Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It had been a long day, admittedly.

Although Fang had little reason to complain, since few of his days were short. 

He had a lot of tasks to complete within the facilities each day. On that particular occasion, Fang had gone through the usual motions, finishing the menial tasks with which he contributed to keep things up and running inside Lake Laogai. Polish some stones, make sure the lamps were on, lock any doors accidentally left open. Uncommon as that last case was, he still made the rounds.

This time too everything was perfectly closed. Even the main door to the surface.

Some sunlight filtered through the door frame. He closed his eyes for an instant to savor its warmth on the fine line of skin it caressed. It was fine to enjoy a drop of sunlight when no one was looking, right? Surely such a negligible amount would not increase the chance of one of his ‘attacks’.

He shivered at the thought. It had been years since he’d been out in the city. The sun worsened his condition; it was safer for him to stay inside the Lake, the Dai Li said.

Fang believed them. What else could he do?

He closed his eyes shut, to slowly and painfully turn his back to the fine thread of light. The Dai Li awaited his report.

A few steps before the door, someone crashed against him. A Dai Li recruit, one of the most recent ones. He shot Fang a terrified glance and kept running towards the door to the surface.

The scene inside was the most chaotic he had ever seen inside Lake Laogai. Some of the older Dai Li carried armfuls of scrolls or crates filled to the brim. The younger ones flattened every surface, or hid things behind irregular stone walls that blended well with the natural cave.

“What’s goin on?” Fang tried to ask, without anyone stopping for long enough to give an answer. He only got a condescending look from one of them.

“Stay here and make sure the doors are closed.”

So Fang stayed there, waiting a few minutes until all of the Dai Li left and performing the usual tasks for the second time that day. 

But without Dai Li agents around, he actually had very little to do. 

The other guests, many ladies from the city, were nowhere to be found. Many of the doors he had checked earlier were simply gone— covered with stone walls, entire rooms closed off until an earthbender came back.

Most of the lamps were gone. Though there were some green glowy crystals sprinkled on the cave’s walls, Fang was suddenly glad to have a portable lamp, that illuminated with its cold green (though considerably more intense than the crystals) light the empty stone hallways. 

His steps made too loud a sound. Somewhere close, a drop of water fell with perfect regularity. It eased him somewhat, but at the same time, it made his head hurt.

It was the sudden unevenness of the sound that made him realize that someone, or a group of someones, were approaching him.

He didn’t understand the words that accompanied the steps, but they neared and they neared fast, and a heartbeat later, he was face to face with a group of people, as young as the newest Dai Li.

Leading the group, a tall boy with an arrow tattoo over his shaved head stopped suddenly. Behind him, two more were dressed in blue, and the fourth person chewed on a piece of wheat.

“Who are you and what are you doing in Lake Laogai?” Fang tried to sound as demanding as he could. His voice came out much louder and stronger than he had expected.

One of the people in blue, the girl, muttered something under her breath and the boy with the wheat stepped forward, palms extended as if trying to appease Fang.

“The entrance we used collapsed and we got separated from the rest of our group…”

A collapse? From the direction they came from, it could only mean the connection to the surface had been severed.

They had left him behind to…

No, there was still the other door. He refrained from looking at the way behind him, but kept that detail in mind.

“You aren’t allowed here,” Fang shielded himself behind something he knew to be true. The Dai Li would be really mad if he slipped something he shouldn’t when dealing with these intruders.

“We know,” the boy with the wheat glared at him, too focused on his eyes for Fang to be comfortable.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then forced himself to stand still.

“If you don’t want more problems, leave now.” It was all Fang felt sure enough to say.

“Are you from the city?” the boy asked, apparently not paying any mind to Fang’s stern words. And this time, the glare spoke of clear mistrust. “Are you a Dai Li?”

Fang risked a quick glance to the rest of the group, and shook his head slightly. It was no use trying to lie about that last thing. And there was a dark aura of danger around the girl in blue that he didn’t want to tamper with…

She started speaking to the boy with the wheat, exchanging a few phrases. Fang didn’t need to understand her language to know the words were bitter—her gesture, and that one of the boy chewing on a piece of wheat, told their own story.

Finally, the boy turned to him and took his time changing the wheat from one side of his mouth to the other before deigning to speak, in a tone that Fang could finally locate as coming from the southernmost part of the Earth Kingdom.

“She wants to heal you.”

Fang stared at him and the boy rolled his eyes.

“I say it’s a waste of time. You may not be a Dai Li, but you’re with them, aren’t you? You’re dressed like them.”

Fang didn’t respond to that, either. Was he with the Dai Li? But there was another question the boy might be actually able to answer.

“What do you mean, ‘healing’?”

“She thinks they messed with your mind like they did with mine when I…” the boy crossed his arms, suddenly, narrowing his eyes. “You remind me of someone who was a firebender. Where are you from?”

Fang’s heart started beating out of control, and sweat covered his palms, making the grip on the lamp slippery.

Firebender.

Bad, bad word. Like something pushing to get free from within his brain, like the prelude of one of his infamous ‘attacks’—

“Well? What’s your name? Where are you from?”

“My place is here,” he answered, suddenly cold, jaw rigid. “My place is here.”

The boy looked at him again, this time almost afraid. He then whispered something to the girl in blue.

“She’s going to heal you,” the boy told Fang, once more extending his hands in an appraising motion. “They’ve done something to you. They did something to me too, she helped me.”

Well… this was not aiding the intruders. In fact, the Dai Li would possibly approve of him serving as a distraction, for whatever they had planned to protect the base.

Also, it was just easier to let himself be led, like with the Dai Li after every ‘attack’. Fang sat on a nearby rock that had escaped the Dai Li hastily done evacuation. Like most of the furniture there, was simply a rock of the right height. The girl took out some water from a pouch hanging from her shoulder and the water remained around her hands instead of spilling onto the ground.

He nearly jumped from his seat. No… no. There weren't any waterbenders in Ba Sing Se, certainly not in Lake Laogai. It would be foolish to let them near the Dai Li with so much water around…

The girl placed a hand on his arm and chewed on her words.

“Fine. It’s fine. We mean no harm.”

Something in her tone made him want to believe her.

But he wasn’t as naive. This wasn’t going to end well.

Do you prefer the intruders, or the Dai Li? A voice inside his head asked, the one that had been paying attention to the possible escape route to the other door to the surface. It wouldn’t be difficult to pass between the boy with the tattoo and the other one…

The girl held a mass of glowing water around her hands, oblivious to Fang’s inner turmoil. He closed his eyes, trying to not think about it any further. There were too many bad, forbidden things happening around him in one single day.

