Chapter 4: Zero Hour
"With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low? Th' ascent is easie then;
Th' event is fear'd; should we again provoke
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction: if there be in Hell
Fear to be worse destroy'd: what can be worse
Then to dwell here, driv'n out from bliss, condemn'd
In this abhorred deep to utter woe(?)"
--Moloch, Paradise Lost: Book Two, John Milton
Something about encroaching darkness made their moment easier. Toph let down her guard, let down her granite exterior with only the slightest resistance; but only while the shadow drank Sokka's sight could she be so free of heart and body. Deep inside her heart she feared what tomorrow might bring; dead at Azula's hands, or alive in Sokka's arms and wondering if the gave in to the moment. Either way, knowing he could not see her simplified things.
Still... his breath against her neck as they held one another in the shadow felt undeniably right. After a short while, though, Toph inevitably wrested herself gently free of his embrace.
"We need to go," she all but whispered, feeling the reluctance in his fingertips.
Sokka let himself stand, groping lightly for his sword in the dark. Catching his breath.
"How much farther do you think this tunnel runs?" he inquired of his long beloved Toph, his sentence punctuated with a hard breath.
"Dunno. Start marching already." She smiled, knowing he couldn't see.
But Sokka knew she would, and smiled, too.
And they walked together in the shadow of Death, both prepared to meet him--head-on to find out what lay beyond.
"The end is right there," Toph announced, softly though. Her senses danced at the edge of high alert, reading the pits and scratches along every surface of the cavern wall, and she could instantly tell that the end of the tunnel lay blocked. She ran her hands over its surface, considering the texture, and gave it a soft thump of her knuckle. A knocking sound echoed down the cavern, light and airy like paper.
"This is fresh," she explained to a curious Sokka. "This has been walled up in the last few days, and it's hollow."
"Maybe Azula found it," the swordsman suggested, squinting in the meager light flowing through slits in the wall. "Well... I can't see her ordering us to fool around by the other end of this tunnel, even if Suki had a hand in the orders."
"Someone knew it was here. Someone put your sword down there. Someone wanted us to be here, Sokka. Who better to open up a fresh wall than an Earthbender? It feels too easy to me." Toph slid her hand along the wall. "Look through these slits if you can, moron. Quit doing nothing."
Sokka obediently pressed his face to the wall, trying to get a look into the throne room through the slits. He glimpsed a hint of a red dress on a shapely, graceful young woman--Azula. As he watched, the Fire Queen stepped fully into his view and sat upon her throne, crossing her legs and leaning back, relaxed, without a care in the world. She sipped from a silver chalice, drawing the lustrous metal along her glistening lips. Flicked her tongue along the rim, gazing ever forward.
"She must really like that drink," Sokka mused, but ceased his line of thought just about the time a second woman entered his view, clad entirely in blue. He very nearly facefaulted as Katara swished her way to the throne and straddled the queen's lap, gazing into her eyes.
"What's going on?" Toph demanded, feeling the vibration from Sokka's furious trembling. She stretched out her senses, listening with her ears and sense of touch. One person in the next room. Two? She could not be sure.
"Open the wall, Toph," the swordsman nearly spat. "Azula's right there with Katara. Open it!"
"Don't be an idiot, you idiot! You can't go charging in there against Azula. You need a plan." The Earthbender pressed herself against the hollow wall, listening. "I can probably stop her from Metalbending like she did with Ozai. But I need you to protect me. There's no telling what Katara will do, either."
"She'll fight with us," Sokka declared with the supreme confidence of a boy who has never been in a fight.
"You can't be sure about that. You saw them kissing," Toph points out. "Remember? And we saw what happened to Mai. Azula's clearly into girls."
"Yeah, well, so am I, so she's got no advantage there," Sokka hissed in utter seriousness. "Ugh. They're kissing again."
A moment passed. Toph tapped on the wall again.
"Actually... how into it are they?" she inquired, to Sokka's endless disgust.
A sudden squeak, breathy and feminine, answered the question for her.
"Fine. It might be just enough distraction for us to get her before she's ready to fight back." Toph laid her hand upon the wall again, studying its weaknesses and strengths. "It's not much of a wall. You could probably kick through without trying very hard."
