they can even start.

The road looks exactly as they found it.

“Come on, let’s get back to the ship. You’re probably covered in blood again, I know you used your knives. So you know Uncle and Sifu are going to flip.” Toph folds her arms behind her head as she walks back to the docks.

Azula looks down at her shirt and sighs. She’s not wrong. It is an inevitable side-effect of bladework. (At least she’s not wearing one of the new shirts. Uncle Iroh acted really weird last time that happened. She doesn’t understand why people are surprised and upset when her clothes end up with blood on them.)

Sure enough, Sifu Rùfen spots them as they approach the ship. She sprints down the gangplank to meet them, face twisted into a frown. “What happened?” she demands.

“Army,” Azula reports and hands over the recovered scroll pouch.

Sifu Rùfen takes it, and then passes it off to Yuka, who had been practicing nearby. “Take that to the General,” she says, gaze still on Azula. “Are you both okay?”

Toph shrugs. “I’m fine. They might have singed my shirt for all I know, but no one got close enough to do real damage.”

Azula points to the blood. “It’s not mine.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Sifu Rùfen grabs her shoulder in a light grip (easy to break out of, not restraining, she still doesn’t understand why it’s calming) and starts steering her onto the ship. “Come on, we’re going to go see Jian.”

“I’m fine,” Azula insists.

“Smoky, you said that after someone nailed you with an arrow.” Toph trails after them.

“That was one time.” And she’d been wearing silk armor. She’d certainly had worse wounds.

“That was one time too many, kid.” Sifu Rùfen has that tone that means she’s not going to accept any argument. Even if her own is completely illogical. Azula sighs and lets herself be led to the infirmary.

Toph leaves them when they get there, saying she wants to talk to Uncle Iroh. Which means he’ll be informed of what happened, find out Sifu Rùfen took her to the infirmary, and will want to know where she is injured. If she even is injured.

Doctor Jian raises an eyebrow when he sees her. “Do I even want to know what happened?” he asks, face slightly pinched as he goes to gather his supplies.

“Army fire squad was in the town. Toph and I were forced to engage,” she explains as she hops onto one of the cots. Sifu Rùfen hovers with her back against the closed door. “The blood isn’t mine.”

He gives her a look, then looks at Sifu Rùfen, who snorts. ‘Humor me, Jian. You know how she is.”

Azula sighs and peels off her shirt, leaving the scarf and chest wrapping in place. There are a few scratches here and there, and one long thin cut on her right arm that bleeds sluggishly. She scowls at it. This never used to be a problem, before her growth spurt. Now she has to train harder, get faster, because they can’t afford to buy armor she will just outgrow in a few months.

Doctor Jian clears his throat. “None of the blood is yours, you said?”

She shrugs. So most of the blood wasn’t hers. “I didn’t feel it.” It’s barely noticeable now. It’s not like it hurts. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter? Kid, we talked about this.”

He has. Multiple times. She just doesn’t understand why he thinks it matters. An injury like this doesn’t have any real effect on her abilities. She’s still able to function as she should. Any injury that doesn’t interfere with her performance is minor and she should continue on as normal. Azula’s body is littered with examples, injuries the Fire Lord forced her to work through that were far worse than a simple scratch on the arm.

(She knows Sifu Rùfen isn’t watching, has her head turned away. Her teacher does not like to see the scars that those injuries left behind. The first time, Azula’s chest hurts and her stomach twists and feels heavy, and there is a sense of shame that crawls up her throat and threatens to choke her.

“Kid, kid, no. No, no, don’t look at me like that.” Her teacher’s hands are gentle on top of her head, and then so warm when she takes Azula’s hands in hers. It’s...nice. “I’m not upset at you. You don’t have anything to feel bad about, okay?”

Azula looks down at the branching scars on her arm, the path the Fire Lord’s lightning carved when he decided she needed to learn what it felt like in order to teach her. Or when he needed to make a lesson stick. Or as a punishment. Just because it wasn’t at full force didn’t mean it did not leave marks.

Marks of her failures. Her mistakes.

How can she not be ashamed, when her mistakes are so costly they leave physical reminders? Better to mark her skin than Zuko’s.

“I’m not upset at you,” Sifu Rùfen repeats, after Azula has been silent for too long. “I’m upset at...whoever did this.” She frowns. “I know, we’re firebenders, and some injuries while training are inevitable and expected. But kid, that only goes so far.”)

Doctor Jian sighs and cleans the wound before bandaging it. “Just try to remember, okay kid?”

It’s pointless, but it apparently makes him happy, so she nods before she pulls her shirt back on. Ugh, the blood has started drying, making the cloth stiff and tacky. She eyes the too-short sleeves. Perhaps she’ll just burn it instead of trying to wash it.

Sifu Rùfen smiles crookedly and pats her on the shoulder as she steps away from the door. Azula takes the opportunity to escape the infirmary before anyone else arrives to act unreasonable. She heads to her quarters and isn’t surprised to find Toph already there, lying on the bed.

“Everything okay?”

“Fine,” she sighs as she pulls off the shirt again.

“Jian kept you a long time for nothing. I had a full conversation with Uncle and everything.”

Azula makes a noncommittal noise.

Finally, Toph sighs. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.” Azula holds the shirt out and considers it. It also gives her something else to focus on other than Toph’s inexplicable frustration. “It was just a small cut.”

“Smoky, your definition of ‘small cut’ is ‘does it need five stitches or less’,” she says flatly.

Azula frowns. “I did not require stitches.”

She focuses on the shirt again. She could...probably get the blood out. And mend the sleeve. It’s still otherwise in acceptable condition, although it is getting small. “Do you want this?”

“Fine, change the subject.” Toph sits up. “Do I want what now?”

“The shirt. I can wash the blood out, but it doesn’t fit as well anymore.”

“My mother will have a fit,” Toph drawls. “Of course I’ll take it.”

Azula shakes her head and pads over to the trunk to pick out a new shirt to put on. She then heads to the small sink in the corner and carefully takes off the scarf. If her shirt was a mess, this also needs to be cleaned.

(It’s only times like this that she’s actively aware that Toph is blind. She wouldn’t be able to do this otherwise, and it’s such an odd thing to be thankful for. But it means that she can take the scarf off to clean it or to eat, and Toph won’t see the Fire Lord’s brand.

Toph won’t see that mark, won’t see her shame, and it won’t cost Azula her first, her only friend.)

“Uncle says that the scrolls weren’t that exciting, just orders,” Toph says. Azula shifts, dragging her foot purposely on the floor — their version of an inquisitive look — but doesn’t stop scrubbing the scarf. Her friend continues. “Apparently, they were expecting us.”

“They didn’t have the experience,” she points out.

“Yeah, obviously, it didn’t turn out too good for them.” Toph chuckles. “Orders were from Zhao.”

Azula turns that information over in her head. They were chasing the ship Zhao commands to the South Pole, when they received word that it had been spotted again, this time having changed course to the north. In fact, they were chasing a rumor that he had docked in this very port. The Yinglong had stopped here to try to pick up clues as to where he’s heading to next.

There was an Army fire team expecting them, with orders from Zhao, but they didn’t have the ability to take down her and Toph, much less the rest of the crew. So that was not the real objective.

...Delaying tactic. It’s a delaying tactic to buy Zhao time to slip away.

(This man is very irritating.)

“Do we know where Zhao is going?” she asks.

Toph shrugs. “West, but that’s all I know. Uncle’s probably giving that to Shika, so you’d have to ask her if she can figure anything out.”

Azula grunts and continues scrubbing the scarf silently. Once it’s clean, she dries it with a quick burst of heatbending and wraps it back around her face. She feels less tense as soon as it’s in place. The scar is covered again.

She’s washing the bloody shirt when Toph speaks up. “So if I didn’t drag it out of you, were you going to just not tell me you got hurt?”

Her hands pause in their scrubbing for a moment. The bandage wrapped around her arm stands out brightly against the dull metal of the ship. “It wasn’t relevant?”

Toph scowls. “How is it not relevant?” she demands. “You’re my partner. I’m supposed to have your back, like you have mine. How am I supposed to do that if you don’t even let me know when you’re injured?”

Azula flinches. The criticism is valid. They are supposed to work together, and she is sabotaging Toph by not informing her of any changes to her own operational status. It’s a mistake that could create a hole in Toph’s defenses.

It’s a mistake that could get Toph killed.

“It was a minor wound. It didn’t change my effectiveness.” The defense sounds weak to her ears. She frowns at the shirt in the sink and scrubs harder.

“That’s not the point,” Toph insists. She sounds upset.

(Azula feels something in her chest twist uncomfortably, her palms itch. She doesn’t like it when Toph’s voice does that.)

If that’s not the point, then what is? Does...she want an explanation? Azula knows she’s not supposed to be getting hit at all; the Fire Lord had such mistakes punished severely. “I don’t have armor that fits,” she explains.

“What?” Toph sounds completely confused.

Azula looks up at her. “Why I was injured. The block is fine, but I’m used to armor. I need to compensate better.” She needs to practice more. “You won’t have to worry about your defenses being open.” The shirt looks to be free of bloodstains, so she pulls it out of the sink and dries it, setting it aside so she can pull on the new shirt.

The sleeves reach down to her wrists without getting in the way or being too restrictive. (It feels thicker than the old one. Will it fare better against a blade?)

Toph has been strangely silent. Azula looks up to find her with an open-mouthed expression, clearly unhappy. “Toph?”

The girl startles, then slaps her hand to her forehead and groans. “Smoky, why. Why are you like this?”

Azula has no idea what Toph is talking about now. She thought she’d been clear in explanations about how things work, how people work. About the rules and how she needs to follow them (mostly. There were some things the Fire Lord was wrong about) (is that not following a rule, or is that a rule changing?) And Toph had seemed to understand! So why the question now?

She doesn't know how to answer, so Azula does the only thing she can think of.

The clean shirt hits Toph squarely in the face.

——

Sokka sighs and thumps his head on the wooden pole behind him. He tries to twist his hands free from behind his back, but no luck. Whoever tied them knew what they were doing. Of course. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, really. Things had been going way too smoothly, so he should have known they were due for something like this to happen.

Aang had understandably wanted to spend some time at the Southern Air Temple after saying goodbye to his people. (His family, poor kid.) Oh, he put on a brave face and showed him and Katara around, told them stories, but it was obvious he was hurting. After they found the creepy room full of statues of past Avatars (also known as Aang’s past lives, which, what the actual hell), Sokka knew they had to get out of there before the kid had a nervous breakdown or something.

He’s pretty sure they have the adorable and very cuddly lemur, who has apparently adopted Aang, to thank for that one. Sokka didn’t realize earlier that lemurs were the protective sort, but Momo, as Aang’s named him, hasn’t left Aang alone for more than ten minutes.

Anyway, in an effort to distract him from the giant pile of trauma they just left, Sokka made the mistake of asking Aang where he wanted to go next, if he could go anywhere in the world.

Who the hell picks riding elephant koi?

Aang, apparently, that’s who.

Unfortunately, the island is not uninhabited. Even more unfortunate? The inhabitants do not take kindly to trespassers. Sokka really wants to know who the person that took him down was, because they have a seriously good right-hook. He’s pretty sure he’s got a lump the size of an otter-penguin egg somewhere on his skull.

Katara and Aang don’t seem to have fared much better, although neither look injured, so there’s that. Good. He did his job. Speaking of, he spots the group of people headed their way and tenses. All of them are dressed in similar green outfits, with long skirts that look like they’re fairly sturdy. But easily the most striking thing about all of them is the face paint. All of their faces have been painted bone-white with crimson and black markings around the eyes and blood-red lips.

Sokka has no idea what it means, but he knows it means something.

The second-most striking thing is that they’re all girls.

One of them steps forward. “You will explain what you are doing here. And if we don’t like your answers, we’ll toss you out there and see if the Unagi likes them any better.” Her voice is flat and cold, and Sokka straightens his spine. He doesn’t know what the Unagi is, but he does know a threat when he hears one.

“And why should we answer to you?” he asks, laying as much bravado as he can in his voice. Pay attention to me, he thinks. He’s the threat, the annoyance. Whatever he has to be, just focus on him. Leave Katara and Aang alone.

(“Sokka,” Katara hisses. He ignores her.)

It works. She gets in his face, leans closer. “Because we took you down once already. Don’t test my patience.”

Sokka keeps his expression still in the face of her glower (and wow, that’d be impressive even without the warpaint), but flicks his gaze over her shoulder. The other girls haven’t moved closer, but they’re tense, as if waiting for something.

As if they’re waiting for a fight.

They’re trained, but even he can tell that under the paint, none of them are older than he is. He glances at the buildings nearby. There are some older villagers, too soft or too worn to be the main defense (he spies men and women missing limbs, people who have already given too much), but no one else. That’s when it hits him.

“Where are your men?” he mutters, trying to figure it out. Did they also lose them in a raid? Did the Fire Nation hit this island harder than their tribe? Or have all their men gone out to sea or off to war?

How much more has the Fire Nation ruined?

(Next to him, Katara thumps her head against the post. “I cannot believe you.”)

“What did you say?” The girl’s voice is very quiet, like the tundra after a blizzard.

Sokka frowns. He can see it clear as day: there are only these girls left to defend this place. Oh, he has no doubt they’re dangerous, he can see signs of hours spent training in the way they move and the way they stand. But is it enough? Their Tribe has less people, but the polar sea isn’t a kind friend even if you live side-by-side and know his moods. He curses himself for not paying more attention to any natural defenses around the island; he’s starting to get complacent.

That’s a good way to die.

The warrior is still staring at him, expecting an answer. Well, he really wants one too. (Will the Fire Nation come back?) “You’re all girls. Where are your men?”

There’s a snap and oh wow, that’s...that’s a very, very sharp fan underneath his chin. What the hell.

“Okay! We’re sorry, please don’t pay attention to my brother, he’s an idiot, he can’t help it,” Katara yells.

Hey!

He’d object, but the warrior is currently making a very compelling argument against that, so Sokka keeps his mouth shut and tries to figure out what in the depths is going on.

“An idiot?” the girl growls, and gives him a judging look. “Hm. I can see it.” She snaps the fan shut, removing it from his throat.

Katara and Aang are explaining...something, and Sokka watches her while his brain frantically replays the conversation to see what he missed. Group of warriors get the drop on them, tie them up, interrogate them...

Sokka’s eyes widen and he wishes he were untied so he could fling himself into the sea. Flame and ash, Katara is right, he is an idiot. They’re not Water Tribe! The warrior must have thought he was insulting them.

Yeah, he’s...he’s going to keep his mouth shut for awhile before he accidentally digs himself into a deeper hole. If he’s lucky, they won’t hurt Katara or Aang for his stupid mistake. If he’s very lucky, he might even get a chance to fix this.

As it turns out, Aang can be pretty charming when he wants to be. Either that or being the reincarnation of the founder of the island and potential savior of the world counts for a lot. Hard to say. In any case, the warriors and villagers are sufficiently charmed and impressed that not only do they not become a sea monster’s dinner (why is there a sea monster guarding this place? Who thought that was a good idea?), but they’re also welcomed with a party.

Sokka knew “the Avatar” was a big deal, but for some reason, it hadn’t really sunk in yet until now. For all that Aang showed up out of a glowing iceberg, Sokka just doesn’t see it when he watches the boy goof around on his air scooter and show off his dumb marble trick. He sees the same kid who sobbed on Gran-Gran’s shoulder a few days ago, who needs two extra blankets at night because Sokka’s figured out already the weight is the only thing that stops the nightmares. He sees the boy who he just knows is going to drive him up the wall with how Aang would feed Momo half his dinner if he could.

He sees the boy who tried so hard not to shatter when he had to say goodbye at the Temple.

Sokka sees all of that, and so he sees that Aang is trying to hide. He’s being the Avatar, the spirit tale, the boy who isn’t there. (Katara does the same thing, tries to be Katara the Last Southern Waterbender instead of Just Katara.)

Maybe it’s okay for right now. Let him have a moment.

He continues to keep his mouth shut and just watch, all the way through dinner. Aang continues to smile and laugh and charm. Katara seems to be getting along with some of the warrior girls? Maybe? Sokka’s...really not sure. There weren’t a lot of kids their age left to make a good comparison. There used to be, but not since...well, not after all the raids.

(The last waterbender and the son of the chief. Of course they’re the ones who survived.)

(Sokka wishes that didn’t taste so bitter.)

The thought of Fire Nation raids makes him look over at the leader of these Kyoshi Warriors, whose name, Sokka has learned, is Suki. He was right, these warriors are trained, and Suki’s the one doing the training. They hadn’t chased him off when they saw him watching one of their sessions. If anything, he thinks he might have accidentally made them show off just so they could tell him off.

He really needs to clear the air.

An incredibly pointy and familiar elbow drives into his gut.

“Ooof.” Sokka glares at his sister.

Katara is unrepentant. “What is with you?” she hisses. “There’s food right in front of you, and you have barely touched it.”

Okay, that’s an exaggeration and wildly unfair. Not eating at all would be the height of rudeness, and Sokka is absolutely certain Gran-Gran would somehow fly herself over here from the South Pole just to twist his ear if he even thought about doing that.

“I’m thinking,” he mutters.

“Well, don’t hurt yourself,” Katara snipes back.

“Oh har har.” Sokka huffs and crosses his arms.

“Are you sulking?” she asks, somewhere between incredulous and delighted.

(Spirits, she’s lucky that he loves her.)

“No,” he snaps, then sighs.

Soon, the feast breaks up and people go off to do other things. Someone lights a bonfire on the beach, a bright beacon in the night. Sokka stands off to the side, still watching. Which is why he notices when Suki breaks away from the main group to head further down the beach. He hesitates, but he needs to deal with this problem sooner rather than later.

Well, no time like the present.

He follows her. The moon is bright enough that he can easily keep her in sight. He also deliberately steps heavier than he normally does; he’s not going to sneak up on her. If she wants him to get lost, he’ll go.

Suki doesn’t stop him. So he walks after her, catching up until she suddenly stops and turns back toward him. He stops a respectful distance away. She raises an eyebrow at him. He bows (wolfspit, what’s the protocol for bowing again? There are rules, and he prays he didn’t accidentally insult her more by bowing too deeply. Or not deeply enough.) (He will never complain about having to learn “stupid Earth Kingdom rules” again, Dad, if he manages to not screw this up), and her eyebrow goes higher.

“Why are you following me?” she demands.

“Because I needed to apologize,” Sokka says honestly. “Need to apologize. I’m pretty sure I made a shitty first impression.”

“That’s...an understatement.” Suki folds her arms.

“Harsh.” He rubs the back of his neck. “But fair. In my defense, I completely misunderstood some things.”

She gives him a very unimpressed look. “How do you ‘misunderstand’ a question like ‘why are you here’?”

“Not...that,” he says. “I saw that you were all girls.”

“Yes. We went over this.”

Ugh. There is no way out of this without possibly ripping a scabbed over wound. “I thought you’d been raided too,” he says softly. “That the Ashmakers killed all your fathers and brothers as well. Not that you couldn’t fight because you were girls. That you were the only ones left.”

Suki’s stance shifts, relaxes. She blinks at him, and he can see exactly when his words register. When the assumption that he was working under registers, her mouth drops open slightly. (He doesn’t want to think about what she’s remembering. He hopes it's nothing like his, black ash and crimson blood criss-crossing as bright scars on snow.) (Some days, he can still taste ash on his tongue.)

Still, he wants to make it absolutely clear. “I definitely didn’t think you were incapable or anything. You certainly proved that.” He rubs the back of his head. “I have the bump to show for it.”

She laughs, finally, and it’s one of the best sounds Sokka’s ever heard. It makes him feel like he’s next to a warm fire under a blanket of furs, but also like he just walked fearless out into a howling storm. It runs up and down his spine, and he feels like grinning; it’s the happiest he’s felt since they left home.

“Apology accepted,” Suki says, smiling. Her mouth quirks into a smirk. “You weren’t so bad yourself, honestly. Held your own for a bit against us one-on-one, but you need work when it comes to multiple attackers. And none of you have any idea how to fight as a team.”

He winces. She’s absolutely right, of course. He can fake it with Katara for a bit, but it’s probably clear as day to Suki that they’re not trained to work together like that. It’s just the fact that she’s his little sister and they’ve been living in each other’s pockets all their lives that lets them even do as much as they can. And from what Aang has told them about what the Air Nomads were like, Sokka would eat his left mukluk if they had taught him actual useful combat.

“Caught that, huh?”

“It was pretty obvious. I’ve only trained most of the girls here.”

Sokka looks out over the water. “I’m...probably the only one with actual training like you’re talking about.” He glances over, sees that he’s got her attention. “It’s why I was confused. Warrior men usually are the ones to go off to fight.”

Suki rolls her eyes. “And what, the women stay behind and cook and have babies?”

He blinks. “Uh, well, sort of? The girls who go through the warrior trials usually choose to follow Brother Wolf and protect the den. Boys choose Sister Orca and follow her out to sea.”

“So girls aren’t prevented from learning?”

“Spirits, no,” he says, shaking his head. “That’s just dumb. We don’t have the people to just let some sit around and do...I don’t even know. We all need to work together or we all die.The South Pole isn’t the most forgiving environment, you know? But it’s still home.”

Home is somewhere over the horizon. He’s never been so far away before, and the knowledge of the things he left behind sneaks up and stabs him right in the gut.

“So you chose...Orca?” Suki’s voice shakes him out of his thoughts.

“Ah, no actually.”

She frowns. “But you said that’s what boys do.”

Sokka nods. “Yeah, usually. But for awhile, I was the only one with the training even at home. I hadn’t even passed the trials and I had to be ready to defend everyone.” He looks at Suki; he knows he doesn’t have to explain how heavy that burden was. Doesn’t have to describe the numbing terror that he could make the wrong decision, that he won’t be enough should the worst happen, and everyone he knows will die and it will be his fault. She knows.

She’s had to carry a similar weight too.

“So when I did get to go do the trials, you’d think I’d leap at the chance to go out with all the other men, right?” Sokka shakes his head. “And it’s not like if I chose that then home would be defenseless. They’d shuffle people, have men who’d been at sea too long spend some time at home.” He looks up, sees that Suki is staring at him with a curious expression.

“So why didn’t you?” she asks.

He looks away, back to the sea. “You’ve seen Katara waterbend today, right?” Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Suki nodding. “She’s the only one. In the entire tribe.” He hears her sharp intake of breath and continues. “She was dead-set on following Aang. And...she’s right? She needs to learn. We need her to learn. But...” he sighs. “I didn’t want her to go alone. I couldn’t let her go alone.”

She’s quiet for awhile. “Do you regret it?”

Something about her tone makes him consider the question honestly. “It feels wrong to have left them, when I promised to protect the Tribe. But...I’m the only one who could do this. So.”

“So. Here you are,” Suki finishes. She looks him over, seemingly considering something. “Do you want to learn?”

“Huh?”

“Techniques. Some for more than one opponent or for fighting in a group,” she clarifies. “I could teach you some.”

Sokka blinks. “You would?” A chance to learn combat techniques from a really pretty girl? He’d have to be dead to turn that down.

(Wait. When the hell did her appearance have anything to do with, well, anything? Stop it, stop thinking about it, she’s an accomplished warrior who could and did kick his ass.)

(...Tides take him, that did the opposite of what he wants.)

She shrugs. “You’d have to follow all our traditions, but if you’re willing, feel free to join us in the morning.”

As it turns out, “all their traditions” actually translates to “wear the official uniform, including face paint and skirt”. Considering he’s got his warpaint kit in his pack, it’s not like he has a problem with any of it, if they were expecting him to balk at that. Suki helps him do it the first time, so Sokka can be absolutely positive it’s flawless when she throws him into the dirt.

Which she does. Repeatedly.

But after a few days of this, he can definitely say he’s getting it. Especially after he manages a fairly tricky reversal that lets him catch Suki in a throw. Her grin when she catches herself is downright feral and it sends a damn thrill down his spine.

“Sokka!” Katara yells.

Which of course is why everything goes to hell just then.

His sister sprints over to him, eyes wide and face pale. She practically collapses when she reaches him, gulping down air, and it’s only his grip on her arms that keeps her upright. “I saw...ship,” she gasps, then flaps her arm in the vague direction of the ocean. “Out there.”