Something searing cold touched his temples and he gritted his teeth. He let his will dilute and disappear, in much the same way he’d learned to do for the Dai Li, though this time the light was white instead of green when the shine overcame the mind behind his lids.

*

When he opened his eyes, Prince Lu Ten of the Fire Nation expected to find the bright sun staring back at him.

The last thing he’d heard before everything went dark was the clashing and burning, the clang of armor and weapons and the crushing of rocks and bones. It was logical to expect the heart of the battle to welcome him back.

But instead, there was only an eerie green light illuminating the uneven surface of a cave, amidst a deafening silence.

And there were four people looking at him.

One of them, who chewed on a plant, approached slowly. Prince Lu Ten reached for the sword at his hip— and there was only empty space.

Not only the sword was gone. So was the armor, the extra weapons concealed on his boots (now, the things on his feet were little more than glorified sandals) and the helmet. His head felt far too light without it—

He didn’t like the incomprehensible babble coming out of the man chewing on the plant’s mouth. A girl in blue tried to speak to him, but her words were just as incomprehensible.

As the remaining two people there began speaking too, he fixed his eyes on the space between them, which called to him for some reason.

Why?

He racked his brain in search of an answer, not an easy task as a lot of his attention was on the increasingly angry tone of two of the boys in front of him.

When one of them reached for the handles of the weapons at his back, Prince Lu Ten made a decision. He lunged forward, still wishing he had a sword, and pushed himself to run as fast as possible. His body wasn’t responding the way he was used to, he noticed with a desperation he’d only ever felt in nightmares.

But, while his feet weren’t as light as he remembered, they seemed to know the way. He disliked not knowing the reason for knowing all the turns and twists, selecting some stairs instead of others, but he was relieved all the same when a door appeared in front of him while the shouting was still far behind.

One of the voices came nearer, and Prince Lu Ten regained enough presence of mind to fumble with the lock instead of forcing it.

The door clicked shut behind him. He sighed loudly when the sunlight touched his skin. Too pale skin— his hands that morning had been far tanner than this. Slowly, the pieces of strange details were pointing towards a clearer conclusion…

But no, that couldn’t be. There ought to be signs, evidence of the siege. He had seen the fights, the blood, the death. The dent on the wall, the burned fields that morning when they had finally breached through.

The water extended far behind him. He hadn’t been near Lake Laogai at the beginning of the battle. In fact, he had been on the exact opposite side of the city.

He ran west, the way he hope—he knew the breach of the wall would be, if he ran enough. His feet began to ache, but he fought to leave the lake behind. He finally stopped at the edge of the fields, hoping to see some hint of the thick smoke that pointed to the battle.

And there was nothing. All around him, there was nothing but tall crops swayed by the gentle breeze. A fat bumble-beetle wandered from flower to flower, not caring about his presence.

Far north, the Inner Wall towered above the colorful fields, not a hint of the black smoke of battle.

The crops moved, and he found himself looking at someone else.

A man behind a wagon, with two ostrich-horses tied to it.

This man too let out a chain of diffuse sounds, completely undecipherable for the Prince; he’d learned some of the reading of the local language (it was necessary for intercepted messages), but the spoken one had never been present around him. Earth Kingdom prisoners were interrogated by other people…

He looked at Lu Ten with a worried glance and gave a step in his direction, but it changed abruptly as his gaze passed over Lu Ten’s clothes.

They both took a step backwards and Lu Ten stumbled over his options. Run again? Tackle him? 

The glint of metal blinked from the farmer’s belt; it was all he needed to make a decision.

This was another way in which his body wasn’t answering the way Lu Ten remembered. But he was still able to throw the farmer to the ground and he took the short sickle he carried. 

It was sharp, and the leather straps over the nearest ostrich-horse gave in quickly. It had no saddle, but it was no impediment for him. With a high-pitched scream, the animal began running west. If there was no hint of the breached wall, there was at least an entrance halfway there.

He’d find a hint.

He didn’t know what he would do if there was none.

Chapter Text

“Halt!”

The group of Kyoshi warriors stopped at Suki’s order. It was around noon, the worst part of the day’s heat, and they needed to remain hydrated, especially so close to their destination. Moon’s Bay wouldn’t be too far after the Serpent’s Pass.

“I prefer the unagi,” one of the other warriors mumbled under her breath when it was time to pass over the water skin.

Suki couldn’t help but agree.

But the Earth King’s orders were not easily disobeyed, and an official missive with his seal had arrived to every village of Kyoshi Island: the warriors were required in Ba Sing Se.

It had been a few months since the Avatar’s visit; it had given them hope, but war went on, and then the letter from Ba Sing Se arrived, and the group of warriors from their neighboring village was called to help. It would be Suki’s group turn next.

“Time to go,” she made sure all the water skins were back in their place, and they resumed their walking.

Kyoshi Island was independent in any other facet of its government, and they had gone unbothered through nearly a century of war; apparently the Earth King had finally remembered their existence, and now (for now) they needed to help manage the entrance of refugees.

Suki knew a request to join the Earth Army was not far behind.

They were a force created by Avatar Kyoshi to defend the island! They weren’t like the Dai Li, founded to serve the Earth King; they had a mission, a duty to their own people. 

Well, maybe with the Avatar somewhere else in the world, the island would go unnoticed, like it had gone for the last hundred years.

The thought still weighed on her mind when the ferry to the city appeared in their sightline.

It wasn’t long after that when they reached the ferry. The people around immediately recognized their makeup, and directed them to their compartment of the ferry, so they could get to Ba Sing Se and help with the refugees there for a month; after that, they’d be transferred back to Moon’s Bay for another month. Around that time, another group of Kyoshi warriors would be on their way, and Suki’s group would then be free to go back to Kyoshi Island.

She couldn’t wait for that day.

Chapter Text

The beast’s labored breath alerted Lu Ten that his trip could not continue for long, but he was finally close to the gates, so instead of stopping, he pushed his heels into the ostrich-horse’s ribs.

His arrival made a lot of heads turn, but not that many. It was chaos, absolute chaos in there— ferry wagons opening their doors, people in queues longer than the ferries, shouting and complaining all over the place.

But people, not soldiers. Not a single shade of the red of a Fire Nation uniform…

Despair was eclipsed behind the overwhelming noise. He was not the only one affected; the crowd and its surrounding chaos almost made Lu Ten lose control of the ostrich-horse, but he pulled from the remainder of the ties to the wagon to steer it into control again.

Once more moving away, he heard some shouting behind him. He risked a glance backwards— in a mix of relief and worry, people only stared, not following him.

Finally.

The walls were finally behind him, and he looked up into the sky, at the blazing sun, basking in its brightness and warmth.

He allowed himself only some moments for that. Then, he looked around. 