Sokka turned his eyes away from the throne room, knuckles straining somewhat against the handle of his sword. "I can't do it that way," he said. "I can't kill Azula like a mugger on the street."
"Of course you can," Toph snapped a little louder than she meant. "We should've done it this way to begin with. All that bluster, challenging Fire nation officers, just got people killed."
"What would Aang say if that's how we avenged his murder?" Sokka glared at her, ineffectually of course. It occurred to him, somewhere in the back of his love- and fury-addled mind, that if they could hear a pleasured squeak from the throne room, it was possible their own voices could carry through as well.
"He's not saying anything," hissed Toph as Sokka held a finger to his lips--before he could think better of it. Toph continued. "Because he challenged her and she fried him for it. And he had the Avatar State on his side, Sokka."
"Well, together, we..."
"Are two overworked, minimally fed, and exhausted runaway slaves," the Earthbender cut in before Sokka could continue. "We have to use every advantage we can get, and right now, that means the advantage of surpr--"
Surprise, she almost said, before the flimsy wall burst inward, raining dust and rock upon their unsuspecting heads. Sokka's heart lurched, he shouted in shock but instantly found his mouth coated in plaster bits. He coughed, spat the chalky filth out and coughed again, awash in sudden heat. He breathed half a breath and hacked it back out. He couldn't see; as the lights of the throne room stole into the tunnel his eyes were dazzled, full of painful blinking stars.
"I didn't know we had rats in the walls," sang a still-blushing Azula. Sokka could just see her figure as the dust parted, her svelte curves and regal posture looming above where he and Toph crouched in the powder of the wall. "Or holes in them. Come into my chambers, slaves, and kneel before my throne. We," she held up a hand, blazing with contained flames, "have to talk."
Sokka stared into her eyes, and could swear he was staring into the frozen gorges of his homeland again. And he saw there the very same thing he had seen in the ice and murderous cold of home; death, death, endless plains of death. He stared into the mouth of Hell, and it smiled with soft, pouting lips.
Sokka took the first tentative step from the tunnel, chancing a look back at the remnants of the wall where Azula's fireball burst through. The bricks of her throne room glittered gold, as did the remnants of the trick wall; they were a perfect match.
Toph did not rise from her crouch at first, moving only when Azula's burning fist threatened to strike across her cheek. When she did, it was with some difficulty, and she walked to to the throne with a pronounced limp that trailed spots of blood on the floor. Sokka guessed a piece of the splintered wall held blame, but dared not speak or slow to find out.
Azula held her breath for just a moment.
"Give me your sword, slave," she commanded, a tyrant now in tone as well. Sokka stood straight in the draft of the throne room, clutching the handle of his prized blade against his chest.
He did not hand the weapon over.
"If I have to ask a second time, I'll just have to take it from your corpse. Stop and think about where you are. You'll gain nothing from being stubborn." The Fire Queen descended upon him, staring at him eye-to-eye, fearless of his skill with the sword. Wisps of her black hair tickled his forehead, and he could smell her breath against his lips and nose; it smelled just lightly of sulfur mixed into a mountain stream, of two pure elements sitting side by side. Fire and Water.
He glanced involuntarily to Katara, whose eyes lay round and glittering with fear and concern--though for which party, Sokka could not tell.
Azula caught the change in his expression, and stepped away. Her throne sat against the rear wall of an enormous, elaborate royal chamber in a typical style, complete with ornate pillars on both sides of a carpeted runway. The royal seat itself sat at the top of a seven-step staircase, and was perhaps the most softly cushioned chair in all existence; a chair upon which Katara, Sokka's long-lost sister, sat naked from the waist up, arms crossed over her somewhat unimpressive breasts.
"I knew you looked familiar," the Fire Queen fairly gloated as she ascended the stairs. "You're Katara's brother, Sokka. And you," her eyes narrowed to fearsome slits, "are the Earthbender, Toph."
"Congratulations," Toph chuckled, the dry, humorless chuckle of sarcasm. "You know the names of the people who are gonna kill you today."