“What? Katara, what did you see?” he insists. She’s not making enough sense, but he’s starting to get a sinking feeling in his gut.

She takes a few deep breaths. “Aang taught me how to guide Appa, so I took him out to let him...stretch his legs.” Katara presses her lips together in a thin line, and it hits him right then that she looks scared. “I saw that ship. The one from before.”

The Fire Nation ship that had been headed towards the South Pole, but had turned after Appa had flown past. Sokka wants to swear it’s a coincidence, that they couldn’t possibly have been followed, but the facts are staring him in the face. (They hadn’t told Aang they saw that ship. There hadn’t been a good time, not after the Temple. Sokka’s regretting that now.)

“Okay,” he breathes. “Okay. It’s one Fire Nation ship. We can...”

But Katara is shaking her head. “There’s a fleet, Sokka. I saw a fleet behind it.”

Sokka feels the blood drain from his face.

“A Fire Nation fleet?” Suki asks, voice suddenly hard and edged with authority.

Katara nods.

“And they’re headed this way?”

Another nod.

Suki bites her lip, then nods. “Then you need to go. Now.”

Sokka balks. “What?” Run away and leave them behind? “That’s a Fire Nation fleet. You can’t hold them off!”

“No,” she agrees grimly. “We don’t stand a chance. Which is why you need to get the Avatar out of here.”

“We can help,” Katara yells.

But Sokka knows Suki isn’t going to budge. He can see it in her stance, in the set of her jaw, and hear it in the tone of her voice. And flame and ash, she’s right. If the Fire Nation gets their hands on Aang...

He needs to get them out of here now.

(The memory of ash lies thick on his tongue, coats his throat so he chokes on it. It’s the Day of Black Snow all over again. He still can’t do a damn thing.)

He’ll never forgive himself for risking Katara. He’ll never forgive himself for leaving these fierce girls to die. “Suki...”

“Go,” she orders. Then she gives him a smile that’s sharp as a blade and it’s the most heartbreakingly beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Katara, go get Aang. I’ll be right behind you.”

His sister looks like she wants to argue, wants to fight, wants to tear down the world with her own two hands, and oh how he just wants to give her this. But Sokka knows his responsibility, so he won’t fight against this tide. She must be able to see that too, or the fact that there’s no way she and Aang can take on an entire fleet.

And the Avatar must stay alive.

Katara scowls but runs off.

Sokka hesitates a moment, looks over at Suki again. What do you say to a girl who’s about to die for you? “Suki, thank — “

His words are lost in a yelp as Suki grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him towards her. Before he can even catch up, her lips are pressed against his, and he’s pretty sure reality just screeched to a halt around them. Because she’s kissing him. Suki is kissing him. A very pretty girl who can absolutely kick his ass is kissing him and what the hell was he thinking about again?

Suki lets him go, and Sokka desperately tries not to fall backwards on his ass. “Wh-what?”

She grins. “Didn’t want to die never having kissed a boy, you know.”

Should he be offended? Is that even possible? He laughs, then gives her a salute. “May your teeth be sharp.”

Her answering grin is amused, so he’s pretty sure the gist of the hunter’s blessing got through. “You’re in the Earth Kingdom now. We die on our feet.” Her voice hardens. “Now go!”

It’s possibly one of the hardest things he’s ever done, which seems wrong, because he’s survived the Ashmakers before. He’s had to watch others go off to fight. Sokka half thinks he should be used to it by now.

But it’s different this time, he thinks as he climbs up onto Appa. Katara and Aang are already waiting, and neither of them look happy. Yeah, well, join the party. Sokka knows he can deal with his sister’s simmering anger, because this anger is an old friend: a mix of rage at the Fire Nation and frustration with herself for being powerless to help once again. He’s got the same kind of anger buried in his heart.

Aang, though. Aang looks lost, all scared and heartbroken and so very small. That look only gets worse when they get into the air and see the threat Katara warned about. Because sure enough, there’s the hulking metal beast the Ashmakers call a boat bearing down on Kyoshi Island, the black smoke trailing behind it like a scar in the sky.

It’s a large boat, one of the big ones like those Sokka remembers so clearly from that terrible day. (So, so clearly, it’s burned so deeply into his memories. His nightmares were of hawks-gold eyes and fire for years afterwards.) That’s bad enough, but his heart stutters in his chest when he sees the six ships not too far beyond the first. Six more Fire Nation ships, all moving faster than he’d ever seen before.

Kyoshi Island is neutral. Or was. Does the Fire Lord see Aang as that much of a threat? That he’d send that much firepower after a boy, to raze an island that couldn’t hope to mount a defense?

“Where do we go?” Katara asks. Sokka knows she’s thinking the same thing he is. Where can they go that the Fire Nation can’t reach, even just for a little bit?

‘We need some place that’s defended enough that the Ashmakers can’t get to us. And where we can make a plan,” he says.

Aang takes a deep breath. “I think I know a place. Well, I knew it. It...I had a friend who lived there. Back...before. Omashu. We’ll go to Omashu.”

Sokka sees Katara nod along with him out of the corner of his eye. It’s a plan. It’s a destination. It’s something to think about that is not how seven monstrous metal beasts are about to devour another tribe and leave nothing but ashes and blood in their wake.

——-

Yuka can only watch with amusement as Koji practically sprints down the gangplank once the Yinglong docks at Kyoshi Island. He’d lit up like a lantern on festival day when he heard their destination. Nevermind that their actual goal was to catch that asshole commander.

No, she still hasn’t forgotten that he ordered ship-breaker ordinance to target her and the Captain three years ago. As far as she’s concerned, whatever Azula plans to do with him if she ever catch him is going to be far too good for him.

Of course, as soon as the asshole realized that they were on his tail, he turned and ran like a damn coward.

Since they were already here, it was probably some kind of diplomatic thing to go talk to the inhabitants. Like assuring them that they aren't the Fire Navy (they have a different flag and everything) and asking if they could borrow their dock. That sort of thing. Azula had asked that Yuka come along with her to go talk with the villagers. Technically speaking, Koji is also part of this group, but good luck getting him to focus.

“I thought he was over the seasickness,” Toph says, appearing spontaneously next to Yuka’s elbow and almost making her jump out of her skin.

“Spirits, I need to put a bell on you,” she grumbles. “Why did we decide to let the corporal teach you again?”

Toph just grins.

Yuka rolls her eyes, even though she very well knows the effect is lost entirely on Toph. It’s still the principle of the matter. “No, he is,” she says as she watches Koji all but bounce on his heels on the beach. “It’s the elephant koi. You know how he gets.”

“And somehow, you’re the waterbender.”

Really, this is just her life now. Yuka’s grown numb to it. Well, that and the fact that it’s so much better than anything she could have hoped for with her father attempting to pull strings. Nice job breaking it, asshole. Turns out, getting assigned to the infamous “cursed ship” of the Fire Navy was the best thing that ever happened to her. Where else could her most-dangerous secret be revealed and the reaction would just be “let’s see what you can do with it”.

(Yuka blames Tsui’s influence. They’re somehow even more of a menace now that they have access to multiple ships for “improvements”.)

And the driving reason behind all of that steps up next to her. Azula was certainly different from the kid she had been when they first left the Fire Nation. For one, Yuka could actually manage to call her by her given name now. (It had taken a long time, probably far too long. But it was way too weird to not call her “princess”, even after the asshole on the Dragon Throne took that title away from her.) (Yuka absolutely hates that not only does her own father have competition for “worst in the country”, but he’s probably losing.)

And she still wears the same scarf Yuka gave her on a whim all those years ago. Yuka knows she washes it, but seriously, the ex-princess is always wearing it, even if she’s outgrown all her other clothes. (She’s still trying to decide if it’s totally unfair that the fourteen-year-old is taller than she is, and is somehow still growing. She’s leaning towards yes, definitely.)

Yuka falls in line behind Azula as she strides down the gangplank to meet Koji on the beach. Toph saunters down behind.

Koji smiles sheepishly as they approach. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m just excited.”

Toph scoffs. “That’s what you said last time we were here. They’re just fish.”

“They’re elephant koi!”

“Okay, they’re just really big fish.”

Does Koji even realize he’s getting into an argument with a twelve-year-old? Does he even care? No, no he does not. Yuka sighs and wonders, once again, how this is her life.

Thankfully, she can tune them out and do something useful because one of the Kyoshi Warriors strides down the beach to meet with them. She watches as Azula’s posture straightens ever so slightly, watches her stance shift just a little to react that much faster. (It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.)

“Commander Suki,” Azula says stiffly.

“Exile,” the other girl replies with a nod. “Thanks for the save.”

“We had been chasing that ship for some time. Ever since we heard it left polar waters.” She shrugs. “It was luck.”

Yuka snorts. That’s putting it mildly. Zhao’s ship would have meant nothing good for the people of Kyoshi if he’d managed to make landfall. Spirits, it would have probably required a minor miracle for there to still be an island left. Azula’s right, it was luck. Also the luck that Zhao is still just as much of a spineless bully as ever.

Saw the fleet after him and immediately thought better of lighting an island on fire or whatever else assholes like him did for fun.

(It’s not like Yuka thought heavily on that topic. The less she thought of the man she unfortunately called father the better.)

Suki shrugs. “Guess you’re lucky then.”

Azula’s expression is pure incredulity.

“Zhao’s lucky,” Toph declares as she joins the conversation. “Lucky we didn’t catch him yet.”

It earns her a laugh from the Kyoshi leader. Yuka is momentarily distracted by Koji stepping into place beside her, still smiling. She sees his smile ease into something a little brighter and softer as Suki leads them into the village proper.

Koji always gets that look when they visit the smaller villages in the Earth Kingdom. He told her once that they remind him of home. She thinks he misses it sometimes.

She wonders what it’d be like to have a home like that to miss.

It’s not like she’s jealous of him. They’re more alike than they are different. Two Fire National benders with the wrong element, with faces that screamed that they weren’t quite “pure” enough for some. Too much like the people they were fighting, too much Fire National to be anything else. They’re puzzle pieces that don’t fit together quite right.

Yuka feels the stares of the other Kyoshi Warriors and villagers on the back of her neck as Suki leads them to the main hall. She should be used to this by now. No one ever knows how to feel about them, not at first. There are the problems of herself and Koji, because it turns out not just other Fire Nationals have a hard time fitting people like them into their worldview. (Sometimes, Yuka wonders if Azula asks them to accompany her as an exercise in psychological warfare. It’s hard to tell.) (It’d be less difficult if they ever got a solid answer to whether Shika assigned it as homework or not; so far, the pool’s at fifty-fifty odds.)

Toph either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Most likely the latter, considering the person in question. But they’ve seen the wanted posters pop up in some of the colonies. They’re always taken down really fast, Yuka notes. She’s not sure how much of that is because Toph’s family is that powerful or if the Fire Nation doesn’t consider the “Blind Bandit” nearly as much of a threat as the Exile.

It’s ridiculous. The strongest country in the world is running scared from a teenage girl. Okay, not quite that bad, but close. The bounty on her head keeps getting bigger, and the rumors start getting wilder. If Yuka wasn’t living it, she wouldn’t believe it. Since she is living it, she gets to suffer along to the stares of people wanting to catch a glimpse of the Exile.

“ — Come on, you didn’t talk to the last one.”

“S-shut up, that’s different.”

“Why? He was cute too! I mean, maybe you go for older guys!”

Yuka sees the tips of Koji’s ears go red as the whispering group of teenage girls falls in behind them. She leans over. “Someone’s got a little fanclub,” she teases.

His cheeks go red. “You are the worst,” he hisses. “They’re like...infants.”

She’s about to laugh at him when she picks up another set of whispers.

“And Commander Suki was always talking with him anyway.”

“You think she called dibs?”

“Would you risk finding out the hard way?”

“I wonder what the Exile looks like under the scarf.”

“Oooh, do you think she’s as pretty as her reward posters?”

Koji and Yuka turn to look at each other at the same time, both with equal expressions of alarm. They both look ahead to where Azula is walking next to Commander Suki, still as straight-backed and quiet as she always has been. They turn to look at each other again. Yuka sees Koji’s expression morph into the same vague horror she knows her own face is showing.

Because there is no way she is hearing this. Absolutely no way. Azula is still the kid she first met with half her face covered in bandages who started making displeased glares at soup after the tenth straight day of it. Koji is right, they are infants. Not at all supposed to be the subject of or participating in teenage crushes or other teenage things.

Nope. Not at all. Absolutely not.

Yuka is pretty sure she can get Captain Jee to back her up on this. If he doesn’t have a heart-attack over the idea first.

Unfortunately, then she remembers what it was like to be a teenager. And even if she never really participated in it, she remembers teenage gossip. Especially where conversations like this one can veer off to very, very easily. Which she is not going to touch with a ten-foot pole. (Where is an adult when you need one? Why did no adults come ashore?) (Yuka is positive both she and Koji only qualify as adults on a technicality of age, and should not actually be counted.)

She clears her throat. “Koji,” she starts. “we will never speak of this again.”

He nods solemnly. “This never happened. We heard nothing.”

Agreement made, Yuka can focus on the other bit of information she overheard from that conversation. Once they stop in front of the main hall, she turns to Suki. “So, you had other visitors here?”

Suki blinks, clearly surprised. “You didn’t know?” she asks as she pushes open the doors to what’s clearly their main training space.

They all troop inside, closing the door behind them. Hooray, privacy. Listening to teenage gossip is bad enough for Yuka’s mental state. Having to worry about becoming teenage gossip, more so than they already are? Not on the to-do list.

“Know what?” Toph asks, once they sit down. She frowns and folds her arms. “We just got here.”

“Right, sorry,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s been...a crazy last few days? I’m just surprised you haven’t heard yet.”

Azula tilts her head.

“I mean, it’s only the Avatar returning. Nothing major. Then you show up.”

What.

Azula goes absolutely still.

Koji barks a laugh. “I’m sorry, did you just say the Avatar was here?” His tone is incredulous. Which makes sense. Because the Avatar is a spirit tale.

“Yeah, that was my reaction too,” Suki admits. “But I swear, on my honor, the Avatar is back and he was here. We thought that’s why the ship came.”

Toph’s eyes go wide. “She’s not lying.” Immediately, she turns to Azula, who has not moved at all, still as a statue. “Smoky?”

Everyone on the Yinglong knew the original conditions on the Princess of the Fire Nation’s banishment. Everyone knew the cruelty of sending an eleven-year-old chasing off after an impossible task to complete just to go home. (It had made choosing to stay so much easier. Because Yuka knows what it looks like when your own father doesn’t want you.)

Everyone knew she was never meant to go home.

“Interesting,” Azula murmurs.

(Koji clenches his fists but says nothing. Yuka knows what he’s thinking; she feels the same way. The spirits are fickle and cruel, to make it real, after all this time.)

Suki nods, slightly confused. “If we’d known you were coming, they’d still be here.” She sighs. “I guess they must not have recognized you.”

“Are they living under a rock?” Toph snorts. “Smoky can barely set foot in a village without being recognized these days.”

“Only along the coasts,” says Azula, with a crease forming between her eyebrows from frowning.

“Not helping your case.”

“The people he’s travelling with, they aren’t Earth Kingdom.” Suki says, tapping her fingers against the floor idly. “They’re Southern Water Tribe.”

The crease between Azula’s eyes gets deeper. “Chief Hakoda has worked with us.”

“They were fresh from the South Pole. Probably about your age, Exile. Maybe a little older?” She shrugs. “They saw your fleet and got spooked. Scared the shit out of us. I seriously thought we were about to die.”

For some reason, Suki stiffens up, then buries her face in her palms. “Silt and sand, I can’t believe I did that.”

Yuka wonders if this is something she needs to worry about, in addition to all the other things they found out in this conversation. Then she remembers what she and Koji absolutely did not overhear outside.

Right. Teenagers.

She glances over at their two teens. Unsurprisingly, Azula looks politely baffled at this turn of events. Toph, also unsurprisingly, is grinning like the corporal just gave her a pile of metal scraps and a no-restrictions spar. (Why, Rùfen, why? Why would she do that?) (Yuka was not amused by being voluntold for that either.)

“Did what?”

She’s beginning to think Toph will never meet a moose-lion she will not poke.

Suki lifts her head and glares, which is entirely lost on Toph. “Nope, not answering that.” She clears her throat and sits up straight, attempting to regain whatever composure there is to be had around here. “One of them was a waterbender, actually.”

Koji sucks in a breath while Yuka tries very hard to keep her face still. A waterbender? From the Southern Tribe? They were supposed to be all gone. That’s what...that’s what her father had said. What her stepmother had used like a knife against her for so many years.

(“Do you want to die, girl? I can make it far more painless than they will if they catch you.” Yuka cringes away from the tall form of the man who calls himself her father. It’s no use; a large pale hand wraps around her skinny wrist and pulls her forward. She can’t help but stare at his hand, how much brighter it looks than her own darker skin.

“Of course that snow eater had to leave me with a damn waterbender of all things. Can’t even have a useful element,” he mutters. “Last one left, and I can’t even kill you for it.”

Yuka stares into eyes that look like hers, only so, so cold. She knows she’ll never make the mistake of thinking that she’ll actually fit in here any more than she did the state home. She certainly won’t make the mistake of thinking he’d ever love her.)

“A waterbender and the Avatar. That’s gonna be a target,” Toph points out, leaning back on her hands.

“The ship could be chasing them already,” Azula says quietly. “We didn’t know why they were enroute here.”

That’s certainly plausible. Considering who the commander in question is, that’s even likely. For all that Zhao’s been hellbent on catching (or killing) them, the Avatar is probably the only thing that’s a bigger prize to him than the Exile.

That...could be a problem.

——

Uncle and Jee had wanted to use the time stopped at Kyoshi Island for some resupplying (and whatever the hell Tsui needed to fix in the engine room, because apparently there’s always something), so after that conversation with Suki, Toph’s pretty much left to her own devices for awhile. Which is normal, at this point. She’s certainly not complaining. Not when the alternative version of her life is probably sitting in a room back with her parents all wrapped up in so much silk she can’t move.

That’d be a hard no, thanks.

Instead, she gets to hang out on an island for a while. Which is fantastic, because it means she has actual solid ground underneath her feet again. Oh rock, how she missed you. Don’t get her wrong, bending metal is completely awesome (especially because she’s the only one who can do it, oh yes, the title of World’s Greatest Earthbender is unquestionably hers), but there’s still nothing like good old earthbending.

She tilts her head as she feels someone approaching, their steps just barely there. Toph grins. Of course Smoky would come find her eventually. Not that she was trying very hard to be hidden or anything. She’s just on one of the many rocky outcrops overlooking the beach. Just out of the way enough to be able to enjoy the feeling of dirt between her toes without hearing all the other people.

Azula is, of course, the exception.

Toph never really expected to have a best friend when she snuck out of the estate in Gaoling after the Exile, but she sure as hell won’t trade it for anything. Not just because it got her out of her parents’ house, or because it led to her and her parents actually getting along. (Sort of? It’s...a work in progress. One of those that works best at a distance.)

Because as much as she didn’t have any idea what she was doing when it came to this entire “friendship” thing, it became really obvious that Azula had even less of an idea. And the more time she spent, the more the little things became apparent. Sure, throwing her at Mother’s whims for clothing stuff was hilarious, but Toph’s not stupid. She noticed her friend doesn’t really have a lot when it comes to personal possessions. And Azula’s confusion was obvious when Mother shoves nice clothing into her arms. (That clothing came from Beifong stock. If it’s not the high-quality stuff, Toph will eat Koji’s sandals.)

Azula used to be the princess of the Fire Nation. She’s not used to nice things (or things at all) and she was a princess.

Then there’s all the other things, like how she’s stiff around adults sometimes, how she freezes just a moment still when she makes the smallest mistake in practice. Spirits, she used to call the Fire Lord “Honored Father” and that had gotten super-creepy after a while.

So considering all that? Toph noticed Smoky’s reaction the second Suki said the Avatar is alive and had just been here. And she knows that her friend is not as chill about the situation as other people apparently think she is.

(To be fair, other people aren’t Toph, and thus are always at a critical disadvantage.)

“So...” Toph drawls as Azula gets closer, then sits down next to her on the ground. “That was interesting.”

She feels her friend’s shrug against her shoulder.

Toph thinks about ignoring it all. She doesn’t have to bring it up, she can pretend she didn’t notice anything, let Azula do whatever she wants. They could just not talk about it, let things just happen. She could talk about something else! Like Koji’s ridiculous attempts to do...something with giant fish. Toph’s not really sure what he wants to do with them, but she knows that he’s very insistent about spending as much time on the beach as he can. She also knows Koji, so it’s probably a giant koi. Rhino koi? Whale koi?

(Seriously, how is he an earthbender? Did a spirit get drunk? Can that happen?)

Or she can tell Azula that these Kyoshi Warriors are not nearly as stealthy as they think they are. She’s sensed like five of them just hiding behind the trees. For all the little pebbles, she can, in fact, hear the giggling. She’s blind, not deaf.

Okay, it’s...entirely possible they don’t know she can hear them. But still. Less whispering.

(Although she can’t complain too much. Because otherwise, Toph wouldn’t know that some of them think that “the Exile” is all kinds of “cool” and “mysterious”, which is hilarious. She’s pretty sure she accidentally turned some of the ground into marble, trying to keep herself from laughing.)

(Toph witnessed Azula trip over her own feet just two weeks ago, because she apparently forgot how long her legs are. Serves her right for growing taller, the jerk. Her friend is many things, but “cool” is not one of them, thanks.)

Or she can stop having rock-for-brains and actually talk about this topic instead of dancing around it like a coward.

“The Avatar. Visited here. That is definitely a thing that happened.”

“Hm,” her friend hums in response. “So Commander Suki said.”

“Wasn’t capturing the Avatar one of the conditions for you to go home?”

“Initially.” Azula sounds extremely bland, and her heart’s not racing. No, not bland. Bored. Huh. That’s not one that shows up often. “I doubt bringing the Avatar back would be enough to rescind the exile.”

Toph can’t disagree; Smoky’s dad is an asshole like that.

But there’s a question here, and Toph really doesn’t want to ask it. She should ask it, she probably needs to ask it, but...does she need to know the answer? Because her friend is being non-committal and it was one thing when it was pretty obvious Smoky couldn’t go home. Now, though...suddenly, that might be possible.

And Toph doesn’t know what that means.

Azula is like a furnace next to her, a comforting warmth that contrasts with the sea breeze, and is as familiar to her as the rock against her back and the dirt beneath her feet. It’s the most natural thing in the world to lean over and bump their shoulders together. And Toph feels the grin stretch across her face when she does it, at her friend’s easy acceptance of casual touch. It had taken so long for her to even get to this point.

Toph doesn’t want to lose that. And even though she’s not scared of anything, the thought of things changing, of having to give this up? It’s not a thought she likes to think about.

So she knows she has to ask. “What are you going to do?”

Azula doesn’t say anything, not at first. Which is fine. She still tries to pick her words carefully, like she has to be as precise with them as she is with, well, everything else. Like she has to always use the right ones.

(Sometimes, Toph lets herself imagine Smoky’s dad meeting the badgermoles deep within the earth. It’s a good thought.)

“The Fire Lord...can’t get his hands on the Avatar,” she says, finally.

“So I guess that means you won’t be catching him and taking him back to your dad.” Toph says it lightly, far lighter than it probably should be, because she wants it to be a joke, even when it’s not.

Because it isn’t. The Fire Lord getting ahold of the Avatar? It won’t matter how many Fire Navy ships they sink or soldiers they take out. They’ll keep running and fighting until they can’t anymore, but the end result would be the same: the Fire Nation would win and there would be nowhere left to run. And when that happened, they’d spend the rest of their lives in a cell.

If they were lucky.

There’s a reason Smoky can’t set foot in a village along the Earth Kingdom coast (contested territory included, thanks) without being recognized. Toph may be blind, but even she can figure out the obvious. Somehow, after a hundred years of warfare, her best friend had somehow sparked something new in people.

No, not sparked. That’s not right. (She’s been hanging around Fire Nationals too long) People in the Earth Kingdom found solid ground again, just a tiny scrap of it. But it’s solid, and it’s there, and the people of the Earth know what to do with even the smallest pebble. A tiny scrap can be enough to stand on, enough to build on. Or enough to start a rockslide.

