Balancing Act

by TAZ-maniack

Zuko asks Aang to take Azula's bending. Katara, ever the mother and healer, thinks about the poor girl she chained up during Sozin's Comet, whom she doesn't /really/ know. Compassion, guilt, and curiosity combine. A mix of Kataang, Azulaang, and Azutara.

Balancing Act: Chapter 1

by: TAZ-maniack

"I'm not sure I'm ready to do this, Katara."

The healer's blue eyes were raptly attentive. "What do you mean?"

Aang dug his first two fingers and his thumb into each of his own eyes.

Then he looked around the main hall of the Fire Nation palace, where they were waiting on a message that would tell them the Fire Lord was prepared to admit them to a private meeting. Katara was holding his other hand.

"Was it something about Roku's Island?" she asked, fitting her unoccupied digits onto the tops of his knuckles.

It had been almost four months since he had saved the Earth Kingdom, but more importantly, it had only been four months since he had scarred Ozai's soul.

In the past few hours, the concept had really solidified into this interpretation, he realized.

It wasn't that it felt that way when it happened. It had only looked that way in retrospect.

He hadn't dwelt on it. There was too much to do, too many feuds that needed settling, too many treaties that needed consideration, too many minor spirits, like Hei Bai, long neglected, just in the Earth Kingdom and the colonies alone. Managing his duties had kept the thirteen-year-old Avatar very busy, and moving from place to place constantly. Now that he had no one after him, and no specific directive, prioritizing which problems to solve first was a major headache. With Appa, he was the fastest responder to any summons. On the strictly mortal and human plane, (which he personally found more convoluted by conflicting interests and still tense negotiations) he was as good as an extension of the newly instated Fire Lord's eyes and ears, and the most trusted reporter. Outright mortal danger had been replaced by this whirlwind of responsibility the airbender had to steer through. And sometimes he thought he wished he were moving through an actual whirlwind instead.

Surprisingly, he had actually gotten a lot of time alone with Katara. Suki and the Kyoshi warriors had volunteered to stay on as the Earth King's guard, as the ruler had originally envisioned. Sokka said he could help the Earth King learn how to effectively run his city and reform the Dai Li. (Though the rest of the Gaang knew this was only partially an excuse to stay with Suki.) Aang dropped Toph off at Gaoling and arranged to come back for her after she had smoothed things out with her parents. Several weeks later, he and Katara had gotten a letter out of the blue from Sokka in Ba Sing Se which told them that Toph had left on her own and was there with them at the palace in the northeast. Still in the southern Earth Kingdom, they hadn't heard from her again until she contacted them through Sokka a second time with the idea to go to the Fire Nation and help Zuko weed out the less truthful and trustworthy politicians in his court with her earthbending senses. They had ferried her to her chosen destination. On the flight over, she had explained to them firsthand how she couldn't stand any more of the Bei Fong's admonishments.

This day, Zuko had an especially important request for the Avatar. But now Aang was getting cold feet, which would be funny, considering he could produce flame from his soles, except that the humor was clearly not appropriate right now.

He had shared this reluctance with Katara earlier, but the immediacy had spurred him to mire himself again in the implications of what the young Fire Lord was asking of him.

In an attempt to discover whether he ever had the option of reversing Ozai's condition, he had gone to examine the deposed dictator in his prison, and traveled to the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole to enter the Spirit World. But even Koh hadn't been able to tell him anything about the rediscovered talent. He had no idea how to find the aquatic reptilian feline who had bequeathed it to him again, either. On this last and most important flight he had stopped in a last ditch effort at the island where Roku's Temple once stood, where spiritual energies still radiated faintly, but he hadn't really been expecting anything of it.

Katara's temper showed her distress at his long silence. "You told me this wouldn't be dangerous for you! But you might be "corrupted and destroyed." That's what the Lion Turtle said, right?"