His familiarity with the geography outside the walls of Ba Sing Se provided information on the nearby hills and the distant river he knew to be there despite not seeing it; he also remembered the lakes, and the places where the river was crossable.

He didn’t stop to think about the tents that ought to be there, and the campfires that were nowhere to be seen… He only thought of the sun and the direction it was setting.

Further away, straight to the west.

West, home was west. West, like his father, the Dragon of the West.

The direction was the only thought consuming his mind as his hands gripped the improvised reins and his legs tried to cling to the saddleless ostrich-horse.

Chapter Text

The walls would’ve been tall enough to hide the rising sun.

Suki was sure of that; however, since it was some time closer to late afternoon, the ample expanse of stone blocks intercepted the light of the slowly setting sun.

She sighed and turned her sight back to the path. The seven of them dragged their bags down the ferry; as they neared the desks, more and more people waited in queue. Suki almost felt guilty by walking directly to the nearest desk, where she had caught a glimpse of the characteristic gleam of a Kyoshi warrior headpiece. It was the only real reason for a smile she found in that situation.

"Iko, could you…?" Suki started, but the rest of her words were lost to the sudden noise of a galloping ostrich-horse bursting into the station. 

The rider, who looked like a frenzied warspirit, spurred it into an even more fevered rush. People around followed the man's (she could only assume he was a man, and not a spirit) path, open-mouthed but silent as they dodged the worst of the movement.

Suki couldn't deny that the way all the heads turned to the Kyoshi warriors bothered her, as if they expected them to deal with it. Well, she supposed it was their task, keeping order at the ferry station. 

It was not as bothersome when the rest of the warriors turned to her; after all, she was the local leader.

"No need for everyone to go after him," Suki sighed, turning to Iko. "I can take care of this. Find the other group of warriors and get everyone settled, please."

Iko nodded and set to work immediately while Suki started a sprint. Although a wave of refreshing relief washed over Suki as she turned her back to the walls of Ba Sing Se, she was not volunteering just out of selfishness. The other girls of her band were tired from traveling and there were other Kyoshi warriors already on Ba Sing Se, they would welcome Suki's group.  Also, Iko was a good sub-captain, she would not let anything bad happen to the rest.

With that in mind, Suki increased the rhythm of her steps, until she was jogging behind the path open by the rider. A trace of the rapidly dissolving white foam punctuated the track and that made Suki worry about the beast but at the same time, it meant it would not take long for her to get to them. That poor animal was on the verge of collapsing.

Soon enough, she spotted them as the setting sun revealed the river in the distance.

The ever-moving blots of light bothered her and she took out one of the metallic fans to shield her eyes from the worst part of it.

The rider and the animal were nearing the river already, but at a much slower pace than before. It wouldn't take Suki more than one last sprint to fully catch up to them...

Or less.

She watched, almost transfixed, how one last clumsy and exhausted step from the ostrich horse finally made it stumble and fall, bringing its rider along with a pitiful moan.

She slowed down and observed expectantly as the man grunted and limped back to the ostrich-horse with a short sickle on his hand.

And the shirt with the Dai Li mark on it.

She didn't know what to do with that information. Her mind raced as she covered the last few meters between them; was she supposed to help him? To restrain him? And, not quite as relevant but nonetheless intriguing, why was a Dai Li, an elite warrior from the most powerful city in the Earth Kingdom, wielding a mere sickle as a weapon, and riding a saddleless ostrich-horse?

Cautiously approaching with both fans open, she waited for him to make his next move.

Chapter Text

Just a few meters more, so close, so close…

Lu Ten could look at nothing but the sparkling river. Once he crossed, he'd finally feel out of that city, of all the anomalous and strange things that kept happening around him. He might even find the traces of his father's army, anything that meant it had been real.

Once on the other side of the river, maybe the world would return to normalcy.

But then the stupid animal decided to falter.

For a second he couldn’t understand why the ground approached so fast. He barely had time to turn his body to minimize the impact of the fall, and rolled for a couple of meters, receiving some hits on his right side.

The sickle was near. He grabbed it even before trying to get up. A strangled sound left his throat when he first tried to lean onto his right leg.

Cursed animal! 

But it remained his only means of transportation, so he walked to its immobile form, trying to ignore the pain from his ankle for the few steps that separated him from the ostrich-horse. His leg gave out and he fell to his knees, stopping his fall by partially falling on top of the beast.

It was dead.

His grip on the sickle made his knuckles go white with the increased pressure. Tears threatened to overwhelm his eyes– what was happening? Why was destiny being so bitter to him? Was it not enough with his desperation, with his pain, that the Spirits needed to test him further?

“Get up! Get up, I command you!” he screamed, on his knees, pulling from the feathers at the ostrich-horse's neck. “Why won't you fucking get up?!”

It was only then that he noticed the movement in front of him. A woman. No, a Kyoshi warrior, he belatedly registered the white makeup and the combination of headpiece and fans. She had approached, but now that she was a few steps from him, had stopped and simply looked at him with very alert eyes.

He would have laughed, had he not been so desperate. The first time he might engage in combat with one of those legendary warriors, and it was the day he was dressed and armed like a farmer! And wounded, and screaming at a dead ostrich-horse!

He grimaced. His body was not responding the way he expected it to, even before the fall, but that didn't mean he was giving up.

Holding up the sickle, he got up again and ignored the pain shooting up his leg.

“Who are you?” he asked, as commanding as he could. 

The woman didn't stop looking at him, didn't lower her fans. But neither did she show any signs of having understood his words. Or maybe she did, and he was the one who wasn't understanding when she spoke again.

He narrowed his eyes. She had closed one of the fans and was pointing at him, in a way that could not be constructed as an attack.

It wasn't until he realized she was pointing at his chest that he finally understood her words.

“Dai Li, Dai Li!” 

With a frown, he cautiously looked down.

Indeed, it was the mark of the Dai Li.

A new startle, but this time directed at himself, made him stumble and almost fall again. What was he doing wearing the symbol of the enemy he had been fighting that morning?!

The sickle caught the neck of the tunic and easily tore it down. He used his free hand to finish taking it off, leaving only the unmarked shirt underneath.

He looked back at her. This had to make it obvious that he was her enemy, obviously. Kyoshi warriors and Dai Li were both loyal to the Earth King.

She had no traces of lifting her fans at him again.

Which he considered a good thing, since his leg gave out again, this time before he could stop the pained cry from leaving his lips.

He lifted the sickle again when he noticed her stepping closer again.

Her hands were extended towards him, the fans folded and hanging from her belt. All there was in her face was a gentle smile.

He lowered the sickle, exhaustion and fear and pain winning over caution.