People are fighting back again, harder and fiercer than before. Suddenly, the Fire Nation is losing territory it held for years. And none of that might matter now that the Avatar’s back and if he ends up captured.

“No,” Azula agrees, quietly. A pause. “Did you think I would?”

“No.” Her reply is instant, and Toph feels utter relief when she realizes it's the truth. Of course Azula wouldn’t; she’s figured out that her dad isn’t worth rabbit-oxen spit. (Of course she wouldn’t have to abandon her best friend.) (First friend. Only friend.) “You’re smarter than that.”

She feels Smoky go a little stiff next to her, before she lets out a quiet laugh. “Ah.” Her friend shifts, pulling her knees up to her chest. “I don’t think it’d matter.”

“We are really good at sinking boats.”

“Yes.” Azula sighs. “I knew...a long time ago...that the Fire Lord didn’t want me back. So this doesn’t really change anything.”

Again, the Fire Lord is an asshole, but that’s hardly news at this point. Still doesn’t make Toph any less angry all over again. She balls her fists in the fabric of her pants, and her knuckles brush against the bag at her hip. Right, that’s something else to talk about.

Toph opens the pouch and pulls out the slim pieces of metal she’s been playing around with. Part of the conversation from the other day stuck in her head and won’t let go. For all that it’s free entertainment to watch Mother fuss over the state of Azula’s clothes, the fact is that the new height did mean she’s had to abandon her old armor. And Toph knows she learned how to fight in armor, so there’s weird muscle memory things now.

She knows her friend has scars. She’s felt them under Azula’s shirt sleeves and on her wrists, the raised and rough skin that tells a story to Toph’s fingers as clear as what she assumes writing would. So she doesn’t assume those are the only ones.

Not when Azula doesn’t even notice getting hurt.

This time it was minor. What if next time it needs stitches again? Or worse.

(Toph remembers that arrow. Remembers how Azula had stumbled, how the breath had been knocked out of her, leaving her unsteady and gasping. She remembers the horror she felt when she reached to grab Smoky’s arm, and brushed the wet wooden shaft of something that shouldn’t be there.

She remembers that sharp and hollow feeling in her chest at the quiet “I’ve had worse.”)

(“What happened?” she hisses at Uncle. Azula is asleep on the bed in their shared quarters, so very still that Toph keeps a hand on her wrist, just to feel she’s still there. It doesn’t matter how strong and steady the heartbeat is, there’s a part of Toph’s head that won’t shut up that’s telling her the girl next to her is more smoke than stone. She’ll blow away in an instant, she’s the lightning that she calls so easily, and she needs Toph to keep her grounded. “What’s worse?”

Uncle shifts slightly, the fabric of his sleeves sliding against each other as if he’s wringing his hands. “I don’t know,” he sighs. “There’s so much I dearly wish I knew.”

There’s something he’s not telling her.

Unless it’s not his to tell.)

Toph runs her fingers across the metal in her hands, feeling the fine grain underneath her fingertips. It’s lightweight, but the metal whispers to her words of strength and hardness, interlocking pieces arranged just so, like stones in a wall. It had taken a while to get enough scrap from up and down the colonies, but she had enough of it now. Enough to start fixing this problem.

She jabs her elbow into Smoky’s side, earning her a grunt but also her target’s attention. “Here,” she says gruffly as she shoves the forearm guards she metalbent into the girl’s lap. “For when you forget and block like an idiot.”

“You didn’t — “

“Sure I did,” Toph interrupts. “‘Cause you’re gonna keep doing it and before you know it, you’re gonna be missing an arm or something.”

Azula doesn’t say anything for a long moment. That’s okay. She knows her friend is still really bad at this social interaction thing, and gifts still trip her up. (Spirits, she’s still not sure if that first birthday was a disaster or a success.)

So when there’s a quiet “Thanks,” it’s completely unexpected.

Toph grins. “Anytime.”

Chapter Text

There’s a knock at the door. Zuko jolts awake so abruptly, he rolls off his zabuton and crashes to the floor. Thankfully, none of the things on his writing desk go flying, otherwise he’d also be covered in ink.

“Nice form, Zuzu,” Little Azula says from where she sits leaning against his bedroom wall.

Zuko is a mature sixteen year old, trusted by his Father the Fire Lord to take care of important parts of the nation’s domestic affairs. He has been working at all hours doing his best to prove that Father’s faith and trust in him is not misplaced. He absolutely does not have to dignify the apparition of his sister with any kind of response.

Zuko sticks his tongue out at her.

The knock comes again. Little Azula sighs. “Are you going to answer that?”

“Yes?” he calls out.

“Mail, Your Highness,” Wen answers calmly, voice muffled by the door.

Well, that’s probably important. He picks himself up off the floor and hurries over to let the older servant in. It’s a good thing he did, seeing as how she has two scrolls in one hand and a tray with tea and food in the other.

“Good afternoon, Prince Zuko,” she says.

It’s afternoon? Zuko glances out the window and bites back a curse. Sure enough, the sun is well past it’s high point. He’d only meant to rest his eyes for a little bit; the proposals for improvements to the rice paddies are ironically dry. His stomach growls, and he’s abruptly reminded that he missed lunch. And breakfast.

Wen raises an eyebrow. Zuko feels his cheeks get hot, but he shuffles aside to let her in. She sets the tray down on a table but before he can ask about the scrolls, a bowl of spicy cold sesame noodles is shoved into his hands.

Zuko desperately wants to just start shoveling food into his face; he’s hungry, and he’s got other work to do, so many other proposals, and Wen is keeping his mail hostage. Unfortunately (fortunately?) proper decorum wins out, and he folds himself down into a seat at the table before he starts eating. A steaming cup of green tea appears next to his hand.

He swallows. “Thank you.”

Wen folds her arms into her sleeves and steps back with a faint smile. “Of course, Prince Zuko.”

She’s still holding onto his mail. Any other servant and he’s pretty sure he could easily get them to hand the scrolls over. Wen, however, is used to wrangling his sister. Zuko knows an icicle in a volcano stands a better chance than he does.

(Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Little Azula watching Wen avidly. That’s...should he be worried about that? He knows she’s not real, she’s not really here, that’s impossible. It’s impossible and makes no sense. So he shouldn’t read anything into his imaginary sister’s interest in her former servant.

It’s all in his head. Yes. Wait. That’s...not as comforting as it should be.)

Thankfully, she hands over the scrolls immediately when he finishes his food. He stares at them for a moment. Neither are the usual mail he gets. One’s similar, but the seal on it tells him the difference immediately. The other is on paper that’s common in the colonies because of the price. He grins.

Mai and Ty Lee.

Eagerly, he breaks the seal on the second one. Ty Lee’s letters are always a riot, and this one is no different. Zuko knows she finds it hilarious that her letters to him look like yearning love letters to everyone else. Because Ty Lee is an evil genius who needs to be reminded to use her powers for good. Who else would come up with a complex cipher like that?

(He remembers when she taught it to him before she left. It nearly made his head explode. Ty Lee had never shown an interest in puzzles like this before, so of course he asked where in Koh’s lair she’d dug this up from.

Turns out, Ty Lee has no interest, but one of her sisters does and wants to go into Intelligence.

Because of course. Zuko doesn’t know why he asks, sometimes.)

His eyes skim over the words and he starts mentally translating, which is made harder because Zuko is very much aware that Wen is still standing there watching him read a letter that has spirits-blessed hearts drawn on the paper. And he knows he’s blushing, which of course makes it look like it’s the letter and why did he ever think this was a good idea?

But he manages it. Buried under the very enthusiastic descriptions of acrobatics routines and incredibly gushing memories of very embarrassing things that absolutely never happened is the information that she actually wanted to send him.

He thinks.

Zuko frowns at a particularly vivid description of the two of them in a field of fire lilies on a warm spring day. They are apparently watching a fire fox chase after a komodo-lizard twenty times its size that's terrorizing turtleducks in the pink-and-gold sunset. At least, that’s what he thinks they’re supposed to be watching. It’s a metaphor for something, because he’s...pretty sure that never happened. Although he’s at a loss as to what she actually means.

Ugh, he needs more sleep before he tries to translate Ty Lee into normal words.

“Something the matter, Your Highness?” Wen asks with a raised eyebrow. Spirits, what is his face doing if she could read him that easily?

“No, everything is fine.” He swallows and tries to force his face back into a neutral expression. “It’s just...Ty Lee always writes the craziest letters, you know?”

And he’s not even lying! Because how else is he supposed to take news about the bounty on his little sister’s head increasing again? Or that there’s rumors of an entire Onibi squad that just disappeared in one of the southern colonies, after they'd been sent to hunt her down?

(Where are they getting these orders? Father wants Azula home alive. Who dares disobey Father?)

(This isn’t her fault, she’s got General Iroh whispering sedition in her ear. There’s treason in the ranks because there are soldiers disobeying their orders and going after his little sister with intent to kill her. What else is she supposed to do? Don’t they realize that this is just what the traitors want?)

Ty Lee’s letter makes his heart ache, makes him want to rage and scream, spit fire and watch them burn. It’s like there’s a dragon in his soul, shaking awake and it’s hissing in his ear ‘mine, mine, mine’. He wants to sink his swords (his teeth, his claws) into those who threaten what is his, those who keep him from what is his.

Soon. Not now. Zuko breathes in, grabs that anger, and cradles the ember as he carefully places it with the rest. It’s fuel for later. Later, he’ll let it out, like Father says. Use that rage to shake the world and blaze across a continent to strike down his enemies. But not today.

He sets Ty Lee’s letter aside and picks up Mai’s. Hers, at least, does not look like a love letter, thank the spirits for small favors. No, Mai writes to him on her father’s official parchment, expensive and exactly what one would expect from nobility, and applies both her own and her family’s seal on the scroll. It’s enough to protect it. The only people other than himself and Wen who would have touched the letter are those who take care of Father’s personal correspondence.

Zuko breaks the seals, unrolls the scroll, and snorts in amusement. Of course Mai would write out all of his titles, both to stick excruciatingly exactly to protocol, but also to mess with him. Mostly to mess with him. Which, fair. The titles are ridiculous, and he skips down to the actual letter.

Dear Zuko,

Xicheng remains just as thrilling as it was the last time I wrote. That is to say, absolutely not at all. The single most exciting thing that has happened was when a Colonel Sanren stopped over at the garrison for resupply. My father met with him. He had come with updated bounty posters, which is why I suspect he asked about your sister.

She’s still alive, by the way, at least according to the rumors. Ironically, the rumors also say that the Avatar has returned. Although it was near Kyoshi Island, so maybe someone is just very stupid. Just you wait, the next thing we’ll hear is that your sister is chasing them, like this is some kind of insipid Ember Island play.

Zuko swears his heart stops for a second. Despite the words she uses, Mai wouldn’t even bother writing a rumor down unless she’s damn near certain it’s fact and properly vetted. The Avatar has returned. Sighted near Kyoshi Island.

Wasn’t there that report that Commander Zhao sent, about nearly getting cornered by the insurgent fleet? He shuffles through the papers scattered on his desk until he finds it. It’s not even a full report, just that he’d been forced to flee near Kyoshi. The cursed ship was identified among the insurgents.

The cursed ship. The Yinglong.

Azula.

Is...is she really chasing after the Avatar?

Zuko’s heart twists, and he brings his hand up to grasp the small scroll he keeps next to his chest, the last message he ever got from his sister.

(I am trying.)

That was the original condition. Is she trying to tell him something? That even after all this time, she hasn’t let the General sink his claws into her? That she’s still loyal, still his sister, still never a traitor?

His eyes burn and he squeezes them shut. But hope fills his lungs as he breathes, for the first time in three long years. He can work with this. Azula’s giving him a chance, Mai’s given him a precious gift, and he’s not going to waste it. Now is not the time to be hasty. Wait for confirmation. If ever there was a time for him to take the cautious path, this is it.

There’s more to Mai’s letter, once he settles his mind back down into reading it. Her father is a competent governor in most circumstances, but from her letter, it’s starting to look increasingly like there’s trouble brewing in Xicheng. Which fits right in with the trouble brewing in all the other colonies. Agitators using Azula’s posters as propaganda. Food riots have erupted in more than one colony, due to the war, mismanagement, and attacks on supply lines. Sedition being printed and distributed.

Father’s doubled protection on the supply lines, increased the funding going to the colonies, and sent representatives directly to bring concerns to him. So far, Father’s methods are working. The Army hasn’t had to be redirected from the front to put down insurrections. But Zuko doesn’t know how long that’s going to stay true. The colonies are a mess; Father has to spend so much time fixing it.

Which is why Zuko should probably stop falling asleep on....whatever domestic policy it was that numbed his brain into a false sense of security.

Wen clears her throat, catching his attention. “Itsuki should be here soon, with your official correspondence. Will you need anything else?” she asks as she swiftly cleans up his impromptu lunch.

Right. Free time over. Back to work.

Zuko shakes his head. “Not right now.” He smiles. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” She bows and sweeps out of his rooms with the tray in her hands, leaving the teapot behind, of course.

He looks to the side and sees Little Azula still staring at Wen’s retreating back. There’s something strange in her expression, almost like a hunger burning in her eyes.

(A memory, somewhat faded, comes to him. It’s late one night. He should be asleep in bed, but it’s one of those nights when the air is still and stifling, with the humidity high enough that clothing sticks to the skin. He’s restless. A walk might help. Or a trip to the kitchens.

Zuko creeps out of his room and pads down the hallway. He’s at the intersection that separates his family’s rooms from the rest of the Palace when he hears footsteps coming down the hallway towards him. It’s kind of a surprise when an older servant comes into view. It’s even more surprising when he realizes she’s carrying Azula, dead asleep on her shoulder.

He frowns. That’s not normal. Servants aren’t supposed to touch royalty, much less carry the princess down a hallway at night. Although, he notes as he recognizes the woman as the head of Azula’s household staff, this might be the case for an exception.

The servant bows, somewhat awkwardly, without disturbing her charge. “Is everything all right, Your Highness?”

“Why do you have my sister?” he demands.

She looks down at the girl in her arms. “Princess Azula had a very intense training session and fell asleep in the dojo. I’m merely taking her to her room.”

Oh. That...that sounds like something his sister would do. Azula looks exhausted, pale and worn in the moonlight. Zuko sighs. She’s so ridiculous. He can’t even be surprised she didn’t even make it back to her rooms before she fell asleep. Still, he thinks as he watches her almost curl like a koala-fox into the servant’s arms, this is against protocol. Well, unless he were to go put his sister to bed and asked a servant to carry her instead.

“I’ll escort you,” he decides and barely waits for the agreeing nod before he takes off down the hallway leading to his sister’s room. They’re in the same wing, but a different section from his and their parents.

He always thought that it’s odd that Grandfather put them in a wing with the wrong number of rooms for his family to be together.)

“What is it?” he asks her.

Little Azula blinks and turns to look at him with a solemn expression. “She’s kind. She was mine.”

Zuko feels his breath hitch in his lungs. “She will be again, when you come home,” he promises fiercely. “I’ll keep her safe for you.”

She stares at him. “Do you promise?”

“Of course I promise. Nothing will happen to Wen.”

His little sister’s expression doesn’t change. “Do you promise I’ll come home?”

And oh if those words aren’t a knife to his heart. Zuko knows she’s not real, she’s not really here, but does that even matter? When those words can sear the flesh from his bones and leave him bare and aching. Does it even matter? “Of course you will. You’ll come home, even if I have to drag it out of the spirits themselves,” he whispers, full of utter conviction.

——-

Omashu is...a lot, Aang thinks as he stares at the city sprawling out below him. After a lot of effort and running around doing tasks for King Bumi, he’s at least gotten a chance to rest in a guest suite and actually think.

He’s...not entirely sure he wants to. Aang’s not really sure of anything right now.

For example, King Bumi! Yeah, the completely mad tasks should have been his first hint that this is his old friend, but Aang last remembers Bumi being twelve. Not looking every one of those hundred years he missed. And he should be happy, because this isn’t another friend he has to miss (has to say good-bye to). Bumi’s still here.

But Bumi’s old. He’s lived a life, achieved his dream, become the greatest earthbender in the world.

What has Aang done? Ran away and got himself frozen long enough to miss his entire people getting killed. Oh and then ran away again and...

He squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t want to think about Kyoshi. What would have happened. What he left them to. Doesn’t want to think of how Suki and Peizhi are just bones and ash like Kalden and Yangtso and Gyatso and...

Which one of them is supposed to be the legendary hero again?

“Aang?” Katara’s voice startles him out of his thoughts. She’s looking at him all concerned, and he wants to cringe because of course he’s making her worry. She’s got to be upset too, not to mention worried because Sokka’s gone to take a walk and they’ve never been here, and she’s asking about him.

He pastes a smile on his face (pretends it doesn’t hurt) as he turns towards her. “Yeah?”

She’s frowning now. Oh no, what happened? “Aang, are you...” she presses her lips together. “Are you feeling up for dinner?”

Aang knows that’s not how she was originally going to end that sentence. He’s also really glad she did end it that way, because he’ll take this distraction. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Oh, they both know there’s an entire list as to why this is a terrible idea. Sure, dinner with the King of Omashu, dinner with his old friend, how can this possibly be bad? (Pretend that the old man, older than Gyatso, like a boulder that’s been worn by years, that he’s the same boy who dared him to ride the mail chutes. Pretend that he’s the same person, when Bumi’s lived ten times longer.)

(He can’t pretend that the world didn’t run ahead when he was stuck. The world left him behind.)

Katara gives him an unreadable look. “All right.” She nods towards the door. “Want to head down? Sokka said he’d meet us there.”

Momo takes the opportunity to jump onto Aang’s shoulder, which is a good enough answer as anything, so he follows Katara down to the dining hall. “Where’d he go, anyway?”

“He wanted to take a look around the city. I told him that he should wait, but spirits forbid he actually listens to me,” she said.

“He...should be all right,” Aang tries. “Omashu’s protected, right?”

Katara’s shoulders slump as she sighs. “So you say. I just...” She chews her lip. “I feel better when we’re all together.”

Aang has to look away. He gets it. Oh does he ever. He’s lost track of how many nights he’s woken up, heart racing, breath caught in his lungs because he’s convinced he’s alone again. That this is all a dream, but not that the bad things never happened, rather that none of the good did.

(Katara and Sokka keep him tethered. He’s an airbender, a master even, he should abhor the thought of being tied down. But it’s the thought of being swept away by the winds of fate that terrifies him.)

(He flew into a storm before and lost himself before he found the eye. He doesn’t think he’d survive it happening again.)

“Sokka will be fine, you’ll see,” Aang says instead.

And for once since this nightmare started, the universe has decided to be kind. Sokka is waiting for them, leaning against the wall next to the entrance to the dining hall. He’s got some kind of papers in his hands, but the important part is that he’s there, and grinning.

“Took you guys long enough.” Sokka grins as he pushes off the wall to greet them.

The rest of the tension in Katara’s shoulders leaves as soon as she sees him. “Like you’ve been here the whole time,” she snipes back, a smile taking the bite out of the words. “What do you have there?” She gestures to the papers in his hand.

Sokka waves her off. “Later. I want to ask the king about something.”

Dinner is...well, awkward. Aang’s sure the food is excellent, but there’s probably some kind of irony in the fact that all he can taste is ashes. Or maybe that’s the conversation. Or lack of conversation. He never thought it’d be possible, but he doesn’t know how to talk to Bumi. The things that feel like they happened a few months ago to him are decades in the past for his friend.

(It hurts just as much as seeing...home. Because home doesn’t exist for him, not anymore. Home is on the other side of the sea and a hundred years ago, and he can’t get it back.)

The sound of dishes clattering pulls Aang’s attention back to the present. Sokka has cleared the table in front of him and slaps the papers he had onto the surface. “Your, er, Majesty,” he starts.

“Oh, just call me Bumi, none of this ‘majesty’ nonsense.” One of Bumi’s advisors looks scandalized; his friend just cackles.

(Okay...maybe his friend...isn’t so different.)

Sokka blinks. “Er, right. Anyway.” He spreads one of the scrolls out flat. Aang leans over for a better look and is really confused.

It’s a picture of a girl, with classic Fire Nation features clear even in the simple black-and-white print. Maybe she’d be pretty, but there’s something...off about it. Her hair looks too precise, and the shape of her jawline makes something itch in the back of his mind. He’s not sure if her glare is accurate or if it’s something the artist came up with. Whatever it is, it makes her look mean.

It’s a wanted poster, but the part where it stops making sense is that it’s a Fire Nation wanted poster. In Omashu, which Aang is 100% certain is not Fire Nation. But here’s this poster Sokka found somewhere, and that is absolutely the Fire Nation Royal Seal on it, and judging from the reward, whoever this “Azula of the Caldera” is, the Fire Lord really does not like her.

It only gets more confusing from there. Because someone has taken red ink and painted a slash across the bottom half of the girl’s face, nose to chin and part of her neck. And across the bottom, in the same red ink, are words of defiance.

MAKE THEM CHOKE ON THEIR OWN ASH

Aang glances over, but Katara looks just as confused as he is. “What is this?” she asks.

Sokka shrugs. “I found them outside. I’m really confused as to why, given their, well, everything.”

Bumi cackles. “Oh, you don’t know about The Exile!”

The Water Tribe siblings look just as confused as Aang feels. “‘The Exile’?” he asks.

“Only the biggest pain in the Fire Lord’s side for the past three years.” Bumi leans back with a toothy smile. “Although now you might make her have to work for that top spot.”

Aang blinks, then looks back at the drawing of the girl. Well, that could explain the reward amount. “How?”

“Oh, the usual. Sinking naval ships. Throwing out terrible governors from the contested territories. Stealing back Earth Kingdom property.” He sounds very satisfied. “We’ve taken back more territory in the last three years than in the last thirty.”

Sokka perks up. “Sinking ships? Our father mentioned there was a new fleet causing trouble.”

“That’s them. Say they sail under a blue dragon flag.”

Katara sits up straighter. “Did you say blue dragon flag?” she demands.

He feels like there’s a rock in his stomach, dragging him down to earth. There’s so much, and he can’t get a feel for what’s going on because every time he thinks he has a grip on something, it becomes like sand in his hands. He ran away and now he’s running to catch up and it feels like he’s chasing the wind. But instead of feeling like freedom, like joy (like it always does), it feels impossible.

Bumi nods.

She whirls to him and Sokka. “Those ships! From Kyoshi! They were flying a black flag that had a blue dragon.”

“Sounds like you ran into them,” Bumi says.

Aang feels his heart leap in his chest. Could it be he didn’t fail? That he didn’t leave another group of people at the mercy of the Fire Nation, to die in flame and choking on ash? That he didn’t let even more people who are counting on him down?

“There were six of them. Following a large ship,” Sokka replies, and Aang can hear the same caution in his voice. Right. None of them had wanted to leave and let Kyoshi burn. He’s not the only one who thinks he failed.

That’s...strangely comforting.

And now he feels bad again. How can he be thankful that he’s not the only one hurting?

(Gyatso would be so disappointed.)

Bumi cackles. “I suspect some Fire Nation captain had a very bad day!”

“Well,” Sokka says as he turns towards them. “This sounds promising.”

Aang can’t help but stare at the Fire National girl’s eyes. She doesn’t look that much older than he does. It’s unsettling, hearing his old friend talk about this stranger like other people talk about him, to only know her through this drawing. Do other people see him the same way? Do they see Aang as a sketch of a person, drawn in black and white?

(Are either of them real?)

“But who is she? Exiled from where?” Katara gestures at the paper on the table. “She looks like a kid!”

“Yes!” Bumi’s got that grin that screams that he’s got an idea or something that’s going to cause a lot of people headaches. (Aang is very familiar with that grin. And with the headaches.) “That would be because The Exile is a kid!”

Aang doesn’t know if he should be surprised or not.

“But who is she?” Katara repeats, frustrated. “She’s Fire Nation! Why is she wanted by them?”

“Oh, that’s easy enough to figure out,” Bumi says, still grinning madly. “She’s the Fire Lord’s kid.”

Sokka starts choking on his drink. “What?!”

Katara looks at the drawing, then back up to Bumi, then points to the drawing. “She’s the princess of the Fire Nation?!”

Aang definitely feels a headache. But at least this time, he’s not the only one who’s all wrong-footed. Should he feel bad that he’s thankful Sokka and Katara are equally confused?

