Tales of the Tea Shop
The Engagement of the Fire Princess
"Karo!" Azula poked at Karo through his sleeping bag.
"Uhhh!" Karo stirred. "What time is it?"
"About seven in the morning." Azula explained.
"Is the house on fire?" Karo pulled his sleeping bag over his head. "Cricket field grandstand burning to the ground?"
"Will you ever marry?" Azula sat up in her sleeping bag.
"To Mitsumi?" Karo could hear his pet snoring at the foot of his sleeping bag but his brain had not yet fully warmed up. "They have laws against that."
"Would you marry me?" Azula asked in a plaintive voice.
"Oh crap." Karo woke up instantly and sat up in his sleeping bag and mental alarms went off in his mind. "I will warn you that I have no idea what to say. I hadn't planned for this – we share a bathroom!"
"No." Azula snickered. "No...no."
"That knocked about ten years off my lifespan." Karo shook his head and held his hand to his chest. "Why ask me this?"
"Women find you appealing." Azula began to unwind her explanation. "You are my best friend and trusted companion and yet I worry I could lose you to another - shall we say tall red haired girl of the face painting type or to the rugged earth bending type."
"Koko or Toph?" Karo asked cautiously as he raised his eyebrow.
"I have reason to worry." Azula wrapped her hands around her legs. "You will make new friends and leave me like my old friends. I can't offer you that sweet Kyoshi Warrior goodness or the rugged muscular Toph earth bending strength.....but you have all these women who like you and I am just me – plain looking me."
"Did I say something in my sleep?"
"No!" Azula slugged Karo. "I mean I could lose you as a friend and companion."
"I have no plans of running off with Koko or Toph." Karo liked Toph but headlocks were definitely not his thing. Koko seemed sweet but he felt she could end up doing so much better than him.
"We can work on this later." Azula waved her hand. "You miss my point. I want to ask if you would marry me! I mean I enjoy your company – most times – and so why not?"
"Wait?" Karo held up his hand. "You find me an insufferable moron and make certain to tell me most of the time and you just asked me to join you in marriage because you want my companionship?"
"If you – er – well go back to sleep." Azula teared up.
"Yes." Karo whispered.
"Forget I made a fool of myself and brought this up." Azula looked ahead at the sunlight streaming in through the open windows.
"Yes." Karo said louder.
"Yes?" Azula repeated with a questioning tone. "I'm a fool?"
"So am I." Karo cuddled up to Azula and kissed her cheek. "And I have this evil desire to see your mother's face when we tell her we plan to marry. I'm your companion and so yes."
* * *
"You two will marry?" Toph sat back to back with Karo and Azula on the end of the large pier where the Water Tribe ships had docked to deliver the wedding guests from the Northern and Southern Water Tribe. The Water Tribe ships bore their blue sails and thick wooden hulls proudly and had crews of great skill that could navigate blindfolded through ice flows as thick as two meters – or that is what their press agent would have you believe. "Karo knock you up?"
"No!" Azula answered and banged the wood of the peer with her hand. "Why does everyone think that? We want to become companions."
"You share a bathroom." Toph calmly picked her toes.
"May Sokka die a horrible screaming death in the jaws of the Unagi!" Karo had a kit for making a betrothal necklace that Sokka had given him. Sokka had obtained it from his father on short notice when he found out Karo and Azula had decided to marry. Azula found the fact Hakoda had such a kit disturbing since she knew her mother had mentioned to her that they planned to spend some time together. "Why did Sokka say I have to make this thing?"
"It signifies that I will become your bride." Azula could sense the frustration in her friend. "Kind of marking your territory."
"My lemur does that!" Karo tried to make sense of the directions Sokka had written down but Sokka could not write at all well and his diagrams were even more perplexing. "Urinating on you would make my life simpler."
"Maybe later." Azula patted Karo's back.
"Uhh....well." Karo stammered and decided not to request further elaboration.
"I find this all weird but I can see it working." Toph twitched her toes in the warm summer air. The late morning had become hot and humid but the village harbor had cool sea breezes and her feet found them pleasing.