"Yes. But that's not what I'm worried about." he reassured her. He kissed each of her hands and felt some amount of regret for letting her in on that particular anecdote, but he knew that he needed to trust her with his thoughts. "Katara, I did this on the day of the comet with little to no preparation, when I had barely restrained the Avatar State properly. I've trained the Avatar State a few times since then. And I know what to expect from the spiritbending, unlike the first time."

"I know Ozai is the most powerful bender in the Fire Nation. But what if that's not what determines how difficult this is? What if it's something else?"

"Listen. When I spiritbended Ozai . . . we were kind of like two separate spirits, fighting for 'dominance.' But it was also like . . ." he rubbed her hand between his own fingers, as if attempting to use it as a touchstone for ideas. ". . . we were thrown together in a vat and blended together until it was almost unrecognizable. What I had to do, to keep from being overcome, was to first find "myself" again. "Your own spirit must be unbendable." The most important factor in all of it was what I was feeling. Me. I know this, Katara." he emphasized. It was an intuitive knowledge, maybe, but that's what the Avatar seemed to operate off of, especially where the Spirit World was concerned, Aang surmised. "What bothers me . . . I had to gather together all the good pieces in that mix, all of them," he stressed, "and expel the rest, become unyielding to them, and use that purified essence to enter his body."

Katara nodded, familiar with the concept, and every new spin he tried to describe it in. "There were good parts of him you took hold of."

"It's not a quantitative thing, at all, though." Aang brooded to himself, as he had frequently done before. "It's not like I could tell 'how much' of him was good. Only how much of me was goo-" his face fell, and his hand squeezed hers in apprehension. It had been nothing short of thrilling in that moment to force out the threatening ruddy glow that held a dark piece of his own spirit. Opening his chakras had certainly meant that he was a master of his feelings, but not that they had been blotted out like a simple stain on yesterday's laundry. People were more complicated than that.

"Aang, you are the best person in the world," his girlfriend crooned. "I'll bet the bad piece of you is so tiny that you couldn't see it with that dorky magnifying glass Sokka wore when you were in prison."

He dropped his hands. "But that's what the Lion Turtle warned against. 'The true heart can touch the poison of hatred without being harmed.' Hatred is in all of us. We have to recognize that, and face it. Not let it bend us. The illusion of anyone being that 'pure good' I felt . . . If one person thinks they're right no matter what, and there's no convincing them otherwise . . ."

" . . . then they'll do anything to assert themselves, and call it justified." Katara finished for him, slipping her hand back into its place.

"If I get to feel that pure good again . . . well, I'd actually look forward to it." He studied the tiled floorwork beneath him with a pronounced frown. The pair of two dimensional dragons, rendered by the rows upon rows of tiny polygons, began with their heads at the entryway, looping around pillars on each side. They were so long, in fact, that their hind legs were completely free. Their tails mirrored each other in diminishing waves down the center of the room, making smaller and smaller "bubble" spaces and ending up near the four eyes again. The squares served well for simulated scales, but while elaborate and beautiful in its own right, the mosaic was so mundane in comparison to the two living, breathing creatures he and Zuko met. It was rather like trying to put spiritbending into words, really. "But knowing that good is partly comprised of my victim-"

Katara sounded an affronted grunt of protest at the virulent choice of term. "Victim?"

"Yes," he didn't lift his head. "What kind of person does that make me, to look forward to ripping at someone's spirit? Even if it's necessary? Even if they might deserve it?"

After another thoughtful pause, Katara took hold of his empty hand. "Aang, look at me."

He did so, albeit timidly.

"I understand. When Ty Lee took away my bending, even temporarily, well . . . I hated it. I'd imagine-" She bit her lip. "Well, I don't want to imagine losing it forever. But I think this does need to be done. The danger posed to the world depends on it."