“So...the princess of the Fire Nation has been...sinking Fire Navy ships?” he says slowly.

Bumi shrugs. “Ex-princess, technically. Guess you can’t be royalty and an exile at the same time!”

How does that even happen?

“According to the rumors, she apparently won some fight,” Bumi says. Oh, apparently he asked that out loud. “Her daddy threw her out of the country. I think it’s safe to say she didn’t take it well.”

The girl in the drawing doesn’t look that much older than he does. She can’t be older than Sokka. She’s just a kid, like Bumi said.

Just a kid, like Aang.

“I feel so conflicted.” Sokka’s voice is solemn.

“So are a lot of people.” Bumi sighs, suddenly sounding his age. “Things have...changed, in the last few years. It’s harder to find stable ground now. The kid upset the game, and a lot of people stopped waiting.”

Aang hears what he didn’t say. That people stopped waiting for him. The Avatar. He should be glad, right? People aren’t all looking to him, it’s what he wanted. And now he might have it but he didn’t want it like this, not like this at all.

Bumi is saying something else, but Aang can’t hear him, too lost in his own thoughts.

Because his thoughts are like a typhoon, spiraling and howling in his head, circling around something that if he could only reach, he’d be able to breathe. He’d be able to put all these pieces together and figure things out. Figure out why all of this rests on him.

The drawing stares up unblinking.

Just a kid, being used as a symbol.

There’s no way he can miss the irony. Aang half-expects to hear the wind laughing at him, because it’s not fair. How young was she when she lost her home? It’s not the same, not at all, because Aang’s home is gone. This Exile has a chance, her home still exists, and he shouldn’t be jealous. He shouldn’t want things like this, shouldn’t wish this on anyone.

Suddenly, it’s all too much. The walls feel like they’re pressing in on all sides, solid and unyielding stone wanting to swallow him whole, and he needs to get out of here. His hands shake and he can’t stop it, so he hides them in the folds of his robes, and prays no one else notices. He needs the air, needs the sky, because if he doesn’t feel free he’s going to make himself free.

“I...I’m sorry, I need to go.” Aang doesn’t wait; he ducks his head and shoots out of the dining room.

“Aang!” Katara sounds so worried but he can’t stop. Not now. He glances around, trying to remember the layout of the building from when he and Bumi snuck in all those years ago and stumbles down a hallway. Up a flight of stairs. And another. And another, climbing until he can’t anymore and he bursts out onto a balcony.

Omashu sprawls out beneath him, lantern-light reflecting off the stone walls, turning everything a warm gold. The stars are peeking out as the moon begins her nightly trek across the sky. Aang closes his eyes, sucks in a breath, and tries to find the center of the typhoon.

Gyatso used to tell him that sometimes to move forward, one had to be willing to stand still. It’s always been hard for Aang, this kind of stillness. He was born an airbender. It was air that greeted his first breath, who carried his first laugh. It’s air that fills his lungs and sings past his ears. Air that doesn’t move is dead. He was born to chase the wind.

He breathes in, and his eyes snap open. That’s it. A laugh bubbles up in his chest. He brings his hand close to his face, palm up towards the sky. A tiny squall dances in his palm. “You’re the same,” Aang murmurs. “You never left.”

The wind twirls past his head, and he feels the sound of long-ago laughter echoing in the breeze. Tears prick at his eyes again, but this time he doesn’t feel the hole in his chest where his heart should be. “You’re still here, you waited, you’re with me,” he says, a smile pulling at his cheeks even through the tears.

“Aang?” Katara sounds hesitant, like she’s not sure she should be here, like she’s not sure of something. He decides right then that he hates that voice. She’s been nothing but conviction and stubbornness, so much like the element she talks to. Water is patient and unstoppable; this attitude here doesn’t fit.

“Hey, Katara.”

He must sound better than he did back in the dining hall, because he hears her breathe out easy as she steps fully onto the balcony next to him. “You okay? You left in a hurry.”

Aang shrugs and rubs the back of his neck. “Ah, sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. It was just...a lot.”

She snorts, and something in his chest eases a little more. “That’s an understatement.” She leans her arms against the railing and looks up at the sky. “Is it bad that I think things were simpler back home?”

Join the club. He shakes his head and lets his arms flop across the railing. “Everything is just so...big.” It’s the wrong word, but he can’t think of a better one. The world is big. The war is big. All the problems and the expectations and just, well, everything. They’re all so very big.

“And complicated.”

There’s something in her voice that makes him stand up straighter. “You’re thinking about the girl in the poster.”

“No. Yes. But...” Katara lets out a frustrated noise. “How am I supposed to feel about this? The Fire Nation took so much from me, it took everything from you. It’s easy to hate them all, because they’re monsters.”

Aang looks down, pretending to be focused on the city below them. He doesn’t want Katara to see the expression he knows is on his face. It still doesn’t seem real. Part of him desperately wants to believe it’s just a dumb prank, a terrible one that he’ll give Kalden grief over for the rest of his life.

(He doesn’t want to believe it was the Fire Nation, that all Fire Nationals are monsters. He knows them, he ate at their table, cheered on the dragon boats, competed with Kuzon in goldfish catching on festival day.

Oh Kuzon.

That day, at the Air Temple...was it Kuzon’s brothers? His father? Uncles or cousins? Did his friend object?

They’re not monsters. They can’t be. Kuzon was his friend. That’s something he can never forget.)

(...Did he remember Aang?)

Her hand reaches for the necklace around her throat for a moment, before falling back to the railing. “Dad mentioned a new fleet helping us. I thought working together would be great.”

“Isn’t it, though? Working together, I mean.”

“Sure...except apparently the leader I have to trust to work with my dad is a thrice-drowned Fire Nation royal.” Katara all but spits out the curse.

Oh. He kind of wants to fold in on himself, hide these parts of himself away because he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know where her edges are, where he needs to be careful because there’s a wound that’s not healed. For all that he saw the...saw the bones, saw scorch marks on the walls and on the stones of his home, the sound of that Water Tribe curse on someone just because of something they can’t even control...

Aang doesn’t want it to be true. He wants to believe so badly in Kuzon, that people like Kuzon still exist. That the world didn’t change so, so much in the time he...wasn’t here.

“Aang?”

He looks up at the note of concern in her voice. The anger that had been carved so deeply on her face is gone, like fog blown away by the morning breeze. He finds he’s powerless against it, that her look of honest worry coaxes him to voice the things he wanted to bury in his heart.

“It’s hard,” he whispers. “I...had a friend. He is...was...a Fire National. A Firebender. Just...I haven’t met anyone else who was fire like Kuzon. A hearthfire, just...warm and friendly and he just...made it easy to feel like you were welcome.”

His face feels wet. Aang drags his arm across his face to wipe it away. Looking back at Katara nearly makes him come undone. His throat twists and tightens. “Even after what I know they did...I can’t hate them,” he says, voice cracking. “I keep seeing my friend and it just...how?”

Katara looks away. “I don’t know,” she says roughly. “That was...that was a long time ago, Aang. Things changed.” She takes a deep breath. “Maybe...maybe there wouldn’t be a war if there had been more people like your friend.”

Aang can hear how much it took to get those words out into the open, can hear that she doesn’t really believe what she’s saying. But he can be grateful that she tried.

“Maybe,” he says instead.

——-

Wen sometimes has to wonder how things came to be this way. She grew up in a poor village, not even large enough to be on the maps. Such obscurity was how her family had still been able to practice some of the old ways, without coming to the attention of the Fire Lord. However, it also meant they had little in the way of any actual resources. Wen didn’t have any delusions about trying her luck with the Imperial Examinations; her family didn’t have the money to pay for private tutors or extra cram schooling. So instead, she left for Caldera City with the minimum formal education and a stubborn determination that she’d make it work. There is no reason she, a peasant girl turned palace servant, should be in the position she is.

Itsuki shuffles awkwardly on his feet in front of her, trying very hard not to jump whenever one of the kitchen staff walks too close to the door of the pantry they’re in.

Wen raises an eyebrow.

He cringes and looks down. “Sorry.”

He’s not a bad young man. Very clever, very neat, and holds a kind of desperate need to do the best he can at all times. His credentials as a scribe are impressive enough that Prince Zuko seems to have lost some of his perpetual stress ever since he was hired. For that alone, Wen is willing to forgive a large number of sins.

However, none of this changes the fact that Itsuki isn’t a very good spy. On the other hand, maybe that’s the point. Wen isn’t a spy either. She’s the furthest thing from a spy. She’s just a servant, a woman with a certain knack, a certain set of skills.

Granted, those skills had mainly been discovered and put to use during a period of eleven years. Being in charge of the princess’s welfare was a...difficult balancing act, and Wen’s criteria for those she hired reflected that. (Kind enough to care about their charge, but with the ruthlessness required to compartmentalize. To have empathy, but stand still and silent. Some couldn’t make it, left in tears that she could not indulge. Not when such displays were dangerous. And those who were too cold would be worse.) Strange how such skills translated to, well, insurrection planning, apparently.

“It’s all right, Itsuki,” she murmurs. “What do you have for me?”

Itsuki looks up, spine snapping straighter as he switches into a more professional mode. His eyes are bright, eager in the dim lighting of the pantry. All nervousness slides off of him like water off a turtleduck’s back.

Itsuki might not be a good spy, but he is an excellent revolutionary.

“Intelligence reports from Yu Dao all the way to Yiyang say the same thing: the colonies are barrels of black powder waiting to blow. The Fire Lord’s policies have helped, but only in the sense that they pushed the inevitable down the road.” He grimaces. “And we’re running out of road.”

“Do you have specifics?”

Itsuki sighs and starts listing off on his fingers. “Food shortages due to attacks on caravans from bandits or rebels taking out roads. War fatigue. Tensions between soldiers and civilians. Colonial governors still playing komodo-chicken with the Exile Fleet. Restrictions on media.” His mouth twists into a sardonic smile. “Oh, and my personal favorite, rumors of the Avatar.”

Wen blinks. Then sighs and rubs her temples. Of course. Why could this not be easy?

Because if it were easy, someone else would have already done it. Possibly done a slap-dash job, but they would have done it.

“And at home?” she murmurs. This part is technically his actual job, ever since the Prince took over the moose-lion’s share of domestic policy. It’s a useful source of information, but Wen very much questions the efficiency of having her be the one in-charge of it. Again, she’s a servant, not a general.

“Better than the colonies,” Itsuki says bluntly. “Most areas aren’t seeing the same kind of shortages in food and trade goods, but there are also enough that are one bad storm away from total disaster. It’d be a lot worse if Prince Zuko hadn’t rejected the proposal to increase industrial production. It would have pulled too many farmers into the factories, and then we’d be entirely dependent on the colonies for food.”

He sighs and shakes his head. “Things are tense in the cities, but still not as bad. At least, there’s a lot less open resentment when the Home Guard is fixing infrastructure. Again, it’d be a lot worse if the right information hadn’t gotten in front of the prince.” The young man looks a bit nervous, although he tries to hide it. “I know some people out of the university, er, like me, they’d say that this isn’t the way, not if the Prince keeps things together enough. But the results do speak for themselves. There’d be a lot of people hurt or dead at home if he wasn’t.”

Wen keeps her face still, but can’t help the warm rush of pride in the boy. He works hard; it’s always nice to see it pay off. (And perhaps...if she could have one wish, it’s that her children make it to the end of this war alive and safe. Both of them.) (Far easier to convince rebels to spare a young, careful, competent administrator than a cruel and incompetent one.) And to see her own work pay off. It had taken a bit of work to get Itsuki the necessary data from the prefectures, as well as more personal reports from the citizens who lived there. Once the man had it, he was able to tweak things to present to Prince Zuko. It was all Wen could hope for that the boy would come to the correct conclusions.

This is what her job has become. Instead of simply juggling employees, she is also juggling information and sorting out who should know which pieces. The spirits must be laughing. Who is she, of all people, to have to carry such a task? Wen has always been a practical sort; even as a child, she was more to be found with her hands in the dirt pulling weeds than her head in the clouds. When she left the village she had been born in, the one her mother had been born in, and her mother, and all the way back into the smoke of the first fires of the nation, it was not to chase a dream.

Well, in those days, a full belly was a dream worth chasing.

She remembers the crack of a shell three years ago, the patterns offered by the spirit of the oracle turtle who left it behind. Ash and bone drew patterns for dark days to come again, days of hungry ghosts, of mud and salt. Wen does not want those days to come again, but who is she to move the pieces where great men can’t see?

(Gold eyes in a small face stare solemnly up at her as she silently wraps a bandage around a too-small wrist. She can trust no one else to do this, not really. The royal physicians would inform the prince or his wife. Who else is there, who else does her girl have but her?

This palace is a prison, a cage of wrath and tears, built of silence and secrets. She’ll do what she can, for as long as she can, because who else can bend their tongues around these secrets, swallow them down without bleeding out from the sharp edges?

The bandage sits tight and secure around an arm that has worn far too many like it before. “Too tight?”

Her little fox-child blinks down at the bandage then shakes her head. The hint of a smile, shy and tentative, whispers against the girl’s lips.

It feels like the morning sun.)

If not her, then there is no one else.

So Wen sits in the shadows of a dimly-lit pantry, off to the side of the kitchen where no one can enter without passing by those loyal to her (to the children), and listens to Itsuki tell her of the goings on in places she’s never been. And later, she will pull from her sources and give him information to give to the prince that will change the lives of people she will never meet. And she’ll continue this dance, this weighing of tragedies and lives over and over, until she knows it's safe to stop.

(She doesn’t know if that will ever happen.)

She only lingers a little while after Itsuki leaves. Really, she wishes there was a better option than a pantry of all things, but options for her are limited, now that the official terms of her employment are somewhat nebulous. This is the safest option, but that doesn’t mean she wishes to stay here any longer than she has to.

In retrospect, she should have been paying more attention than she had been, and not let herself get caught up in shuffling through the latest information from the prince’s personal scribe. As she is not, it’s hardly surprising she finds herself in one of the small gardens near the rooms of the Royal Family. This one is slightly apart from the others, a little more quiet, a little more subdued..

That’s to be expected. It’s closer to the princess’s rooms than the others, rooms that have been empty for the past three years. Why should the gardeners plant the prized flowers where no one would see them?

She prefers this place more than the other gardens. (Underneath that cherry tree, she can almost see the ghost of her dead boy sitting with her tiny lost child, dark heads bent over a cheap and colorful scroll. By the koi pond, she hears the echoes of childish laughter as her lost child chases her brother into the haze of memory.

She knows which secrets are worth keeping.)

A man clears his throat behind her. Wen merely raises an eyebrow as she turns to face Archivist Keiji. “You usually don’t leave the library,” she notes.

Keiji gives her a bland smile. “I’ve been told fresh air is good for me.”

She feels her eyebrow go higher. “And you expect me to believe that was enough to pry you from your precious texts?”

He chuckles. “That would make me feel better.” He produces a small deck of cards from the sleeves of his scholar’s robe. “Would I be able to interest you in a game?”

Wen’s gaze sharpens on the deck. “I always did enjoy a good game of hanafuda,” she says easily as he leads her over to one of the stone benches at the edge of the garden. Her interest is piqued further as he lays out the first hand. What has the prince been researching these days? (Where has the boy found the time?)

Keiji’s lips twitch into a wider smile. “I do hope I can provide an interesting enough game for you.”

“You always do.”

——

After three years at sea, Iroh can say he’s familiarized himself quite well with the general rhythm of life on a boat. He’s even gotten used to, as much as one can get used to, the close quarters such a lifestyle requires. However, he can also readily admit that there is something settling about being on dry land. Maybe it would be different if he were a waterbender, but that is not the nature of his soul.

And he is far too much a son of fire to ever truly be at home on the water.

Jiangxia looks much the same as it did the last time they had stopped here. If one were to simply look at the changes in coastal village garrisons, one could be forgiven for not realizing that it had been almost three years. On the other hand, Iroh notes wryly as Azula steps up next to him, children make it impossible to forget the passage of time.

And three years is a long time in that respect. He takes a moment to examine the girl — no, young woman — next to him. That’s right. His niece is growing up and it’s funny how he feels about that. Before, when they were welcome at home (when he was a more foolish man), he would have felt indifferent at best. Wary and hostile are more likely, cautious of a young dragon’s teeth and claws and blind to the chains that bound her. Blind to the wings that grew stunted because they had never been allowed to fly, to the patterns in scales that were formed by scar tissue to force obedience. Blind to the child in the shadows while all he could see were the ones in the sun.

(He wishes Lu Ten trusted him back then, when he could have stepped in earlier, when he could have saved her so much pain, kept her from losing so much.

He wishes he had earned that trust back then. His son was better than he deserved in so many ways.)

Now, though? Iroh feels a warmth in his chest he hasn’t felt since his son was alive. Pride. It’s been three years since Azula set foot in Jiangxia, and while the village has not changed, the girl very much has. And Iroh feels nothing but pride at how far she’s come already as she stands next to him, straight-backed and clear-eyed, dressed in greys and blues — except for the red of the scarf — and looking nothing at all like his brother’s child. (His brother’s tool, his creature, his. Whatever Ozai once thought, Iroh’s niece is hers.)

Azula looks down at him and tilts her head slightly.

Iroh chuckles. Yes, very different now. Ah, well, he’s used to his children growing taller than him. Lu Ten surpassed him in height when he was twelve. He should be thankful Azula spared him the dignity of at least waiting until she was fourteen.

“Forgive me, Azula,” he says easily, “I was lost in thought. It happens when you get to be my age.”

“You’re not that old, Uncle Iroh,” she replies, voice low as she refocuses her attention back onto the movements around the dock.

Iroh swallows back his first instinctive quip, a deflection or a proverb. It would be the wrong response. For as far as Azula has come in such a short period of time, she still has a long way to go. He still finds he needs to choose his words and reactions carefully sometimes, to explain in ways she understands or to offer words that soothe as intended.

“Well, not everyone remembers that, so thank you, niece.”

She frowns slightly. “You were a general.”

“And yet, some people forget that.” He can’t help but chuckle as she shakes her head slightly in what can only be exasperation. (Lu Ten did the same thing, when he was her age. He’s seeing more and more echoes of his son in this girl, each one a quiet delight, precious like a pearl in an oyster. These small and insignificant moments where she acts her age, acts like a normal child, they have become priceless in his eyes and in his heart.)

The two of them walk off the dock into the village. “Toph didn’t want to come ashore?” he asks. The two children aren’t actually joined at the hip, but some days it seems like it. Not only that, but it is rather surprising that the other girl would skip an opportunity to be on solid ground.

“She’s trying to convince Fai to let her help with the komodo-rhinos again.”

“You mean ride them,” Iroh translates flatly.

He remembers that incident.

Azula turns her head slightly and gives him a bland look. “I informed Captain Jee before I left.”

Iroh also remembers that lecture. He’s pretty sure everyone on the Yinglong does.

Still, he supposes he can’t really blame Toph. Jiangxia is a Fire Nation colony, and technically speaking they are very much violating the terms of their exile by being here. Any one of the people here, from the villagers to the soldiers in the garrison, could attack and even kill them with little to no consequences. That doesn’t mean either Iroh or Azula show even the least bit of concern as two men in Fire Army uniforms come running up to meet them.

Iroh received an invitation after all.

The men salute as soon as they come to a halt. “The 41st welcomes you back to Jiangxia, Your Highness, Sir,” the man with captain’s insignia says, first to Azula then to him. Much to Iroh’s amusement.

“It’s nice to be back,” Iroh replies smoothly. “Captain Tatsuo, if I recall correctly?” Which he should, and also because he’s the man who sent the letter in the first place.

“Yes, sir.” He nods. “If you’ll follow us, we have some refreshments prepared. I’m sure you’d be interested in news from the Home Islands.”

Iroh beams. “I would enjoy a good cup of tea and news,” he muses as they follow after the captain. Azula stays exactly at his side. “The only thing that would make such a suggestion perfect would be a game of pai sho.”

(He catches her eyeroll. Some day soon, he will have to tell her. There are a great many things he needs to tell her.)

Tatsuo nods once. “That can be arranged. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a challenging opponent.” He pauses, then turns to Azula. “Forgive me, Your Highness, but I doubt you’d have much interest in hearing your uncle and I debate the merits of the white lotus gambit or the silver general opening. Sergeant,” he addresses the other man, “please give the Princess a tour of our training facilities and anything else she might be interested in.”

“Yessir.”

“I don’t have that title anymore,” she corrects quietly.

Tatsuo and the sergeant both frown. Tatsuo shakes his head. “Again, forgive me, Your Highness, but most of the men here will be very stubborn about that.”

She sighs, but says nothing further as she follows the sergeant. It’s not the first time people have insisted on using the royal title, and Iroh is certain it won’t be the last. No matter how many edicts and proclamations his brother writes.

(Good, the more-ruthless part of him snaps, hissing like the dragon he’s titled after. His brother stole one legacy from him; he will not steal another.)

“I don’t think she’ll ever be anything but Her Highness to the men,” Tatsuo says softly. Iroh gives him a look; the captain’s smile turns wry. “They don’t forget what she did. I have boys here who lived to be men because of that girl. And they know it.” He shakes his head. “She told me it was the Crown Prince’s idea, but it was the Princess who was banished, and the Princess who saved us and was exiled for it.”

There’s a fire in the man’s voice, a kind of conviction Iroh hasn’t heard in a very long time. Well, a very long time outside those who join them on the ships. But he doesn’t think Captain Tatsuo intends on leaving his post. No, he’s talking something slightly different, an ember of something that needs careful tending, lest it get snuffed out.

Iroh looks at the retreating back of his niece, still so slight next to the bulk of the armored sergeant. Still straight-backed and formal, but all sharp edges and graceful movements. She’s still a tangle of contradictions, a girl bound up in expectations tied like a collar around her neck. Or a noose.

(He fears one day it will strangle her, that despite everything and how far she’s come, this is the inevitability they cannot escape.)

Tatsuo speaks of a different kind of shackle, one placed willingly. He speaks of a different kind of loyalty. It causes Iroh’s breath to catch in his throat. Because this is a very different conversation than the one he was expecting, especially when Tatsuo mentioned pai sho. The captain is not the usual kind of agent.

“I think,” Iroh says, “that I would very much enjoy that promised game and tea?”

His nerves are quite thankful for the fact that the captain leads him to a small officer’s tent next to the main training grounds. From the inside he still has a clear view of the grounds, where he is completely unsurprised to find Azula staring at at least one full fireteam of soldiers. He’s not worried, though. If anything, he’d say she looks like they’re trying to cajole her into...ah yes, that would be a training demo.

Iroh watches for a few moments with no small amount of satisfaction while his young niece expertly puts down a squad of Fire Army soldiers in short order.

“By the mother’s hearth,” Tetsuo whispers from behind him. “She made that look easy.”

That’s because it was, for her, is what he does not say. (He will not speak of the cost either, of a childhood lost to blood and flame unlike any other in the Fire Nation. Unlike any other in the world, possibly, save maybe the Avatar that they had learned about from Kyoshi Island.)

Instead, Iroh clears his throat and sits down in front of the game, placing his first piece. The captain picks up the extremely-pointed change-of-subject and joins him. The game progresses for a while, neither man saying a word and letting the only sound in the tent be the click of tiles against the board.

“They say the Avatar has returned,” Tatsuo says, finally breaking the silence.

Iroh sips his tea and places a tile. “So I’ve heard.”

“I’ve heard reports that he was last seen leaving Omashu, heading north, north-east.”

Interesting. Towards Gaipan. “Any speculation why?”

Tatsuo shakes his head. “It’s an odd choice.” He hesitates a moment, then continues in a voice that’s deliberately light. “I wonder where they’re getting their intel. Even this far away, we’ve gotten notice of some...logistical trouble they've been having in that area.”

Iroh frowns and sets his tea down before placing a tile. “What kind of trouble?”

Tatsuo shrugs. “I couldn’t tell you the details, just that Command actually saw fit to inform us that supplies were being rerouted for the time being.”

“It’s a temporary problem?”

“So it seems.” He places his dragon king tile down and frowns at the board. Iroh raises an eyebrow. That is a very...bold strategy. Captain Tatsuo looks up from the game and stares him in the eyes, face held with a certain type of deliberate calmness that all soldiers learn very quickly. “Rumor is they’ve sent Colonel Sanren to assess the situation.”