Kyoshi Island had taken on the look of one of those national park campgrounds with tents and rough wooden buildings lining the harbor. It only lacked a decent gift shop and a Smoky the Bear sign so Avatar Kyoshi's statue would have to serve. The Avatar's wedding had brought guests and the press and quadrupled the population of the island.
"Azula!" Lady Ursa ran down the dock. Two Water Tribe sailors carrying a huge crate of food for the wedding found themselves thrown from the dock as Lady Ursa plunged through them. She picked up her daughter in her arms and hugged her deeply. "At last you will marry and did I hear right – marry to Karo?"
"Mah!" Karo had the betrothal necklace only about a fifth finished. "Water Tribe bastards made this thing into one of those stupid intelligence tests to ensure the dumb guys never got married. Sokka should not write instruction manuals under any circumstances."
"Come and give your new mother in law a kiss." Lady Ursa hugged Karo deeply lifting him off the ground.
"I heard." Mai walked slowly down the dock and did not even pay any heed to the wet Water Tribe sailors climbing back on the dock. She had her daughter in her arms and she faced Azula. "Congratulations."
"Thank you." Azula raised her eyebrow. "No insults?"
"I like Karo." Mai did not crack a smile. "I didn't think you would find a nice companion like him so maybe your life has taken a turn for the better. I must go now but congratulations."
Mai trotted off calmly and serenely.
"Mitsumi! You ate the paper with the instructions!" Karo cracked his shoulders and sat down to resume his work. Karo could not have known that a descendent of Sokka's family would not invent the VCR – real engineers would do that. His descendant would invent the 'blinking 12:00' VCR clock and write instruction manuals for the company that made them. "Grrr! I suck at this kind of thing. I couldn't make a tent peg!"
"Can you give me that please." Lady Ursa sat down facing Karo. "I think I can help with that necklace."
"I want to welcome you into the Royal Family." Lady Ursa began making the necklace as if she had made them before. "You two make a beautiful couple."
"Karo will become Sir Karo Zhao of the Fire Nation." Toph punched him in a friendly manner.
"Sounds like a name of some famous orchestra conductor." Karo accepted the betrothal necklace from Ursa who had managed to put it together in mere moments.
"As a future member of the Fire Lord's family I invite you and your blushing fiance to stay with us at the weather station." Lady Ursa seemed to burst with pride as she stood next to Azula. "You will have your own room and all the quiet to enjoy each others company. Please join us for dinner. I will see you in a while – I promised to meet Hakoda for lunch. Take care."
"Yet another failure as a man." Karo held out the betrothal necklace to Azula. "I hope you don't mind the fact your mom had to help me finish it."
"We will have many such failures in our future." Azula held out the necklace and examined it. "A rather ugly piece of kitsch if you ask me."
* * *
"I heard the news Karo." Sokka loped up to Karo who sat on the porch of the Kyoshi Island telegraph office and tried to delicately compose a message to send to his mother. Mitsumi kept reaching for the pencil as Karo composed the message. "Congratulations! Wow! Princess Azula! How did this happen?"
"She asked me and I said 'yes' because we want to become companions." Karo said quietly as he gnawed on the pencil.
"She tried to kill the Avatar and defeated Suki and threw her in prison." Sokka sat down next to Karo and his sword smacked Karo on the back of the head. "Katara likes Azula but no one trusts her. I hope you didn't make this decision rashly."
"I know Azula has a past with some dark moments." Karo scowled at Sokka for a moment then resumed his work. "A lonely woman with great intelligence and I have been her best friend. All life involves taking risks and Azula deserves my trust."
"You have a sweet nature but you could get hurt." Sokka leaned back and took a deep breath."I want you two to enjoy marriage.
"Ouch! You keep bashing my skull with that sword. Are you trying to give me a demonstration of this 'pain'?" Karo scowled again. "I appreciate your concern."
"What have you written so far." Sokka asked.
"Dear Mom." Karo held up the paper. "Beyond that I can't think of anything to say. How do I pad this so my mom won't die of cardiac arrest?"
"I can help." Azula sat next to Karo and looked at Sokka.
"You were supposed to help me write this but you ran off with Uncle Iroh after we left the dock." Karo handed the paper an the pencil to Azula who erased the words 'Dear Mom'. "Where did you get off to?"