"You're sure that's not just your bias against the Fire Nation talking?" His question wasn't defensive or inflammatory, just equally contemplative. Katara's dislike of firebenders hadn't dissipated with her acceptance of Zuko, only lessened a lot. The Fire Lord actually understood this, because his people were brought up with so much war propaganda that they were hostile to foreigners. The Water Tribes had an especially bad rap as backwards primitives. He had requested that Katara still treat people outwardly with the same respect she would give anyone else. She had promised to honor his wishes, but didn't always do a stellar job.

"No, this is as much for the stability of the Fire Nation, isn't it?" Katara returned.

The young Avatar dropped his gaze again, chastened into defeat.

Nevertheless, he drew comfort from her next few puffs of air across his nose as the waterbender drew closer. She bent her forehead down to rest against his. " . . . but if, after we've discussed it with them . . . you still really don't want to do this, you'll have to stand up for it. Zuko will try to shut you down. He's put a lot of energy and effort into . . ." she trailed off. "If you feel that way, then he has to accept it. You're the higher authority, here."

"I don't know about that." Aang mumbled. "He knows more about how his nation works . . . about how rebels will flock to a strong Nationalist leader . . ."

"But you're the Avatar. It's your power and your decision." Katara insisted.

"You're always on my side, even when you aren't?" he teased, looking up.

"Apparently." Those wonderful blue eyes crinkled, smiling.

The two benders, still touching at all three points, both sprang apart at the sound of a throat clearing. They hadn't even noticed the page's approach, so caught up in their private moment.

"Excuse me, Avatar Aang, Princess Katara. The Fire Lord and his Advisor Lady Bei Fong are ready to see you now."

The waterbender grew huffy, but not because of the timing. "I've told you all to stop calling me Prin-"

"Katara . . ." Aang gripped her arm, not hard enough to hurt, but sufficient to cut her off.

"Thank you." The monk told the man courteously. Knowing he would escort them otherwise, and preferring to walk alone with Katara, he added peaceably, "No dishonor meant, but we can find our own way to his study."

After two bemused blinks, the man regained his formal demeanor and bowed out. "Very good, sir."

Aang had taken this same route several times, but none felt like this present walk. His step was brisk enough. He looked forward to seeing Zuko and Toph after such a long time traveling. But each step also felt like he was pulling a five pound brick along behind it. His mind still wasn't really made up.

"What was that for?" Katara touched the place his hand had been as they walked.

"I know it's frustrating that they don't understand your tribe's customs." Aang replied quietly. "But I think you should let it go."

"Hmph. That's easy for you to say. You like it when they call you 'Avatar.'"

"I've had to overcome reluctance about being the Avatar. Am I not allowed to be comfortable with it?"

"The wisdom bit isn't fooling me, Aang. You like the attention."

It wasn't a scold, but close. Could he help the pleasure that had started at Kyoshi Island's celebrative reaction, grown at the North Pole's feast, and increased more from there? After being almost an outcast one hundred years ago for the very same reason, it was a more than welcome change. But he had been a little show offy in the past months. "Okay. You're right. And Monk Gyatso would admire your humility, and might get after me for the lack."

Tamed by the compliment, she backpedaled, "I- Ah- You're very selfless- I didn't mean you don't have any humility."

The still young boy sequestered within the mature dialog showed through as he quirked a silly eyebrow. "You're going to give me a big head and get rid of it completely." The girl giggled. "But seriously, please don't bring up the Princess thing with Zuko again." He noted that they had almost reached the room and hastily pressed on. "He's always embarrassed enough with the way people in the palace act, over much worse things. Remember what he said to you and Sokka?"

Katara rolled her eyes, and recalled the leader's words almost verbatim. "Every politician that sees Chief as roughly equivalent to royalty is a step in the right direction for people who have been taught that only the Fire Lord is rightful sovereign of the entire world." She lowered her voice and looked around warily so no one would overhear her next comment, "Sure, Aang. That might take care of the cursed "fire supremacy" oozing out of every nook and cranny of this place, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm not a princess."