Bold strategy indeed.

——-

Azula frowns at the map spread out in front of her. First Mate Shika had put down markers for the last known locations of the other ships in their fleet, as well as what they could determine for the Fire Navy and Water Tribe. The Yinglong isn’t that far from one of the major currents that could take them up the coastline. That would, however, take them through waters more controlled by the Fire Navy, seeing as how they’d be next to the colonies.

Which would be fine. It’s not anything different from what they’ve done in the past. She rubs her hands over her forearms, feeling the metal underneath the cloth. Toph’s gift fits her very well, which really isn’t terribly surprising. Her friend is able to make it so that it fits almost like a second skin; she barely even notices their presence unless she’s paying attention.

There’s still that warm feeling in her chest, cozy and tingling and not at all like the tightness she so often feels when people do things outside the rules she understands for them. Toph gets worried whenever Azula needs to visit Doctor Jian. Which would be fine, except people keep insisting she visits him far more often than she had to visit the infirmary in the Palace. It’s exasperating, because she’s fine.

(She’s fine. She’s dealt with worse on her own. One only needs to go to the infirmary if they’ll die without a doctor’s help after all.)

She wishes she could convince them of that. But no matter how many times she tells them, tells Toph and Uncle Iroh and the others that she’s fine, that they don’t have to waste their energy worrying about her, it never works. So there has to be another way to do it. If avoiding the areas where the Fire Navy is means that they’ll avoid fights that would lead to such worry, that’s acceptable.

Except there are other considerations. She thinks of the request from Chief Hakoda. That is on a schedule. They have time, but not enough to completely avoid all areas of trouble.

If they can assume they even know where trouble is.

“Do you want to walk me through what you’re thinking?” First Mate Shika’s voice is soft, undemanding. The woman sits across from her, calmly answering any questions Azula might have with whatever intel she has. It’s strange, but also comforting.

She points to their position on the map. “The current objective is unclear,” she says, then moves her finger to another position on the map, further in the north. “We’re supposed to meet with Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe here, but we expected we’d be spending more time at the South Pole. If we go there now and wait until the appointed time, the greater our risk of being spotted by the Fire Navy.”

“Not an auspicious start to a partnership,” First Mate Shika murmurs, gaze focused on where Azula is pointing.

Azula shakes her head. “No.” Her finger traces the western coast of the Earth Kingdom. “We can follow the coastline and gather intel.”

She’s fairly certain that’s what Uncle Iroh actually needed to do in Jiangxia. It’s one of the few scenarios that makes any sense. He had been strangely quiet after his game with the army captain. Her suspicions only got stronger when he did not answer her question about the tea quality with any kind of response involving brewing times and cultivars.

(Azula doesn’t understand even a tenth of what Uncle Iroh talks about, but she knows he thinks it’s very important so she listens. And she’s listened well enough that she can tell when he does not respond the way he should to her usual questions.)

So his purpose there was something else, but not something that she is required to know. Needs to know? She didn’t ask. (Don’t ask questions about inconsequential things.)

(What is inconsequential? She only ever asked that once. She knows better now.)

Still, it makes her uneasy, the not-knowing. Even though she knows she’s not supposed to have all the information he does, there’s still this strange feeling in her chest. It’s not the same as being lied to. Uncle Iroh wouldn’t lie to her.

He won’t. He said he won’t. She can be assured that what he tells her is correct as he knows it. So this tightness in her chest, a pulling and twisting of some muscle she didn’t know she had, she doesn’t know what it is.

“There’s increased traffic from the Fire Navy along the coast,” First Mate Shika points out, pulling Azula from her thoughts before she started to spiral down into them.

Azula looks up at the woman, but her amber eyes are as non-judgemental as they always are. She’s only prompting a response, wanting Azula to justify her reasoning. Her shoulders relax slightly. First Mate Shika pretends not to notice.

Right. First Mate Shika does this often. Azula understands, because despite the title Captain Jee uses in jest, she knows she’s not supposed to be in charge of anything. She can’t issue orders and just expect them to be followed. Maybe it was different before the Fire Lord stripped away her title and when the Yinglong was a ship of the Fire Navy. But now, they have nothing compelling them to follow her. So First Mate Shika has her explain things like this, when there is time. It’s helpful; it puts an order to the thoughts in her head and keeps her from being sucked into one of the spirals.

“The Avatar was last seen leaving Omashu, heading north-northeast,” she says.

“That would do it,” First Mate Shika sighs. “This will be interesting.”

Azula tilts her head to the side, trying to figure out the meaning of that statement. First Mate Shika snorts as she leans back and stretches. “Well, finding the Avatar was our original mission.”

“Capture was the objective.” She looks down at the map and the little white marker that signifies the Avatar. “I don’t want to do that anymore, but...”

“But?”

But it’s the Avatar, is what she doesn’t say. The enemy of the Fire Nation, the one who was the Great Traitor and then who died and disappeared. She knows the stories. The texts she was allowed went into great detail about Former Fire Lord Sozin’s fight with the Traitor Avatar Roku. The texts had been wrong about so many things, she’s discovered, but is this another one of them?

Azula isn’t sure. Because there were the accounts of the Avatar’s power, of destruction and death and overwhelming force that no mortal could hope to stand against. That...had been made very clear, that to fight the Avatar was to fight a typhoon, with all its fury and all its mercy.

Azula knows why they told her. The Avatar is the enemy of the Fire Nation, the enemy of the Fire Lord. And Zuko will one day be Fire Lord.

She stares at the little marker on the map. Her purpose is to stand between Zuko and any threats to him. Azula knows this.

To fight against the Avatar is to die. Azula knows this too.

But this is what her purpose is. Despite everything that has happened over the last three years, despite all that she has learned, this is something that has never changed. If the Avatar is a threat to Zuko, then she must face him. And she will die. But better that the tool is destroyed than her brother.

So she has to know. She needs to know if the threat exists, and to do that, she can’t rely only on second-hand information.

“The Avatar changes things,” Azula says quietly. “We should keep track of his movements ourselves. Not to capture, just observe.”

First Mate Shika looks at the map again and frowns. She taps her finger near where they are to meet with the Water Tribe fleet. “If the Avatar’s movements continue north, we should be able to make the rendezvous without an issue. It’s hard to tell when he’s travelling overland, though.”

Azula nods. “What about that ship we were following?” she asks. “The one Chief Hakoda requested we deal with at the South Pole. Commander Suki thought it was following the Avatar as well.”

“Zhao’s ship?” There’s a pause when First Mate Shika doesn’t say anything further.

Azula blinks and tilts her head. “The Golden Wings Brushing Against the Clouds,” she clarifies.

First Mate Shika stares at her a moment, then snorts and shakes her head for some reason. “Yep, that would be Zhao’s ship.” She sounds very amused.

Azula has clearly missed something. She’s also pretty sure it’s not all that important.

——

Katara slides the water from one hand to the other as she watches Sokka attempt to catch dinner. Emphasis on “attempt” here. She doesn’t know the climate or the migratory patterns of the fish this far north, but she thinks the river should have at least some kind of fish. Then again, it’s far warmer up here than she’s ever been in her life — yes, even if Bumi’s employees thought she’d be cold in the “chill” — so maybe she doesn’t know anything about the fish here. Maybe fish in the Earth Kingdom hate rivers. Or streams. Or whatever this is.

Or maybe it’s just that this land is strange. She didn’t think she’d miss the ice and the snow this quickly. Miss Gran-Gran? Absolutely. Miss the little ones and her aunts and uncles and everyone else? Certainly. But the call of the water was just so strong. It still is so strong. And now that she’s following it, it’s like a current, and she’s at its mercy.

How long until it drags her down to drown?

There’s a shout and a large splash. Katara loses her concentration and the water drops from her hands. She turns to stare at Sokka incredulously. He’s sitting in the middle of the stream, completely soaked. “Are you seriously a hunter?” she snarks.

“I caught it,” he says, apparently ignoring her tone, the jerk, and holds out a fish still twitching slightly from the tip of his makeshift spear. It is, admittedly, a decent-sized fish.

Not that she’s about to admit it. This is Sokka now.

“Great,” she deadpans. “Now you can cook it.”

He gives her a look. She raises an eyebrow. If he says one word, just one word, about something being a girl’s job, she’s gonna dump the stream on him. (How in the world did he ever manage to get along with Suki?) (Who is still alive. Probably. No. Suki and the others are definitely alive, even though she doesn’t want to think about the why just yet.)

“I assumed you would want some,” he says as he picks himself up, fish still in hand. “Unless you just want rabbiroo food like Aang.”

Aang perks up from where he’s brushing Appa down. “I saw more jackfruit and wild ube not too far from here. I can get more, if you want.”

“I...have no idea what those are,” Katara admits, letting the water go with a sigh. Sokka has a point, she does want some of the fish. So it’s only right that she help him out with it.

“All the more reason for me to get some for you to try!” Aang beams as he hops down from his perch. Momo chitters and jumps onto his shoulder. “Be right back!”

Sokka shoots her a significant look from across the rock where he’s cleaning the fish. “He sounds like he’s doing better,” her brother says neutrally.

Katara sighs as she sets their cooking gear over the firepit. “Do you really think so?”

“Not really,” he admits. “He hides it well, but...”

“Yeah.” She sighs. Because really, what else is there to say? The temple, then Kyoshi Island were bad enough. Omashu was supposed to be easier. And it was, for a bit. Until Sokka came back with those papers.

They’re going to have to talk about that, aren’t they? About what Aang remembers and what changed and how the Fire Nation can’t be like that anymore. (Because if they were like that, then that means her mother didn’t have to die, because good people wouldn’t do that.)

Which is so far down on the list of things she wants to do, she’s hoping she’ll get to it by the fifth of Never.

She has a feeling Never is going to be very soon. Just like everything else. Shaking her head, Katara tries to focus on her part in preparing dinner. It at least gives something for her hands to do, even though it lets her mind run free.

It’s what they’ve been doing a lot of, really. Running. It’s like ice in her gut, cutting worse than the wind on the tundra during the coldest part of the polar night. Things were supposed to be different now. Now that she’s bigger, now that Sokka passed his rites, now that the Avatar is back. She’s not supposed to run helpless from the Ashmakers anymore.

Except the fire still burns hot, there’s still just the two (three) of them, and the Avatar is just a boy. Aang might be something special, because Katara doesn’t know how he can still smile after everything that came after the iceberg, but he’s still just a kid. Just...just like her.

How can she expect him to do what she can’t?

Then again, that’s why she’s here, instead of back home with the rest of the tribe.

Aang comes back with more of the weird fruit and tubers that he promised, and even Sokka has to admit that they certainly made the meal more filling than just the fish would have. (Aang lit up like a lantern when Sokka said he liked the taste of how Aang had prepared them.. And if her brother actually took seconds of a dish with no meat, well, Katara won’t say anything.)

It turns out, they can only manage to put things off until after dinner, when they’re all sitting around the campfire. Of course it’s Sokka who brings it up. “So, I know we got side-tracked by that weird wanted poster in Omashu, but that wasn’t the only thing I found there.” Katara groans, earning a glare from her brother. “Yes, thank you for that commentary, but this is interesting.”

“What is it?” Aang looks up from where he’s feeding Momo some of the leftover jackfruit.

“I found this,” Sokka declares as he pulls out a scroll. At least this one doesn’t have a drawing of a wanted Ashmaker princess. No, this one is a freaking essay of all things.

He hands it over easily when she reaches for it. Katara scowls instinctively at the Standard Huǒzi characters. Of course it’s in Standard Huǒzi, what else would it be in? Spirits forbid it’s in one of the dozen Earth Kingdom languages she can name off the top of her head. No, the Fire Nation has to “spread its culture” and the only way fire can spread is by burning everything else in its path.

(She’s selfishly glad Aang knows Nijjajut. It had been so long since she’d heard her ancestors’ tongue given voice again. She and Sokka were the only ones left of their generation who even knew their language. What would become of it after Gran-Gran, after Dad? After them?)

But her scowl melts off her face as she reads the words. It’s difficult to grasp at first, because she’s not familiar with the cadences and the allusions the author is making, but she thinks she gets the gist. It looks like propaganda. It has the rhythm of it, a give-and-take dialogue between two people. But it’s not. There’s something she’s missing, because the author is actually writing a critique of colonial governance. Left it in plain sight. And somehow, this is still being passed around enough to make it into the Earth Kingdom.

“Sokka, this is...”

Aang makes a wordless request and she hands the scroll over. Katara catches his eyebrows shooting up as he starts reading, then turns back to her brother.

Sokka’s eyes are bright, like they get when he’s got one of his ideas. Not the dumb ones, but the ones where he thinks he’s on the verge of something Important. The ones where she understands that of course her brother wears the wolf’s tail, he couldn’t be anything but, not with that hunter’s gleam in his eye. Not when he sees something — a meal, a resource, an idea — that he can chase down and sink his teeth into.

Her brother grins, and the firelight makes him look wolf-sharp: noble and proud and hungry, a warmth against the cold, and tooth and claw against the dark. “Katara, it’s sedition.”

“A Fire National wrote this,” Aang murmurs, eyes still glued to the scroll in his hands. (He doesn’t even notice Momo on his head anymore.)

“How can you tell?” Katara sits up straighter. It makes sense, in a way, but Aang sounds sure.

“Because of the references.” He points to a passage. “This part, for example, it’s using the same phrasing as this really old Fire Nation story. It was something about the Warring States and the need for strong leadership.”

“How did you get that?” Because the part he’s pointing to doesn’t look like it’s saying anything like that. It looks like it’s saying the opposite. That even conquered areas should be left alone, which...well, get rid of the “conquered” part and Katara’s all in. Then again, this is the Fire Nation they’re talking about.

Aang’s nearly bouncing where he sits. “It’s a really old story. My...” he dims a little, but swallows hard and continues, “the monks said that only the nobility really even read it anymore.”

“Something that looks like propaganda to everyone important, but looks like sedition to everyone else.” Her brother picks up the thread, eagerly. “Do you know what this means?”

“That this ‘Saya’ person has too much time on their hands?”

Sokka rolls his eyes. “I mean something weird is going on.”

“This author,” Aang says slowly, “the thing you said about your dad...”

Katara grimaces but picks up the thread, because yeah, she can see where this is going. “...the Ashma— exiled princess.” She quickly corrects when she catches Aang’s wince. Right, he actually knew decent Fire Nationals. (If only people like that still existed. Then she wouldn’t have to be so worried that she’d lose her father to blood and treachery, to a knife in the back or flame to the front.) (Katara had stared at that face on the wanted poster and all she could hear was the roar of the ocean hundreds of miles away, could only feel the pounding of her heart, and could only see cold, cold eyes in black-and-white, a cold that would slice a person straight through without leaving a mark.

This was the face she had to trust her father to? How? How could she stand to do that, after everything?)

“Something’s coming,” Sokka hisses.

“Well, duh,” Aang starts, then shuts up when they hear the loud crack of a tree branch.

Flame and ash, Katara thinks as four men in Fire Nation armor stumble onto their campsite and freeze.

There is complete stillness for about two seconds, and then a lot of things happen very quickly.

Later, maybe she’ll think about how a real fight is, when compared to what she hears in the stories. The stories make it sound so clear, make the fighters sound so sure and so brave. They can see everything on the battlefield and make the right choice at the right moment and never ever doubt themselves.

The stories are completely full of it.

Right now, all Katara sees is red. Red armor in front of her (looming over her). Red flames sparking from fists (flying at her mother). Red blood on the ground (on the snow).

Katara hates red.

(Is that roar her blood rushing in her ears? Or Appa?)

The water leaps from the banks of the stream when she pulls it, without thinking, without hesitating. For once, now that she needs it, it slides around her and surrounds her like a blanket, a playful edge turned vicious. Water knows how to be calm, but it also knows when it needs to be ruthless. She barely has to push it at all, just think, just breathe, and the water flows and strikes the man with fists on fire in the chest, slams him into a tree.

He doesn’t go down.

(Why isn’t he going down?)

He charges, flames leaping from his hands. She rolls out of the way, out of his grasping hands, away from him.

(Not again not again not again)

He has no face, just the leering helmet and there’s something tearing out of her throat and why won’t he go down? The water surges forward — is this her this must be her she’s not even thinking just wants him to stop to go away to not hurt anyone else — and then there’s ice. Not water, just wicked-looking ice striking him in the chest, in the arms.

He goes down. The flames go out.

The clearing is very quiet. She blinks a moment, realizes there’s no other target and moves closer to Sokka and Aang. Both of them look as uneasy as she feels, eyes darting around. (They stand back-to-back-to-back and it feels natural, like something that was always supposed to be.)

Katara’s heart pounds in her chest, still not quite believing what just happened. The four men are still alive, but they’re not a threat. Sokka’s still coiled like a spring, and both of them spin on their heels as soon as the bush behind them rustles.

Her icicle would have hit the boy dead on if he hadn’t ducked. He whistles low. “Nice reflexes. I’m impressed.”

Sokka has his boomerang in hand, held at the ready. “And you are?”

The boy leans against a tree and grins around the stalk of grass held between his teeth. “Someone who’s on your side.” He looks over at Aang. “I think we might be able to help each other, Avatar.”

Chapter Text

It’s stupidly easy to sneak out of the governor’s manor. Mai had it down to a science after the first two weeks. She’s not sure if it’s the quality of the guards her father hires or her own skill that has her leaping over the decorative shrubbery with no one the wiser, but the former certainly doesn’t help against the latter.

She snorts. Of course, they all probably thought she was holed away like a proper young lady writing insipid love letters to Zuko or something. Then again, Mai is fairly certain she could eel-swan dive across the hall in one of Ty Lee’s outfits and declare she was joining the circus and her parents would be too enraptured by her brother’s latest foray into vocabulary acquisition to notice.

Thank you, Tom-Tom.

So it’s no trouble at all to slip into the darkened streets of Xicheng, just before moonrise. Mai keeps to the shadows, but not obviously so. That’s dumb. Darting from shadow to shadow is just about the most obvious way to scream I’m being sneaky without the actual screaming. (She’s watched far too many people fail that particular technique to want to count herself among them. She’d rather die first, thanks.)

She ducks into a doorway, just off the side of the street, and raps her fist against the door, beating out a specific pattern against the wood. It only takes a few moments for it to crack open. Mai slides inside, letting Teo close the door as soon as she’s clear.

He raises an eyebrow as he wheels around to face her. “Cutting it kind of close, aren’t you?”

Mai rolls her eyes. “Getting away cleanly from the manor was almost impossible until my brother decided to learn a new word.”

“Thank you, Tom-Tom,” Teo echoes wryly, more than familiar with her parents’ attention patterns. “I feel like I should get that kid a present or something.”

“Please don’t. I need to have some hope that he won’t become a spoiled brat,” she drawls.

He snickers as he leads her further into the room. “You? Have hope? I’m starting to worry you’re compromised, Mai.”

“You’re a riot.”

Teo spins his chair around to face her and bows mockingly. “I do try.” He leans over to the side and grabs a lantern that’s already lit. “Well? What do you have this time?”

She sighs and pulls a scroll out from her sleeves before handing it over. “Do you know how much of a pain it is to translate the stupid Court Huǒzi flourishes into Standard?” she grouses.

“That’s why it’s you and not me doing it,” he says as he unrolls the scroll to read.

“Remind me again why I even agreed to this nonsense?”

Teo doesn’t even bother looking up from his reading. “Because I’m the one with the printing press. You make the words, I make the words go, and ‘Saya’ gets all the credit.”

The worst part is that he’s right. Of course he’s right, she’s the one who came up with how to make it work in the first place. Mai folds her arms and leans her hip against a nearby table. This isn’t exactly what she expected when she first met Teo, when he and his father had been “relocated” to Xicheng due to worries about the Earth Kingdom getting a little too bold. Oh, her father had said all the appropriate words when he welcomed the man to the colony, but everyone knew what was really going on.

Teo’s father was too valuable an asset to leave out in the open any longer and this relocation was “voluntary” in only the strictest technical sense.

As for how the two of them even started talking to each other, well, by that point Mai had been desperate for conversation with someone with a brain in their skull and a vocabulary greater than three words. (Her brother is still by far the most intelligent conversation she can reliably get on a daily basis.) And no matter how angry Teo had been (and still is, because she has eyes and he’s not fooling anyone), he still had manners. It wasn’t like he could completely ignore her when they ended up seeing each other on a weekly basis.

If Mai’s honest with herself, which she is because lying to yourself is self-defeating, she underestimated his observational skills. Teo caught her one day with one of her early essay drafts lying out on her writing desk. It had been a stupid mistake. But Roku had written a passage in his journal where he pretended to have a conversation with a classic Fire Nation philosopher, and she could have sworn he mimicked that author’s wordplay exactly.

(Spirits know she had to analyze enough of that stuff back at the Royal Academy.)

She hadn’t expected him to be able to read Court Huǒzi either. Another mistake. Which meant that without all the allusions that the Court would take as a given, it looked quite a lot like sedition. Exactly not the sort of thing the governor’s daughter should be writing.

Teo had questioned her on it, because he’s not an idiot, and since he had her dead to rights, she decided to be stupid and not lie about it. That she’d been trying to see if she could put her thoughts down one way but have it mean another. Mai’s been reciting the lessons and “proper” way of doing things since she could talk; she wanted to turn the edges in those words to a different purpose.

(Be who they expected on the surface, but hide the knife in a sleeve, Avatar Roku had written. Oh, she knew how to do that one very well.)

With the words he had in his hand, and knowing how it read to him? Teo had a knife to her neck. She wonders if he even realized that. Because instead of wringing every favor he could out of her, he’d asked a single question that made Mai’s life in Xicheng a lot more interesting:

“Do you think you could write more of this?”

Which is how Mai has come to assist running a rogue printing operation that publishes essays that toe the line between propaganda and outright sedition. She sighs and leans against the machine in question. Really, it could be worse.

She could be stuck listening to her parents.

“So what’s the verdict?” she drawls. “Is it workable or do I get to spend more time beating my head against asinine translations?”

“But you do it so well,” he shoots back absently. There’s a hesitant look on his face that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

“What is it?” Mai pushes herself off from her slouched position. “If I need to rewrite it, I will.”

Teo shakes his head slowly. “No, it’s...not that. The essay’s fine, we can work with it.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

He sighs and rubs his face with his hands. “I...know you’re friends with him, so maybe this is massively unfair, but...how much can we trust Crown Prince Zuko?”

Ah.

She’s been waiting for this question, ever since they started this. Zuko’s the komodo-rhino in the room, the one issue she and Teo have been side-stepping in all of this. Mai knows it couldn’t last, knows she’d have to answer this question eventually, but that doesn’t make it any easier. It doesn’t mean she even has an answer.

Three years ago, the answer would have been easy. Zuko only survived at court because he’s the crown prince; a pygmy-puma lies better than that boy. Three years ago, Mai would have answered “with my life” without a second thought.

Three years is a long time.

Zuko’s letters look perfectly normal, exactly what one would expect from a childhood friend. But Mai can see the things he’s not saying. The slight wobble in his characters that tell her of his bone-deep exhaustion, the kind that only comes from running into the ground. The time he spends practicing with his swords. The way he talks about Azula like she’s the one thing he’s hanging his sanity on.

And every tide-cursed day, Mai has to walk past posters on every building with his sister’s face, with his sister’s ever-growing bounty.

She doesn’t say any of that out loud. It’s not for Teo to know, not yet. “Why?” she asks instead.

Teo spins his chair around to look at her, a solemn expression on his face. Mai frowns. She’s not going to like what comes next, she already knows it.

“He’s next in line, Mai,” he says quietly. “I know he’s your friend, and I know he’s doing good things back in the Fire Nation, but...that’s not here.” Teo scrubs at his face, dragging his palms down his cheeks. “It’s different here. And I know, you’ve told me he can’t really do anything for us here, not with the way things are, and I get that. But...”

“But what?”

Teo shrugs helplessly. “He’s next in line. You know as well as I do that people are unhappy, Mai. We’ve been dancing on this line for a while, but people are gonna want to know sooner or later.”

If they can trust Zuko. If Zuko will make things better, be a better leader than his father or grandfather. Mai’s thankful Teo doesn’t say it out loud, but she knows how to read volumes in the things left unsaid. And he’s right, dammit. One of these days, “Saya” is going to have to choose a side.