"Uncle Iroh kept talking to me about the path of destiny and I began to lose track of time as I started to fall asleep." Azula put the pencil to her lips. "He feels a need to impart wisdom to everyone and while he means well I may have to tinker with his insulin if he keeps on trying teach me ethics."
"Dear Mom..." Karo read over Azula's shoulder. "Azula and I wish to announce that we have decided to marry and commit our lives....good."
"You have no date set?" Sokka leaned forward and asked Azula.
"I think we should finish our schooling first. Karo wants to marry on the date the Sun Warrior's Cyclical calendar resets to zero which is on December 21, 2012 but that means we will both be over a hundred and thirty with no bladder control. My mother wishes to see us marry at about seven thirty tonight." Azula chewed on the end of the pencil. "But that might send the wrong message."
Azula knew the Sun Warriors had vanished long ago but they had a fascinating calendar that proved as accurate as any ever developed. They had spent their time pursuing fire bending and mathematics and invented the concept of the number zero and a supremely accurate calendar which for reasons of history no one else ever adopted because they used some odd counting system based on twenty and not ten. The current Earth Kingdom calendar had an interesting history to do with banks. When banks came about they lacked any means of promoting their services and invented a calendar based on acute astronomical observation and as bankers loved to do – complicated arithmetic. This gave the Earth Kingdom a calendar with twelve months – convenient for billing dates and seven days of which the banks could remain closed for three and a half. They based the calendar year on the four digit address of their headquarters in Ba Sing Se.
"Yeah!" Sokka leaned back. A loud bang and a few small pieces of a camera flew through the air. Toph held out the glass photographic plate in her hand like a trophy and walked up the dirt road toward the group sitting on the front stoop of the telegraph office.
"You can't say 'have not been knocked up' to my mom!" Karo sounded shocked that Azula would add that clarification. "We want to tell her of our intentions but not that we have – well – horsed around!"
"Get all your euphemisms out of your system now. Does 'I retain the ability to ovulate' please your sensitive nature?" Azula erased the offending line and pointed the pencil at Sokka. "Once this guy gets you drunk and explains all of his tricks as the 'love master' you will find me tame by comparison."
"How did you know Suki called me that?" Sokka's jaw dropped.
"I didn't, but I figured that 'jackass' and 'love master' were the odds on favorites. I have heard her call you 'jackass so that left 'love master'." Azula headed into the office to send the telegram.
"How many reporters have you preyed upon today?" Karo asked Toph as a means of distracting everyone. "If you kept the cameras you could pawn them in Ba Sing Se."
"Shouldn't you check on Azula to make sure that the telegram arrives with the proper wording?" Sokka pointed to the white painted wall of the telegraph office. He could make out the young college student who manned the office and saw Azula pay him.
"Azula does what she wants." Karo sat with his hands around his legs. "We get along because I let her indulge her odd sense of mischief. I have a lemur because he listens to me – rarely."
* * *
Koko had important duties since the marriage of the Avatar carried grave responsibilities for the Kyoshi Warriors. Avatar Aang and Ty Lee had decided to spend a week at an undisclosed location to avoid the press and to allow the priests of each of the four Temples of the Elements to perform special ceremonies. The Kyoshi Warriors had the duties of guarding the isolated mountain retreat which lay on the shores of a pleasant cool glacier fed lake surrounded by trees. If it hadn't served a sacred process a beer company might have found the lodge fit to put on beer labels of 'glacier brewed lager' and promote as a retreat for alcoholic contest winners who wanted to drink beer and spend time with the bikini beer babes.
The Kyoshi Warriors did not have all the gear of the secret service but they made up for it by sheer bloody minded viciousness. They had to protect the Avatar's privacy and drive the press away. They had recruited Toph to keep the press terrified in town. Toph used metal bending to ruin cameras or encase nosy reporters as she saw fit. The odd one slipped past and found his way too close to the Avatar. One unfortunate soul found himself packed in a crate and shipped to the Southern Water Tribe homeland with his camera in several pieces. After enduring three or so days in the hold of a leaky and cold Water Tribe ship he went into the slightly more respectable profession of managing small motion picture theaters in Ba Sing Se known as Nickelodeons.