Azula simply smiled at that, unmoved. Sokka glanced to his beloved, admiring her brass but confounded at the same time. Why the sudden surge of bravado after all that talk of a surprise attack?
"I'm sorry if I didn't instantly recognize you. But we've all matured since the last time I crushed your little assembly of storybook heroes and Toph, I never thought I'd see you with curves." The Fire Queen chuckled. "I assumed you would have turned into a boy by now."
Toph's cheeks flushed red-hot.
"What in all creation made you two insects think you could challenge me?" Azula continued, extending her arm a bit as she reached the throne to stroke Katara's blushing cheek; Sokka had never felt the urge to sever hand so completely in all his life.
"There's nothing you could do to us that would be worse than being your slaves," he instantly barked, feeding off Toph's humiliation and the subjugation of his sister.
"Don't," Azula snapped with a dramatic flair of her blood-red cloak, "wager on that, Sokka. There are innumerable things I could do to you worse than three meals a day and employment for life."
"You murdered Aang!" the swordsman all but shouted, frustration tensing the muscles in his back and shoulders. Azula, again, only smiled.
"Yes, I did." She smiled a little brighter, standing with her long, flowing neck craned prettily over her shoulders, those vibrant lips sweetly upturned. "So?"
Sokka felt the color drain from his face.
"So? So? He was my friend! He was the only one who could restore balance to the world, Azula, he--"
"As if those things somehow negate the fact that he intended to kill my father and I?" she demanded. "I burned him into dust to protect myself, my family, and my kingdom. You would consent to being a hypocrite if you faulted me for that."
"Aang never would have come after you if the Fire Nation hadn't tried to conquer the world!" Toph's fingers flexed, and Sokka knew she was on the brink of trying something foolish. He looked into Azula's eyes, and he knew that she knew it, too.
"Toph, no," he whispered. "Don't."
Azula just smiled. "Go ahead, Toph. I won't kill you until I can call it self-defense, for Sokka's sake."
"Stop, Toph!"
All functional eyes in the throne room swung to Katara, to behold her features grim and terrified. Sokka bit his lip; if only he could find out which side his sister belonged to!
"Don't waste your lives," the Waterbender begged of the slaves. "There's been enough blood. Let Ozai be the last casualty of our war."
The swordsman's blood ran cold.
"Katara, you... how long have you been a traitor?" Sokka's voice lifted and boomed in the lofty chamber, accusing and powerful in an instant.
Katara lowered her eyes. Held her tongue.
"I am done with this," Azula cut in. "You've already admitted your plans to kill me. When the sun reaches its zenith tomorrow, I will execute... one of you." Her smile turned up at the corners, beautiful and terrifying like a rush of flame sweeping through and consuming the summer forests. "I'll decide which one tomorrow. Around noon."
"No. No!" Sokka lifted his sword, a gesture entirely for show at distance. His hands trembled on the handle, his muscles tensed, calves hard, ready to spring up the stairs and... he had no idea what he would do.
Azula's quizzical expression said the same thing.
"You're not foolish enough to rush me, Sokka. What do you think you're going to do with that barbarous toy in your hands?" The Fire Queen's voice rang cool and even, as if she and Sokka were discussing bread recipes. Toph marveled at Azula's composure; but as she listened, bit by bit, she thought she could hear a sense of wondrous despair in those cold notes.
She sounds like she wants to be beaten, in a way, Toph said to herself. If nothing else--Sokka definitely had her attention. And so, the Earthbender's fingers began to move again.
"Don't fight me, " Azula continued, her tone as edged as ever. "You'll only lose your life, Sokka. You don't want that."
Toph held her breath. Her senses crept along the ceiling, searching for the perfect block to bring down upon Azula's head. She needed only a few more seconds to Earthbend the sealed seams of the block loose enough...
"You have no idea what I want," Sokka spat.
"How very presumptuous of you. Fine." Azula held her arms out, feet setting her preferred stance. "I will kill you, if that is what you want. But I won't do it happily."
Azula never saw the dust falling from above. Toph struggled to keep from panting, from giving away her clandestine 'bending in what pillowed into a choking silence.
