Chapter Text
Zuko, Cartography & Linguistics, “Gibberish” Expert
“Someone has been going through my things. Was it you, Toph?”
Toph picked her nose, examined the booger, and then casually flicked it into the darkness of the cave.
“Don’t look at me,” she said boredly. “I only hoard things that have resale value.”
Zuko fixed her a dirty look he knew she couldn’t return.
“Jet? It wasn’t you or one of your crew, was it?” he demanded. Jet, Smellerbee, Pipsqueak, and the Duke were sitting around the campfire while Longshot was answering nature’s call.
“I thought we agreed to put a pause on pranks until we got to higher ground,” Jet said, sprawling lazily across a blanket. Zuko would only admit under pain of death that he found the rogue alluring, and even then he might just let himself be killed. Snarling, he rounded on the last person on his suspect list: Aang.
“If this is some kind of joke to you,” he began, but Aang held up a hand to cut him off.
“I already swapped your things with Ty Lee’s, remember? I’m not going to repeat a prank,” he said, stirring the pot of what could charitably be called stew and more accurately be called industrial grease.
“Fine,” Zuko said, glaring at all of them. “But if I find out any of you are lying to me—”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ll lead us into an abyss,” Toph said. “We know, Sparky. You’ve told us a dozen times.”
The others laughed as Zuko spluttered and fumed, face red with embarrassment. He balled his hands into fists and stomped back to his tent.
The Agna Qel’a Expeditionary Force was camped out in a cavern lit by veins of crystals that seemed to be reflecting light from a far distant source, deep within the earth. The light brightened and dimmed at regular intervals, which Toph and Aang found extremely interesting, and which others regarded with wariness.
“Alright, we’ll camp here for the night,” Expedition Commander Zhao had declared. “Second watch rotation, you’re up. At 0800, we’re moving out, so if you’re not on duty I want you resting. Zuko, I will see you in my tent.”
And Zuko had gone to see Zhao, who had demanded to know when they could expect to arrive at their destination.
“I don’t know. Sir,” he’d said, adding the last word hastily. “The Shepherd’s Journal doesn’t list travel times, and a lot of the verses skew towards the more poetic style of Third Dynasty—”
“Spare me the history lesson, it’s irrelevant,” Commander Zhao had said. “Just tell me if we’re close.”
“We should be,” Zuko had replied, although he didn’t truly know.
“Good. That’s what I wanted to hear. You’re dismissed.”
The camp was being busily set up as Zuko left. He leaned against the side of a truck and pushed up his glasses to massage his eyes. This adventure hadn’t gone at all like he’d expected. Their submersible had been destroyed by some sort of abyssal monstrosity. The cavern ecosystem they discovered on the ancient highway was, to put it mildly, hostile. And only Aang seemed at all interested in getting to know him or respecting him as a person.
“Oh, Uncle,” he said quietly. “What am I doing here?”
“You’re standing in my way,” said Suki, hefting some heavy packs. “Move.”
“Sorry, sorry!” Zuko jumped out of her way, hands up. She sighed, and then tossed him one of the packs.
“That’s your tent,” she said. “You’re over at the end of zone 3, so if you get night terrors again try not to thrash over the edge of a cliff.”
“...right,” he said, non-plussed. The end of zone 3 meant the furthest spot from anyone else where the lights of the cooking fires and oil lamps faded and the dark shadows of the cavern gathered like smoke. Zuko set up his tent (better than his first attempt! He’d taken notes, he was learning) and then carefully arranged his work station. By the light of an oil lamp, he stacked his notebooks and reference materials in separate piles, and opened up the Shepherd’s Journal to take notes on the next day’s journey. They were nearing the city, if the number of pages remaining indicated anything. He leafed ahead to the parts that seemed to describe the city itself, its towers of ice and stone, its statues of spirits and warriors. He fingered the fringe of the missing page, the one that should have described Agna Qel’a’s mysterious and ancient power source. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that the page had simply been lost to time; however…
…however, the more pressing mystery was that someone had been stealing his stuff. Particularly his cartography equipment.
The thefts had been going on for the last couple of nights. They seemed to occur sometime between midnight and 0300, which was when Zuko usually got up to pee. The strangest part? Some of the things that had been stolen were returned on subsequent nights. The thief, apparently, either had a conscience or was actively messing with him.
“Well, I’ll get you tonight,” Zuko vowed. He was missing his compass this time, which meant accurately mapping out the cavern was impossible. Still, he had a plan: earlier, he’d traded with Aang for an extra coffee ration, meaning he’d be getting up to pee much earlier. Once he did, he’d stay up in his tent, flashlight and Sun Warrior stone club (wooden replica) in hand, ready to catch the intruder in the act.
Sokka, Son of Chief Hakoda, Imperial Prince of Agna Qel’a, Boomerang Master
From the shadows, they watched the surface dwellers build their encampment on the floor of the crystal cavern. The mapmaker once again pitched his tent far away from the rest, sitting down to work by the incandescent glow of his strange lamp. He was pale, but on his face was a large reddish pink spot, not unlike the scale pattern of a koi fish. He held a stick of graphite in his delicate hands, which seemed to dance over the page, leaving strings of markings. Sokka leaned forward, trying to get a better view, when one of his warriors grabbed him by the straps of his pauldrons and dragged him back.