The warm afternoon and the weighty events of the day led to Azula and Karo enjoying a long walk together in the trails on Kyoshi Island. Shady trees and a pleasant mountain breeze made for a pleasant walk for the two young Fire Nation nobles.
"Did you 'alter' that telegram?" Karo asked carefully as he put his hand on an old cedar tree to steady himself.
"I tried but the young guy behind the counter told me he did not want to send such vulgarity on public wires." Azula tossed a pine cone and tried to get Mitsumi to fly after it in spite of the fact she still held it in her hand. Mitsumi did not fall for it.
"Well okay. My mom doesn't have a weak heart.....but doesn't need one." Karo sensed some relief which ended when a shadow emerged from between two trees and moved impossibly fast. Karo had no time to react before a Kyoshi Warrior had him in a headlock.
"Don't approach any closer." A second Kyoshi Warrior had Azula at fan's distance. "We have orders to deal with any nosy reporters!"
"We are guests of the Avatar!" Azula yelled. "From the Fire Nation royal family. I am Princess Azula and this is my fiance – boy that sounds strange – Karo Zhao."
"Ack – this neck deficient thug is choking me. Does 'deal with' mean hot tea and biscuits. I haven't had lunch." Karo waved his hands.
"Give us your camera and your equipment." The warrior facing off with Azula demanded.
"What camera? We don't have a camera!" Karo did not see the woman slacken her grip. Mitsumi bit her leg in a vain attempt to free the human who fed him. The Kyoshi Warrior let go but not for long and she swung with her fist and slugged Karo in the gut and he crumpled. She had no desire to harm the lemur but she picked up the little lemur as he protested and thrashed. She decided to convince Azula to give up the fight and she cleared her throat.
"If you don't give up 'Princess'." The warrior sounded as if she had no faith in their story. "I will keep the lemur for myself and toss you in the brig."
"Karo loves that little animal." Azula took on a thoughtful look. "I feel indifferent to it but could you break that man's heart?"
* * *
"I have two words – Industrial Revolution!" Karo found himself in another different stone lined mossy cell than they had tossed him in before and he yelled and shook his fist in frustration. Azula explained they had come to a small mountain lodge near a lake and the Kyoshi Warriors would let them go if they could find someone in the Fire Nation guests staying at the weather station could vouch for them. Azula noticed they let Karo keep Mitsumi. "Get steam power, electricity and the crappy way they record soundtracks for movies!"
"Yelling insults will get you slugged again." Azula held Mitsumi in her lap. "Do you think the Kyoshi Warriors care about cinema?"
"I keep finding myself in prison with you." Karo sat down against a wall. "I sense a trend."
"Sound in movie theaters – that's the highest achievement of our civilization's Long March? The ability to sit in a theater that has a sticky floor and with people coughing as you strain to hear the actors?" Azula sat across from Karo against a box of ceremonial items intended for the wedding. She held an inner debate about what she could steal and pawn and then realized what the Avatar could do if she stole his stuff. "If we are prisoners of war we have certain rights – no wait we violated them during the war. Forget I said that."
"Sorry." Karo sat still and tried to keep calm.
"Do you know about the drill?" Azula shuffled next to Karo.
"It has become a memorial to the war dead." Karo said distantly having spent all of his fury.
"A monument to my dad's raging megalomania." Azula leaned on his shoulder. "Sound in movies was another monument to his ego. We had motion pictures since the last decades of Lord Azulon – simple idea really – show a series of still images and the eye blends them into an illusion of motion. Fire Lord Ozai found that he could use this to show propaganda films but the movies had no sound. He forced the Mechanist to develop a way of recording his booming voice. The Mechanist took a telephone receiver and hooked it up to an electromagnet. He placed a mirror on the electromagnet and so when the microphone wobbled to the sound it wobbled the electromagnet and wobbled the mirror. He sent a light beam off the mirror which wobbled when the mirror wobbled and that made wobbles on the edge of the film in the camera. It sounded like crap but my father could immortalize his verbal spew."
"Oh...historical."
"He tried to unleash the giant mind control pentapus but that didn't go over so well." Azula heard steps coming down the stairs. "Propaganda films made more sense since they didn't cocoon your children as food."