She touched his hand, and it felt even warmer than sunlight.

Chapter Text

Why are you helping him?

That voice, that sounded a lot like old Oyaji, was quickly silenced by objective facts. He was  wounded, how could she just leave him?

And, well… she didn't want to admit just how much of a part his obvious rejection of the Dai Li allegiance played in her actions. She shouldn’t think like that, but… It was just so evident he'd escaped from something related to the Dai Li and the Earth King– escaped the way she wished she could. 

However, questions kept burning in her mind as she practically carried him towards a more appropriate camping spot. What was he running from? How had he ended up like that in the first place?

She stole a glance from the corner of her eye. He was pale, but a waxy, unhealthy kind of pale that made it difficult to determine anything else about his origins. His cheekbones were too sharp, and the hand that held onto her shoulder was as wiry as the rest of his body.

There was one other thing that– she didn’t like that way of putting it, but it… well, fascinated her. Despite all the other external signs of physical distress, he had a way of carrying himself that she kept observing discreetly.

Iko would tell her that she got infatuated way too quickly. Given her brief fancy with the Water Tribe boy that had arrived with the Avatar… maybe she had to admit Iko was right.

A good spot appeared not too far away. She helped him sit– she'd need to take a look at that wound, but it would be after she gathered some firewood. Nights weren't as cold as in Kyoshi Island, but they still were not warm.

“I'll be back in a minute,” she told him, setting down her bags next to him. He wouldn't be able to take them and run away, and she was carrying all the weapons on herself anyway. He blinked at her, with that same regal countenance that she stared at for one second too long.

When she realized it, she turned around and walked into the forest, trying to hold back the blush that threatened to spread over her cheeks. She was helping him, but that didn’t mean she could stare that way!

The few minutes used to gather the first load of firewood served to calm her down and double on her resolution to not make things awkward.

He had not moved at all, and frowned at the armful of firewood she placed on their improvised camping site. Frowned as if focusing on it.

She sighed. No explanation could be asked or offered; she couldn't understand a word of what he said. Which was mostly fine, since he couldn't understand a word of what she said, either.

“Fire. We need fire for tonight. Fire,” she tried again, speaking as clearly as she could. All she knew about other languages came from their closeness to the South Pole. She had already tried out those and had noticed no difference. 

It wasn’t dark yet, with the remaining light of dusk still filtering through the foliage of the trees. It would be better to have some more wood, enough to last for the whole night. She didn’t bother trying to say anything else and returned to the forest.

When she made her way back, the warm glow of fire guided her to the camp.

“Oh.” 

He had arranged the firewood on a proper bonfire and had lighted it.

“Thank you,” she said, even if he would not understand.

He looked entirely too pleased with himself. Just because he'd lit the fire? Well, it was an accomplishment. Suki shrugged and thought about it no more, sitting in front of him. Food would come after this.

“Wish you could tell me who you are and what you were doing back there,” she eyed briefly the short sickle and the remaining rags from the Dai Li shirt, that she had carried back intending to use them as bandages or whatever was necessary.

He looked at her once again, with that same unexplainable intensity. His eyes looked light in color.

She liked their aspect.

“Guess it can’t be helped,” she smiled, a hint of excitement sparking in her stomach at the way he fixed his eyes on hers for a second. “First, let’s take a look at your leg.”

Chapter Text

Why are you helping me?

He wished he could speak her language, so he’d be able to ask her. But all in all, he considered it good that he couldn’t; if he had the possibility, he’d be honor-bound to tell her his name, and he was fairly certain that the implications would erase all of her goodwill.

She had the training (he shouldn’t be surprised, she was a Kyoshi Warrior ), and promptly secured a good spot for settling down for the night. By the way she kept looking at him, sneaking glances constantly, he was sure she didn't trust him.

He didn't blame her, but after receiving her help, it would be unthinkable to harm her.

Then she helped him sit; the tense throbbing of his leg made him stifle down the pained exclamation that threatened to escape his throat. She left, and came back with a first load of firewood that was clearly insufficient to last for the night. Even the smallest camps outside Ba Sing Se needed to have at least twice that amount…

Maybe she knew that too, because she left after another attempted explanation.

Careful, to avoid moving the leg that even in rest burned with pain, he took the bundle of firewood. He felt thoroughly stupid; the whole day without even attempting to use his firebending… although, to be fair, going by the effect the sunlight had had on him, he would've been unable to light the smallest candle in the Fire Temple.

First things first. There was no point in feeling defeated already, and it was necessary to arrange the firewood before even considering lighting it.

He'd had good practice before, and it took no time to prepare the branches around the tinder. 

Then, it was time.

Firebenders got their power from the sun. His too-pale hands and his desperate thirst for sunlight made him hesitate; still, he reached for the flame he hoped was there…

At first, all he found inside his chest was a cold weight, like a stone between his lungs. No, not this too! Too many things had been snatched from him that day. He was beginning to come to term with what some of what he'd seen meant. For what his own appearance meant… but his firebending, the greatest source of comfort and belonging, what made him a worthy heir of his lineage…!

A spark within his chest cut his desperation short. With a trembling sigh of relief, he followed the source until something clicked, deeper this time.

It took him a couple of tries to fully grasp the warmth and connect it with his breath; once he inhaled deeply for the third time, a tiny tongue of fire danced on the tip of his finger.

It was enough for the tinder, and when he heard her steps, the bonfire was already burning brightly.

And he couldn’t stop smiling.

She left another bundle of firewood and sat in front of him. Then, she said something, to which he just blinked. Judging by her hands, she was about to examine his leg… he wasn’t looking forward to that.

The loose cut of his pants allowed her to fold it upwards without him having to remove the garment, something he considered good.

For a soldier, you’re such a coward, aren’t you?

Lu Ten had nothing to say to that, eyes firmly closed and away from his leg. He had always kept as far away from the healing tents as possible; they used to say he was lucky, because he’d never been in there for anything more serious than a superficial cut.

But he couldn’t avoid it this time, so he gathered his courage and looked down.

The swollen ankle almost shone in red under the firelight, although there was no sign of blood. He swallowed, clenching his teeth as her hands gently probed the area. Even those light touches were enough to make him stifle a cry.

She took her hands away and said something, getting up. 

The ghost of the touch remained, as did the pain. For a minute, he could do nothing but close his eyes and ride the waves of pain as well as he could.

Then, when he could focus enough, he found her kneeling in front of the fire, tending to a small pot over the fire. He recognized the slightly bitter smell of medicinal herbs.

It wasn’t long before she poured the boiling liquid in a cup and handed it to him.

He braced himself and downed the bitter tea.

