A/N: We're working up to my favorite part of The Boiling Rock, Part 2. Hakoda's face off with the warden. But of course there had to be a reason, or reasons, why Hakoda was so willing to antagonize the Warden. This chapter gives you the reasons. I think it was my favorite to write, bar one of my later chapters. Anyway, go read and then tell me what you think!

--

I kept my face blank as the obnoxious guard walked by again, sneering at me. I was determined not to react to his taunts. He'd been trying to get a reaction out of me ever since he'd learned I had led the invasion force against the Fire Nation capital. Likely he wanted any excuse he could find to strike me.

"Not such a great leader now, are you? None of your pitiful warriors are here to back you now."

Pitiful warriors. Right. Pitiful warriors that had nearly succeeded in taking the Fire Nation capital.

"What's the matter? Afraid of talking to a real warrior, Water Tribe?"

I couldn't help the furrowing of my brows at the reemergence of the hated nickname. It seemed to be following me from that first prison. I didn't know if my previous warden had somehow passed it along, or if it was just that the Fire Nation officers all thought alike.

I didn't much care. I just hated hearing my heritage turned into an insult.

"I can see you don't like me. Why don't you do something about it?" The guard circled around me, coming temptingly close. I could imagine so very clearly the yelp he'd make if I slammed the manacles holding my hands together into his head.

But I wouldn't. That would be sinking to his level. I will never do that.

"Too afraid, Wat-"

"What do you think you're doing?!"

I couldn't help it. I smirked. The guard had jumped nearly half his height in the air at the shout, and lost all the color in his face. Much as I despised all the Fire Nation, I felt grateful to this captain. He wasn't as bad as the others. Which still landed him squarely in the category of enemy, but not quite as bad as the rest of his companions.

"I was just…um, Captain, I can explain, really…"

Arms crossed over his chest, the captain waited, glaring at his subordinate. I bit my lip to keep from snickering at my tormentor's predicament.

"It's just…he's an enemy…" The man's eyes lit up and I could tell he had something he thought would justify all of his behavior. "Captain, you know as well as I do that this man led the forces that invaded the capital! It's an outrage!"

"And he's being punished for it. What can you possibly do to him that's worse than being sent to the Boiling Rock? He'll have no chance of escape in there."

"We can't just let him-"

"He'll pay for his arrogance in attacking the Fire Nation. He is paying, right now. He'll live out the rest of his life in the Boiling Rock. So either find something else to do, or I'll find something for you to do."

The annoying guard mumbled something I didn't catch and left after saluting his superior officer. The captain waited until he was out of ear-shot, then addressed me.

"I may not have let him continue his childish taunting," he warned me, his eyes cold. "But that doesn't mean he wasn't right." He glared hard at me, and I stared right back. I would not let this man intimidate me. "You will die in the Boiling Rock. And I can only hope your death comes sooner rather than later."

With that last parting venom, he turned on his heel, and stalked away. I watched him go, feeling the anger that had subsided with the departure and humiliation of the obnoxious guard resurface.

He was slightly better than his comrades, but as far as I was concerned, it still didn't count for much.

--

"They've been saying he's the one who led the attack on the capital."

"Are you sure? I mean, yeah, I can see he's a warrior. He moves like one."

"We're transferring the leader of the attack to the Boiling Rock. Everyone's saying the leader was a Water Tribesman. He's got to be it."

"Well…he is the only Water Tribesman we've got."

"Exactly."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I'd found during the years I'd been fighting the Fire Nation that the regular soldiers tended to judge how good an opposing warrior was based on which Fire Nation battalion they had taken down or wounded. And not many had ever been significantly harmed, disregarding the decimation of General Iroh's troops at Ba Sing Se. They held such an inflated idea of the importance and imperviousness of their nation, and their capital, that likely they had been expecting me to look like some sort of monster. Or maybe like a bull-moose-lion.

"Okay, so he's the leader. Who planned the attack?" I glanced sharply at the guard who had spoken. Did anyone know it was Sokka who had planned the assault? "I mean," the guard was whispering near-soundlessly now, and I had to strain to hear him. "That attack almost succeeded."

"Shush! Do you want us to get into trouble? No one's supposed to talk about that! We beat them, that's all that matters."

It didn't sound like they knew. I silently urged them to continue their conversation, wanting to hear some definitive answer on the danger my son was in. Granted, he was already a declared enemy of the Fire Nation, just by being a companion of the Avatar, but the Fire Nation bounty on his head would rise if they knew he had planned the assault that had so wounded the Fire Nation's pride.

"I know that!" I had nearly stopped breathing at this point. They were speaking so softly I had to hold my breath to hear the words. "But just think…if the tactician who planned it escaped…"

The nervous guard glanced furtively around, as if checking for eavesdroppers. I quickly slumped my shoulders and stared at the ground in front of me, praying I looked as dejected as they thought a prisoner on his way to the Boiling Rock should be.

Apparently it worked. They resumed their conversation and I held my breath once again.

"I think the guy did escape, though. No one's said anything about the guy that planned it being captured. If he was, he'd have been sent straight to the Boiling Rock, that's if he survived the anger of Fire Lord Ozai."

"Yeah, wouldn't take a bet on the chances of that happening…"

I let out my breath in a slow sigh. No one knew who had planned the attack then. So long as no Fire Nation official found out my son had been the mastermind behind the assault, he would be as safe as he could be until this war ended.