“Zuko cares,” Mai says carefully, picking out her words like she picks her targets. “And he’s trying. I know...I can trust that much.”

It doesn’t feel like enough. But Teo nods and doesn’t push anymore. It’s enough for now.

Mai doesn’t want to think about what happens when that stops being true.

—-

Toph stands on the deck of the Yinglong and lets herself sink into the metal’s song. The steel hums along with the heat from the coal fires, creaks and thrums as the ship cuts through the water. She can feel every piece of the ship, every nut and bolt, as it hums underneath her feet.

It’s different from listening to the earth. Earth is solid and dependable. Metal, though...metal is solid, yes, but there’s a rigidity there that isn’t with earth. Metal grasps and controls, sings a song older than dirt and dances with fire rather than stand opposed. Toph is the first person who’s ever gotten to hear it.

So when it tells her she should duck, she ducks.

Smoky’s fist sails over Toph’s head.

“Come on,” Toph calls, grin tugging on her face as she darts forward and away from her opponent. “I heard you coming a mile away.”

“A mile away is open ocean, Toph.” Despite completely missing her, Azula doesn’t even sound frustrated. (Of course she doesn’t.)

“Details.”

“Those are important.”

Toph drops and sweeps low with a kick. Smoky, of course, dodges that, and leaps right into the path of the small metal discs Toph had set up for this purpose. She’s feeling pretty proud of herself. There are a lot of them, and Smoky’s going to be pretty hard-pressed to dodge them all.

Which, of course, is why Azula twists, and bends, and oh crap, that’s...that’s a lot of lightning. It arcs from disc to disc in an angry, crackling net of terrifying, and Azula’s still trailing lighting from the bracers Toph made her when she brings them together in front of her and bounces off...Toph has no idea what Smoky bounces off of, but it gets her out of danger.

What.

The discs fall to the deck.

Toph blinks, then shakes her head. Before she can open her mouth, Sifu comes running over and oooh boy, she does not sound happy.

“Azula, what the hell,” Rùfen isn’t exactly yelling, but she’s doing that almost-loud bark that always matches up with a racing heartbeat. So, every time one of them does something to give the woman a heart attack. “What was that? Since when could you do that? How did you do that?”

Azula shifts her weight, suddenly tense and wary. Toph grimaces a little, but her friend answers anyway. “I...discovered the armor conducted the lightning extremely well.”

Well, yeah. It’s the same metal they’ve been using for practice for the last two years. Or some of it. “You’ve never done that before,” she points out. Hey, she’s helping!

Smoky seems less than grateful for the assist. Rude. “Chief Engineer Tsui explained how electromagnets worked.” Azula shifts again and shrugs, like she doesn’t understand what the problem is, like that explains everything.

It’s almost infuriating how much it does.

Sifu groans. “Of course. Of course they did. I don’t know what else I expected.” She sighs.

Smoky says nothing, but Toph can hear her heart shuddering in her chest. “Kid, no, don’t...kid, I’m not mad,” Sifu says quickly, putting both of her hands on Smoky’s shoulders. “You just caught me off-guard again.”

Yeah, that...tends to happen. Of course, Toph can admit she’s not exactly better in this department. Any given week, it’s pretty even odds which one of them will figure out something incredibly cool that makes the adults all twitchy. Azula’s been winning on the frequency, though.

Not that it’s a competition.

(Toph’s pretty sure it can’t be a competition if the other side doesn’t even realize they’re competing. There are probably rules about that sort of thing.)

But it’s so much fun. Toph always knew bending could be fun. It’s as natural to her as breathing, she couldn’t imagine living without the solid presence underneath her feet. Earth, yes, but now metal too. It’s different, but it’s a good different, an interesting different. And it’s just obvious to her to try to push herself, push her bending further, far as it can go. She can go anywhere, as long as she can build a bridge to it.

Smoky’s different, though. Toph’s been around firebenders enough by this point to kind of understand that their fire is just as much a part of them as the sense of earth is to her. But sometimes, she gets the feeling her friend doesn’t have to push herself the same way she does to see how far she can go.

Toph’s pretty sure it’s because no one ever told Azula she needed a bridge. Her dad just threw her into the sea and expected her to swim.

(Toph’s not the only one that wants to throw him into the sea. Shika’s the official bookie for the crew on that one. That was a fun math lesson.)

So moments like this? Where Smoky heard pieces of things and jammed them together into something crazy enough to work and give all the grown-ups a collective heart attack? Happens all the time. As does Smoky’s continuing bewildered and wary reactions.

Toph sighs.

Sifu groans and turns towards her. “Fine, okay. I overreacted and I’m sorry.” Azula’s stance relaxes ever so slightly, and their teacher’s shoulders slump a bit. “Right, I think that’s enough practice for now.” Her tone goes drier than a desert. “I’m sure you don’t want to stick around on the deck until the Captain decides to make you be useful.”

Toph can hear the frown in Smoky’s voice. “Is there something I should be doing — “

Yeah, no. None of that nonsense. Jee makes them do enough chores already. Toph grabs Azula’s hand and starts dragging her away below deck. “Later, Sifu!”

It’s not until they’re back in their room that Toph realizes just what was weird about that last bit. She’s sitting on the floor trying to figure out this ridiculous puzzle Tsui gave her (at least the shapes are made out of clay and not wood. Although how she’s supposed to make a platypus bear out of this pile of triangles and squares is a mystery. That’s probably why it’s a puzzle.) So it takes her a moment to realize that Smoky hesitated before picking up a scroll to read.

That’s...odd.

Now Toph is curious. Because she’s pretty sure Azula didn’t pick up the scroll she was going to in the first place.

“Whatcha reading?” Toph asks, deliberately casual.

“First Mate Shika gave me some navigational data,” Azula says quietly. “I need to...it’s important to know it.”

Okay, that sounds entirely reasonable. And like something incredibly boring that Smoky would like because she’s just kinda like that. And maybe Toph would just let it go and go back to her ridiculous triangles, except for the fact that Toph knows her friend had been completely into this scroll of spirit tales they’d picked up at two ports ago. She had been so reluctant to put that scroll down, Toph had started to wonder if it had somehow gotten stuck to her hands.

“I thought you still had that spirit tale scroll to finish. The one with all the correct Earth Kingdom versions you somehow never heard before.”

Azula is quiet for a long moment. “This is more useful,” she finally murmurs without raising her head from how she’s bent over the scroll.

Toph feels like she’s swallowing gravel, something sharp and jagged caught in her throat, making it hurt to swallow. It drops into her stomach and weighs her down, pushing back against her lungs, making it harder to breathe. Except there’s no rocks, no gravel, just an uncomfortable observation she’s trying to swallow down.

‘Useful’. It’s been awhile since Azula used that word, in that tone. Used the word like it carried the weight of failures and broken expectations.

(It sounds like the men who used to visit Bàba, who would look at her and speak to him with pity, like she’s a burden that needs to be dealt with efficiently. Like Bàba needs a use for her.)

Toph hates that tone. And hates that she hates it, but it’s like it’s two years ago, and Azula’s back to using that tone all the time. Okay, maybe it’s not that bad, not yet. But it could be. There’s something shifting underfoot, the ground not as stable as they thought.

She suddenly thinks of Fai and the komodo-rhinos and the babies that recently hatched. (Apparently, only Fai could accidentally breed a pack of giant lizards. The babies are pretty cute, though. Even if Toph still has no idea what possessed the man to name one Jiaozi.) They’re incredibly skittish and slow to trust. The best way to get them there is to just...go slow. Wait for the right moment. Let them come on their own terms.

Who knew training giant lizards is all about neutral jing? But Toph’s an earthbender; she doesn’t like it, but she’s good at waiting. And she knows in her bones, without even having to check the beating of Smoky’s heart or her absolute stillness (although Toph does anyway, because duh), that this isn’t the time to press an offensive.

Not yet.

——

So, trees. Trees are different. Sokka’s used to ice, thank you very much. Sleeping in trees is weird. (Look, he’s still getting used to “trees” as a concept, cut him some slack) So is finding another group of people his age all organized and fighting the Fire Nation.

Sokka wonders if he should feel self-conscious about that. Then again, his Tribe’s sending all the people it can spare and the people it can’t. So he’s not going to think about that and instead is going to try to figure out how they keep all these things structural when they’re built into other things that grow.

He catches Jet giving him an appraising look out of the corner of his eye. “Want something?”

The other boy smiles and ambles over. “Just trying to figure you out. You seem pretty interested in the trees.”

Sokka shrugs. “I’m impressed how they blend in. The structures, I mean. It’s easy for me, since all I have to work with is ice and snow surrounded by more ice and show, so the tree thing is new.”

Jet laughs. “Fair enough. Come on,” he says, nodding his head in the direction of one of the structures. “I know you have questions.”

Yeah, that’s an understatement. Sokka follows him into one of the tree huts. Katara, unsurprisingly, is already there. So’s Aang. (He’s really gotta stop being the last person to arrive like this) They both look a lot better after some actual sleep. If nothing else, Jet was absolutely true to his word when he said they’d be safe in his camp last night. After that fight, the offer was too tempting to give up.

(He’s trained. He’s trained and prepared and he thought he was ready for it. But the moment he saw that blood-red and black armor, as soon as he felt the heat of flame, all of it nearly fell out of his head. It was real and no one was pulling hits and if he lost he was going to die. Katara was going to die. So he fought and swung and then it was all over and he was left strangely empty.)

Now, in the light of day, they’re in a little bit better spot to actually figure out just what in the haunted depths is going on here. Because Sokka isn’t entirely certain how altruistic Jet’s being right now. Oh, he doesn’t think the guy is about to hand them over to the nearest Fire Nation patrol, but Jet’s something new. Kyoshi was similar enough (and also literally tried to follow Aang’s previous self, which is still such a weird concept). Bumi is Aang’s old friend.

Compared to that? Jet’s motives are as easy to figure out as an otter-penguin's tracks after a blizzard. So yeah, they definitely have questions.

Katara smiles at the guy. “Thanks again for letting us spend the night. How did you even know we were there?”

“No offense, but a fight isn’t exactly quiet,” Jet says with a grin before he sobers. “But Longshot and Smellerbee had caught you on their scouting patrol. We knew there were ashmakers in the area, so we’ve been on alert for awhile. Bee got the signal to the rest of us but you guys had it handled by the time we got there.” He nods to the two people who just walked in.

The shorter one, whom Sokka’s going to assume is ‘Bee’ given the lack of a bow, shrugs. “Wouldn’t have minded a chance to kick some ashmakers around, but not complaining.”

“Everything still clear?” Jet asks.

The taller one (who does have a longbow) just nods, then takes a seat near the exit.

“You get into fights a lot?” Sokka decides to ask, since apparently no one else is going to ask the obvious question.

Bee shrugs. “Often enough. Damn ashmakers don’t know when to stop, and sometimes running ain’t an option.”

Longshot nods.

“Bumi said,” Aang starts, then clears his throat, fidgeting in his seat, “the Fire Nation reached all the way here?”

Jet scowls. “Used to be a lot further inland. But the Earth generals finally decided to find their balls and push back instead of waiting for that son of a weasel-dog on the throne to find his.”

Sokka blinks, surprised by the sudden shift. Clearly, there’s some context missing. Bumi had seemed downright gleeful at the progress the Earth Kingdom made in taking back territory from the Fire Nation. It’s obvious Jet holds no love for any ashmakers, but there’s a deep bitterness to his words. It’s not blatant, but an undercurrent, hidden well below the surface.

Anyone who grows up near the water knows that undercurrents can be dangerous; you fear the things you know are there but you can’t see. And undercurrents are the ones that become rip tides, dragging the unwary out and under to drown.

Sokka knows that bitterness in Jet’s voice too. He’s heard it in the voices of the tribal elders as their numbers dwindled, as the warriors followed the call of Sister Orca out to bring the sea’s wrath to their enemies. As more and more of the old men and women took their last walk onto the ice, their final songs on their lips and echoing into the night.

He’s heard it in his own voice some nights, when he’d confess to Gran-Gran over the fire, as Katara slept, that sometimes Sokka doesn’t know if he can be enough. How he’s the only one who can hope to be enough. Him, who is just a boy of flesh and blood and bone. This is all he is and all he has, and if all their ancestors were not enough, how can he possibly be?

(The taste of iron and steam in his mouth as he whispers bloody words into the frozen wind, asking for the Wolf’s favor to guard the home, to track, to provide, to do it all tirelessly as long as he can because he’s the only one who can make this choice.)

Aang’s frowning a lot, like he’s got some kind of puzzle he’s trying to figure out but it’s also got teeth and he’s trying not to poke it too hard lest it bite him. It’s an expression that doesn’t really look like it should fit on his face; Sokka thinks maybe that’s what everyone’s face did, back before the war. Back before all they did was frown.

“I thought...the Earth King isn’t fighting?” he asks.

Jet snorts, derisive. “And remember that the Earth Kingdom is more than just Ba Sing Se? Tch,” he spits. “Wall-rats won’t even carry their load and protect the rest of us, but they’re sure as hell happy to take our food and supplies. What do they care if we burn?”

“They say tha’ the walls of Ba Sing Se never fell.” Smellerbee shrugs. “What does tha’ mean to the rest of us, all the way out here? Fat lotta good those walls do us.”

“But that’s not how it’s supposed to work,” Aang protests. “The Earth King is supposed to be king of everyone. That’s what that means.”

“Well, apparently, they don’t think so.” Jet chews harder on the stalk of grass in his mouth. “Maybe some parts of the Kingdom, but the rest of us are just too damn troublesome. Easier to just resettle and rebuild when a village burns down. Not like they’re going to run out of people.”

Katara makes a strangled noise. “What does that even mean?” she demands. Sokka can’t blame her. Not run out of people? What a problem to have. He can’t even wrap his head around it.

Jet hunches over, drapes his arms over his knees and looks at them. There’s a look in his eyes that looks hauntingly familiar, an echo of something that’s not quite the same, like an image reflected on water. He points off into the distance. “There’s a town over there, just beyond the edge of the forest, right in the valley by the reservoir. It’s called Gaipan, now. Ashmaker territory. They burned most of it when they took it, the Kingdom didn’t even bother to send more than a small garrison to fight, and even they arrived too late. The usual settlers arrived right on time, though. Don’t even think the buildings were done smoking before there were people looking to rebuild in the graves.”

(Out of the corner of his eye, Sokka sees Aang go deathly pale.)

“The Fire Nation couldn’t even wait?” Katara’s eyes flash, and oh wow, this guy has a talent for drawing out his sister’s impassioned side. Sokka would be impressed, if he didn’t have to deal with it all the time.

“Wasn’t just them.” Jet’s voice is bitter, the words sounding painful in his mouth. “You can trust Ashmakers to be soot-choked scum. It’s different when it’s your neighbors, same people who shared your rice and salt. That’s the worst part. Seeing people like that take what ashes they can get. Like it’s some kind of favor.” He shakes his head. “Same as it always was.”

What has happened to these people? Sokka’s spent too many nights in the dark, days and weeks without the sun, where all he can taste is the cold on his tongue. Those days in the dark where they huddle close, because the wind howls and the ghosts walk the ice outside and it is your siblings and your cousins that breathe on either side, keeping watch, keeping warm. These are the people who keep you alive, and Sokka doesn’t understand how a community fighting to survive can turn on each other.

The tribe would have died long ago if they did that after the Fire Nation came.

(Why give them the satisfaction of finishing the job?)

He stares at Jet, this right-not-right reflection, and thinks about what he’s not saying. He holds himself apart from the people. No, that’s not quite right. Jet holds himself apart from the people he’s talking about, but Sokka can see the ease he and his two friends have with each other, can see how he measures himself against some higher standard.

(Like putting on a parka meant for a grown man when your limbs are still too short, drowning in this thing that doesn’t fit right but you have to wear it anyway unless you want to die.)

“That why you’re out here?” he asks.

Jet shrugs. “Sometimes. Wandered around for a while. Eventually found these two,” he points at Longshot and Smellerbee, “then the others like us. We knew we had to do something, we couldn’t just stand by, couldn’t let them get away with it. Ended up coming back here.”

“Better than the alternative,” Smellerbee says. “Least this way we have each other. And we can actually do something.”

“Like fight the Fire Nation?” Katara asks.

Smellerbee’s answering grin is full of teeth. “Course. What else?”

Aang rubs his head. “Everything’s so...geeze, first the Exile, now you...”

“What about the Exile?” Jet snaps, bolting upright. Aang jolts back, eyes wide. (Sokka has to stop his hand from reaching for his boomerang. Bad idea now.)

“Uh, I mean, we just...heard about her?” Aang hesitates. “Did...is there something wrong?”

“Wrong? With the Exile? Oh, where do I even start?”

“Aw ostrich-spit,” Smellerbee mutters quietly. “Now you’ve got him started.”

Well, that’s the opposite of reassuring.

“The Exile,” Jet starts, “is the biggest pain in the ass most of the time. It’s hard enough to even get people thinking about fighting back, and then it becomes damn near impossible when you have the Exile wandering around and putting down rabid Ashbenders in the contested territories!”

Sokka blinks. “Uh, I might be way wrong here, but...isn’t getting rid of the terrible Fire Nationals a good thing?”

“Sure. Except for the part where it convinces people that maybe ‘things aren’t that bad,’” he says with air-quotes. “Or whatever else stupid thing they need to tell themselves to roll over and put their necks under the Fire Nation’s boot. The damn idiot thinks she’s fixing it, but it’s just a pretty lie on a bandage.”

“It sounds like she’s trying to help,” Aang says quietly.

Jet scoffs. “Look, everybody knows her dad’s the ash-breathing Fire Lord. If she actually wanted to help, she’d suck up whatever tantrum she’s having, go the hell back, and actually do something. Instead of being a spoiled brat and pretending like she can’t just...go back to being a spoiled princess.”

“We’d be able to do something big if she did,” grumbles Smellerbee.

“Like what?” Katara asks.

She shrugs. “I dunno. Take out a garrison, maybe.”

Jet snorts. “Yeah, maybe if we blew up the dam or something. Even I’m not that crazy.”

Katara’s eyes are wide; Sokka knows his are probably about the same. “Blow up a dam? That’s...”

“That could kill a lot of people.” Aang’s voice goes a bit hoarse at the end there. Sokka exchanges a wince with his sister. It’s war. They’re in a war and neither of them are strangers to the idea of people dying. Of innocents dying.

(He remembers the taste of ash and snow in his mouth. That day had been colder than usual it seemed, the air carving tracks in his lungs with each breath. He remembers the sinking doom of seeing the black ships and black snow.

The sky had been clear that day.

He remembers the smell, burnt flesh and iron blood, the snow stained as black and red as the armor the Fire Nation wore.

He remembers the dead. Not just Tumasi who knew the best fishing spots, or Apak who could leap higher than anyone in the dances, but Auka and Tivi, barely older than Katara. Or even Qumaq who died along with Sanaaq, strapped to her mother’s back in her carrier.

Or his own mother.

The black ships are burned in his mind, a place well-trod in his memories as he circled them over and over, trying to pull it apart and figure out how to be better. How to make them pay for every inch of bloodstained snow. )

(His dreams have been haunted for years by flame and blood. By pale faces and wolf eyes.

He hates that he can remember theirs when his mother’s slips through his fingers like seawater.)

Sokka looks at Aang, looks at his hands gripping each other with the knuckles going white as he stares at Jet and the others. And it’s so weird, because he knows Aang’s the one who should understand. He’s the one who lost everything. He’s the one who’s most entangled in this war, as the Avatar and as the last Air Nomad. But instead, this boy is still untouched by the war. Or he’s desperately clinging to that bit of innocence with bloody fingers.

Was he ever that innocent, that ignorant? Was Katara?

Jet’s gaze is steady as he also looks over them. Sokka meets his eyes and thinks he sees it. The same grief and anger, the kind that fills your belly and keeps you moving even through the coldest nights. The other boy’s eyes change a bit, becoming more tired as he understands what Aang is.

Just another lost boy. Just like them.

(Innocence is always war’s first casualty.)

“Yeah,” Jet says calmly. “It would. And it’d make us just like them.” He shakes his head. “Even if I was desperate, I’m not stupid enough to do that anyway.”

Smellerbee scoffs. “Yeah, and get the Exile out for blood? No thanks.”

“Wait, I thought the Exile was on our side.” Sokka frowns. That’s what the poster said. Or what everyone else implied. “Or close enough.”

“Sure, if you count putting down rabid Ashbenders as on our side.” Jet folds his arms and leans back. “Truth is, she might be a spoiled brat, but she’s also crazy like a fox-cat. Doesn’t matter how big the force, someone messes with an Ashmaker colony, she goes after them.”

“Oh great. Just what we need,” Katara mutters. “To get chased by Fire Nation royalty that doesn’t know when to give up.”

“And that is why we’re not doing that,” Jet sounds far too pleased with himself.

His sister blinks, looks at Jet as if seeing him for the first time. “You have a plan.”

Jet’s smile grows even more smug. “Caught that, did you? You’re definitely more than just a pretty face.”

Sokka shifts, because flame and ash, he did not just say that. Forget the Exile, Katara’s going to rip this guy’s throat out with her teeth. Look, he knows his little sister, thank you very much. He has spent years figuring out where to push to get a reaction and what kind of reaction. Hell, he’s responsible for at least half of Katara’s buttons being there in the first place. And this kind of slick flattery? Katara’s gonna want to do a murder.

Which is why it makes no damn sense at all when, of all things, Katara blushes.

How in the hell...

Wait.

Katara’s blushing. Oh hell no. Nope. Not happening. Not on Sokka’s watch.

Jet shoots him a look, clearly reading what’s going through his mind. Sokka grits his teeth, willing himself to not try to demand what the guy’s intentions are. (Somewhere in the back of his mind, he swears he can hear Gran-Gran laughing.) To his surprise, however, Jet glances over at his friends, nods slightly and shifts his posture into something a little less casual as he smiles at Katara.

Huh.

“What kind of plan do you have?” Aang asks, and Sokka wants to hug him for completely overturning this awkward canoe trip.

“Right. So, like we said, we’re not dumb enough to play tag with the Exile. Good news is we don’t have to.” Jet leans over and produces a piece of chalk from somewhere, which he then uses to start drawing on the floor. “So, we’re here, and Gaipan is over here,” he says as he draws two “X”s. “There’s a road that goes from Gaipan all the way up the coast.”

The chalk drags out a line from the bigger X past the smaller one, up a quickly sketched coastline with more Xs that Sokka guesses are cities or towns. “It’s pretty much the only way to get in and out of the valley, so nothing gets in and out of the town without passing through here.” Jet draws out what are apparently mountains. (Maybe if Sokka stands on his head and squints.)

“That includes all the supply caravans the Fire Nation sends,” Smellerbee says with a smile as sharp as a knife.

“Yup. Turns out the Ashmakers are really interested in the mining and logging, so they tend to send a lot of supplies.”

Sokka can see where this is going. “Risky.”

Jet shrugs. “We’ve done it before. They send so much junk there, they’ll hardly miss a caravan or three. It works out. We get to make the Ashmakers miserable and get food and medicine.” He gives the three of them a look. “Not like we’re gonna get it anywhere else. We hit hard and fast, in and outta the trees. They can’t get us unless they want to set the forest on fire.”

Sokka has to admit, it’s good tactics. “Which they won’t. Because that’s why they’re here in the first place.”

“You win either way,” Katara says, sounding way too impressed for Sokka’s liking.

“That’s the plan,” Jet confirms. “So now we get to the slightly awkward part of the conversation. I told you guys all this, and while I don’t think you’d run off to rat us out, we could use your help.”

Aang looks up from the chalk drawing with a frown. “Help you? How?”

He gestures with the chalk. “See, there’s supposed to be a caravan passing this way tomorrow. We’ve hit enough of them that I think they’re starting to feel it, so this might be a big one. I’d hate to let them pass and make all our work meaningless, but I’m not sure there’s enough of us to manage it. But,” he turns to Katara, “you’re a waterbender. And, well, there’s him,” he says, nodding at Aang.

“So?” Katara asks, sounding wary.

“The caravans haven’t been that well-defended. I can’t see how this one would be, so even with just you two, it’d be possible to pull this off.” Jet grins. “So what do you say? Wanna help us steal a caravan?”