Chapter Text

The fire provided some comforting warmth as night fell and the temperature dropped along the light.

Just how bad is it?

Suki shot her new companion another worried glance while her fingers finally found the small metal pot. The river was reasonably close, and far enough from the city for its water to remain somewhat drinkable, but she just took some from the water skin and put it to boil.

He was either very weakened by some sort of imprisonment, or he had a very low pain tolerance. Maybe even a combination of both. He made no noise, but only because he was controlling himself, if she had to judge by his gesture and by the cold sweat gathering on his forehead.

The water boiled and she found the medicine bag. The point remained: she could not perform any kind of more attentive revision of his wound if he was in such obvious pain. By what little she was able to feel, it didn’t seem like a broken bone, but also she wasn’t the most experienced healer in her group; it could very well be something more serious that she was not equipped to diagnose.

She could try; first, some willow-oak tea would help ease the pain, and the batch seemed to be ready.

With careful movements, she took the pot out of the fire and wrapped some of the green rags around it, to avoid burning herself. He had opened his eyes and already had a hand extended towards her when she turned.

There was more resolved steadiness than she had expected when he gripped the cup-sized pot and took it closer to his face. 

“Careful, it’s just out of the fire…” she said automatically. Her hand reached for him and she let out another yelp when his hands didn’t stop. “It’s too hot!”

But he just… drank it. Downed the boiling medicinal tea as if it were nothing but a cup of warm water.

She blinked, shocked into immobility.

He made a face, but not the pained one she had expected; merely as a reaction to the bitterness of the concoction, to immediately close his eyes in apparent exhaustion.

Her eyes didn't leave his face, still waiting for some kind of belated reaction to the obvious burn he must have gotten by drinking that.

There was none.

His breathing calmed down after a few minutes. She blinked, unsure of what to do next. Maybe it was a good time to have some dinner?

She kept glancing at him, but this time it had more to do with the strange tranquility that appeared despite the wound and the boiling tea. This time she wasn’t putting anything on the fire, she decided, taking out the dry rations of traveling bread instead. Just like all her group, she’d grown sick of the taste, but she’d be able to stand it for now.

There were no plates or pots either, something that also played a part in her decision. With a careful touch, she nudged his arm, getting him to open his eyes.

“Food,” she offered one of the hard bars.

That also got a reaction, but again, not one she’d been expecting.

He took the food, but making a face of utter weariness, a gesture she could recognize very well, as she was sure that the same expression had also been in her face when receiving her day's ration. He took the first bite, and his gesture turned even more sour, like that of a child after a tantrum.

She started laughing.

Chapter Text

He felt the nudge on his arm like an island of increased heat over the reassuring warmth of the fire against his side.

She said something, a single word, while very clearly offering him the thing in her hand.

A small block with a very familiar texture.

He took it, unable to feign a smile and instead gave a bleary-eyed stare to the ration of food. During the long march to Ba Sing Se, he had eaten a lifetime worth of that mix of seeds, fat and dry fruits. By the time they started setting the camp outside the great city, some of the soldiers were so sick of it that the mere smell made them nauseous. Sometimes, even Lu Ten himself had preferred to skip it until hunger was sharp enough to lower his standards again.

He steeled himself to take the first bite, but a sudden noise stopped before even lifting the food to his mouth. Looking around wildly, he tried to locate the source of this new danger; it didn't take long to find it.

The Kyoshi warrior. 

But it wasn't actually any danger; she was simply laughing. Laughing, with an abandon that shook her whole body while she clutched her sides and bent over herself. 

He stared, not sure of how to react, the brick of walking rations still in his hand and still halfway to his face. 

It took a minute for the laughter to slow down enough for her to look at him. She dried the tears streaming down her cheeks, and then she raised her own ration. 

The words she said afterwards, he didn't understand. But her face, and her hand gestures, were clear enough. I can't stand this food either. 

He laughed too then, though not with as much intensity as her. Still, it was something he could understand, understanding very well. Apparently, hatred for traveling rations could transcend nations.

He smirked, acknowledging that silent moment of understanding, and then turned back to his food. 

With a grimace that was, to be truthful, mostly exaggerated, he munched on his ration. He wasn't able to keep the facade for long and smiled to himself, still chewing. Despite some subtle differences in the taste, the texture of the food was pretty much the same, as was the sensation of the firelight keeping away the cold night wind of the Earth Kingdom. He'd spent many nights like that, while they made their slow way to the great city of Ba Sing Se, to cover themselves with glory in the name of the Fire Nation.

The only times there was a chance of different food were when he'd traveled with the scouting missions; then, they got to eat whatever they managed to catch. Usually, hare-ducks, or the occasional fox-antelope if they were lucky, but it was only possible when they moved before everyone else. No special food privileges, not even for the son of the Dragon of the West; his father had always been adamant in that regard. The only (sporadic) concession was with tea, whenever they got the supplies that included the 'only decent tea one can drink while traveling', according to his father.

Where was his father?

Tension gathered behind his eyes, and he swallowed the last bite of food along with the sudden knot on his throat. Was General Iroh okay?

Is he even…?

He refused to think about the other, more pressing and way more grim possibility. Nothing could end the Dragon of the West so easily; a dragon couldn't, and certainly some earthbenders wouldn't, either. But then, why had he left Lu Ten behind? Why had he gone?

Agni, where was his father?

He swallowed the last bite of his food with some difficulty. The medicinal tea had diluted the burning pain into a dull ache, which he was thankful for. The food, as sick of the taste as he was, also eased the pinch of his stomach, and while he was far from comfortable, the high of adrenaline and urgency he'd been in since that morning (how come the sky was already so dark?) was finally receding, too. 

And now, in its place, a knot of anguish was forming.

Big enough to make it difficult to breathe.

Chapter Text

They ate in silence, a silence she didn't mind. While being around a group (a band of Kyoshi warriors was a tie as strong as family; sometimes, for orphans like herself, it was even stronger) was a source of solace in its own right, she also enjoyed the quiet that was impossible when traveling with many people. It was actually nice to be able to hear the flickering of fire for once.

She kept observing him between bites of food. His gesture had changed, from disgust to a soft smile, that quickly became her favorite gesture of his.

The thought made her cheeks redden, and she was glad the makeup would hide the worst of it.

She discarded the last crumbs of food, dusting her hands as far as possible from the patch of dirt where she was sitting. Then, she took a few sips from the water skin, and remembering she should offer him some water too, she didn't adjust the cork.

But before she could ask anything, she realized he wasn't well, shaking and with lips tight with tension.

“What's wrong?” she asked out of reflex, already getting up.

He didn't answer, just turned his face away with hands knotted in fists.