To the Southern Tribe, it was odd that Katara and Sokka should be given titles. Until either of them stepped up to lead, the two were seen as just another member of the tribe, and could be easily replaced if Hakoda saw fit, with no fuss from anyone. Bato was the prime candidate, and recognized successor, currently. Experience and age was given precedent over youngsters, offspring of the chief or no. The Swamp Tribe, they learned, after Katara's casual inquiry, had no official chief at all.

"Blasted Northern Tribe just confusing the issue . . ." For all Chief Arnook's pomp, he was going against the belief that tribes should be treated as one entity, not separate, discrete, or stratified parts. She had discouraged and mocked Sokka's bragging to Yue about being a prince for the same reason. Family was extremely important to the people of the sea and rivers, as Iroh had taught Zuko when they were exiles, but more in the sense of overarching community than "nuclear" family units. "But I guess you're right. Zuko has enough to deal with."

It might prove incendiary besides, if she kept rudely refusing everyone else. It was exhausting to try to explain this alien concept to every new Fire Nation delegate. "And if they're trying to extend respect to you, in their nation's way," he nudged her shoulder by leaning into her gently, "I don't think they deserve having their heads bitten off for that."

By now they had arrived at the study.

Four guards stiffly saluted the pair. The inner two opened each of the double doors. Inside, books lined the shelves of the mini library. Zuko's desk sat behind one left turn and one right. They made a ninety degree angle "S," designed to give Fire Lords auditory warning to compose themselves for guests before they could see him. Stained glass windows let in plentiful ambient light, with the largest one behind the desk. Although they did break down into straight edged four cornered polygons, unlike the mosaic, some were as large as people, and the smallest ones were still arm length. The complicated mosaic used mostly squares in graduated hues, but the windows sported irregular trapezoids and parallelograms, starkly and simply invoking the upward thrust of spires of fire in just three colors. While the inner part of the palace, the throne room and the hallways, were devoid of windows, most every perimeter room was crammed with them. Even if the Sun Warrior's verbal teachings had been obscured by history, architecture hadn't followed strictly down the path of spoken beliefs. As soon as glass manufacturing had been invented during the time of Sozin, every firebender wanted sunrays in their homes, perhaps driven by a natural desire. The palace had been expanded on, to keep the centuries old walls and floors in place but accommodate this new trend (indifferently displacing several minor nobles' houses in the process.) Anyone with a curious eye might notice differences in styles, from furniture to the crown moldings on the ceilings. The older parts of the palace had more painstaking and masterful details. Art had been devalued with the shift of focus to militarism and utilitarianism. Out of this, however, minimalism took root and evolved. Artisanship had never been completely discarded.

Aang's second and third Masters were standing in the open space of the room not occupied with chairs, waiting for them. Yellow beams caught the Fire Lord's crown, winking and flashing blindingly off the flat golden surface. The ribbons of bright trim on his robe multiplied their effect too, but in a much more muted way. Toph's pale green dress, in contrast, looked odd cast in an orange swathe and marred by streaks of red.

"It's good to see you guys!" Aang trotted the last few steps to hug his friends. The airbender wanted to start this grim business off on a positive note.

Katara copied his gesture as veritably, but perhaps as unconsciously, as a lizard parrot. "It really is good to see you . . ." Then she perked up. "Hey, Toph, are you all right?" Like a homing beacon, the waterbender picked on some small sign of discomfort she was giving off. Aang couldn't have guessed what it was.

"I'm fine, Sugar Queen." The earthbender said hardily and waved her hand dismissively.

"So Mai left from Omashu, right?" Aang asked Zuko.

The noble had wanted to find out personally where her parents had gone after the city was taken over during the eclipse. They were the leaders of the colonized set up, and had good reason to fear for their lives, with a "crazy" king on the loose.

"She'll be arriving soon." he confirmed.

"Bumi sent a letter to Zuko." Toph said. "He said he apologized to her, but he wasn't so sure if she forgave him. Something about having a face . . . well, like a stone." She smirked. "Bumi's such a card."

