Sokka missed his deposition because he went with Toph to the Earth Kingdom, trying to help her settle the mess amongst the nobles.
The plaintiff's lawyer insisted it was a stalling technique and demanded sanctions.
Katara's lawyer denied having seen Sokka in months and had no idea why he skipped his deposition. "Maybe he forgot?"
The judge refused to order sanctions since that was rarely done anyway. "Move on with your other depositions and reschedule his."
Azula went with her own lawyer.
The first few questions were expected: name, age, residence and vocation. She was, however, baffled when they began questioning her about the war.
They asked her if she had committed any war crimes, which her lawyer objected to so she didn't answer.
They asked her if she had ever killed anyone, again the lawyer told her not to answer.
She did not answer five additional questions before they got to this case.
They asked her what happened at the hospital. She described her meeting with the plaintiff. She acknowledged that she told Katara that the woman was pregnant. She denied talking to Yakone's wife to get info for the trial.
"When I saw first saw her, I didn't realize who she was. At first I found it odd that so many people were getting brain surgery, but then I realized that the hospital probably had only one brain surgeon and she must have been married to the man who attacked Katara the night before."
"You didn't ask her more questions."
"No, she kept talking to me about her baby and she didn't know what to do."
They proceeded to ask about Katara's mental health. Azula didn't know anything first hand before June and then she said, "Katara was underweight, clearly sleep deprived and to me, showed possible signs of PTSD. I recommended a psychiatrist that I had found helpful."
"Did you give her illegal drugs?"
"No."
"Did you not give her any cannabis?"
"It's not illegal in the Fire Nation." They restrict sales, but they don't have a criminal statute barring adults from possessing or smoking it.
"So it's legal to give your friend your prescribed cannabis."
"Yes."
"What if she takes it with her when she leaves?"
"It depends on where she takes it. Each country has its own import laws."
"Would you consider yourself her enabler?"
"Certainly not."
"But she got the drugs from you?"
"If you broke your arm and were given painkillers, but you didn't use them all and then your friend broke his foot, you would give him some painkillers before he got to the hospital. That's just common sense. I wasn't peddling drugs nor was I seeking to get her hooked. It was just an everyday occurrence, except it happened with a relatively new medicine."
Azula was very good at giving testimony. She was trained for this kind of stuff, picking a position and refusing to waiver. It was quite frustrating.
"Can you describe the nature of your relationship with Katara?"
"She's my girlfriend."
"Do you think that biases you in this case?"
"No. Most of my involvement in this case occurred before we got together and most of it can be corroborated with witnesses without such a personal interest."
Azula could tell Ty Lee would need her own lawyer for her deposition. Otherwise, they would make mince meat of her.
When the lawyer did depose Ty Lee, they were not prepared for her bubbly personality.
She started stretching in their office, because she had to cut her morning yoga short and she was just a mess if she didn't get her body going in the morning.
"Can you question me like this?" she asked with her feet behind her head.
"Um sure."
They asked the routine questions before asking her about her vacation in June.
"Well, Zula and I were going to the beach since we had been working hard all winter and spring and it seemed like a good time for chilling in the hot tub. Mai told us that Sokka had sent Zuko a letter asking for help since Katara was depressed, so we invited her to come to the beach with us. We got there first and then Aang brought her. He wanted to stay but it was a girls' only vacation. Sometimes girls get chattier once the boys go away."
"And did Katara get chattier?"
"She was quiet at first, but once she started to relax, she was able to enjoy herself."
"And how did she relax?"
"We'd soak in the hot tub, give each other massages and I think the cannabis was able to help stimulate her appetite. She hadn't been eating. It showed. "
"So she didn't take it for anxiety?"
"Oh she was anxious too! Her aura showed it."
"Her aura?"
"I'm an aura reader, and a chi blocker."
"A what?"
She chi blocked his arm. "See!"
"OW!"
"Oh it will wear off soon."
"Where did you learn that?"
"Training at the Royal Academy for Girls."
"Remind me to stay away from there."
"Okay, when should I remind you?"
The more she talked, the more baffling the lawyer found her until he cut the deposition short and sent her on her way.
"Um, sorry about your arm."
"Forget about it." Just go!
Katara got deposed last. She had been warned about the types of questions she would be asked and was as prepared as she could be. She might have eaten a pot cookie before going into the meeting.
She denied having any relationship with Yakone. She had never met him. She saw him running at her and tried to get away, but he slammed her in the wall and took her water skin.
