Just a reminder I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of its characters blah blah blah… Go watch the series so you know what's mine and what isn't.

Any inaccuracies in terms of OC and random bits of plot changing are my entire fault.

Men of Action

Katara cried herself into exhaustion before she looked up and took stock of her surroundings. She had made it all the way to the Lower Ring, where thousands of people lived in hunger and dirt. Her feet were bare and dirty, and her dress was now spattered in mud that was splashed by cartwheels rolling past her. She picked herself up and used the water in the mud to bend it off her dress and feet, and realised what a stupid thing she had done.

I have spent too much of my time weeping over the last few days. I have to pull myself together. Now, I'm probably wanted, but the Dai Li are no longer operating, so I should be able to hide here for a bit. Just until everything cools down. They'll figure out I'm not guilty soon enough.

Her first priority was to find a place to stay. However, she soon remembered that she had spent almost no time in the Lower Ring, and she was soon hopelessly lost. The streets all looked the same, the close press of the dirty brown buildings obscuring any reference points that she may have used and making her loose her already blurry sense of direction. She kept a close eye out for anywhere that looked like it might be an inn or even a sign that said 'room to rent', and finally after nearly an hour of searching she found a place to stay.

She wandered inside the tavern, a sign painted over the door read "The Golden Mole'. It looked rough, but Katara could feel the water that was pooled all over the streets after recent rain ready to jump to her call, so she made to go inside. Just as she was about to go through the door, she had to shift slightly to the left as a pair of burly young men crashed through the light wicker that covered the opening, and rolled together in the street. A circle was quickly formed around them, and it was clear that they were both Benders. The older of the two men was pale skinned with long black hair tied in a knot on the top of his head, marking him as a man of the Fire Nation. The other was a short statured youth, whose green and yellow attire marked him as an earth Kingdom national, even without the characteristic almost blonde hair and green eyes. The other major clue about their nationalities was the rock and fire that they were throwing at each other, as the earthbender hurled insults at his firebending foe.

"You killed one of us. Even after the war is over. It is clear that your nation won't stop before all of us are your loyal subjects. Well, I have tasted peace, and it is nothing while your kind still share it" The cobblestones rose from beneath him and were hurled at the firebender, who cast them aside with waves of fire that knocked them just off course enough that he could dodge them. Katara thought she had spent too much time around Iroh and Zuko, masters of their element, as this display seemed half hearted. The battle raged on, until one of the stones hit a nearby spectator. His indignant shout was the only warning that the offending earthbender had, and he was soon facing two opponents. It was not long before he was joined however by a friend, who blocked the punches that the new adversary aimed at the duelling pair, and it was not long before a few more misplaced kicks and punches had half the street involved in the brawl.

A shop window was broken, and Katara pulled the water that lay on the ground around her into a frozen protective layer around her, dodging the glass that came flying towards her. She was soon dodging rocks, kicks and punches that seemed to be coming from everywhere, trying to edge her way back to the possible safety of the tavern that had originally been her goal. But she couldn't watch the people injuring each other for very long without her inner compassion stirring, so she resolved herself to try and stop the madness spreading. She elbowed her way through to the middle of the throng, freezing many of the offenders to the spot. A few unlucky earthbenders with their hands to the floor were frozen there, and firebenders found the flames that were pouring out of their hands stifled by a sudden coating of ice. All the time she moved through the crowd. She was sure that she was calming them down, as the street around her resounded less with the shouts of pain and the sound of punches hitting soft flesh, and more with the angry and frustrated shouts of people desperate to re enter the fray.

All the time Katara was shouting to people, trying to instil in them some idea of the morals that had been discarded in the heat of the moment.

"What happened to peace? Who wants to go back to the uncertainty of the war? We want to have an end to fighting. Some of these people are your neighbours, your friends. How can that be forgotten so soon?" Some of the fighters were listening to her, and stopped their assaults, instead joining Katara in her attempts to subdue the people all around her, but as she neared the end of the street, she saw that the fighting had spread, and that there was a shop on fire around the corner. The chaos had spread inconceivably quickly, ignited by a tiny fight between two hot headed youths. Katara watched the unfolding chaos and, for the first time since the war, almost despaired.