It was one less thing for the Fire Nation to pin on his head as a reason for capture, and one less thing for me to worry about.

"Though I heard that Princess Azula's got an idea who might have planned the invasion."

My heart skipped at least a two beats. Maybe more. No. Sokka could not be found out. Spirits no. Don't let them find out. What would they do to him if they did? The guards seemed to think Sokka wouldn't survive it, whatever punishment Ozai came up with. And the stories I'd heard about Princess Azula…well, suffice to say that apple hadn't fallen far from the tree.

"Really? Do you know who she thinks-"

"Shut up! The captain's coming this way!"

My hands curled into fists. No, no, just whisper it really quickly. Please, I just need to know. Spirits, if Princess Azula knew Sokka had planned…

Tui and La, protect my son while I am not able.

--

"Enjoy the last leg of your journey! It's been a pleasure showing you the finer points of travel through the Fire Nation! This last stop is one of our luxury prisons, where you'll all be set up with the best of accommodations!" The guard broke off into snorts and sniggers and his fellows grinned as they prodded me and my fellow prisoners off the airship that had transported us on this last leg of the journey to the Boiling Rock. I gritted my teeth and glared at the back of the guard in front of me. I could almost imagine some malevolent spirit had deliberately picked the most obnoxious and arrogant guards to transfer my fellow prisoners and me to the Boiling Rock.

This particular guard, a large hulking man who moved quickly enough to defy normal expectations, seemed to take a perverted sort of pleasure out of treating a prison transfer as some sort of twisted vacation for the prisoners.

I dearly wanted to punch him. He'd been grating on my nerves for the past twenty-four hours and I was reaching my breaking point.

As the door on the gondola closed, I turned my head to watch the airship take off again. It would seem that the warden at my first prison had been correct to be proud of the Boiling Rock. It would require a miracle to escape from here.

The Boiling Rock was situated on an island, not all that far from the capital itself. The cliffs gave way on either side to steep drop-offs, leading on the one side to the ocean and on the other to the boiling lake which had given this place its name. I thought I caught a glimpse of pathways winding down the cliffs, but the gondola had started moving by that point, and I was denied a closer look. The steam rose off the lake below and nearly masked the small protrusion of rock that housed the prison in the middle of the lake. I squinted at it, and soon gave it up as a futile exercise. I couldn't see enough to make a good assessment of its fortifications, and besides, how would I get off the island, even if I did escape, without a boat or an airship?

My mind turned instead to thoughts of my children.

It's been over a week since the invasion. Sokka will have stopped sulking by now, and started concentrating on another plan. He can't risk another direct assault, especially not with most of our troops captured during the eclipse. So…he'll be trying to figure out a way to find a firebending teacher for the Avatar.

I thought over that for a moment, and was not encouraged by the prospects.

A deserter they already tried, and if I remember right, it didn't work so well. Besides, they don't even know where the guy went. Not likely they can find him again, even if he'd consent to teach Aang. But neither can they just kidnap a bender and force him or her to teach the Avatar.

I was briefly amused with thoughts of how my son might encourage a kidnapped firebender to betray his nation by teaching the Avatar the last element he needed to master, but soon reality drew me back from the pleasant images.

I can't see a way for Aang to learn firebending, not while we're still at war with the Fire Nation. I stared intently at the floor in front of me, ignoring the other prisoners on either side of me and the guard pacing up and down the middle of the gondola. Can he defeat Ozai without knowing firebending? Is there a way?

I couldn't think of one. But Sokka was resourceful. I just had to trust him. And Katara wouldn't let him run off and do anything stupid.

Katara.

She'd grown so much since I'd last seen her, a twelve-year-old determined to hide her tears and not quite managing it, but denying that she was crying all the same. That farewell differed so much from the one we had shared in the Fire Nation capital.

We'd had time to properly say farewell, two years ago, for one.

And she hadn't cried. No. She'd been angry, and disappointed that we had failed. And scared that she would never see me again. She knew as well as I did what fate had waited for me after the Fire Nation troops caught up with me and the rest of the troops.

She'd grown so much since that day, since I'd left her, supposedly safe from the war, back in the South Pole.

Brilliant plan, Hakoda. Leave her back home, where she ought to be safe, and she runs headlong into this war anyway. You knew she would never be content there; she's just like her grandmother. No one can hope to dictate her life to her without it backfiring on them.

Which, in a way, I had tried to do, by leaving her behind. I had arrogantly assumed that the Southern Water Tribe was too small to ever be worth attacking by the Fire Nation. My little girl would be safe there, I had thought. No matter how much my men and I angered the Fire Nation.

So, of course, that's where the Avatar reappears after a hundred year absence, and that's exactly where Fire Prince Zuko was searching to try to find the Avatar.

And the confrontation that had followed had led to the necessary relocation of my tribe to another ice shelf, since Prince Zuko had rammed his ship into the one the tribe had been living on.

Did the Fire Nation have no respect for any other way of life than there own? Why couldn't they see that different didn't mean inferior, barbarian, stupid? Why couldn't they see that?

That blindness and arrogance was perhaps a national trait, and from the stories I had heard, the Royal Family certainly lived up to it. Along with being cruel and ruthless.

I could not wait for –

"Hey, you! Get off the gondola."

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, keeping my head down. Slowly, I stood, noticing the lack of swaying that meant we had reached the prison for the first time.

Straightening my back and lifting my head, I stepped off the gondola to face whatever fate brought to me.