She tried to reach some water, but the gutter was too far away. The only thing she could do was bloodbend him.
"And how did you learn to bloodbend?"
She explained that a bloodbender had attacked Sokka and Aang and in order to save them, she had to bloodbend them away from each other, forcing her to learn the dark art.
"And would you say you are an experienced bloodbender?"
"Not particularly." She had to admit to using it subsequently, but she hadn't since the war ended. She never wanted to use it again because it can hurt people.
"And how did Yakone's brain get damaged?"
"I have no idea. Hama never said anything about brain aneurysms and I just moved his arms so I could get free. I hadn't touched his brain."
"He just collapsed?"
"He was all, 'what did you do to me?' And then he collapse."
"What did you do to him?"
"Nothing. I don't know. Maybe he just had a brain aneurysm."
"At that moment?"
"They can come at random times. Who would know?"
She denied being a loose woman or a drug abuser. She insisted that it was the cannabis that helped her dissipate her anxiety enough so that she could get spiritual help from Guru Pathik and start working again.
She also said Aang was a jealous ex who would come to her apartment uninvited, accost her for having friends over and somehow always said he forgot her key when she asked for it back. "Finally, someone took it from him and gave it to me."
"So he's a liar?"
"He's delusional and I heard he's a drunk now."
When they did locate Aang, they realized he was a drunk and could not possibly testify. They tried to get the judge to admit his deposition into evidence without him coming to testify.
Katara's lawyer strenuously objected. "We had no chance to be present t that deposition. We couldn't cross-examine him and that was taken after my client rejected his marriage proposal and he learned of her new girlfriend. He had every reason to lie or embellish his story and she has a fundamental right to confront the evidence used against her."
"His testimony is pivotal to our case. It would be unfair to say that our client is on the hook for her mental distress without being able to present evidence that she caused her own distress."
"Response, counselor," the judge inquired.
"The evidence may be important to them, but importance doesn't rid the court of its burden to prove the evidence is reliable. I could get a psychic who could have a vision about what happened and her testimony could be very beneficial to me, but without any proof that psychics have any veracity, it wouldn't be admissible.
They want to present the testimony of a jilted lover as gospel, and to make it even more unreliable; he supposedly diagnosed her without any medical training based on what he read in a library after she dumped him.
Anyone could go into a library, read a book about an illness, and find some of those symptoms in a person. It doesn't mean that the person has the illness or that the testimony should be allowed. We don't allow jurors to read these books and decide for themselves. Using this testimony would be the same thing."
"The deposition is out. If he can't appear, then you can't use him."
With Aang's damaging testimony gone, Katara's lawyer kept filing motions, trying to pick away at the plantiff's case. Many of them were overruled, but some of them, such as the motion to exclude any of Katara's romantic history that involved non-witnesses were granted. They couldn't bring up Jet or Aang.
May 104AG
They had their first settlement conference.
Yakone's wife wanted at least 10,000 coins to raise her son and another 20,000 coins for Yakone's medical care. Currently, she was using savings, but they would eventually run dry.
Katara's lawyer refused. He argued that even if she couldn't afford his medical care, she could make Yakone a ward of the state where he would be cared for anyway, and the responsibility to raise her son was hers. "Many single mothers have to work. Why should she get to stay home and not support her son even if this wasn't Yakone's fault?"
Katara's medical expenses were not that high. The medicine was cheap and there had only been four doctor's visits. The most expensive part was her loss of income from May until October. She had gotten sick pay for some of it, but three months was not reimbursed. Since Yakone had property interests, Katara's lawyer suggested she sell some of them to pay the claim and to raise her son, since she had no business savvy.
They had four conferences in all. None of them got them any closer to a deal since Katara wasn't willing to, nor could she afford to, pay Yakone's wife any money.
They were going to trial. At the earliest, Katara could see her family in July.
Jury selection was that month. It was a six-person jury, four women and two men ages ranging from 18-49. Two of the women were Earth Kingdom, one was water tribe, and the last woman and the two men were Fire Nation.
Yakone's wife's lawyer argued their should have been more water tribe representation, but there weren't a lot of water tribes people of age living in the colony relative to the other nation, and they had to exclude everyone who knew Katara or Yakone personally, which took out most of them.
"Even if it is a disadvantage, Katara is also from a tribe and has the same disadvantage," the judge pointed out.
Azula was surprised this was going to trial. "I thought you said 90% of the time, people settle," she said to the lawyer.
"They do. This woman is too ideological. I don't think she can comprehend reason."