“Be careful, your highness!” he whispered.
“I was fiiiiine,” Sokka said, ignoring the thirty foot drop below his perch. “Besides, the mapmaker’s right there!”
“You’re not planning to go back, are you?” the warrior asked. “You know what the chief commands! It is forbidden for outsiders to learn of our existence!”
“I know what my father said, but he’s wrong,” Sokka replied. “They have wisdom and technology that can help our people! We should be welcoming them to the city, not hiding from them!”
“The princess–I mean, your sister disagrees,” another warrior said. “Not all those who seek our city are like the Shepherd.”
“Yeah, well, my sister isn’t right about everything,” Sokka grumbled, going back to his watch over the koi-spotted mapmaker. “Just most things.”
The other warriors slowly withdrew back to the nearby waystation along the Hidden Way, the secondary paths and tunnels they had dug into the caverns surrounding the approach to Agna Qel’a, which not even the Shepherd had known the existence of. Sokka kept his vigil, waiting until the crystal glow was at its dimmest, before putting on his mask and silently clambering down towards the surface dwellers’ camp.
He was approaching the mapmaker’s tent when he heard a rustling inside. The mapmaker was awake! Sokka wedged himself into a crevasse out of sight of the camp, listening to the mapmaker’s movements. He heard footsteps, a belt unclipping, and then the sound of fluid on rock. Sokka wrinkled his nose, but waited until the mapmaker was finished with his business. The footsteps retreated, and then the sound of a tent flap opening and closing could be heard.
Sokka held his breath and counted the minutes until he was sure the mapmaker was asleep. Carefully, he crept over to the tent, eyes scanning the area for the watchmen in their thick coats with strange batons and masked faces. The coast was clear. He carefully lifted the tent flap, and then quickly went inside.
A bright light blinded him temporarily.
“Aha! I knew it was you Aa— uh. Huh?”
Sokka lifted his hand to block the light of the mapmaker’s metal light canister, and saw a man who looked around his age. He had glasses, and black hair that framed a smooth face with a sharp jawline. The pink spot wasn’t smooth, but rough like an enormous burn mark or a scar. His strapped top was just a bit too big and loose for his skinny frame, one strap falling off the shoulder. He sat there, mouth hanging open in shock. Sokka, for his part, wasn’t any more prepared for this situation.
With a small squeak that sounded like a manic laugh, the mapmaker’s eyes rolled up and he fainted. Sokka quickly rushed forward to catch him before he hit his head on the rock floor.
Oh, great, he thought, fanning the mapmaker slightly. Now he’s seen me. Dad’s gonna kill me for sure.
Well, only if anyone found out. He slowly lowered the mapmaker down and tucked him into his bedroll. He fumbled with the light canister until he figured out how to douse the light—there was a button on the side—and then put this on the ground next to the sleeping man. It was so tempting to steal it, but that might alert the camp. As an afterthought, he removed the man’s glasses and put them next to the canister.
Drat. I’d better fall back for now, he thought. He spared the mapmaker one last glance. He looked peaceful, lying there with his hair pooled on the pillow.
He’s pretty cute, up close, Sokka thought, and not for the first time. The mapmaker really did remind Sokka of a grumpy-looking koi expecting to be fed. Checking one last time for guards, he left in a flash.
Zuko, Cartography & Linguistics, “Gibberish” Expert, Survivor of Demon Encounter
Zuko woke with a start the next day—well, it was still dark in the cavern, but not as dark, and the morning bugle had been blown. He sat up and fumbled around for his flashlight and Sun Warrior stone club (wooden replica). They were right there next to his bedroll, along with his glasses.
“It was just a dream,” he said, flopping back down and closing his eyes.
His eyes flew open and he sat up again. His glasses were folded neatly on the ground next to the flashlight. He’d still been wearing them when he fainted. That was kind of the point, to have them on so he could catch the intruder…who was a masked demon.
“Oh my stars,” he muttered. “That wasn’t a dream. That was real!”
He scrambled out of bed and ran outside, casting about feverishly. He grinned, jumping into the air and clicking his heels together.
“It was real!” he crowed, his voice echoing over the sound of the camp being struck and breakfast made.
“I’ll tell you what’s real: these pancakes!” Aang yelled back. “Come on, Zuko, or they’ll all be gone!”
“No, actually, they’re really bad!” Toph shouted. “Don’t come over here, or you’ll make yourself sick!”
“Toph just wants them all to herself!” Suki yelled. “Get your butt in gear!”
“Right, breakfast,” Zuko said, stomach growling. But first, he dove back into his tent and grabbed his notebook and a pencil, and tried to sketch as much of the masked demon as he could recall. The details seemed so vividly etched into his mind, but he frowned at the finished drawing. It wasn’t good enough. He flipped through the Shepherd’s Journal, trying to find any illustrations that were similar, any references to masked figures.
“Alright, people, double time! We move out in ten minutes!” Commander Zhao called over the noise.
Zuko snapped his journal shut and quickly took down his tent. His packing was haphazard at best—it would just have to do, Suki could skin him alive later—and he only managed to grab one pancake from the breakfast stack before being bundled into a truck and driven towards the cavern exit. He was sure of one thing: that creature would return. And he, Zuko, would be ready.