Zuko took a moment to realise what had happened. Before he knew it, Katara had wrenched her shoulder from underneath his hand and run out of the doors that led to the front of the palace, the shouts of King Kuei coming a second too late to bar her exit. Then she was gone.

"Go after her! She is still suspect in a murder!" King Kuei lost the cool and collected mask that he had been wearing, but Zuko didn't wait to see what the confused king was going to do next, instead rushing after Katara with the guards who had been manning the door. He felt his Fire Lord Headpiece fall off, and for a moment thought about the consequences of just running out of the throne room like that, but was soon too busy running to think about anything else. He was able easily to keep up with the guards, years of bending practice and deep breathing exercises aiding him in this long run, following the flicker of blue that would dart around corners. Zuko thought for a moment that Katara was aiming for the courtyard that they had shared, but she veered off that course moments before they would have entered the open space, and instead they were crossing the wide square that lay in front of the palace.

The wide gates to the Upper Ring were passed, then the ones to the Middle Ring, and finally they were traversing the tiny streets of the vast Lower Ring. The crowds here were huge, and Katara was winding her way through the press of bodies much more effectively than the group of soldiers and Zuko, who were trying to stay together. Zuko pushed ahead of the six or so soldiers and managed to keep up with Katara for a while longer until an unfortunately placed wagon got in his way, and he was forced to slow in order to avoid running headfirst into the load of cabbages that were piled on top of it.

By the time he had recovered himself, she was gone. The soldiers who had been attempting to follow caught up with him as he stood still at the crossroads where he had lost her, trying to decide which way she would have gone. Deciding that she was upset and probably thought more in straight lines, he barrelled forwards in the hope of seeing her by chance.

He wandered in the general direction that he thought she would have gone for a long time, and he could feel the sun setting behind the heavy grey clouds that filled the sky. It was an oppressive day, and there was a heavy mist in the air, that smelled slightly of smoke. Zuko returned to the crossroads, and saw there the cart he had run into before heading in the opposite direction to the way it had been travelling before. Zuko walked up to him and decided that he was probably a good person to ask about the presence of the missing waterbender.

"Excuse me. Did you see where a young girl in blue went? I think she might have run down back that way." Zuko pointed back to where the old man had come from.

"No. That's none of my business anyway. And you mind my cabbages! I have to get away from the fighting. It's always my cabbages that get damaged when there's trouble, nobody else's cabbages, just mine..." Zuko tuned out of the ramblings of the old man, and looked at where he had come from, as the cabbage seller trundled off down the street again. Behind him there were a few young men spilling out of a side road, rocks and other weapons clutched in their fists. He saw the odd pillar of fire, and his immediate thought was that the Fire Nation army had retaken Ba Sing Se.

That's ridiculous. Pull yourself together Zuko. You are the fire lord. These are probably the retired soldiers who have come here to make a new life. There were a lot of them. Zuko started towards the trouble, the old love of combat taking him over for a moment, when he remembered his quest in the city. Find Katara. She has probably cooled down now. It's been a few hours. She will have gone back to the palace. She wouldn't stay here in the middle of the fighting. She hates violence. And with that thought he began to make his way back to the gates that led to the Middle Ring.

He hadn't gone far when he began to see more evidence of fighting. People were running through the streets, randomly attacking anyone who looked fire nation, cries of "Death to the traitors!" following in their wake. A few fires were started by firebenders who tried to fight back, and he was almost crushed by a crowd of people running out of a building that was well alight. Zuko picked up the pace, desperate not to be caught by the fighting, but it was a full scale riot by the time he reached the gates to the Middle Ring. He banged against the tall, seemingly blank wall of stone, demanding access, but his retinue of soldiers had not followed him, they were probably still looking for Katara in the city.