"You may go now." Koko unlocked the door and held it open. She sounded cold and distant as she continued. "We have some rather enthusiastic Kyoshi Warriors who take their duty very seriously. I'm sure you understand that we have to make certain no one bothers the Avatar."
"Is he taking the Civil Service exams?" Azula hissed sarcastically.
"She did awful things during the war." Koko patted Karo on the shoulder and whispered. "And she lacks my kindness and I care for you. Why did you decide to become engaged?"
"You will find someone like Suki did." Karo began to explain as they tromped up the old stone stairs. "Azula is my best friend and this makes sense in my heart."
"Don't get sentimental." Azula closed her eyes as Koko shoved a sliding door aside. The mid afternoon sun shone directly in her eyes.
"You may not tell anyone where this place is." Suki stood in front of Azula and Karo who both nodded in agreement. "I have your word you will not reveal the location of this place to anyone? If you reveal this place I will personally feed you to the Unagi."
Koko held Azula strongly with one one hand and Karo more gently with the other as she led both of them away. It looked ideal for the kind of person who liked Nordic ski lodges. He gave it one last look but Koko shoved him down the path. With his lousy sense of direction and balance he could not have revealed the location even if he wanted to. Azula could be bribed but in her mind common sense overruled her own sense of self interest since she knew that the Kyoshi Warriors wanted any excuse to take their revenge on her.
"I hate this place." Azula half expected Koko to say 'resistance is futile' or something like that but she remained quiet. Mitsumi chattered nervously on Karo's shoulder having sensed another male lemur. "You can let go of us – we're going."
"I have my orders." Koko told Azula. Karo had no idea that Azula found the Kyoshi Warriors somewhat frightening. While Azula had her imprisoned; Suki had taken the time during one of their friendly chats to take advantage of small moment of inattention and strike her so hard in the head she went deaf in her right ear. She heard a ring and the odd buzz but nothing useful got through. Suki had delivered one of the first blows to Azula's delusion she was indestructible. Koko walked them to the edge of the village where they met Toph who had yet another camera in pieces. Koko turned around and went back to her post without saying a word.
"If it isn't Beauty and the Beast." Toph tossed a lens cap to one side. "Koko caught you making out?"
"No." Azula said brashly. "We can't tell you until tomorrow."
"Oh secretive." Toph sounded offended. "Already hiding things from me Karo the Beauty and Azula the Beast?"
"I need some tea and then we have to head up to visit the Fire Lord." Azula scratched her head. "My mom with Hakoda will have even more unpleasant questions for me."
In Book Four 'Air' Volume Two of the great History of the Age of Avatar Aang the reader would read about the rapid pace of the change that the War brought to the world. Book Four went into much more detail about technical things such as the advent of FM radio and television and thus proved more than a real pain to read. Most Chapters had no entertainment value whatsoever and those interested in their favorite figures from this period of history found very little to hold their interest. One Chapter entitled 'The Great War for Television' explained how competing analog color television formats came about. Three of the four nations – the Air Nomads camped out around television repeaters but never had much interest in television – would develop completely incompatible television standards. The Earth Kingdom developed a system called Phase Alternation Line or PAL while the Fire Nation developed National Television Standards Committee or NTSC while the Water Tribes used a system called SECAM – System Exactly Contrary to Anyone's Method or Seal meat Eaters Can Also Make TV. This doesn't matter but it serves as a warning to those wishing to find out what happened to Azula and Karo that they must suffer though much of this sort of stuff since the book has a poor index and a committee of academics put it together. Those wishing to read Volume Four would benefit from learning to speed read.
* * *
The Royal Academy Meteorological Station looked like a low lying rambling ranch bungalow made of a combination of solid stone and rammed earth walls and a solid timber framed roof. Other low lying buildings lay scattered over the meadow. Frank Lloyd Wright could have designed the lowly outpost as it had something of that 'arts and crafts' feel. It sat at the peak of a local mountain surrounded by a pleasant meadow ringed with cedars. A series of towers poked out here and there – some measured wind, air pressure and some did more obscure measurements such as measuring the strength of the magnetic field of the Earth. A set of deep wells lined with concrete and capped with locked metal lids housed seismometers. If a quake struck the Fire Nation the various scientists here would know – although not in time to do anything. A huge wireless antenna caught Azula's eye since it stood up over the complex of low lying buildings and meant the station had a very good wireless set and she wanted to test it.