She set aside the water, and approached with soft, slow steps. He shrunk over himself even more a couple of times, trembling with the tenseness of his muscles.

The tip of her fingers found his shoulder. Thankfully, he didn’t pull away, and she placed her whole hand there. Waiting for any other sign of distress on his part, she sat beside him, moving so her arm was around his shoulders.

The effect was not immediate, but some tension disappeared from his back. She got closer, cheek resting against his hair, which was still in a messy braid.

“Everything is fine. You are safe now,” she kept muttering, not minding the fact that he wouldn't understand. “You are safe now…”

He swallowed a couple of times, breathing deeper and deeper as the minutes passed. His fists lost some of their strength, and he uncurled his fingers slowly; only then was she sure that he had calmed down somehow.

Letting go bit by bit, as if not to startle him, she helped him sit with his back straight once again. To her surprise, when she looked at his face, the eyes glancing back were dry. There was even an attempt at a smile, and a nod. She couldn’t hear clearly the only word he muttered, but it didn’t matter much, she wouldn’t have understood anyway.

He, however, wasn't looking away from her. And up close, under the firelight, his eyes sparkled with something warm, enigmatic, something she couldn't quite put into words. No… devotion was a stupid word for that, definitely. Maybe she was reading too much into things. Yes, that was it. Maybe gratitude, she had helped him after all. 

And he was attractive. She could feel herself moving closer, never breaking the connection of their gazes.

Would it be so bad to kiss him?

The mere idea shook her enough to break the quiet spell. Her cheeks burned as she pushed back, looking around their improvised campsite, searching for a way to end the awkwardness.

The answer came in the form of an uncorked water skin. That was why she had approached in the first place, wasn't it? She reached for it again, and cleared her throat.

“Water?” she handed it to him.

In complete silence, he took it and drank. She tried not to look at him while receiving the water skin back, face still too warm.

What was she thinking?! He was in pain, he’d have something she could confidently say was one of the worst days of his life, and here she was, thinking about kissing him because she found him cute.

Then again, to be fair, she had always been like that. After all, she’d kissed Sokka while her village was under attack.

Trying to chase away those thoughts, she kept an eye on the fire. It was late, and they were in unknown territory; it would be better if she kept guard for the night.

She did her best to focus on guarding duty– she wasn't sneaking occasional glances in his direction, it was just part of being alert for any danger.

It would have made it much easier to believe her own excuses if he weren't looking back at her every time she did it.

Chapter Text

Just that morning, he'd felt his inner fire close to starvation, and a deep relief when sunlight washed over him like the first warm breeze of spring that marked the end of a cold and desolate winter.

The way her hand felt over his shoulder had a similar effect.

He couldn’t understand the words she muttered like a soft melody, but it still helped him return to the present and remember that, whatever had happened, he was alive and free, safe for now, and soon in search of answers.

Thread by thread, he broke free from the choking grip of despair, control returning to his hands and breaths coming with more space between them. With that, most of the dizziness also disappeared, and he could focus back on his movements.

He lifted his face, and finally looked at her with the closest thing to a smile he could manage, wanting to thank her for the comfort and grounding she’d provided. No words came out of his throat, as the closeness of her face startled him. Her patent worry formed a crease in her brow, but that disappeared fast, to be substituted only by a heap of intensity in her eyes.

What was she thinking about so deeply? Something tugged at the corner of his mind, a thread that he might have been able to follow, had his reason not been so clouded with the residual dread and confusion left from the day, and also with the very out-of-place thought of this girl’s bright, bright eyes being quite beautiful, actually…

But one second later, she sprung back and reached for something. The water skin.

She said something and handed it to him.

He took a few sips and returned it without looking at her in the eye.

After that, she moved away from him, to her previous spot, and he tried to ignore how much he wanted her to stay close. Was it possible to miss human touch like his inner flame missed sunlight? It seemed to be the case.

Instead, and trying to forget about it, he observed her. It did not take him long to understand that she had no intent of sleeping, adjudicating herself watch duty. She probably intended him to sleep, but it would be completely impossible; sleep would elude him that night, no matter how heavy his limbs felt and how much his eyes itched to be closed. His mind was too noisy and full of unanswered questions, and pressing worries, and chaotic events, for him to try to quell it into a silence deep enough.

And if it did, he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk dreaming.

Although he knew he wouldn’t be sleeping, he had no way of letting her know about it, and maybe getting the first shift instead. He also knew that he should at least pretend to sleep, even if just to make it easier for her to call for him when it was his turn to watch. Finally, he also knew that, in the worst case of him being as awake as her, watching duty would be the most efficient if he turned to a direction different from the one she was currently watching.

And yet.

She hadn't taken the makeup off. The firelight cast strange, dancing shadows on her cheekbones, and the bright red of the eyelids was reduced to a dark unidentified tone that made her eyes look brighter whenever she turned to see him. It reminded him of the moment he’d looked up, and she’d been so close, and so earnestly focused on something…

The pain in his leg alerted him that he’d tried to move, and he flinched. The tea had helped a lot; though dulled, small waves of pain still arrived with each heartbeat, and they spiked into something much more similar to the hammering agony of before.

She noticed immediately and got up, worried again. He tried to smile and dismiss any concern she may have, but forgot everything when she kneeled beside him, once again too close, and looking at him too intently. That, he was suddenly very sure, didn’t look like suspicion.

She stared, and he stared back, transfixed by her eyes. Was it his imagination, or was she getting even closer? His heart beat with the same restlessness as the crackling fire at the center of their small camp. The rest of the night was a velvet layer of silence…

Until a voice, familiar but that he couldn’t quite place, shattered it into a million sharp pieces.

“Well, this is not what I had planned, but at least there is one, and one is enough for now!”

Chapter Text

For the second time that night, the question appeared on her mind.

Would it be so bad to kiss him?

And this time, she felt even less compelled to resist with her previous arguments.

She couldn’t look away from him. There was something intriguing in his eyes, that seemed colored as golden as the flames from their campfire. Whatever it was, she’d be happy to know later, because kissing him was a much preferred option, and she was unable to ask him anything anyway…

Maybe, had she not been so distracted by the overwhelming fluttering of her stomach, she would have been able to hear someone approach before they announced themselves.

And maybe, just maybe, she would’ve gotten a chance to actually score a hit before the intruder had her hands pinned against her back.

Suki struggled against the grip around her wrists. Whoever this person was, they’d received a good training: the angle of her arms was just right to keep her immobilized with minimal effort. Any attempt to break through brute force on her side would require an unnatural bend of articulations… causing enough damage to hinder her ability to fight back.