"Sometimes it makes me jealous you seem to know my old friend better than I do." Aang teased.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about his visit to the Jasmine Dragon and the Earth King while I was in Ba Sing Se. I didn't think to mention it because we were caught up with other things."

"It's okay. You guys even hung out before that, too, right?"

"Yeah, while we were looking for you, when you went on your little Lion Turtle adventure and we were at the White Lotus camp. And by the way, Bumi says Sokka thinks like a mad genius."

Aang grinned from ear to ear. "That's a high compliment."

"Captain Boomerang thought so, too."

They all shared a chuckle.

The four benders then dropped into a lapse, where consciousness of the situation and the world in general seemed to stifle the previously sunny atmosphere as if a bank of fog had rolled in. Lips tightened. Eyes wandered.

"Well, we all know why we're here." The Fire Lord turned to his desk to place a hand on a scroll, and his deep words dragged. "Toph and I finished the last of the interrogations a few days ago."

She sank down in one of the chairs.

Zuko handed him the scroll, and he unfurled it.

He counted thirteen lines, all neatly scribed on rice paper in his friend's unmistakable handwriting.

"That many?" Katara gasped, leaning over his shoulder.

"You were expecting less?" Zuko's face showed mild disbelief.

" . . . Yeah."

"Well, that shows you're putting your promise to good work, at least," the firebender said gravely.

Aang sat down, having to take several minutes to soak it in.

Thirteen names. Thirteen Fire Nation officers, sentenced to lifelong deprivation of bending. Thirteen lives that he determined the futures of.

"And this is the parsed down number?" he asked for confirmation as Katara took a place close to him.

"Bare bones. To verify this short list, I have reports on each person." Zuko indicated additional stacks of paper. "I can answer any questions you have."

"I wish spiritbending allowed me to make some sort of judgment on their pasts and personalities," he said forlornly, scanning the names again. "To see the people they are."

"Do you not trust Zuko's judgement?" Toph snapped suddenly, and Aang looked to her, surprised by the unexpected hostility. "Do you not trust my word? What these guys have done- I have no Earthly clue what spiritbending is, Aang, but if it means you have to somehow touch any of what's in their heads-"

She jerked forward and hurried motion from the firebender drew Aang's gaze. Zuko cleared the few long strides around his desk and back so swiftly that it wasn't until he was setting a pail in front of her, towel already over his elbow, that Aang understood what happened, and the mishap the Fire Lord seemed to be very much prepared for.

A color that almost matched the green of her dress was tinging the white skin of her face, but she had clapped a hand over her mouth and didn't retch again, suppressing the demand of her body.

One of his hands had come forward, as if to rub her back or steady her shoulder, but halfway there it had stopped indecisively. Both Katara and Aang had leaned forward in their chairs too, not quite rising, but prepared to.

She deliberately lowered her hand and equally as deliberately claimed, "I'm fine." She couldn't make direct eye contact, but by the angle of her head she was clearly addressing Zuko.

"I shouldn't have let Iroh talk me into-"

"You're going to make me throw up if you keep on with this stupid, whiny guilt trip thing."

Heedless, he hovered over her, the young man every inch the image of a concerned parent. "You can still change your mind."

About what? Aang wondered.

"Will you stop treating me like a baby?" she growled half-heartedly.

He exchanged a glance with Katara, suddenly feeling very "outside" of what was going on between the other two. They sat flummoxed as the argument continued, out of context, interruptions rampant.

"It doesn't matter if you-"

"It's just the smell of those cells. They are absolutely-"

"We had them scoured thoroughly." He asserted back at her exasperatedly. "You're a person with a conscience. It's a natural reaction. There's-"

"For the last time, you haven't been puking up your guts because you can't smell like I can! All that sh-"

"Okay! okay." He headed off her vulgarity, palms up in surrender. "So you're sure."

She took a few breaths with her nose wrinkled from both irritation and nausea. "If you ask again I'm going to punch you. And not in the good way."