The interior of the rambling house had none of the traditional 'oriental' touches. The heavy walls and timber roof looked plain as if showing off that earth, stone and wood looked beautiful without fancy carvings, ornate marquetry or paint. Azula admired the straight yet well crafted lines a good deal. It had a nice comfortable look in her eyes.
"Welcome." Fire Lord Zuko greeted Karo and Azula in his finest robes and swept his arms in a grand gesture as if singing as a tenor in an opera. He spoke formally in a manner that fitted him like fat guy boxers. "Have I heard correctly that you two intend to marry?"
"Yes." Azula spoke calmly. Karo gulped.
"Let us have dinner." Fire Lord Zuko examined the two carefully. He had learned to make judgments about people in order to perform diplomacy. Karo had no political ambitions beyond the interest he held in economics and Zuko knew he had a sentimental side. Azula could have made a play for the throne but now she had ruined her reputation and the nobles would never place her on the throne. They could have a child but something told Zuko that this marriage amounted to a way of cementing a friendship as an anchor in a confusing world.
The dining hall had a huge granite table designed to keep squabbling weather scientists isolated on the remote mountains of Kyoshi Island from choking each other to death. Scientists in the Avatar world like scientists here had no capacity to get along and so the weather station had clever design touches to keep violence at a minimum It didn't prevent food fights but it precluded easy conversation and prevented harmful physical contact between academics. Zuko failed to understand this because he had never spent a cold winter with nothing but the odd barometer and meteorologists for company. The Fire Nation had added their own touches with their own flags adding a touch of class to the dining room.
The high back wooden chairs completed the look of the dining room which looked a good deal like a Victorian version of some kind of evil villain meeting room. Servants in red orange flowing robes milled about and offered the high back dark heavy chairs to Karo and Azula while others placed delicately worked dishes of food and delicate pots of tea on the table. Karo wondered if he had fallen into a meeting of the Commanders of the Fire Nation Death Fortress and expected to see Lord Ozai in dark black robes breathing deeply and talking about the power of the Force. This did not happen although Mitsumi had taken to running on the table chasing the long dangling sleeves of the servant's robes.
"Can you curb your lemur?" Mai entered the room with two servants and she gave Karo and Azula the kind of cold stare a high school shop teacher gave the students for making throwing stars in metal shop.
"Mitsumi?" Karo held out his hand as Mitsumi chased his own tail then Karo tried banging the table and held out a grape. Mitsumi ignored him.
"Pick the animal up and take it away!" Mai stood behind Karo and pointed at the lemur. "I'll have one of the servants take you to your quarters."
Azula went to one end of the table while Karo tried to reach for Mitsumi and missed. He tried cooing and clucking but Mitsumi kept running across the table while deftly avoiding the dishes. Karo lost his footing and fell face first into a bowl of some kind of spicy soup. Mitsumi ran up on Karo' s head and chattered loudly.
"Here you go!" Lady Mai handed Karo a plush red towel. "If you can't control your lemur how will you control your future wife?"
"I had no need to do either." Karo wiped his face with the towel as the servants removed the ruined soup. "I kind of let them do as they please because it makes my life easier – usually."
"No real damage done." Mai helped Karo sit back down. "As a future member of the Royal Family with the arm of the Princess of the Fire Nation you should learn some dignity and decorum."
"Hey!" Azula came back into the dining room holding a large wooden barometer made of fine dark hardwood and fine brass. "Can I knick this? I mean don't they expect us to steal things? Lady Zhao would appreciate having a barometer."
* * *
"We survived dinner." Karo lay on a huge low lying bed with Azula's head on his stomach. He patted her head playfully as he spoke.
"I still haven't caused Mai to explode." Azula looked a trifle frustrated. "I have yet to see her lose her temper with me. We have to knick more stuff."
"Mai said I have to act with more decorum."
"Ignore her." Azula enjoyed having her head scratched by Karo. "Mai lives to complain about things. You made her actually enjoy a formal function for once – think of it as a kind of a gift."
"She took your barometer and she seemed pretty put out."