——

When Sanren was a boy, he would spend his summers with his grandparents, roaming the fields and rice paddies in the sweltering heat of the countryside rather than spend his days cooped up in the city his father was assigned to. His mother’s father had owned and worked this land for generations, providing the Fire Nation the sustenance it needed to burn so brightly. Grandfather would say that the army’s fire would gutter and die without the rice the terrace men like him provided.

Grandfather was not a bender, but the Fire Nation lived and died by hands like his own.

This is a truth Sanren learned back then, and it is a truth that he has carried all his life. Those who have the gift of fire rely on those who do not, just as much as the reverse is true.

Perhaps it is sedition to think so. The things he was taught as a boy in the classrooms, the lessons he could recite perfectly to this day all remind him that fire is the superior element.

Perhaps if more people who wrote the curriculums had the honor of speaking with men like Grandfather, Sanren would not be staring at the records of the incompetence of his predecessors.

He sighs.

“Masa,” he calls out as he rubs his temples between his thumbs.

His second pokes his head in through the tent flap. “Sir?”

Sanren gestures to the organized chaos on the writing desk in front of him. “Is this all the intel we’ve managed to gather on the situation in this area?”

Masa fights back a grimace. “Sorry, sir.”

He sighs again, this time with much more feeling. The map of the region marked with insurrectionist activity stares accusingly at him from the desktop.

It is a very marked-up map.

When the Fire Lord tasked him with securing the colonies and dealing with dissent before it became an actual rebellion, Sanren did not fool himself into thinking the task would be easy. The colonies had always been troublesome; no matter how obvious they make it that their ways are strictly an improvement, there are always people resistant to the idea of progress. Here in the Earth Kingdom, people are very much like their element: stubborn to the point of stupidity. Of course they would resist change the most.

Old Fire Lord Azulon knew this. Towards the end of his reign, he started relaxing the restrictions on troop integration, allowing earthbenders into their ranks. That led naturally to more integration in the colonies. Sanren fights to keep a sneer off his face. It’s certainly useful for unity, but some people do not like the very concept of mixed blood. Previous commanders resisted the edict to actually integrate their troops, and made their blatant disdain for the populace obvious.

They then, of course, had the gall to be entirely shocked when The Exile took offense to this.

(That’s an entirely different problem to deal with, at some point, he knows. As long as the former princess is free to disrupt operations in the colonies, there will be those lured into the thinking that rebellion against the Fire Nation is anything other than an exercise in futility. The Fire Lord wants his wayward issue to be brought to heel.)

(As long as the girl keeps at sea, she’s not Sanren’s problem. He has quite enough of them.)

Sanren doesn’t know whether to thank or curse the child or the Dragon of the West. The former commanders in the area were incompetent, no doubt promoted due to political connections rather than actual talent. So now there is a dearth of reliable intel on the actual state of things, such as the number of insurgent cells they are dealing with, or any kind of patterns regarding attacks on supply lines. The entire region is a mess, and it’s only because of the sudden vacancies that they’re even aware of the scope of the problem now.

Masa shifts slightly from his position in the doorway. Sanren looks up and raises an eyebrow. “Was there something else?”

“Apologies, sir,” his second grimaces. “I was just informed that one of the mercenary companies you requested has arrived.”

Thank the spirits, he was due for some good news.

He waves a hand. “See that they’re sent in as soon as they can.”

“Yes sir.” Masa salutes, turns on his heel, and strides smartly out of the command tent.

Sanren is not particularly fond of mercenary companies, if he is being honest with himself. (And he has no reason not to be. Self-delusion helps no one, unless the goal is an early grave.) But he’s also realistic. He has far too much territory to cover and far too few men and even less intel to do his job well. He can swallow his distaste if it means getting the job done.

It’s his job, after all, to make strategic use of his assets. This is just another one.

He doesn’t raise his head when he hears boots clomping outside the tent. (Let them see what they want to.)

“Well now, this is a surprise. The little major’s moving up in the world!”

Sanren deigns to look up, schooling his expression into one of patient bemusement. If it has any affect on Colonel Mongke, the man doesn’t let it change the shit-eating grin that spreads across his face.

“It’s ‘Colonel’, now,” Sanren says, cooly.

“Oh,is it now?” Mongke’s voice just oozes with amusement. “Well then. What can I do for you?”

Sanren doesn’t so much as let his face twitch in annoyance; he did, after all, expect this. Instead, he gestures to the seat in front of his desk. Masa comes in with the teapot, already steeping, as soon as Mongke sits down.

“You still can’t be bothered to drink, can you?” the man notes as he takes the cup of tea offered.

Sanren raises an eyebrow as he pours his own. “When I can drink with all my men, then I’ll consider it.”

“If they’re on-duty, they’re not drinking.”

“So you see why I do not drink.”

Mongke laughs. “So very honorable of you.” Nevertheless, he sips at the tea. “But we digress. What is it you think I can do for you? I’ll admit I was quite surprised to get a job offer from you. I can’t imagine you’re interested in the usual tasks we’re hired to carry out.”

“Reasonable,” Sanren allows. He sips at his own cup as he considers how to answer the question. “The Rough Rhinos do have a reputation. One that speaks for itself.” Sighing, he puts down his tea and points at the map on the desk. “I have a priority caravan heading to Gaipan. Right through the territory that’s seen a lot of insurgent activity. To be perfectly frank, I’m short-staffed, and my intel is more worthless than a pile of komodo-rhino dung.”

Mongke leans back in his seat. “And let me guess. That caravan needs to get to Gaipan. Or so High Command says. And you don’t have the manpower to ensure it.”

“Essentially, yes.” Sanren gestures to the map. “Pulling capable people to this leaves too many gaps elsewhere. However, if I can get a team with an impeccable record and can handle situations with bad or no intel with ease?”

“You don’t have to flatter me so much, Sanren,” Mongke chuckles, then looks thoughtful. “I assume the pay is reasonable.”

“I’m authorized to offer your standard rate...along with hazard pay.”

(He needs to remember to thank Masa for managing that. Who knows what strings his second had to pull, but there’s a reason he’s fought tooth and nail to keep the man as his second and not let him get reassigned to some political-appointee general.)

“Never let it be said that you don’t know how to catch a man’s attention. That kind of pay for a milk run? Why, it’s practically my patriotic duty to accept.”

Sanren presses his lips together in a thin smile. “Patriotic duty?”

Mongke shrugs. “I may be freelance now, but that’s really just a polite way to say I go where the Fire Lord needs me most. It’s simpler, after all, not having to deal with all of those authorizations.”

“Ah, yes, of course.” Sanren looks down at the map again, at the routes he’s supposed to secure and areas he needs to pacify for his Fire Lord. Insurrection is not an option, not on his watch. He will, of course, use any means necessary to keep it that way. If that means using men like Mongke and his cohort... “We all go where we’re needed. For the glory of the Fire Nation.”

—-

The courtyard rings with the sound of crashing metal. Zuko twists and disengages, settling back into a deceptively loose stance, dao solid in his hands as he watches his opponent. The sun beats down on both of them, and if he adjusts his wrist just slightly...there.

Zuko darts in just as the guardsman squints at the light reflecting off the blade. The man quickly recovers, bringing his own blade up to defend but it’s too late as Zuko twists the weapon away and knocks the man to the ground. The tip of the dao is perfectly steady as he brings the blade to the man’s throat.

“I yield.”

He huffs as he lets the guardsman scramble to his feet, barely acknowledging the bow. “Who’s next?” he calls out to the various soldiers all hanging back around the edge of the courtyard. None of them seem eager to try their luck against the Crown Prince.

Which is so incredibly frustrating. Zuko knows he can only do katas for so long, that he needs actual spars or combat experience if he wants to progress. So he requested to train with the Imperial guardsmen. Which quickly turned into sparring with the guardsmen.

It’s not enough.

(He needs to be better, needs to be flawless, needs to be faster and stronger. “Good enough” doesn’t exist. Not when he knows he has to fight a dragon. Not when he knows failure is not an option.)

“That’s...that’s everyone, Your Highness,” the captain stammers, pointedly not looking at the sorry state of his men.

Zuko looks around and presses his lips in a thin line. The entire squad is looking far more disheveled than they did when they entered the courtyard. Some of them are still nursing small cuts and sore fingers.

None of them meet his eyes.

“You’re too good for them, Zuko,” Azula says from off to the side. She’s eleven today, and it aches to see her like this, small and serious in the robes for an Agni Kai. The same as she looked when he last saw her. The same as she sounded that day in the hall.

And she’s right. As usual, when it came to this sort of thing. It’s uncanny, how good she is at looking at a single kata and being able to pinpoint exactly where his weaknesses are, where he needs to work. And not just him. Azula had been able to do it for Mai’s throwing stances too. She could even dismantle Ty Lee’s forms, because of course she wouldn’t be stopped by the little fact that Ty Lee is the only person in the entire world who knows them (because she invented it and Zuko wonders why all the girls he knows are completely terrifying).

There’s some kind of irony that the person who could help him so much right now is the person he’s most cut-off from. (He knows she isn’t real, knows that it’s his own mind coming up with this, but it’s just so easy to believe it’s really her. Just for a second.)

The guardsmen shuffle nervously.

Zuko blinks, then sighs as he lowers his guard. “Very well. Good work today. Dismissed, Captain.”

Might as well do his cool-down while the soldiers file out. He makes it about halfway through his usual set before a voice interrupts him.

“At this rate, I’m not entirely certain I’ll have guardsmen left,” Father drawls, sounding highly amused.

Zuko’s head shoots up. “Father! Forgive me, I didn’t realize you were here.”

“Apology accepted, Prince Zuko.” He looks around the courtyard, taking in trampled grass and disturbed sand. “Your training is progressing well?”

Zuko leaps to his feet and offers Father a bow before straightening his spine. “Well enough.”

Father arches an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I...fear that I may be stagnating,” he admits. “The Imperial guard are capable swordsmen, but ‘capable’ isn’t enough.” (Not enough. Not yet.)

“Hm.” Father looks him over with a critical eye, and Zuko wishes he’d been paying more attention. He isn’t sure what the state of his training clothes are or how loose his hair is, and he feels like every imperfection is as bright as his fire to the man. (Father has enough to worry about. He doesn’t need to add Zuko’s flaws to that, the things that could get Zuko killed. How can he be a good son if he makes more work for his father?)

(He needs to be able to fight his own battles.)

“I still do not understand your...fascination with these weapons,” Father says. “There are those who would call you weak for it. Or even a failure.”

Zuko grits his teeth. Oh, he knows. It’s no secret in the court that the Crown Prince has been spending much of his time “playing” with swords in the training halls. He hears their tongues wag as they prattle on with baseless speculation on his firebending.

(He had overheard them, one day, talking in the halls. That the Crown Prince took to swords because he couldn’t produce more than a spark. Why else did he make his traitor sister stand for an Agni Kai? Perhaps that was why Iroh could turn her, whisper promises of power in her ear. The ex-Princess, after all, is only a dim-witted child. So very easy prey.

It had taken every ounce of self-control he had not to burn them to cinders on the spot.)

“I am aware, Father,” he says, fighting to keep the growl out of his voice. “Far be it from me to stop them from making such mistakes.”

Father simply looks at him, a long and weighty gaze that Zuko refuses to buckle under. So he straightens his spine and tilts his chin up to meet his father’s eyes.

The corner of Father’s lip curls upwards. “Indeed. You are my son, after all.”

(The dragon in his soul purrs at the praise, a blazing fire beating in his chest.)

“I am certain,” he continues, “that you’ll figure out how to ensure your enemies regret ever crossing us.”

Zuko knows what Father means. Of course he does. Of course Father had been concerned when Zuko started focusing more on his dao than his fire. But he had allowed Zuko to explain his reasoning, explain that General Iroh was far too wily to fall to a teenage boy, even if he could be blinded by sentimentality.

But it’s been almost three years and it’s not enough. The man has had his little sister for three years, and Zuko still isn’t good enough. And he doesn’t know if that will change in time, no matter how many times he sends every Imperial guardsman who faces him to the ground.

(How does one get stronger by standing still? How does one get better by facing inferior obstacles?)

Father is still looking at him with the kind of burning in his eyes that can’t be anything other than pride. It’s as if he knows the shape of Zuko’s thoughts and approves. Of course Father approves. (Of course Father wants Azula back and out of General Iroh’s clutches just as much as he does. He’s seen the tightness around Father’s eyes, the slightest tremble of rage in Father’s hands every time a new report of the traitors throwing Azula into the path of loyal Fire Nation soldiers, of the traitors using his own blood as a weapon against them.

Of course Father wants Azula back in the Palace, where she’s safe from the kind of people who’d use her as nothing more than a tool.)

“Is there something else you needed, Father?” Zuko asks.

Father smiles, clearly pleased. “Can it not simply be that I wanted to see how my son is progressing?” His smile widens as Zuko can’t help but raise an incredulous eyebrow. “Yes, I did need something. I believe you have the latest census out of Taiyou-ken Province? The generals are claiming there’s an irregularity with the conscription numbers they’re getting.”

Zuko sighs. Of course they are. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. But he nods. “I’ll have Itsuki bring them to you after lunch.”

Father offers him another smile before he takes his leave. Zuko watches him go, still feeling the lingering warmth from his praise.

The smell of salt hits him. He looks down to see Azula step up to his side, seawater dripping from her hair and pale skin. (Pale as death) She looks up at him, golden eyes dulled and unseeing and lips the same blue as her flame, but with none of the heat.

Zuko swallows hard. (He hates seeing her like this, eleven years old and dragged down to the cold depths, stolen from the sun.) “Where were you?”

Azula blinks slowly. “You were speaking to Honored Father.”

(She always had that little quirk of calling Father that. Ever since she was a toddler, he doesn’t think she’s ever called him anything but that. He used to think it was so weird, but hearing it again makes him miss it.)

“And what does that have to do with anything? You stick around when other people are here.”

She just looks at him blankly. Zuko sighs. He doesn’t know why he even bothered to ask. Azula had a habit of making herself scarce whenever he had to talk with Father. Of course his ever-so-helpful mind is going to continue that too. At this point, he’s not sure if he should be pleased with his apparent attention to detail or not.

Zuko pinches the bridge of his nose. “Right. Silly me. Well, come on. I need to change out of these clothes.”

His sister follows him silently as he makes his way to his rooms. It’s hard to say what the most unsettling part of this version is. Well, no, that’s easy. But there are other little things, like how she’s dripping water but leaves no puddles or wet footprints on the tiles. Like how the air seems like it should be colder around her (she looks so cold, too cold, no firebender should look that cold).

He’s fastening the ties of his robe when she speaks again. “What are you going to do?”

“Do about what?” he asks.

“About your swordsmanship. You know you’re not going to get better fighting guardsmen you can disarm in three moves.”

Zuko runs his fingers through his hair, resisting the urge to pull it in frustration. “I don’t know.”

She looks at him with those terrible, dead eyes. “You’re not going to become a master if you don’t know what one even looks like.”

He drags his hands down his face. “I know that. The only problem is that the only masters around here are master benders. Where the hell am I supposed to find a master...swords...” Zuko trails off, staring. “Azula, you’re a genius.”

His sister tilts her head. Seawater drips from her lank topknot and disappears before it hits the floor. Zuko wishes she were real, even this version (he wants to hug her so badly).

He all but dives for his writing desk, scrambling for ink and brush. “I know where I can find a master swordsman.”

Zuko looks up, eyes burning and a fierce smile playing on his lips. Azula looks back at him, dry as a bone and dressed for an Agni Kai, bright gold eyes brimming with life as she smiles back.

——

Azula hits the deck and tucks into a roll as a gout of fire barely passes over her head. She springs upward on one hand, kicking out two arcs of her own fire at her opponent, trying to create distance. It’s not enough. A hand wraps around her ankle, swings her around, and launches her towards the ship’s railing. Azula twists in the air, bending flame to arrest her momentum and keep her from flying overboard. She slows enough that she can then reverse the motion, pushing off from the railing into an aerial spin that sends a wave of flame directly at her opponent.

Uncle Iroh diverts the fire around himself. “Excellent recovery,” he says with a smile.

Azula frowns. She shouldn’t have had to recover at all. She glances down at her feet. No, the hems don’t look any shorter, so there’s really no excuse. Uncle Iroh should not have been able to catch her ankle. It’s sloppy.

Unacceptable.

(The sound of that word cracks through the air. She looks up at the tall man in red from where she’s fallen on the floor. Her chest burns, too tight, not enough air, and her breath catches in her throat as he stares down at her. Dimly, she’s aware of her current trainer standing off to the side, face hard.

She knows better than to even look at him.

“Again,” the red man — the trainer calls him “His Highness” but she thinks he might be her father? — growls.

She pushes herself up, settles back into the stance, trying to hold herself steady. This training session has gone far longer than usual, the sun having set hours ago. His Highness arrived near the end of the usual session and demanded a report on her progress for the first time. He wanted to see her progress for himself.

Obviously, she is disappointing him. Something hot and heavy roils in her gut, even though she hasn’t eaten since lunch and she’s hungry. It makes her throat feel tight and sore. She doesn’t want to disappoint him. She wants him to smile at her like he does Zuzu, not like the coldness she always sees. Just once. If she can make him happy with her just once...

She blinks sleep out of her eyes, swallows a yawn. She wishes the trainer would release her for the day. But His Highness ordered and so she complies. Runs through the kata again. Misjudges the distance in a leap, reaction time just a second too slow, and crashes to the floor again.

“Again,” he barks.

How many times has she tried to get this right? She thought she’d done it correctly the first time, but His Highness had scowled and made her repeat it. Repeat until she gets it right. However many times it takes.

She tries again. Gets further into the kata, but exhaustion is creeping into her muscles, making her slow, making her dull. And she falls again.

“Again.”

She grits her teeth and pushes off the ground, arms trembling. It’s not enough. Her breath rattles in her chest, rasping against her throat as she tries to suck in as much air as she can. It’s too much, her arms give out, little hands slipping on the tiles, and she slams back to the floor.

“Get up.”

She can’t.

“Get on your feet and finish that kata.”

Sucks in a breath, gets her hands under her, and tries to get up. Every muscle trembles, aching with exhaustion. Her vision swims, blurs, as she stands up. But the first sweep is too much, she’s swaying too much, and she overbalances, and her chin hits the tiles one more time.

She tastes blood, feels it dripping past her lips. Oh, she bit her tongue. Or lip. The tile is cool beneath her cheek. The sound of her rasping breaths echo so loudly in the resounding silence.

After a few moments, His Highness walks closer, until all she can see are his shoes.

“Pathetic.”

He walks away, the trainer’s footsteps echoing behind him, torches on the wall extinguishing themselves behind him. The only light is the dim moonlight streaming in through the windows. They leave her on the floor of the training hall alone, too tired to move, in the dark.

She does not cry.)

Azula scowls at her feet. Stupid growth spurt. It keeps messing up her sense of space. She always knows exactly where she is, every part of her in relation to everything else. She has to know, it’s impossible for her to not know. Because what use is she if she can’t even get her own body to be where it needs to be? She’s known exactly where to move, how much force, how much distance, all of that. She's known every piece of that for years, and now it’s all wrong because her legs are longer, her head is higher, every measurement needs to be recalibrated.

“Stupid feet,” she mutters.

Uncle Iroh chuckles. “I have to say, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone your age complain about getting taller.”

The flat look she gives him only makes him chuckle louder. He shakes his head and smiles at her. “Unfortunately, people my age can’t last as long as we’d like in spars. Now, what I noticed is that you’ve started to shift your weight to compensate for the height change...”

Uncle Iroh gives her his observations, the small holes and imperfections in Azula’s technique that he was able to exploit. Azula focuses entirely on what he’s saying, noticing the slight movements and changes in the stances when he shows her the correct way. And when he has her try, moves her body into the places it needs to be, she lets him. It’s so...easy, to just let Uncle Iroh show her. (To let Uncle Iroh into her blind spot, to give him her back. When he offers corrections, his hands are only slightly warm and so very gentle. Even after three years, it is so very strange.)

He has her run through the forms a few times, determining if she remembers his corrections, before he dismisses her from their session.

Which leaves her slightly at a loss. Toph is still helping Fai with the komodo rhinos, and Azula isn’t entirely sure why the babies make them interesting. Or more interesting, considering that it’s Toph. Fai explains that they’re cute, whatever that means. It is unlikely to be the reason why Toph is so interested; the babies are too small to ride.

She could continue practicing, but both Uncle Iroh and Sifu Rùfen have a habit of looking unhappy when she does it. And then they make her visit the infirmary and Doctor Jian looks even more unhappy.

(“Is this a thing adults do?” she asked Toph once.

“I think it’s just you, Smoky.”

Which is unhelpful.)

Avoiding an unhappy Doctor Jian is just sound tactics.

Azula heads to the bridge. She does need to deliver the assessment First Mate Shika requested when handing over the navigation information. Sometimes a verbal report would suffice; First Mate Shika is reasonable like that. And although Azula wasn’t given a timetable, she knows better than to assume that means there isn’t one. If there are things she is necessary for, then she’ll have to do them.

She tries not to regret not being able to finish that scroll on spirit tales. It reminded her of her scroll at...back at the Palace. It’s not quite the same, this one being full of Earth Kingdom tales, but the thin paper of the scroll feels familiar in a way that the paper Uncle Iroh gives her to practice on does not. It’s a cheaper scroll, nothing fine. No bright colors and rich paper and beautiful calligraphy like the scrolls Zuko used to try to give her.

Azula never asked for things like those. She knew better.

There’s a tightness in her throat as she thinks about that scroll back in the Fire Nation. It was something that was entirely hers. Not belonging to the Palace or to the Fire Lord or Zuko (not like herself), but to her and only her, for as long as she can remember. It’s hers, even though she remembers sitting with Lu Ten or with Wen as they read it for her.

Or, it was hers. Azula doubts it still is. It’s far more likely that the Fire Lord had it and everything else burned to ash. There’s no use in wishing otherwise.

Azula scowls at herself, shakes her head. These thoughts are getting annoying. They’re distracting, trying to take her down thought-roads away from what she should be doing. She knows better than to indulge a lack of focus.

She’s too strong to be allowed that luxury.

(Uncle Iroh would say something different. She knows he’d have an unhappy expression if he knew what she was thinking. But she doesn’t know what else to do. How can she relax when she doesn’t know if there are threats? How can she let herself drift down an ill-advised thought-road when she might be needed at any moment?

After all, Uncle Iroh is still a general. He should understand that you need to be ready whenever the orders come down.

Azula just wishes sometimes she could know what those would be.)

When she arrives on the bridge, First Mate Shika is not there, only Captain Jee and Yuka.

Captain Jee nods at her when she enters. “Kaishō.”

Yuka mumbles something, probably also a greeting. The sailor’s head is bent over maps and navigational data, scraps of paper crumpled off to the side of the desk. Her fingertips are covered in chalk dust, the slate next to her filled with scratched out numbers. It looks somewhat familiar, at least similar to the work Azula had been doing for First Mate Shika.

She tenses at the thought. Did she do it wrong? Is her work not up to acceptable standards? Has she been too slow, too unreliable, so that they have to ask another person to do the work Azula was supposed to do? Are there other things she’s failing at that she’s unaware of? That no one is telling her? She should know these things. Know when there are things that need to be corrected, because she can, she can correct them. But only if she knows what.

Yuka’s forehead makes a resounding thunk against the desk, the sound loud enough to shake Azula out of that thought-spiral.

“Of all the sun-blighted...Captain,” Yuka mumbles against the desk, “your First Mate is a demon.”

Captain Jee chuckles. “If she hears you say that, it might just hurt her feelings.”

“She’d deserve it. Ugh, my brain is turning to mush,” she groans, before sitting up and turning towards Azula. Yuka blinks. “Oh. Hi Azula.”

Azula has no idea what she’s walked into, so she just nods. “Are you...all right?” The words feel awkward in her mouth, but she catches a glimpse of Captain Jee’s secret smile before the man turns away, so maybe she’s doing it right.

Yuka groans again. “Just fine,” she says, completely at odds with her physical state.

Azula frowns.

She quirks an eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s not gonna work on you, is it? I’m just tired. And have a headache from all these stupid numbers Shika gave me to do.”