The ruler, who had seemed so poised upon their entrance, backed off and visibly stewed.

That seemed like the conclusion to their exchange, though what exactly had been settled, Aang hadn't a clue.

Still resplendent in his crimson attire, neither the wordless concession nor the change in mood detracted from the standing figure so much as transmuted him from simply elegant to elegantly dangerous. Zuko placed both palms and all his corresponding weight on the desk. When the soft towel slid down, he grabbed it tossed it forcefully back in its place behind the imposing piece of furniture.

Zuko looked back at the couple as if he had indeed momentarily forgotten they were there, and offered an explanation. "I didn't want to review in detail all the charges for war crimes held against these officers with Toph here. Hearing them once from the ostrich horse's mouth is plenty. But she's insisted, so . . ."

Katara stood. "Maybe Zuko's right-"

"Oh, no. Don't even think about going all mother hen goose on me. I've gotten enough of that from him. I am so not in the mood." Toph warned the waterbender stiffly.

Glances flew between all three of the sighted benders swiftly, and came to roost on her again. Zuko now somehow managed to look annoyed and concerned at the same time. Katara was purely sympathetic. If Aang had to take a stab at what his own face looked like, it was lost. He hadn't expected this sort of complication.

Toph obviously noticed the swiveling of heads. "Tell me you guys aren't ganging up on me. I'm staying. Are we going to spend time arguing about this? We have a job to do, here."

"I don't have to stay, either, Toph." Katara hedged.

Aang's eyebrows moved together. He wasn't expecting his long-time support to leave him at this crucial juncture, either. She noticed, and misread his thoughts. "What? There's no official reason for me to be here. This is an internal matter, mostly. Even if I were an official ambassador," which she wasn't, because she had declined the position, after being restlessly questioned by many of her people about what they perceived as a positive bias towards the Fire Nation, "Zuko knows my tribe's position on this. "Approval" is not a strong enough word."

Only about a fourth of them had attended Zuko's coronation. Aang definitely understood the warrior's desire to go home after being away instead of willingly staying on enemy soil, only freshly turned ally, and Hakoda had no reason to force them, but he doubted people who weren't benders could even appreciate the magnitude of the loss. Then again, many benders of the North and the Earth Kingdom had pushed for this. Zuko had staunchly refused to hand over his own people to the mercy of foreign punitive measures. Aang couldn't blame him. The monk couldn't be there to oversee every detail. Harsh labor sentences in the disparate sections of the feudal Kingdom could easily bleed into prisoner abuse. Theirs was a world that demanded hard proof that the new Fire Lord was serious about change, and if denied access to the people responsible, this was an alternative they could agree on. It at once earned much needed trust and recognition from the other Nations, and warned Fire Nationalists, wherever they hid, that there were still steep consequences awaiting any action they were considering.

"We can go catch up. You've done your part." Katara took a step towards Toph.

The earthbender, meanwhile, had gained a mean looking scowl at her wheedling, designed to make her not feel left out, which Aang admitted to himself sounded somewhat patronizing, if compassionately and unintentionally so. He took in a breath, meaning to intervene in the brewing trouble.

But before he spoke, Zuko was already saying, "I'm going to respect your decision, Toph." With a firm resolve in his eyes that was almost, but not quite, a glare, he added, "You will not, however, be accompanying us to Aang's-" he opened his mouth, closed it, decided on a word, "assignment, if you're sticking to your reasoning."

"But," she started to object.

"You want another round trip on the boat or Appa?"

She paled queasily, then folded her arms together in a sulk, but said nothing.

Zuko's gaze relinquished her.

He had cleared an entire four days for this.

And that was no easy feat, given the equally as extensive demands on the Fire Lord's time.

Aang sighed heavily. Combing military reports and written interrogations. If everything went the way Zuko and Toph wished, the trip to the Boiling Rock several islands away.

It was going to be a very, very long four days.