"Let me in! I need to get to the Earth Palace."

"The city is in lockdown. Can't you see the riots out there? We've had this gate closed for the last hour."

"I'm the Fire Lord! I must get through!"

"Nice try. You're the third Fire Lord we've had. You want sanctuary as a Fire Nation citizen? Well you should have stayed back in the Fire Nation."

Zuko stared open mouthed at the guards in front of him, but had to flinch away from a projectile that crashed into the gates and break his gaze. Zuko whipped around to face his adversary, but saw a huge crowd of earth benders running towards him, their gazes' intent on the gates. Zuko turned back to the guards who were sitting atop the wall, and shouted a final question.

"Have you seen a young girl in blue come through here?"

"Nope. We saw her come down, but she hasn't been back. A pretty thing she was, I'd let her through if she came back this way." Zuko ground his teeth together, biting back a reply about how inappropriate their tone of voice was, and turned his attention back to the people rushing towards him, They were almost upon the wall, and deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, Zuko fled from out of their path, moments before they thudded into the huge stone walls, and the earthbenders that had been taunting Zuko were straining against the effort of countering the bending of the crowd who were pulling with all their strength to open the gates.

Zuko made his way back into the city, darting through the mess of people who were trying to get to the gates. There weren't many people actually fighting, it was mostly young men, ex-soldiers and disgruntled Earth Kingdom teenagers. There were shops and houses on fire, and part of Zuko wanted to stop at every fire and put it out. But he knew that if he did that he'd have no energy left to look for Katara.

It wasn't long before he saw the first signs of her passage. Here and there were spots of ice, some of them with people still trapped in its grip. Firebenders simply melted their way out, but earthbenders had to either wait for their body heat to melt the ice or grab a rock and smash their way out. Zuko spotted a few almost comical slips as people didn't see the ice and skidded along its surface, their feet escaping from under them. But it was when he laughed out loud and nearly took a boulder to the head from the enraged victim that Zuko sped up and simply followed the trail of ice. So wrapped up was he in the hunt, that he almost didn't see the two young children sitting in the middle of the road next to a young woman who was lying face down in the mud. Their cries pierced Zuko's hearing, and he turned towards them.

It was the young boy who had begged from him, was it really only earlier that day? He was looking all around him, an arm hovering protectively over a younger girl's shoulders, and when he spotted Zuko his face almost brightened.

"Fire Lord! My Mother. Will you help her?" Zuko's heart pulled at the pleading tone in the boy's voice, and he hurried over to the huddling pair. A fighter rounded the corner of the otherwise empty street, and started hurling rocks at the figures in the road. Zuko could see the dazed look in the man's eyes that said he had been drinking, and felt no shame at blocking the rocks with a wave of fire and kicking the man in the gut. He fell to the floor, the smack of his head on the ground knocking him out. Zuko turned back to the two children and crouched down beside them. They both looked up at him with round eyes, and Zuko bent over and shook the shoulder of the young woman.

He felt a slight pulse as he put a finger against her neck, and pulled her over onto her back, clearing the mud from around her mouth and putting a hand against her stomach. She was taking shallow breaths, but he sat her up and she coughed up more mud than he thought she should have been able to fit in her lungs. She groaned and went limp against his steadying hand. Zuko turned to the young children, putting his hands around the woman's limp form and lifting her into the air.

"Where do you live? You need to go home." The boy stood, holding his little sister's hand and pointed at a house at the end of the street. The house next to it was aflame, and as Zuko strode towards it, he felt with his bending how hot and violent the blaze was. The sight of him entering the house that they had indicated was suddenly obscured by a violent burst of flame, and a beam that fell to the ground behind him, burning with an intensity that caused both children to shield their eyes and cry out in fear.

I thought I'd never ask for reviews, but given that I have spent the last 3 days convinced that every email was a review notification...It made me quite twitchy, and then sad when there were none :(