Azula feared those people the worst. "Don't be afraid to pull out all the stops."
Aang had become like Jekyll and Hyde, during the day he would be sweet and charming, teaching the girls his ways and telling stories of his past, but at night, he would get into the booze. He was bitter and angry, reserving all of his frustrations for the nighttime and he would heatbend some of the booze away, just to drink more. He was going through at least a bottle of wine a day, sometimes two.
The acolytes knew he needed help, but who should they ask? They didn't know.
Finally, Xing Ying said, "Aren't monks not supposed to drink?"
"Yeah, but try telling him that!"
"Maybe we need to show him."
While he was busy, they poured out all of the booze. He bought a week's supply at a time, so they poured out 10 bottles.
"He'll just by more," Hei Won pointed out.
"But he won't be able to get any more for today." By the time he noticed, it would be too late.
He went looking for something to drink at eight, and couldn't find the wine he kept under his bed. He tried in his dresser, in the cupboard and all of his other hiding places, but they were all gone.
"Have you seen my wine?" he asked Hei Won.
Instead of saying it was a group effort, she told him, "Xing Ling poured it all out."
"WHAT?" He stormed over to Xing Ling. "You poured out my wine!"
"I had to. You're out of control. You drink and drink and you bitch and moan about your ex-girlfriend. During the day, you are so kind and thoughtful and at night, you turn into this booze fiend, ignoring all of your teachings and forgetting who you are. It's like we don't even know you."
He denied it but each girl, other than Hei Won produced an example.
"You said one day that you wished Azula would drop dead because she stole your 'forever girl.'" Envy!
"Another time you drank so much you threw up and kept drinking." Gluttony!
"You're losing your spirituality. You tried to meditate and you got so mad you screamed at Momo and scared him away." Sloth!
"This all comes from pride," Xing Ling finally said. "You think you're better than Azula and therefore, you deserve Katara. You have accomplished so much, but you also have so much more power than everyone else. You have to keep people's limitations in mind when you evaluate their merits."
"We learned all of this from your teachings," Yee-Li tried to explain. "You are a good teacher, but you have to learn the lessons too. The booze is ruining you. Two of your best friends won't talk to you. How much worse are you going to let it get?"
True to form Aang ran off. He needed to think. How could this be? The Avatar Fan Club just told him he lost touch with his faith. How is that even possible? He's the last monk left. Shouldn't he know what being a monk means?
He went swimming in the sacred spring, hoping for some kind of sign.
"Does it mean getting drunk every day, scaring your biggest admirers and lusting for the girl who got away?" Gyatso appeared in a vision.
Aang's heart started pounding out of his chest. "You're not real!" he screamed.
"Maybe not physically, but I'm in your mind, so in a way, I am real."
"Are you here to tell me you hate me?"
"I'm here to say I'm sorry."
"You're sorry, for what?"
"I failed you. We all failed you as children. We taught you virtues, but we didn't teach you that they are ideals; you can never truly reach them. You can strive for them and you can get closer and closer, but you will always be bound by the confines of man and the limits of the universe."
"I don't understand."
"We taught you that you should rise above lust, but we never explained how hard that would be or that some lust would be inevitable. The species would die without it.
We taught you not to be envious, but everyone is sometimes. What we should have taught you is, how to deal with it healthily. Instead of pretending envy doesn't exist, we should have taught you to channel it towards something else, to be introspective, think about why you are envious and focus on how you can make yourself a better man.
You struggle so much because you are dealing with emotions that you never thought you would face. You thought you were above them, that our people were above them. We didn't mean to but we caused you to think that the Air Nation was above the others. We subconsciously believed it ourselves. We built our temples high and out of reach. We thought we could escape war and the problems that affected the lower nations.
We did it peace but we sought peace the wrong way. Instead of isolating ourselves from the world, we should have been a part of it. We should have helped those who struggle in the other nations find a way to handle their more primitive emotions. It was this error that lead to our downfall just as much as Sozin's attack.
We didn't see it coming, but if we hadn't ignored the world, we would have seen the moves he made over the decades to attack. Who knows if we could have had a chance fighting, but maybe we could have convinced some of those men to turn around if we bothered to learn anything about them. The war was caused by the greed of men, but it was our inability to reconcile our ideology with the world we live in that doomed us too.
You have to find a new way for the airbenders. Of course you should restore and repopulate the temples, but you have to find a way to integrate their world with the other nations, and in order to truly create balance in the world, you have to find it in yourself. Do you know what's standing in your way?"