“Cute,” the attacker– the girl, her voice sounded quite young, younger than Suki herself, speaking the common tongue of the Earth Kingdom with an accent she couldn’t quite place. “That’s what you get for organizing little liaisons with your lover. I thought the famous Kyoshi Warriors had more of a work ethic.”

Suki buffed. Mad at the girl, of course, but also at herself. She should’ve paid more attention, damn it! She’d really been too busy listening to the stupid butterfly-moths on her stomach! She struggled some more, this time just trying to get a look at her attacker. The only glimpse she got revealed a dark sleeve and some glints of metal, golden perhaps only because of the glowing of the fire.

The girl laughed.

“I struck a sore nerve, I see…”

Suki looked up, finally giving up on freeing herself (at least for the time being). Her new companion was still sitting, something that, considering the pain he’d been in before the medicine, she didn’t blame him for. But she really hoped he’d be able to do something. She wished she’d given him back at least the sickle he’d had with him at the beginning.

The wave of meteoric thoughts were interrupted when she actually processed his gesture.

Stunned. Absolutely petrified. So pale he looked almost gray, even despite the warm light of their campfire.

A wave of irritation nearly wiped out (only nearly, and she berated herself for it) all of her previous captivation. Apparently, she was alone in this.

Her grim contemplation were interrupted when he spoke, still pale and with obvious astonishment in his voice.

And, to Suki’s great surprise, there was a change in the strength of the grip around her wrists. Enough to become painful. Whatever he’d said, the girl understood, and answered with a similar amount of incredulity, recognizable despite the change in language.

A drop of sweat gathered in her forehead, slightly tilted to the side but facing the floor.

How she wished she understood.

Chapter Text

The Kyoshi warrior was on her feet in a second. More or less what it took him to look at the newcomer and try to understand why the voice was so familiar…

Once he looked at her, it was not hard to know why.

Little cousin Azula, though she was not so little anymore.

He gaped, taking in the familiar colors of the armor, although the design did not match completely the images from his memories. The crown on her topknot was the same he once used to wear, the one for the crown heir. The spark of intelligence in her eyes had not changed in the least since he’d last seen her, when she barely reached his elbow. And now, here she was, in full military garb, at least a decade older than the last time he’d seen her, and leading what was obviously a stealth mission.

“Azula!?”

He could see how she frowned for the fraction of a second, and turned to see him with eyes sharp as blades.

“ What? What did you just say?”

Lu Ten held her gaze, more of a glare.

“Cousin Azula,” he said, slowly, feeling the words unfamiliar on his tongue.

Her brow furrowed in momentary confusion.

“What…? Cousin Lu Ten? But how…?” She passed a quick glance over their small camp, and then focused on him again, mouth slightly agape and some emotion very raw in her golden eyes. “You were dead! Your father… he sent a letter… the siege! It’s been over a decade!”

A decade?

He didn’t feel like thinking about all that information just yet.

Also, there were other priorities at the moment.

“Azula… Zula, please, listen…”

But she seemed to regain control of herself, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

“What are you doing, holding camp with a Kyoshi Warrior? Are you a traitor?”

“No!” he shouted, by reflex mostly, but still full of conviction. He had always been, and would always be, on his father’s side. “No. I don’t know what happened, this morning I was inside Ba Sing Se, and… I got hurt, she helped me.”

Whatever patience that had been building up in Azula’s face disappeared in a second.

“Why would she help you?”

The light of a new suspicion appeared in her eyes, and her next words were directed to the Kyoshi Warrior, shaking her arms violently. The unintelligible words made a cold ball of dread appear in his stomach. What was Azula telling her?

However, the Kyoshi Warrior seemed stunned and didn’t answer anything to whatever Azula had said.

“I don’t know why she helped me!” He hated sounding so desperate, but panic felt like cotton filling his head. “Please, Azula, let me explain, don’t hurt her!”

It brought his cousin’s attention back to him, something that provided some relief. The glare directed at him, though–

Lu Ten knew her well enough, remembered her well enough, to know that the sudden cold glint in her eyes was very, very bad news.

“Whoever you are, however it happened, and whatever you’ve been doing for the past ten years, you’re interfering with my mission. I cannot allow it.”

The split second it took cousin Azula (not so little, not so smiling as he remembered her, Agni, what had happened while he was gone?!) to light a fire dagger in one hand, was enough for him to decide his next move.

It was going to hurt.

Chapter Text

Suki kept her head low, arms still painfully held in place. She kept her head low, because she couldn’t do much more, but she also listened with every ounce of her attention.

Every muscle of her back remained tense, ready to spring to action the second there was an opening. If they kept talking, the girl holding her was bound to be distracted at some point, wasn’t she?

Instead, the language changed again, to something Suki could understand. She was so surprised it took her a moment longer to catch the meaning of the girl’s words.

“Do you know who he is? Do you know he is the son of the Monster of the West? Answer me!”

Suki frowned. What?   Which monster? None of that was making any sense! Like mismatching puzzle pieces, her mind failed to make sense of the girl’s words. The resulting silence was apparently too long for her captor, who hissed with impatience and turned her attention back to the man.

All they said next was intelligible for Suki; however, she did not need to know their language to detect the sudden seriousness in her captor’s voice.

And when Suki felt a sudden surge of burning heat next to her neck, she understood why.

But a second source of heat went over her back, and for a brief instant the world was engulfed in a bright shade of red. The grip on her wrists was reduced for a second– and it was all she needed. Suki freed herself and her fans were extended in her hands less than a second later. Pivoting on her right foot, she landed a few hits on the black armor of the girl, who growled before charging back.

Suki dodged the first hit, and the second, but the third landed in her arm and almost made her let go of the fan. 

The taunting words the girl had directed her before were gone. There was only bare ferocity in the way she lashed out long tongues of blue fire. A line of sweat slid down Suki’s temple.

She had one thing clear: it was not a good idea to be between a campfire and a firebender. But the girl seemed to know that too, and was trying to corral her against the fire. 

To the left, to the left!

But as much as Suki did her best to defend herself against the constant attack, she was losing space. 

And now their campfire was close enough to rise taller than her and turn blue.

Suki crouched, the wave of dry heat making the images swirl.

And the fire turned red again.

The girl let out a surprised exclamation, and Suki seized the opening: with a twist, she threw the black-armored girl over, against a rocky outcrop behind them.

There was a pained moan, and she didn’t get up.

Suki stood there, frozen to her spot for one long minute, breathing heavily and not looking way from the girl on the ground. Her chest moved, so she wasn’t dead. Part of Suki was relieved at that, Kyoshi Warriors were trained to defend, not to kill. But that meant the threat was still there…

A strangled exclamation coming from a different direction took her out of her temporary paralysis. He was leaning into one of the rocks that had made Suki select that particular spot as a camping site earlier that night, once again pale and grimacing. The man that rode an ostrich-horse outside Ba Sing Se, dressed like a Dai Li, but obviously not one of them. A man she had chosen to help despite being unable to understand a single word he said.