Azula suppresses a flinch. She was right; there is something she’s not doing that First Mate Shika had to give to someone else.

Yuka suddenly sits up straight and snaps her fingers. “Hey! Azula, you’re good at this stuff, right?” Before Azula can answer that, no, she’s not, of course she’s not, not if she keeps failing to meet people’s standards, Yuka continues. “Could you take a look at this and tell me what I’m missing?”

This seems like a pointless endeavor, but Azula walks over anyway. She takes a look at the actual data and maps on the desk and frowns in confusion. Then she looks over the papers Yuka hands over, and her confusion only grows. This doesn’t make sense. But the papers in her hands don’t lie, the numbers don’t change, and it’s written in Standard Huǒzi so she knows she’s reading it correctly.

So why is Yuka analyzing the exact same data Azula did three months ago? She thought...didn’t she do it correctly? No one told her there was a major error. Or..any errors. She’d thought First Mate Shika had seemed pleased when she’d handed over her results. So what did she do wrong?

Yuka is looking at her with an expectant expression. Azula’s gut twists, and her mouth feels drier than usual. She wants so badly to tell Yuka that she’s mistaken, that she didn’t do it right if Yuka has to do it over. But...

Azula feels stupid for not realizing it sooner. First Mate Shika didn’t tell her that she was wrong, because Azula should learn to identify her own mistakes. She’s not a baby, she doesn’t need someone to hold her hand and tell her when she’s messed up. (She has enough practice with that.) No wonder people don’t trust her with things, if it takes her over three months to realize this.

“Azula?” Yuka’s voice cuts through her thoughts like a blade. Azula looks at her and blinks. “You okay there?”

Right. Get it together. This kind of delay in answering wouldn’t have been acceptable back in the Palace. (How far has she slipped?) Azula nods and focuses on the problem in front of them. If she says her thoughts out loud, then Yuka is more likely to tell her where the mistake is.

Azula swallows and points to one set of numbers in the chart. “We have the coordinates and log times recorded here. You cross-reference with the maps and can determine the average speed...” she explains quietly. Yuka doesn’t interrupt as she slowly goes through how to use the past data to chart a theoretical course. Not even when Azula hesitantly explains the trickiest part, because there was a region of extremely strong currents that made navigation difficult, but it isn’t actually marked on the map. This is the part where she must have made the mistake, because she remembers looking at three different maps and sets of logs and needing all of them to figure out the danger. Going around would add time, of course, which is obviously a useless course of action if the hazard doesn’t even exist.

Yuka is quiet for a while after Azula finishes speaking. She’s staring intently at the slate Azula’s filled with numbers as she tried to explain things.

Azula suppresses the urge to fidget, to spin the stick of chalk around her fingers as the silence goes on. Even Captain Jee isn’t saying anything, and although he’s staring out the window, she knows he heard every word.

“Flame and ash,” Yuka breathes out, “Shika wasn’t kidding. You are really good at this.”

What?

Azula’s head snaps up, stares at her in disbelief. That’s...what?

She must make some kind of noise, because Yuka turns to look at her. Azula doesn’t know what to make of her expression, the way her eyes went from surprise to something that seems sadder, of all things. But that doesn’t make any sense. None of this does.

“Azula,” she says quietly, “you...do know that, right?”

Azula isn’t sure she knows anything right now. None of this makes any sense. Because Azula isn’t “good” at things. Maybe if she works hard enough, she’ll be a competent enough firebender to actually be useful, but that’s all she’s good for.

(“You will be perfect, or you will be nothing at all.”

She’s spent so long being nothing, she doesn’t know how to be anything else.)

Impossibly, Yuka’s eyes get sadder for some reason. “Azula...you did all that math in your head. In the time it took to explain this. You... Azula. Not everyone can do that. And I was able to understand it too.” She smiles. “No wonder Shika told me to find you for help if I got stuck. I wondered how you’d impressed her so much, but there’s no way I would have caught those currents the first time.”

Azula looks down at the numbers scribbled in chalk as a warm feeling runs up her spine, different from her fire. First Mate Shika thought...she was good at this? And suggested Yuka ask her for help? And was impressed?

Captain Jee chuckles, and there’s a smile on his face when Azula looks up at him. “Shika wouldn’t stop talking about it for weeks.Said she’d never seen anything like it, and that particular problem’s been used to trip up Academy seniors for decades.”

“Ugh, of course it is,” Yuka grumbles. “Apparently, I know as much as an Academy cadet. Weirdly, this makes me feel better.” She pauses. “Wait, does this mean Shika went to the Academy?”

“She did. Pulled down a good enough score in the Imperial Exams to get in.”

“Why am I not surprised?” She sighs. “I don’t know if I’m jealous or sorry that she had to take those things.”

Azula turns her attention away from the conversation and goes back to starting at the numbers. They stare up at her, stark white against black. Proof, in a way, that she was right. That apparently she did something right that other people (better people) can’t. Something like this.

It shouldn’t matter as much as it’s trying to. The numbers aren’t firebending, or any kind of combat. It’s not useful in that way. Except...it is, and valuable enough to both First Mate Shika and Yuka. Enough that others ask her for help.

The numbers are fixed, rigid. They make sense, because they operate under rules and don’t change their minds about it. She can trust the numbers the same way that she knows she can trust Zuko will know what to do. So if the numbers are saying that she was correct, and saying to First Mate Shika that Azula is good at this...is it possible that it could be true?

——

Aang sits in a tree and tries not to fidget. They’d set out before dawn to where the Freedom Fighters were planning the ambush. Aang couldn’t help but feel slightly apart from them all, even the kids younger than him, with grim faces and bright-eyes, pulling supplies of blackpowder and whatever else they had managed to get their hands on. They did it without blinking, like it was just another chore. Just something everyone did.

For them, it is.

It’s a weight around his neck, this knowledge that he’s from a time when this wasn’t normal. It reminds him that he is an outsider, he’s an outsider to the whole world, because his is long gone, turned to ash and dust a hundred years ago. Maybe if he’d been born later, he wouldn’t feel so out of place.

But the feeling grows heavier as he watches Jet go over the plans one more time with Longshot and Smellerbee. This...he’s not sure if this is fear or if it’s something else. No, not fear. It’s not that same feeling of terror and runrunrun. The weight of it is too much to carry.

The plan is to attack a Fire Nation caravan. Raid the supplies, maybe sabotage the roads to make it harder to pass. Jet makes it sound easy. Maybe for others it is. But Aang remembers when peace was more common than conflict. He’s the only one in the world who does.

His people are gone, and with them, their teachings are nothing but ashes on the wind.

Aang doesn’t know if he can do this. Any of this. He ran away that day because being the Avatar was too big for him, too much for his shoulders to carry. Now? Now he wishes that’s all he had to carry. Because his people only live in his breath, in the air in his lungs, and the whisper of his words. Every act he does now reflects on all of them, the memories of a people unremembered by the world.

(He wouldn’t have run if he knew he’d be carrying an entire people’s history on his back instead.)

When he thinks about it like that, it’s not really surprising that the world forgot how to have peace, not when the people who taught it are gone. Almost gone.

Aang chews his lip. He knows the teachings. A respect for life means all life. And even though he’s not used to war, even though Jet says that this is just targeting supplies, even Aang isn’t naive enough to think that people won’t get hurt. That people won’t die.

Can he live with himself if someone’s life ends at his hands? Even during that fight with the soldiers the night before, even through the bite of terror and desperation, he still tried to pull his punches. To subdue. To use only as much force as necessary to stop the threat. That’s what airbending is supposed to be about, as the temples taught it. Oh sure, he knows there are techniques that can cause real, permanent harm. Techniques that can kill. But that’s true of everything. A hold meant to subdue can turn fatal with just a slip of a hand.

Can Aang live with himself if he slips like that? Because even that one fight taught him that the real thing is nothing like the spars on the Temple grounds. And when everyone else is slipping into that mindset, can he be so sure he’s going to stay out of it?

Aang wishes desperately that Gyatso was here.

Jet finishes up and turns towards him, then frowns. “Something wrong?”

Aang grimaces. What isn’t wrong? But...Jet’s got the rest of the Freedom Fighters to worry about. He shouldn’t have to worry about Aang too. Or worse, think he can’t count on him. (A voice that sounds like Sokka tells him that it’s only good strategy.) So...”I don’t know if I can do this,” he admits quietly.

“Hey, it’s okay to be scared,” Jet starts, voice immediately taking on a soothing, calming tone, “lots of us were scared the first time. Probably all of us, really. Fire Nation’s scary. No one’s gonna think less of you for being afraid of that.”

But Aang shakes his head. “No, I know...it’s not that I’m scared. I don’t want to...” run away, he thinks. “I know the Fire Nation needs to be stopped from what they’re doing. I know exactly what they can do. It’s just...I don’t know if I can fight them like everybody wants me to fight them.”

Jet blinks. “What do you mean?”

Aang looks over to the side, sees Sokka and Katara together, doing their own preparations. Sokka looks up from his boomerang. His friend’s eyebrows quirk up, then he takes a quick side-glance at Katara. Who is paying more attention to Jet and him than anything else.

He sighs, then turns back to the other boy. “I mean...I don’t know if I can fight like you do. I don’t, I can’t...” He closes his eyes, breathes deep. (The wind whispers past his ear, soothing and joyful and it settles into his heart. His people aren’t all gone, not while he still draws breath.) “You know who I am, Jet. What I am.”

Aang opens his eyes. “But I’m an Air Nomad too. And I’m...if I go against what the monks taught, if I stop seeing all life as worth something...”

“Then your people really are gone,” Sokka cuts in. He didn’t even realize his friends had joined them.

“And the Fire Nation really won,” Katara says quietly. She’s like the ocean before a storm, he thinks. Calm but a maelstrom beneath the surface. (Aang remembers the conversation in Omashu. They’re both the last something, but he can’t help but feel like he’s falling short on some scale for her.

Like he does everyone.)

Jet chews on the stalk of grass in his mouth, looking between the three of them. “I’m not calling the ambush off,” he states. “We’ve got too much riding on this.”

Aang shakes his head. “No, I mean, I don’t...entirely like it, but I don’t...get how things are now, not like the rest of you. I don’t know if I should try to stop you.”

“You just can’t get blood on your hands,” he says bluntly.

Aang winces. Next to him, his friends go stiff. Which is nice, but Jet’s not exactly wrong. Which just makes it all worse. “I don’t know if I’d put it quite like that...”

Jet sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “It’s the same result in the end, right? You’re right, I don’t know if you can fight a war like we want you to.” His words shouldn’t hit and stick like barbs in his skin, but they do, each one finding a soft spot to pull shreds out of him. “Everyone knows that the Air Nomads were pacifists.”

“I’m sorry,” Aang whispers, curling in to protect what’s left of him.

“Why?”

Now he’s just confused. “Why? Because I’m letting everyone down?” Again? He can’t seem to do anything else.

Jet gives him a strange look. “Who said that? Look...” he chews on that stalk of grass thoughtfully, like he’s trying to find the words. “I don’t...get the pacifism thing. I was taught to honor my foremothers by fighting for kith and kin, for our land and its spirits, to my last breath. That it took force for them to bow to the Earth King, and so it’ll take force to make me bow to the Fire Lord. And their spirits won’t rest until every ashmaker who threatens us is in the ground.”

(All he can see, stacked neatly in front of him, are bones. So many bones. Some so small, he knows they had to come from the nursery. How long did their spirits sit chained to the earth, yearning for the sky, because their deaths still went unanswered? Were the rites enough, after all this time? Are his people still unable to fly free?

If he turns away from the teachings, will they ever?)

“That’s...I...” Aang can’t find the words. That’s not who I am? That’s not who I want to be? He doesn’t know who he is or who he wants to be, that’s the entire problem.

“You owe the dead something different,” Katara says softly.

Jet nods. “Yeah, that. Only you can know that. ‘Cause you’re gonna have to be the one to live with whatever you decide.” He shrugs. “Not me.”

It’s not that he doesn’t want to help. He does. Aang knows that this kind of thing the Freedom Fighters do gets supplies that they can send to people who actually need it. He’s seen their stashes, talked to the kids who run bags of everything from medicine to rice through the forests to refugees. That, at least, is something he can do, and he knows no one but the stuffiest of elders would have complained about it. (And really, suddenly not annoying them would be more disrespectful, right?)

Which is how he and Katara end up crouched in a ditch next to the side of the road with another kid (“Call me The Duke!”) waiting for the caravan. Sokka and Jet are on the other side of the road a bit further back, and the rest of the Freedom Fighters are scattered around, hidden in trees and bushes. Aang and Katara’s job is to muddy up the road when the caravan passes, slowing it down or stopping it. That’ll be the signal for the fighters to attack, and the rest of them would grab the supplies. And since Aang and The Duke are the fastest and smallest, they also get the job of grabbing whatever the most important cargo is. Then Jet and Sokka set off some blasting jelly as a decoy, and in the confusion, everyone gets away.

Sounds simple enough. Sokka had frowned a lot at the plan, but admitted he didn’t know the area well enough to suggest anything else. And anyway, simple is good, right? Aang likes the idea of simple.

(Wind on fire, it’d be a change from the way everything else has been going. Aang’s pretty sure the world owes him a break at this point.)

It feels like they’ve been waiting forever before he hears the rumble of a caravan coming down the road. Not that he can see much, given the dust getting kicked up, but the steady pounding can’t be anything but komodo-rhinos and ostrich-horses hauling however many carts laden down with stuff. He spots flashes of black bone armor and bone white facemasks before he yanks his head back down. Yep, that’s Fire Nation, all right.

Aang glances over at Katara. She meets his look with a grin that’s full of teeth. He can’t tell if it’s fear or excitement. Maybe both. Probably both. They nod, and together they bend the water out of the barrels the Freedom Fighters brought along, turning the stretch of road in front of them into an absolute mudpit. With a grin, Aang airbends some of the dust to settle, making the mud look at least a little drier than it is.

Won’t be long now, he thinks as the rumble of the caravan gets louder.

The first cart gets halfway through the muddy patch before the ostrich-horse stumbles. There’s a loud crack as a wheel gets stuck and an axel snaps, sending the whole thing skidding, including the poor ostrich-horse. From there, it’s like dominoes: animals can’t stop in time, get tangled in their leads, carts get stuck, or crash into each other. By the time there’s enough warning for the back of the train to stop in time, the entire caravan’s ground to a halt in a glorious mess.

(Gyatso would be proud.)

There’s a moment of silence while the leader of the caravan looks like he’s trying to figure out how in the world he got into this position. Moment’s over when an arrow pins his shirt sleeve to said cart.

He screams.

Yeah, Aang thinks, that also works as a signal in case anyone missed it. The Freedom Fighters leap from their hiding places onto the trapped caravan; many of the drivers and guards get tackled into the mud. They might be smaller and weaker than the adults, but these kids know how to work together to bring down targets fast and hard.

“Wolves,” Katara mutters next to him. “They’re like wolves.” She sounds more curious than scared or worried.

Aang wishes he had her calm. But the South Pole has always been different from the Air Temples. (The land fights them, challenges them, dares them to survive. The temples were built where the people could build around the land, bow to it but not be broken by it.

“We are but single blades of grass,” Gyatso had said one day in one of the courtyards. “What is a blade of grass to a mountain?”

Aang scrunches his nose. “Small?” he hazards.

The old monk chuckles. “Indeed. A blade of grass is miniscule next to a mountain. It cannot hope to overpower it. But,” he says, gesturing to the grassy grounds, “grass covers the mountain.”

“Isn’t covering it overpowering it?”

“Perhaps. But rock doesn’t need sun and rain like the grass does. The rain wears away the rock, where even after a storm the grass returns. So. What does that tell you?”

Aang frowns. These lessons always feel like there’s something deeper, that Gyatso isn’t just teaching him Air Nomad philosophy. None of the other monks ever bring up the other three elements as often as he does in his metaphors. There’s something he’s trying to get Aang to realize. If only Aang knew what that was.

He chews his lip. “The grass takes what the rock doesn’t need. So that’s okay. And it grows around the mountain, but...well, it’s still a mountain.”

Gyatso smiles widely and Aang breathes a sigh of relief. “They can coexist, right? They’re in balance.”

“Um...”

His smile turns serious-face. “Now, there’s one more thing about the grass you must remember, Aang. Probably the most important thing.”

Aang gulps, but nods.

“The most important thing about the grass,” Gyatso says seriously, before grinning brightly, “is how to make a grass whistle.”)

Aang blinks then refocuses on the chaos in front of them. Even though the ground is muddy, dust is still getting kicked up in the air. Add to that the shouting and swearing, and it’s getting harder for the Fire Nationals to figure out what’s going on. Which means it’s time for Aang to get a move on and go find...whatever.

Eh, he’ll figure it out when he sees it.

And with that, Aang takes a deep breath and darts into the fray.

If he couldn’t airbend, this would be a lot harder, he admits to himself as he dodges past a komodo-rhino flailing in the mud and a guard blindly reaching out to grab...something. (The guy lost his helmet and Aang doesn’t want to think about how his face is covered in blood). He thought it looked chaotic from the outside, but now that he’s in the middle of it? Whole ‘nother game of airball.

Aang ducks just in time to avoid getting hit with an arrow. He’s not sure which side shot it, but wow, that could have hit him in the shoulder, and then where would he be?

He manages to weave in and out and around the battles taking place all around him. Slips around another soldier who has at least three Freedom Fighters grabbing onto him. The soldier is shouting, screaming something. Probably something to do with the kid sinking their teeth into his wrist. Well, that’s one way of stopping a firebender from bending fire.

Right. Focus.

Aang reaches the carts and dives behind the boxes still piled up high enough to hide him a bit. This was one of the lead carts, he thinks. (He very carefully doesn’t think about the poor ostrich-horse screaming in the mud, one leg bent at a very wrong angle.) So there should be something useful in here, right?

He really doesn’t want to have to search all of these carts. It’ll take too long. Well, probably. The Freedom Fighters seem to be doing pretty good. Sokka had said this plan would need a lot of luck to pull off, so maybe they’re actually getting it! But that still means Aang needs to actually find something worthwhile, or this...well, he’s not going to fail this time (not going to fail again).

Aang glances around himself, taking in boxes with the Fire Nation symbol branded into the wood, starkly black even with all the dust in the air. So at least he’s probably looking at the right stuff. Bad news is that none of the boxes are also labeled with “Super Important Helpful Thing” but instead some gibberish string of numbers and letters, which is pretty inconsiderate of them.

There’s a rumble in the distance.

Okay, so if going through each cart to find something would take too long, going through every box is definitely going to take too long. And while these are probably important, Aang doesn’t know if they’re Important important.

Anyway, the boxes are kind of big anyway, and airbending isn’t really that great at lifting heavy things. (That’s why you go find an earthbender when you need to do that. Or, you did. Aang isn’t so sure how true that still is.)

The rumbling gets louder, sounding like heavy feet striking the ground at a run. Someone starts shouting. Or maybe the shouting is the same screaming?

In the end, Aang nearly misses it. The cart is just packed full of these same boxes over and over and nothing else. It didn’t seem like there was any room for anything else. It’s only when he drops to the floor of the cart again to duck another arrow that he sees it: a small wooden box crammed underneath the driver’s bench and hidden by everything else in the cart.

Aang grabs the box. It’s heavier than he expected. There’s a lock, but it looks like someone forgot to actually use it. Well, that’s handy. He cracks open the lid and peeks inside.

Oh. Oh, well then. Jet had told him to get the “most valuable” cargo, but kind of left that definition up to him. Chest full of money sounds pretty valuable to him.

A teeth-rattling boom slams through the sounds of battle. Aang whips his head around. A soldier in some strange Fire Nation uniform sits atop a komodo-rhino as they throw something into one of the piles of broken carts. The wood is shattered by the explosion, shards flying everywhere. He throws up a wall of air as a shield on pure reflex, the splinters instead shredding some of the cloth on the cart.

Another one of the new arrivals shoots a burning arrow at the mess, lighting up the broken wood like a bonfire as the rest charge in.

People fall to the ground, shouting in pain. Fire Nation and Freedom Fighter alike. (These people don’t care who gets caught in the crossfire.) It was chaos before, but this? This is...oh breath of life, was this what it was like?

(Is this what it looked like, the day he wasn’t there? When the sky choked on ash and the wind died?)

A Freedom Fighter slams into the mud as a set of bolas wrap around his legs, binding him tight.

(Kalden running through the corridors, once upon a time racing Aang, a boy who ran like the wind, trying to outrun that death in bone-white masks, falling, falling, bound and utterly still.)

A whip made of water snakes through the air, encircles the fire and devours it. Katara, grim-faced and ash-streaked, twists her hands and the remaining water streaks towards the archer’s komodo-rhino, smacking it in the eye. The mount rears, screaming, and the archer tumbles from its back with a shout.

(Tashi’s arrows are newer than Aang’s, but he still manipulates the air to turn the flames back, towards the soldiers in black and red. Pulling air from their fire, from their lungs, whatever he can, because he can’t let them get past. Not with the nursery at his back.)

Smellerbee dives towards the trapped Freedom Fighter, knife already flashing. The ropes fall away and both roll in opposite directions to avoid the back-breaking slam of the guan dao that strikes where they had been. The man wielding it snarls, twirls the weapon around. Smellerbee’s grin is a sharp and feral thing, blood from a split lip already painting her teeth bloody.

(Yangsho could never get the forms right. He was always ditching lessons to visit the sky bison, playing with the little ones and napping on the adults who let him. He didn’t care about getting his tattoos. He hated fighting so much, even the gentlest of spars, because he hated the idea of hurting someone even accidentally.

Yangsho sinking into the opening stance of the most devastating technique he knew, blood in his teeth and covered in the stench of burning fur.)

Someone screams, high and childish, shrill with pain and fear. There, next to one of the upturned carts, stands a man with a thin moustache and beard, head bald except for a topknot. He looks calm, almost unbothered except for the small smile tugging at his lips. He holds aloft a small form, squirming and screaming, in one flaming hand.

The Duke keeps screaming, trying to break the man’s grip on his arm as he dangles in the air, the flames eagerly leaping onto the boy’s clothes.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM, YOU SON OF A WEASEL-DOG!” Jet roars as he charges at them, hook swords drawn and absolute rage in his eyes. Sokka chases after him, half a dozen steps behind, but Jet’s not interested in slowing down. He swings at the man. “You’re not doing this again!”

The man dodges, almost lazily, the Duke still held in his burning hand. (The boy’s struggles are getting slower.) “Hm? Have we met?”

“You killed them! Burned them all!”

“Kid, you’re going to have to be more specific. I kill a lot of people with fire. It’s kind of my thing.” He dodges another swing, then looks at the boy in his hand who is barely even twitches. “But, if you insist...”

The Duke falls from his hand, flames dying out in an instant. He falls to the ground so slowly, almost like an airbender. Smoke drifts up almost lazily from his shirt, from his skin. Skin that’s raw and red and bleeding and he’s not moving. Aang can’t even tell if he’s still breathing. He’s an airbending master and he can’t tell if breath still lives in the boy’s lungs.

Aang’s hands shake.

Sokka catches up and grabs Jet before he can leap at the man blindly. “I’ll kill you,” Jet snarls.

The man smiles.

(Gyatso is surrounded by soldiers. There’s too many of them and too few of him. Aang’s so sorry, so very sorry, because he should be here, Gyatso shouldn’t be alone, shouldn’t have to fight alone, not when Aang has all this power. Not when Aang has this duty.

Not when he’s Aang and he’s Gyatso and Gyatso shouldn’t have to fight alone and rip the air from the soldiers’ lungs, turn blades of grass into deadly knives, snuff out the flames that try to devour him. Not when there are too many of them and only one of him, because Gyatso can’t go forever, and all it takes is one moment, one wrong breath, a whisper of the wind.

And Gyatso burns.)

Aang’s hands shake harder. His mouth is dry, he can’t pull in air fast enough. Everything is so slow, so clear. There’s ash everywhere, covering his head, his clothes, his tongue. There’s a roaring in his head that’s getting louder and louder, drowning everything else out.

He stares at the scene before him. (He thinks of what must have been.) There’s something inside of him that’s splintering, something that’s been straining ever since the South Pole, cracking from seeing home. Aang can’t hear anything over the final crack, before that bright thing shatters into a thousand pieces in front of his eyes.

And everything goes white.