Aang nodded. "Katara, I have to truly let her go, not saying I do, but just drinking myself into a stupor because she's gone."
"Yes. I know I am asking for a lot, much of it, I didn't even try to do in my lifetime, but with great power comes great responsibility. I have faith in you Aang."
Aang got out of the water. He had a lot of amends to make.
June 104AG
It was the night before the trial. Katara was having trouble sleeping. She might have to testify tomorrow and even if she didn't, it would be so uncomfortable hearing them talk about it in a room full of people. The media would be all over this story, especially when they realized that she and Azula were together.
Azula had already arranged for a service to take them to and from the trial, so she wouldn't have to deal with public mobs. She didn't know what else she could do to prepare them. They would just have to see how this all went.
Azula woke up from Katara's stirring.
"Sorry to wake you up."
"Come here," Azula pulled Katara close and began whispering sweet nothings in her ear, using her warm body to comfort the waterbender. Eventually, Katara fell asleep in Azula's arms and she stayed there until Ty Lee got them up in the morning.
They put on their formal attire and headed for the courthouse. The lawyer was meeting them there. This was it.
There was a line of people going out the building, each of them trying to get a seat.
Zuko had all of the warriors come to help with security. He and Mai came to support Katara. He was also a witness.
What Katara didn't expect was for her father, grandmother and step-grandfather to be there.
"We know you couldn't come to us, so we came to you."
She hugged her family tightly. "Thank you so much."
"We'll always be here for you," Gran Gran promised.
Sokka was inside with Suki.
Yakone's wife had a ridiculous looking dress on. It was clearly very expensive, but the colors clashed. She was wearing blue and white but there was orange and purple in there. It looked a hot mess.
Yakone had no family outside his wife and son. He was not in the courtroom.
Toph came to the trial too. "Miss me Sugar Queen!"
"TOPH!"
The two girls hugged.
A man sat in the back. He wore a disguise.
They all rose when the judge came into the courtroom.
"You may all be seated."
They sat down again.
The plaintiff's lawyer opened the case. "Imagine my client pregnant and waiting for your husband to come home, so she can tell him the news. He never came home. She went to the police and then tried the hospital where she learned he was getting his second emergency brain surgery. Now, he has the capacity of a two year old. He will be like this for life.
She thought it was nature being cruel, a bad stroke of luck, but then she learned that he was violently bloodbended by another person. It wasn't fate but it was intentional harm. She expected the police to vindicate her husband, but instead, they let her go without charges. She was never arrested, never interrogated; they just took her word at the scene. Now, my client has to care for her husband and her child alone. She had been a stay at home wife. Now, she will have to be the worker and the home keeper.
That just isn't fair. If you believe in fairness, then you will award my client's claim."
The judge offered the defense a chance to give an opening statement.
"I would like to wait until we open our case."
"Granted."
The crowd sounded surprised. Who wouldn't want to address such harrowing accusations right away?
The plaintiff's lawyer went next "My first witness is," Yakone's wife.
She stated her name for the court, her age and started telling them about when she met her husband. He wooed her with elaborate gifts and well planned dates. She knew it was love and she was so happy to be able to build a life with him.
"He always wanted children. When I found out I was pregnant, I decided to tell him that night, but he said he had to go to the store. I figured it could wait an hour, but he never came home." She started to sob. It sounded phony. Toph snorted and then Sokka elbowed her. He was tasked with sitting with her in case she reacted too strongly.
"What happened?"
"I tried the neighbors and his friends. I went to the police and they suggested trying the hospital in case there was an accident. When I got there, I learned a man fitting my husband's description was getting emergency brain surgery. They said the first surgery seemed okay, but then there was internal bleeding, so they had to do it again and when he woke up, he babbled and started asking for his mother. She's been dead for ten years."
"Has he shown any progress?"
"He's barely toilet trained. He cries and screams like he's in his terrible twos, and it is so hard for me to go on. He was such a strong and caring man. Now he's helpless and it just breaks my heart."
"Have you ever met Katara?"
"Once."
"What happened?"
"I showed up to her job and told her she ruined my life. All she could say was I'm sorry. I'm sorry won't give my son a father."
"Thank you."
"Cross examine."
"I would like to cross-examine her after the second witness."
The plaintiff's lawyer was shocked.
"Any objection."
"Yes, but I'm not sure of a reason."
"Overruled."
The second witness was one of Yakone's business partners. He talked about how intelligent the man was and how much money he made for the business. The plaintiff called him so they could prove how much their damages were worth.