Sokka gritted his teeth. Now, he thought, or never.
As the swordsman's muscles sprung from coil, launching him into a run, the sound of brick scraping brick stabbed the sullen silence to death. Toph abandoned subtlety and flicked out her arms, commanding the ceiling to release its hold on the half-ton of brick she'd drilled free.
Azula's arms swung like clock hands in gorgeous rhythm, and with them spurted wheels of crackling flames that pealed down the stairs en route to the charging Sokka. He kicked the runway rug hard, propelling himself to the side in time to feel the flesh of his feet blister and scorch. He struck ground harder than he'd intended, knocking wind from his lungs, but picked up his feet and dashed to the stairs.
In that instant Katara blinked as a thimbleful of dust peppered her nose. She turned her eyes skyward, to the ceiling so high above.
The block gave one last moaning scrape before, at last, it cracked free of its restraints. Sunlight crowded into the throne room behind it, its shadow fattening in a heartbeat around Azula's blazing body.
"Azula, move!" Katara shouted, springing from the throne, her thoughts and steps a blur.
Azula turned her eyes to Katara just in time to be bowled over, shoved so hard she lost her footing and tumbled to the floor. Sokka's sword flashed above her head and came down almost in the same instant, but the Fire Queen plunged her hands in front of it with a piercing shout-- the glittering black blade warped before it ever touched her.
"Katara!" Toph tried to shout but lost her voice in the blasting crash of stone shattering floor and water woman. Katara's shrieks stole the attention of both Sokka and Azula; the black blade straightened, but Sokka lacked the wherewithal to bring it down, to ram it into the Fire Queen's ashen heart and cleave her organs from her bones.
Thus it was Azula who acted first. Her hips bucked to one side and she rolled, tumbling down the stairs, her arms and neck tucked to foil injury as she rolled to her feet at the bottom. Her eyes shot from Toph to the block to Katara, lying pinned under the slab, caught from mid-thigh to her feet, crying, screaming in pain. The Fire Queen hesitated; she had no idea what to do, but fortunately for her, neither did Sokka or Toph. The three stood in a strange, awkward stalemate, each afraid to make a choice, each afraid to act one way or another. Help Katara, risking attack, or defend, and let Katara bleed to death?
At last, the flames burning up and down Azula's arms relented.
"Help me!" she cried then to Sokka and Toph, all but charging up the stairs to lay her hands on the enormous block. She tried to lift, beyond rationale, but quiet, so quiet even she could not explain her feelings at that moment.
Sokka growled despite himself. He knew he could take her life as she stood, but Katara's wailing had his attention. "Move!" he shouted to the Fire Queen, hefting his black sword. "Toph! I'm going to split this thing down the middle, can you move it?"
"I'll try," the Earthbender panted, nearly exhausted from her painstaking labor of earlier. Azula stared at her, eyes the monstrous icebergs that imprisoned Aang all those years ago.
Sokka closed his eyes, tried to put Katara's screams out of his mind. He held the blade level, just above her; he would cut the slab laterally, and if Toph could Earthbend the large piece out of the way, moving the other would be much easier. He gathered every scrap of his concentration and whirled with the blade, crouching in mid-swing to part the stone at the lowest possible point. "Now, Toph!" he shouted, the blade having slid cleanly through the stone.
Toph held up her arms, and punched one forward, trying to shove the heavy slab aside; but it barely moved at all. She tried again, panting already, to the same effect.
"Get out of the way," Azula suddenly raged at them, taking her stance again. She closed her eyes, as had Sokka, and turned her arms in fluid circles, crackling with sudden lightning. Her regal figure lifted, and then shot from the ground, propelled by flame and split lightning into the air. Sokka watched in absolute awe; Azula was flying. Flying!
"Get ready to grab her," she shouted, arms still spinning their burning circles. Toph cringed at the vibrations strangling the earth.
Sokka threw his sword to the ground and nodded. His heart could have leaped through his lips; he could have slapped the face of a god right then, for all his terror, all his adrenaline had numbed him to the bone, saturated him to the bursting. He had nothing left to fear.