A firebender; one that had, nonetheless, taken her side against another firebender.

Who was he?

Chapter Text

For a very long moment, all Lu Ten could do was focus on his breath to stop fire from arriving to his fingertips.

His cousin laid on the ground, immobile. No bags on her. Their fight had involved enough noise and fire to attract the attention of any allies she may have around: if they hadn’t arrived yet, they wouldn’t for a while.

Her low heeled boots didn’t seem extremely dusty or muddy. Hanging from her belt there was a pair of gloves, like the ones used for handling reins. She must have arrived riding something.

He stepped forward to check for any other piece of information, but there was nothing else to see, though he was sure there had to be at least a couple of hidden knives somewhere.

With the threat of immediate and painful combustion no longer present, pain started to come back. His knee gave in to his weight. He managed to control the fall, but he couldn’t contain a low curse. 

The sound made the Kyoshi Warrior turn to him, eyes wide and fans still in position in front of her.

She looked at him for one long heartbeat, and then lowered her arms.

Then, she pointed at him, and asked something. He frowned, unsure of what she meant, until she got closer and pointed at his hurt leg. Then, he grimaced but added a tentative nod. He was in pain, but it would not kill him.

He had other things to communicate. Never before had he felt so frustrated at the lack of words he needed, especially because the alternative was… something not quite dignified.

Feeling thoroughly stupid, he went through the movements anyway. He closed his hands and mimicked holding the reins of an ostrich-horse, doing his best to imitate its whining. Then, he pointed to Azula, and made a circular motion to encompass the area around their camp.

The Kyoshi Warrior frowned for a moment, while he repeated his movements. Not too long after, with some more gestures exchanged, comprehension lit up in her eyes. She nodded, gestured for him to stay put, and disappeared into the surrounding forest.

Well, he could at least attempt to be useful. He judged Azula would not wake up soon; probably a concussion, and while a corner of his mind wanted to worry about her, he couldn’t afford to think of it. He kneeled and gathered the things from the camp as best as he could. 

The process dragged on, and h’s eyes wandered back to cousin Azula’s immobile shape. 

He’d overexerted himself, and he could already feel the first consequences of firebending too strongly, too soon. Coldness crept up his arms, heart beating fast without a trace of slowing down.

It was close to a miracle that he’d been able to overcome the attack.

There was a steely quality to his cousin’s blue fire; something hard and unyielding, unusual in something that changed from one second to the next one. It had been very difficult to eclipse her control of the campfire, and he wasn’t entirely sure if it was due to his being out of shape or purely to Azula’s skill.

It was probably a mix of both.

His desperate escape from the city had been enough to put them out of the vigilance range from the city walls; more of it was due to the direction than to the distance, there was a reason they had chosen that area for the camps in the early stages of the siege.

It was a distance that could be covered quickly from the city, but that was not so easily accessible from the outside. He didn’t like the prospect, but their only reasonable chance of moving away from the threat that was sure to follow this attack was to find the mount Azula had arrived in, and hope it could carry both of them. At least for long enough to create a safe distance between them and whoever may come looking for Azula when they realized something had happened to her.

She’d spoken of a mission. The crown on her top knot was that of the Crown Princess. Implications and possible explanations kept popping up in his mind; there were just too many possibilities. It was giving him a headache, so he fought to drive those thoughts away.

He needed to focus all of his energy to get to safety first.

Chapter Text

She lowered the fans that she hadn’t realized she still kept in front of her, before fully processing what she was doing. She wanted to berate herself for such a breach in caution, but another part of her raised a very good argument. He didn’t seem to be a danger… Well, at least not to her.

“Are you hurt?” she asked out of instinct, somewhat belatedly and somewhat redundantly. She saw him frown in confusion, and stepped closer to explain herself by nearly touching his leg. “Are you feeling worse?”

This time he grimaced, nodding. However, he obviously didn’t understand her questions, so  she assumed he was feeling reasonably well. Especially when, a second later, he cleared his throat and made a circle with one hand, encompassing their campsite.

It was her turn not understanding, and he sighed before ‘elaborating’, by mimicking the motions of holding the reins of an ostrich-horse, complete with a limited imitation of the beast’s sounds.

“Oh! She must have arrived with an ostrich-horse?” she asked before realizing he wouldn’t answer her question. He just repeated the movements, and she nodded almost mechanically. If there was an animal around, she could track it.

As she made her way out of the circle of light, she let instinct take the reins. And having something to do meant she didn’t have to think about all the implications of what just happened. Her eyes scanned the dirt, the girl’s footprints now too obvious in the surreptitious path they had taken. But they stopped soon enough, and by then sound was enough to guide Suki to the animal that was tied to the trunk of a tree, and whose eyes blinked when she approached.

It was a beautiful specimen of… some kind of lizard, with bright yellow eyes and a saddle attached to its back. A very well-trained reptile, judging by the silence with which it remained in its place. Suki stepped closer slowly, not sure how deep that training had involved loyalty to its rider. She extended her fan towards it, unwilling to risk her hand.

It blinked again, and sniffed the closed fan, not particularly interested. Suki exhaled with relief; it was probably trained to obey the commands of reins, but it lacked any kind of attachment to the girl. Going around it, still with the fan close to its muzzle, she took the reins and untied them. When she pulled, it answered quickly and moved as silently as it had stood.

The way back to the camp was faster, but still long enough to allow her to realize some things.

She had just… instinctively teamed up with a firebender. She had left him alone with the equipment, and an unconscious girl who had just attacked them both.

Her heart sped up with apprehension, unsure if it was due to a nebulous fear of a betrayal on his part or a more concrete fear for his safety.

But when she was once again able to see the light from their fire, the scene was pretty much the same she’d seen when leaving. He had gathered most of the things that hadn’t been packed in her travel bag, and stood pale and leaning on the rock.

As if in a trance, Suki picked up the bag from the ground and secured it to their new mount. Then, she lent her shoulder for the man to climb the rock and helped him get on the saddle. Finally, she climbed too, in front of him. She had never dealt with any kind of lizard this big (ostrich-horses were far more common back in Kyoshi Island), but it was surprisingly similar to her previous riding experiences; the beast was indeed well-trained and promptly responded to all commands from the reins.

As they picked up some speed, the man’s hands held onto her waist with more strength, though she heard the occasional stifled whimper whenever the beast jumped over a rock or reached uneven terrain.

The outline of the city was drawn in the light atop the walls, fiery against the darkness of the night.