Arc I: Whereabouts Unknown


-five days (to catch up with a prisoner)-


Day 1

Katara thought maybe "having tea" was some Fire Lord euphemism for "I'm going to kill you", but here Katara is in the Royal Family's private guest room, sitting at a low table across from Azula, sipping oolong tea. Katara is surprised to see that the tea doesn't have the slightly acrid aftertaste of the bending suppressant.

Azula watches the realization play across Katara's features and says, "Yes, we're taking you off the bending suppressant. My advisors have told me to wait for another week or so, but I told them that you wouldn't try to escape or do anything drastic."

Maybe because your soldiers are stationed in my tribe; ready to kill if I step out of line.

Katara is silent.

"So, Kya-"

Katara grits her teeth at the dig. "Katara."

"Sorry, my bad, Katara. Tell me, how has the Southern Water Tribe been doing these past years?"

"We'd been doing fine."

Silence.

"You have a brother?"

"His name is Sokka."

The Fire Lord picks up her teacup, takes a taste of her tea and subsequently makes a face.

"I far prefer jasmine tea over oolong, don't you?"

Katara thinks the bitter taste of oolong suits Azula.


Day 2

"I suppose you've heard of how my now twice-banished brother and I took Ba Sing Se?"

Katara's silence is taken as a no.

"My uncle laid siege to the city for hundreds of days before giving up, all because his beloved son had died," Azula says. Katara sips her ginger tea blankly.

Azula ignores Katara's lack of response and details the events of the siege.

Ba Sing Se had fallen in just six days.

"If you hadn't heard about Ba Sing Se, then I suppose you wouldn't know about Omashu."

Omashu only took one day.

Azula smirks at Katara's surprise. "The king was a great bender and leader, no doubt, but he was old and I had the Dai Li under my command and my brother alongside me. Of course it only took one day. You'll meet the new governor's daughter soon enough."


Day 3

"The most ridiculous of the rebel groups was this gang of children who called themselves Freedom Fighters," the Fire Lord says, laughing. "I think their leader is still in the newly-renovated Boiling Rock."

A beat passes.

"Your father was imprisoned there, too, at one point. Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe."

"What did you do to him?" Azula raises her eyes, finally having gotten a reaction.

Although Sokka, always the rational one, had long given up on the notion, ("They've probably killed him, okay? That's what the Fire Nation does to rebel leaders"), Katara has always held out hope in some part of her that her father is still alive, starving in some prison, but alive.

"Execution by fire squad."

Tears burn in Katara's eyes and she screams, trying to impale the Fire Lord with a frozen shard of saltwater and oolong.

Katara is informed as the Dai Li drag her out that she won't be given anything to eat for the next two days.


Day 4

There are two other girls in the guest room. One of them is like the embodiment of death, all grim faces and sighs and hidden daggers (Katara saw her whip one out of her sleeve to slice a pear), and the other is all-too cheerful, bouncing in her seat and nearly knocking over her tea several times. Katara guesses that Azula can't be expected to have normal friends.

"Meet Mai, the governor of Omashu's daughter," Azula says, with a nod to dreary girl. Katara tries her best not to stare at the pear slices in Mai's hand. The other friend is introduced as an acrobat, one of six sisters ("We all look the same").

Today, Azula, a small smile playing on her lips, talks about her brother's banishment, asking Mai to chime in here and there to fill in parts of the story.

Prince Zuko had spoken out of turn at a war meeting when he was thirteen, leading to the then-Fire Lord Ozai to command the Prince to fight an Agni Kai. To the Prince's surprise ("Not mine," Azula adds with a roll of her eyes), his opponent was his father, and after the young Prince asked for forgiveness, Ozai scarred his son.

"My father sent him off with our crazy tea-loving uncle on a wild goose chase after the Avatar," the Fire Lord says, "and obviously, Zuzu never found the Avatar, but father welcomed him as a hero when we took Ba Sing Se and Omashu in the same week." Then Azula's eyes darken. "However, he betrayed the Fire Nation again only a year after returning home by breaking our useless uncle Iroh out of prison and running off with him."

Azula's gaze flicks to Mai. "My brother is a traitor and he will never be welcome home again."

Mai's passive expression wears down with each word, and near the end, she looks as close as Katara guesses she can to enraged.

"I didn't come for this," she finally snaps, and storms out of the room.

Azula whispers, "I think Zuzu might've been the unfortunate target of Mai's affections," and then laughs.


Day 5

On the fifth day, Azula says, "I bet you're wondering why we need you here."

For any other topic, Katara would've stayed still and looked blankly at Azula, but she can't help her curiosity and nods.

"You're one of the last waterbenders in the world."

Katara frowns. A good amount of waterbenders from the North had joined her father's rebel force, so it could be assumed that all of them have been killed over the course of the war, but there are so many more waterbenders at the North Pole. Hakoda had said that there were at least twenty masters the last time he went there, and a lot of their students were quickly on their way to becoming masters themselves. And then, of course, were the young girls, who weren't allowed to use waterbending in combat (Katara had nearly wrecked their home when Hakoda told her that this was part of the reason anyone refused to come teach Katara), so how-

"- last year, Phoenix King Ozai and I decided that it would be best if we had a sort of, ah, continuation of the Southern Raids."

"Continuation," Katara echoes dully.

"Northern Raids were conducted last year by armies of the Phoenix Empire."

"No."

Katara feels like someone has thrown hot tea all over her while simultaneously taking an ice shard and driving it through her chest.

"After numerous treaty negotiations that failed, the tribe continued to show resistance - even making a weak attempt on my life - and we had no choice."

In two quick movements, the tea in the pot and cups on the table rises and turns into ice daggers (Katara knows in the back of her mind that if it didn't work last time it won't work now, but she can't think), aimed straight for Azula's heart. Azula evaporates the ice with a single, small burst of fire.

Over Katara's shrieking, Azula says loudly, "I think that's the end of our talk," and two Dai Li agents step into the room. Katara starts towards Azula, her nails bared; fully ready to carve out Azula's veins, but the agents each grab one of her arms and twist them behind her back. Katara feels herself scratch them several times, and she thinks she draws blood, but she doesn't care.

"You monster!" what Katara's expression has contorted into can only be called a snarl. "You killed my people!"

And Katara finds it interesting to note (not that she realized it in the moment, but much later in the dark of her room) that that one name, monster, made the Fire Lord's look of self-assurance slip like nothing else did, not even Katara's weak attempts on her life.

"That's what my mother used to call me," Azula mutters, letting two pieces of hair fall into her eyes and frame her face.


Katara earns herself another three days without food.

Her stomach feeling like it might digest itself, she wanders restlessly around her room, eventually digging out the Pai Sho tile from beneath the bathtub. She holds it up in the dim moonlight coming from her window and inspects the white lotus design, wondering what June wanted her to do with it.

She falls asleep with the tile clutched in her hand.


XxX