The air stank of brimstone as Azula's lightning coursed through her body, charging her with light and heat to power the technique she brought to bear. The slabs began to rise, almost inexplicably; Sokka stared in wonder at this, at the absolute power that had destroyed Fire Lord Ozai.
When the slabs rose sufficiently, propelled into the air by a dozen poles of pure iron from the floor, Sokka grabbed his sister's arms and jerked her free, dragging her, leaving a trail of blood from the throne. He fought his horror at the sight; her legs lay crushed behind her, and her weeping told of a pain unimaginable to him.
Azula wavered in the air, and descended, crumpling in a heap not far from Toph. Her forehead ran with blood, and she sucked air into her lungs so weakly she barely seemed to breathe.
The poles melted away, and the slab smashed to the floor again.
For a long time, all four of them simply lay where they were, breathing, exhausted. Azula moved first, wobbling to stand, stumbling up the stairs, flames still flickering at her fingertips in spurts. Sokka reached for his sword again, but when his hand wrapped around the handle he felt, rather than heard, Katara's voice against him, sobbing still.
"Sokka, no," she whispered over her agonized tears, as Azula crumpled to her knees next to Katara's ruined legs. The Fire Queen stared at them, mouth moving, chest heaving still, so intent on the damage done that she barely noticed her guards breaking down the throne doors, the head of a battering ram just beginning to plow through its great surface.
"Waterbenders," the Fire Queen whispered, as the doors caved in, "call for healers, Sokka, call for healers! Tell them!"
But he couldn't move. He sat, transfixed, as the fire Queen's tears splashed onto Katara's prone body, wetting her hands; hands blooming in azure aura over the blood and flesh. He could almost sense Katara's chi funneling under Azula's power, routing to the damage, beginning to repair the powdered bones and broken muscles.
"Call for help," Azula pleaded, blood flowing freely from her forehead now, "please..."
But it was Toph who started shouting first. Toph who raced to the broken door and bowed her proud head in front of the Fire Nation guards as the gate splintered and fell inward.
Azula's hands wavered over Katara's wounds. Her breath came in gasps. Sokka watched as the damage to his sister knitted, slowly, impossibly slowly... and slowing further with every second, with every drop of blood beading from Azula's skin; the Fire Queen was obviously not designed to Waterbend like this.
"She's the only one," Katara whispered, eyes glazed, body numb, "Azula, she... she can still balance... Aang's knowledge is alive in her, Sokka..."
Sokka just shook his head, eyes wide, unable to process all of this.
"But she killed Aang," he whispered back, holding his sister's hands for dear life. "She... just hold on, Katara, just save your breath."
"No, listen, she..." Katara caught her breath as her bones began to snap back together, fusing weakly, breaking again. "She... the Avatar State, I was there. I saw it, she... she saw everything, she... no one's ever killed an Avatar State before, no one knew... she, she, she saw everything...!"
Sokka squeezed her hands, tighter, feeling them start to warm again.
"Everything... what do you mean?"
Katara stared at him balefully, as if she needed him to understand the first time.
"The knowledge of every, every Avatar, Sokka, she saw it, she..." Her lids drooped. Sokka caught his breath. He couldn't hear the clanging steps of the Fire Nation soldiers approaching. Couldn't feel Suki's hands on his shoulders, dragging him away. Couldn't see the Waterbenders descending on his sister, slaves the lot of them, hands blazing blue as other slaves carted buckets of water up the stairs, led by Toph.
"Katara, no, please don't talk anymore, please just open your eyes!" He shouted over the din, and her eyes opened a bit more -- and drooped again. Sokka looked up, desperately, at Azula, but the Fire Queen lay slumped on her side, hands still flickering blue as Fire Nation soldiers swarmed her, keeping the slaves away; just in case.
Sokka lost sight of Toph. He felt a sharp pain, a fist crammed against his diaphragm, and then motion, jumbled, awkward. He didn't see his attacker, but in the next moment he found himself being tossed into the clutches of armored soldiers, dragged screaming down the stairs. He couldn't see Katara anymore.
He couldn't see anything anymore, blinded by tears and blood and a second fist, mailed and heavy, careening towards his eyes.