The cross-examination was an interesting one.
"You talked about how much of an asset Yakone was to your company, but could you explain to the jury how he was a liability?"
"I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"Let me explain. In 99AG, your company paid 10,000 coins to a woman named Jina who alleged that Yakone raped her and impregnated her …"
"Objection, this is incompetent and immaterial."
"Counselor," the judge inquired.
"It is definitely material. His testimony was to establish how much money he was bringing into the company, so the plaintiff could establish how much she believes her claim is worth. If Yakone was costing the company lots of money because they were paying claims against him, then this must be taken into account because it would lesson his worth to the company and it makes it likely that he would have been fired had been able to keep working."
"I'll allow it, for now, but tread carefully."
"Yes your honor. Isn't it true that Jina accused Yakone of raping and impregnating her?"
"Yes it is."
"And didn't your company pay 10,000 coins so she wouldn't go to the police and possibly damage the company's reputation?"
"Yes we did."
"So Yakone was also a liability."
"I don't think one case …."
"But it wasn't just one case was it. Your company paid several claims because of his alleged conduct.'
"I don't remember."
"Well, your secretary does and she sent me copies of all of the settlements to comply with our subpoena. You also paid one claim for aggravated assault when Yakone allegedly bloodbended another man through a window during a bar fight. The victim in that settlement still has glass in his head."
"Objection."
"I withdraw the last statement."
"Be careful."
"I apologize, your honor. We also have a claim for attempted molestation that was broken up when the bar owner heard the scuffle in the bathroom. He believed it was consensual and just gave him a warning and there were (other cases)."
"Okay! He got accused of a lot of bad things and we kept paying. The first time, we believed him. The second time, we got suspicious and by the third, we were stuck. If we didn't get paying, then it would get out that we had paid before and it would ruin our image."
"So he was a liability to your company."
"Yes, a huge one."
Damn! The mood in the courtroom suddenly changed.
"Now, I would like to cross-examine Yakone's wife."
She was furious when she took the stand.
"You described your husband as caring. How can you say that given all of the allegations against him?"
"They were liars."
"Was your husband ever violent with you?"
"No."
"Didn't he bloodbend you into a wall, breaking your arm?"
"No!"
"Isn't that what you told your sister when she asked you how your arm was broken?"
"Maybe."
"So you lied."
"I was mad at him."
"Are you lying now because you're mad at Katara?"
"Objection!"
"I'll start a new line of questioning.
"You told the court that you loved your husband."
"I do."
"I haven't gotten to the question yet. You were, however, dating another man before when you met your husband."
"I broke up with Kirin for Yakone."
"You went with Yakone, but you stayed with Kirin, didn't you?"
"Relevance?"
"She's suing for loss of companionship. If she didn't love her husband, then what did she lose?"
"I'll allow it."
"I might have seen him once or twice."
"Didn't you give him 5,000 coins so he wouldn't lose his house?"
"Maybe."
"And when Yakone found out, he bloodbended you into a wall and broke your arm."
"Objection, she already denied that."
It was time for lunch. For a first day, this trial was very passionate. Usually, the juicy stuff didn't come until day 2 or 3.
Katara nervously ate a lot.
"You're going to eat the fork," Toph teased.
"Eating is easier than thinking right now."
"I feel that way often," Sokka said as he ate.
Azula was puzzled by this case. Why would Yakone's wife bring it if she knew she would look terrible?
She had a question for the lawyer. "Did Yakone have a will or a living trust?"
"I'm not sure, why?"
"I find something suspect about all of this. Can you have someone look into it?"
"Of course."
That afternoon, they heard from the expert witness who explained how bloodbending could burst blood vessels in the brain causing aneurysms.
"Could this happen even if you were bloodbending another body part like an arm or a leg?"
"Yes, the blood flows fast enough that a wrong move in a limb could affect the brain."
"No more questions."
On cross, Katara's doctor asked, "What can a bloodbender do to mitigate the risk of an aneurysm."
"Not bloodbend."
"Anything else."
"Avoid the brain. That would increase the odds."
"So if one were being violently attacked and needed to bloodbend to get to safety, then a risk of an aneurysm is inevitable."
"In that circumstance, yes."
"In such a case, the bloodbender would not be negligent if she were targeting a limb and the brain got an air bubble."
"I suppose not."
"Thank you, no further questions."
They recessed until tomorrow. The next day was the hospital doctor and the officer who Katara found. Katara's defense should start Wednesday.