"I had to tick her off." Azula reached under her robe and pulled out a finely made hardwood barometer with nice brass accents. "And she still has not grasped the art of misdirection."
"I hope this is your felony of the week." Karo relaxed as Azula admired the instrument. Karo concluded part of Azula's charm came from her deep vein of evil redirected into acts of mischief. She had posted a poster with her brothers likeness in the Kyoshi village on one of the bulletin boards. It had his face and read 'Missing: This Man Believed to be a Water Tribe Porn Model'.
"I still have no idea what the itinerary for the 'Wedding of the Century – Registered Trademark' might be." Azula pondered.
"I would not want to stretch the patience of my new in laws." Karo said quietly. "You don't plan anything do you?"
Like all perfect moments this one could not last. Azula could hear Karo's breathing and she felt him scratch her head. Mai entered the room with a servant. Mitsumi cowered in a corner as Mai swept in with a serious look on her face.
"I want to take some time to try on the dress you will wear at the wedding." Mai motioned the servant forward and the servant showed Azula a delicate Fire Nation dress similar to the robes Mai wore.
"Hide me." Azula had the kind of surprised look a groundhog had as it found itself swept up by a combine harvester. "Wear that? I have principles – well rules sort of."
"You have to look like a true member of the Royal family." Mai crossed her arms and stood next to her servant. "You dress like a tom boy and do you think the way you dress will look suitable for a wedding."
"Oh screw off!" Azula scowled and poked Karo as if to goad him into saying something. "Make Karo wear the dress and we can switch gender roles."
"Leave me out of this." Karo picked up Mitsumi.
"We have appropriate robes and the proper head dress for him." Mai answered as she stood over Azula.
"Oh wait!" Karo said abruptly. "You mean those fancy robes that look like a cross between red judges robes, the headdress of a mutant parrot and some kind of surgical gown?"
"It is the traditional head dress of a Fire Nation Prince. Lady Ursa wants us to look like one happy Fire Nation family." Mai sounded bored.
"I am a citizen of the Earth Kingdom." Karo said tartly.
"I'm being repressed." Azula yelled and grabbed Karo with one hand while she thrust a tongue of blue flame through the window with the other. The window fell apart in tiny glass pebbles as she jumped out the window and began to run across the meadow.
* * *
"I refuse to become another Fire Nation knob!" Azula ran down the slope of the meadow. "Forget this wedding – they can get on without me. I have been arrested, insulted, arrested again, dragged around by my arm but some Kyoshi Warrior giant, intimidated and made to feel like a loser. I can put up with all that - anything but that dress.
"Where are we running?" Karo followed down a path he did not remember.
"The airship." Azula glanced behind her. "The Fire Nation has a contract to supply this place with food and supplies and they use an airship to do this so they have an airfield."
"You can't steal the Fire Lord's airship!" Karo could see the hulking airship sitting on a leveled field of grass in the dim twilight.
"I don't intend to." Azula led Karo around the posted guard. "I intend to steal the life raft."
"Hold on." Karo tried to caution Azula but she faced the posted guard who confronted her with a fire bending attack. She forced him up the airship ramp and into the ship through the main entrance and then she shut the door and welded it shut.
"We don't have much time." Azula returned to Karo and Mitsumi and grabbed his hand. "Follow me."
They ran to the back of the airship and she undid a hatch about tall enough for a person and wide enough for two. She pulled the door open and then hit a lever and a ramp deployed. Inside Karo could see a strange machine with a Fire Nation red and yellow scheme but he could make no sense of it at all.
"Go to the other side and grab that metal handle and pull." Azula instructed Karo and he heaved on the strange machine. It rolled down the ramp and ended up on the grass.
"Get in!" Azula opened a small steel door and motioned Karo inside. He faced a series of dials and a steering wheel but made no sense of anything he saw. Azula pointed at a handle that stuck out of the roof. "Crank that lever!"
"What does it do?" Karo began cranking the lever and he heard a series of clicks and then the lever locked in place. Azula began hitting switches and an engine roared to life nearly knocking Karo back.
"It unfolds the rotors for the autogyro." Azula began revving the engines and Karo fell back into his seat unable to decode that last statement. "Open your window and get ready to fight."