When Sokka came to, it was to the rank and murk of Ba Sing Se's dungeons. He knew their foul, skin-sliming air well, having spent two months there after the war ended. He wondered where the blood-black sky was, where were the windows that awakened him every morning.
"Snoozles," he heard just in the corner of his mind, and sat bolt upright; he could almost feel the kick coming before it came.
But it didn't. Instead, he felt a pair of warm lips brush his, and nearly fell backwards again--but Toph's arm steadied him, and held him in place.
"Looking for something else?" she laughed as she released him, letting him fall to his mat. He beheld the black ceiling of their cell, the dozens of bars surrounding them, but most of all beheld Toph's smile, and clung to it. "I can't kick you this morning, moron. Look." She held up her foot, showing off a set of clean, fresh bandages.
Sokka blinked, then, and sat up again.
"Don't you dare start doting on me just because we kissed, Sokka. I'll still kick your ass," Toph chuckled, leaning back against a pile of old pillows stacked in the corner of their cell.
"What happened to Katara?" the swordsman asked, but softly, still absorbing the situation.
"Ask her yourself," the Earthbender shrugged. "She's across the hall."
Sokka blinked, and dragged himself to stand. He didn't know he had a vast bruise blanketing his forehead and eyes from the Fire Soldier's fist. Didn't care. "Katara?" he called.
Silence.
"Katara?"
"Mm..." a groggy Waterbender murmured from her sleeping mat. "Sokka?" She sat up a little, smiling softly at him. "Glad to see you're awake. I''d stand, but..."
And then Sokka's eyes fell over Katara's legs, set with splints and bandaged heavily.
"I'm okay," she told him before he could ask. "The slaves healed me, they took over when Azula passed out. But there's only so much Waterbending can do. Time will handle the rest."
"Katara, what were you trying to tell me before we got separated?" Sokka clung to the bars, peering in dim light to try to see her face more clearly. He stood straight, almost too eager to hear this; he never thought he would get another chance to hear it.
Katara lay silent for a moment. Sokka wanted to press, but restrained himself; they had time. In these dungeons, they had time.
"No one's ever killed an Avatar State before Azula. How could they? We've always had an Avatar in the cycle, so no one knew for sure what would happen." Katara sighed softly. "It was all legend, rumor. When Azula took Aang's life, I saw her eyes open so wide, I thought they were going to burst. I was right there, Sokka. When Aang died, I wanted to tear Azula apart, but..."
She paused. Sokka waited, fingers tense on the bars.
"At first I thought Aang had gone into her body somehow. She started talking, saying crazy things, and at first it was in Aang's voice. But then... the voice changed. It deepened. She talked to herself. She called herself Roku, then Kyoshi, then Kuruk..."
Sokka caught his breath. So that's what Suki's guru contacts had meant by '"the knowledge of the avatar is still alive" from the start.
"Azula's the new Avatar?" he breathlessly demanded.
"No," Katara shook her head. "No. She just... she saw them all. They taught her everything, as their spirits passed from Aang's body. She has their knowledge but... when she dies, it dies with her."
Barely a breath sounded in the dungeon, for a long, long moment. Katara shuffled a little, trying to find a comfortable place.
"I know you're mad at me. But... the second Azula came to, I saw something different in her. I saw the pain of thousands of years in her eyes, Sokka. I thought... maybe she could still bring balance to the world again, if she could just be convinced. So... I became her prisoner. I became her lover. And after all of that... she loved me, back. It took a while. It had to. But... it's been good, with her. Ozai was supposed to be the last one to die."
Sokka sat down again, letting all of this sink in. "How could you fall in love with Azula, though? After she killed Aang?"
"She didn't know any better," Katara swiftly answered, nearly a reprimand. "She was raised that way. She didn't have anything else to believe. Everything I believed in was gone, and... honestly, we only had each other."
Sokka nodded, ineffectually. "Okay. That... I can go with that." Silence slathered awkwardness into the air again. Sokka fidgeted.
"So... what happens to us?" he asked, at last.
No one knew. The silence told them all the truth in that.