"Have we started speaking different languages? Men are from Venus and women come from Mars?" Karo pushed a lever up and the window slid to one side. He could feel the strange machine turn on the ground and he saw guards running toward them. "I have never heard the word autogyro and I know a rotor rotates but - "
"I have to taxi past the guards to get enough distance to take off." Azula began to speed the machine forward. Karo tried his best to deflect fire bolts as one guard nearest the machine fired at him. He deflected the attack as the strange machine roared and trundled down the field. Karo had no idea whether the machine mowed lawns, mixed huge blender drinks or flew. He sped past two guards who shot fire bolts over his head and he drove them back with badly aimed fire bolts that blew divots in the grass but sent up a cloud of dust, soil and grass that distracted the guards. Azula turned the craft around at the end of the field in some manner and then Karo felt himself shoved back into the seat. He saw dials light up with odd names like altimeter and a strange bar that seemed to measure how level the strange machine flew. He closed the window as the air lashed his face and he could hear the rotors humming over his head. The darkness prevented him from seeing anything but the feeble reddish light that lit up the cabin. Azula worked foot pedals and cables creaked and then with the suddenness of a bomb going off the craft turned up and Karo could see the flames from the fire bolts recede as the ground seemed to leap away.
"This machine flies – in case you didn't notice." Azula climbed rapidly and Karo's ears popped. Unlike the airship this machine seemed to climb and fly at an insane rate. Karo could see the tiny village and the campfires of the guests as well as the light of the half moon lighting the sky and reflecting off the sea. Azula turned and the horizon began to tilt as Karo wondered if the reason he could not feel the turn came from the fact that part of his brain had died or that he simply had given up on making sense of anything. "In the final months of the war they developed this machine as kind of a life raft or escape pod for airship crews in case the airship came under attack. This one looks more refined and I think they had it so they could evacuate Mai, Zuko and their daughter to safety if the airship ran into trouble."
"It flies using a spinning blade?"
"Yep!" Azula leveled out. "A propeller at the back pushes us forward and at the top blades freely spin and act like a fan that lifts us up."
"What happens if this escape pod doesn't work?" Karo could see it had a back seat and could seat four people with some cramped degree of comfort.
"We die or rather we fall in a heap of debris to the ground or sea or whatever lies below us. If we crash land death is a certainty."
"Why did we run away from the wedding?" Karo diverted his mind from the very unnatural state of a machine the shape of a brick and made of metal flew through the air.
"I refuse to wear a dress Mai picked out for me." Azula gripped the steering wheel and spoke calmly. "Death before rice powder and dressing like her!"
"Why bring me along?" Karo noticed Mitsumi had fallen asleep in the back seat and had no idea he now flew two kilometers over the ocean.
"I like you."
"Thank you." Karo wondered if this stunt would end in a trial.
"Why did you go along with this plan?" Azula returned the question.
"If wearing a dress makes you that unhappy then I have to help you as your best friend." Karo paused as a wave of vertigo overcame him. "And I don't want to become a Fire Nation noble and live like a knob with servants and land – where is the challenge of living like that. I want to do something of merit and know I have earned the rewards."
"I can respect that."
"How did you learn how to fly one of these things?"
"I took a wild stab at it."
"Oh...so you really have no idea how to fly?" Karo gripped his chair.
"If I get anything wrong we will find out soon enough." Azula patted Karo's shoulder "I can teach you to fly."
"And we vanish without a trace into the sea." Karo still had not quite come to grips with flying a chunk of metal. He had read that people had experimented with powered flight of all kinds and some even suggested it might one day become a common mode of transportation. The airplane pioneers did meet with some success using machines with designs like those of the Mechanist. Some of them eventually ended up sitting helplessly upside down in a tree because they had an engine fail and parachuted into a tree usually with broken legs. Some ended up with a crushed airplane in the middle of a peat bog with broken everything. Some never were found again.
"I need some sleep." Karo could barely move in the five point harness and the deep breathing of Mitsumi reminded him of the joy of sleeping.
"We did steal some very expensive gear." Azula wore a silly grin.
"I know." Karo yawned but did not feel airsick. In some way knowing the pilot helped calm his stomach despite the fact the small craft bumped up and down.
"Night." Azula smiled as she held the steering wheel.